Chapter 286 Holy Kingdom Land Edict
Hiring these extraordinary knights is not because Horn has too much money to burn out, but because there is a real need.
The main need is to fight against bandits and deter the Ibe knights to the south.
From the bloody battle of Joan of Arc to the Battle of Pavia, a series of battles completely defeated the extraordinary power of the entire Lord of Kush.
The remaining extraordinary knights dare not confront them head-on, and can only stick to their villages in the countryside or fight guerrillas in the wild.
Horn needs a force that is relatively mobile and can take on the extraordinary knights head-on.
He was originally planning to go to the mountains to find high-quality and cheap mountain infantry, but he didn't expect that the Northmen would come to his door.
This group of robber knights is not large in number, but they come and go like the wind, attacking villages wantonly, and the Holy Gun Cavalry is too busy.
Besides, they also have to send warmth to the knight families who are stubbornly resisting.
Most new regimes are bound to be harassed by the ghosts of the previous dynasty in the early stages.
So the outside world looks precarious, but Horn knows that most of them just play a scaring role.
No matter what happens outside, in this spring plowing season, no matter whether we go south or west, we must first organize production and take good care of the rear area of Fort Joan of Arc.
So after entering Fort Joan of Arc and announcing that a faithful meeting would be held in seven days, the first thing Horn had to do was settle accounts.
All the accountants in Fort Joan of Arc were gathered together and began to make statistics and reconciliations on the tax books.
The children's army also participated a lot, and Horn's six months of mathematics education finally produced certain results.
It is definitely impossible for them to calculate accounts independently, but it is more than enough to help the masters, and they can learn in practice.
This major reconciliation has not been reconciled to this day. When Horn was sitting in the study on the second floor of the city hall, he could still hear the sound of books being turned over and the slide rule being played below.
Shaking his head and sitting down at the desk, Horne pulled out a volume of the tax report submitted by Madeleine this morning from the shelf next to him.
This tax report is a report on the results of this settlement.
But this doesn’t mean I don’t know, it’s a surprise.
According to the church's tax roll statistics, the total tax paid by Langsander County to the Kingdom of Leia every year is about 8,500 to 9,000 gold pounds.
According to estimates from the account books of various knights and the Duke of Kush himself, every year, a single Kush territory collects 25,000 gold pounds from citizens, farmers, craftsmen and even refugees.
After excluding the territorial tax of 5,000 gold pounds to the kingdom, three-quarters of the remaining tax flowed into churches and monasteries, and the remaining quarter remained in the accounts of knights and nobles.
Basically half of what flowed into the church went to the Holy City. According to the accounting statistics of the Kushland in 1443, a total of 7,816 gold pounds flowed into the Holy City.
As for Dardenne himself, after excluding the middle lords to earn the price difference, the income from land tax and poll tax in 1443 was only a pitiful 979 gold pounds, less than half of his commercial tax income.
This situation has continued since Darnay's father succeeded to the throne.
For decades, the knights have been a little better. After all, they still have some conflicts with the Black Snake Bay and the Norns in the south. A war will definitely have costs.
The monastery is indeed only accessible. Horn was curious at first. Money can’t be used for food. What’s the point of saving so much?
It wasn't until the account books from the monastery and the Holy See Bank were delivered that Horn finally understood that it was you, the Holy See, who would make the money.
To put it simply, it relied on the violent suppression of knights and the preaching of piety by priests to force local civilians to pay taxes that far exceeded reasonable levels.
These taxes were divided into many parts, but the majority fell into the hands of the church.
After the money entered the monastery from left to right in the name of donation, purchasing indulgences, holding funerals and other sacraments, the monastery began to use it to invest in underground industries such as gambling houses, technical institutes, and gladiatorial arenas.
Whenever there are craftsmen or workers who run a good industry through their own efforts, rogue gangsters will be used to lure them into the underground industry.
