That’s exactly the reason why you… no, I mean why the crop’s we harvest in the past was so low.” Roland quickly took his cup and drank some water, trying to cover up his slip of the tongue, “The Town Hall should be responsible for taking care that everyone has enough to eat and drink.”
“Let everyone have enough to eat and drink… certainly you must be joking, right?”
“Of course not, how important it is that everyone should have something to eat and drink doesn’t even need to be said, if the town’s hall is unable to ensure that everyone has enough to eat, then they aren’t doing their job, but by then I will also be guilty of neglecting my duty. As for the latter part, wasn’t the public toilet project started for exactly this purpose?” Roland no longer spoke in a relaxed voice, and instead seriously said, “I don’t know how the Capital’s City Hall used to handle this, perhaps the life and death of the civilians do not matter so much to them, but here in Border Town, I want to implement a holistic political organization. It is absolutely necessary that the people in my territory know about it so that they will wholeheartedly support us, and we can easily keep on governing them. At present, it is important that we create this ministry and have them undertake this mission.”
“Understood, Your Highness.” Barov said as he had to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“You will go to the archives and look for three or four people who are experienced farmers and can work in the Ministry of Agriculture, and you will then choose two of your own apprentices who will be in charge of the keeping the records and statistics, finally forming a group of six people.”
“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.”