“Wait… you want those civilians to become Town’s Hall officials?” Barov looked shocked at the idea.
“Not only are they obedient, they are even more likely to work with plenty of enthusiasm, so why shouldn’t they serve as officials? Officials aren’t equal to nobles, and the Ministry of Agriculture also need some professionals farmers to guide the future generation.”
“Most of them do not even know how to read or write…”
“That is exactly the reason why you have to send two of your apprentices out there, they will go along to do the paperwork,” Roland directly interrupted.
“And this problem won’t exist for too much longer. I’m going to implement an educational program for everyone soon, or at least that is the plan for now. By then nearly all of the people will be able to read and write and you will no longer have to worry about whether you won’t have enough hands.”
Obviously, the message that civilians would start to work in the Town Hall was an enormous surprise for Barov, his mouth was slightly open and for a long time he was unable to say another word.
Roland, disregarding whether Barov could accept it or not, just continued with giving his speech: “Back to the topic of setting up the Ministry of Agriculture, when the serfs began to farm their own land, it’s bound to happen that they will use various kinds of methods, for example how deep they will plow the soil will all be done differently.
This is an excellent opportunity for observation, so the Ministry of Agriculture should split all the farms into groups of six and each member of the ministry will record every step taken by his designated farmers. Things like how deep they plow, what kind of planting interval they use and so on. It will be necessary that they work on it in as detailed a manner as possible, and that all of them will get some measuring tools and be taught on how to use them.
“You mean we are going to measure their… contrast?” Barov was clearly old fashioned in some areas, but he was definitely a quick thinker overall.
“That’s right, for the first time, it was needless to care too much about the harvest. We will still maintain importing the food as we have been… furthermore, we will also start to use some new wheat seeds to make sure that no one has to starve anymore. The job of the Ministry of Agriculture is to find the best method to planting, and later they have to promote, teach and supervise the way in which wheat is planted in the future.
Roland didn’t know much about farming, but this did not prevent him from using a scientific approach to summarize a set of optimal solutions. With this program, both the expansion of the cultivated area, or to add several new kinds of seeds to try, would help him to raise the average output to a whole new level.
Barov nodded at first but then he hesitated and after a while, he finally asked, “Your Highness, there is one thing that I don’t understand, when the serfs are promoted to free people, why will you only charge them 20 % of their harvest as a tax? Even if you asked them to hand over 50 %, letting them keep 50 % for themselves, you would still be seen as extremely benevolent.”
“Because there is no meaning in hoarding all the money in the basement,” Roland explained, “When I need more than the 20 %, I will buy the rest of the food from them at a fixed price — in Border Town, the trade with food only belongs to the right of the Lord. They have to deliver all the food to the castle and will be paid for it. After some saving they will most likely want to buy things like cattle, iron tools, beef, cotton clothes, and good brick houses. And all of this can only be provided by me for the town’s people, if they want to buy food it will be the same thing for them, they can only buy it from the castle. In this way, the coin will still flow back into my pocket, but as long as it is cycling, it will be able to raise everyone’s standard of living. Are you able to follow me with this?”
Barov wore a frowning expression, it was clear that he was still caught up in processing this information.
Roland smiled and shook his head, “It isn’t a problem if you don’t understand it yet, you can go back and think about it later, at the moment it is more important that you follow my orders.”
Hearing this the assistant minister stood up as if he were in trance, but when he reached for the door, he suddenly looked back.
“Your highness, you just said you want to build two departments, what is the other one?”
“The Ministry of Education,” Roland replied, “However, for that I will be the one personally responsible.”
When Barov returned to his office in the Town Hall, he immediately closed the door behind himself.