When you are defrauded of all your money, the only option is loan sharking. What should you do if you can't pay back the loan shark?
Mortgage the property to the monastery, and then the monks used the debt to force him to work in vain.
The dwarf Halkin is a living example. If Horn hadn't killed the creditor, he and Brock would have directly become debt slaves in the monastery.
Horn can honestly say that there are only a few large monasteries that rely on this method, and small monasteries are just normal business and lending.
Only carrying out normal lending and commercial activities, relying on tax-free privileges and charters, they still indirectly caused farmers and small shopkeepers to go bankrupt.
In this approximate zero-sum game situation, someone will benefit and someone will lose.
According to the church’s account books, eighty years ago, there were more than 400 knight families in Kush. So far, the number of knight families in the Kush Territory is only over 300, a sharp drop of 25%, and the number of armed farmers has dropped by nearly 50%.
More than half of the more than one hundred knights who decreased were Kush knights, and a large number of armed farmers' lands fell into the hands of the church.
The power belonging to Darnay was eroded little by little. The land tax and poll tax received were reduced every year, and the assets were continuously eroded by the monastery.
Horn suddenly realized.
No wonder this old boy Darnay wants to be moist. It turns out that he has seen through that staying here will only lead to a slow death.
No wonder the citizens sided with Duke Darnay, while the craftsmen and laborers sided with Horne. It turned out that the citizens relied on the Duke for protection, while the craftsmen and laborers were enslaved by the church.
No wonder the peasants were so fanatical after learning that Horne had expelled the Order Company and the Church.
No wonder they were able to get so much money out of the monastery.
Sitting at the desk, looking at the list submitted yesterday, Horn still felt dizzy.
Yesterday morning, one of the three largest monasteries in the Kush territory was breached by the Black Hat Army.
They searched the house for a whole day.
A total of 40,000 gold pounds were confiscated, as well as a large amount of gold and silver jewelry, high-end furniture and clothing whose value is difficult to estimate.
Copying twenty knight manors is not as profitable as copying one monastery.
Whose house can be copied and a banker can still make money?
40,000 gold pounds, if it is a non-war situation, is equivalent to copying Horn's military expenditure for a year.
This includes the Salvation Army’s salary, food, clothing, housing, transportation, pensions, training, weapons and equipment, etc.
The liquidation lasted for seven days, and a total of more than 50,000 gold pounds were copied, 80% of which came from the large monastery.
Horn should underestimate the remaining two large monasteries and add them together to 50,000 gold pounds.
Added together, Horn actually made a huge sum of more than 100,000 gold pounds.
This money is more than enough to cover war expenses, but Horn still clearly realizes that these are one-time income and rootless water.
If you want to defeat the church and the empire, you must have a large rear area to continuously produce manpower and material resources for him.
In the final analysis, this money can only be a start-up capital. After all, he cannot continue to collect 25,000 gold pounds a year from farmers like the church.
After the flood, Langsand County had no taxable soil.
Horn even had to put in a lot of money to help local farmers survive the spring famine.
The reason why the Ibe knights in Jinhe Township watched the fall of Fort Joan of Arc without moving was because he lived on agricultural output.
Their military activities are as seasonal as agriculture. On the other hand, the Imperial Order Company or the Royal Knights who rely on annuities have no such trouble at all.
However, Horn predicts that they won't be able to wait long. After the busy farming season in March and April is over, even if they don't attack Horn, Horn will attack them.
"Forget it." Putting down the quill in his hand, Horn yawned. He turned around and asked Armand, "Are all the public opinion representatives here?"
"We are all here and staying in the hotel."
"Tomorrow is the meeting of the faithful. Have you drafted the edict?"
"It's ready, just waiting for it to be copied." Standing up, Armand took a piece of white paper from the drawer and put it in Horn's hand.
Opening the white paper, Horn could clearly see that the title of this edict was written in square Alvin——
"Edict of Holy Country Land"
(End of this chapter)