Chapter 29: The People of Qin Had No Time to Lament

The future market potential for hops as a cash crop was immense, making it particularly suitable as the flagship product for the caravan’s first outward push.

Although there was no patent protection in this era, since she only sold finished alcoholic beverages, it would be difficult for anyone without inside knowledge to discover what had been added.

Even if it was eventually reverse-engineered, the territory’s hop cultivation would have already scaled up, remaining a continuous gold-generating cornucopia.

Upon entering their home on the upper level of the castle, Adelaide, who had been waiting at the entrance for a long time, swept Su Na into her arms: “Baby! Mommy missed you so much.”

Caught off guard and enveloped tightly by her mother, Su Na struggled to poke her head out from the embrace: “I missed you too, Mother.”

“Where is Father?”

Adelaide’s smile stiffened, and she tapped Su Na’s forehead in mock anger: “Him? Where else could he be but the study. He can just sleep in the study from now on!”

Su Na thought for a moment and whispered: “Is it the Kingdom Supervisor? Are the demands from above outrageous?”

Adelaide nodded: “Taxes are being raised by twenty percent on top of the original rate, and your father doesn’t even know how to announce it. Isn’t this demanding the lives of the commoners below?”

Su Na understood immediately upon hearing this, realizing that those in power had sensed things were going awry: “It’s fine, I’ll go persuade Father.”

She sighed in her heart: ‘The annexations are about to begin; the ancestors were indeed right.’

‘The people of Qin had no time to lament for themselves, so posterity lamented for them; if posterity laments for them but does not learn from their mistakes, they will only cause later generations to lament for them in turn.’

Military power had already begun to consolidate during the old King’s generation, which was why the Fafnir territory only had about a thousand soldiers in total, and those were merely the Baron’s private guards responsible for daily security.

The regular army forces had long been consolidated into the hands of the Supervisor, though back then they were called military administrators rather than supervisors.

You could seize financial, political, and military powers, but as a compromise, the bottom-line demands of the nobility and the Church always included tax-exempt privileges, no matter what else they demanded.

The King could offend a portion of the population, but he absolutely dared not offend one, let alone both, of the core classes; that would be pure suicide.

The Church and the nobility themselves controlled vast amounts of land and agricultural output, as well as massive serf populations.

If these groups were tax-exempt, then under fixed expenditures, the deficit could only be transferred to the shoulders of the free citizens.

A twenty percent tax hike was likely only the beginning, because even if the Regent conceded on noble tax exemption, not all nobles would buy into it, and the resulting military pressure would be massive.

The Supervisors established by the Regent were the highest military and civil officials of their respective districts, responsible for supervising the counts and barons below them.

Naturally, they required a sufficient regular army to serve as their foundation for maintaining stability, but maintaining an army was incredibly expensive.

Before the supervisors were established, the armies were maintained by the individual lords themselves, who would deploy their troops upon the King’s command when needed.

The King only had to pay the lords a reward when he required their services.

But once military power was centralized, it could no longer be a one-time transaction; the daily maintenance and expenditures of the army became an astronomical figure.

Where would the money come from?

Relying on the royal treasury was unsustainable, so they could only raise taxes to shift the expenditures downward.

Yet, there was actually a flaw in this system.

If the lords maintained their own forces, the military expenditure structure was: lord’s output + subjects’ taxes + kingdom treasury (rewards).

Because daily maintenance was paid out of their own pockets, every lord would maintain a military force that their territory could support long-term based on their own capacities.

But after the kingdom reclaimed military power, the expenditure structure became: kingdom treasury + citizen taxes.

The nobility essentially vanished from this support system.

The nobles neither needed to support the armies originally required to maintain their territories, nor did they need to pay taxes.

They provided no men, no money, and no effort, concentrating all the pressure on the royal family.

At first, it might have seemed like nothing, but now that several years had passed, they were naturally feeling the pressure brought about by the massive increase in financial burden.

That the citizens of the Fafnir territory had meat to eat was only due to the dividends released by the household contract system here in the core territory.

The Fafnir family’s history was very short, having essentially built itself up from the very land beneath her feet.

The grandfathers of the vast majority of the subjects had served under the Fafnir family, which was the fundamental reason why Kaibuli provided convenience and care in many aspects.

They had no land-use costs, as the land belonged to the Fafnir family and required no rent.

Baron Kaibuli did not charge much for seed grain, and they had family members working in the territory’s factories to earn wages.

This was also a characteristic of many local tyrants, possessing deep-rooted, complex networks of relationships in their localities.

This was especially true for those living in the Fafnir core area.

Most of them were the descendants of soldiers who had performed meritorious service and were relocated here to be cared for nearby.

Through intermarriage over generations, these new families had flourished, and the debt of gratitude they owed to Fafnir was truly endless.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Reincarnated Young Lady Is Trying Her Best to Tame the Villain Today Too

cultivationFemale ProtagonistGender Transformation

Read Now →
Not interested