dognovel Chapter 240 A Blow to Rapid Development
Chapter 240 A Blow to Rapid Development
Spring 1452, Southwest Midland
The sun rose from the horizon as usual, shining on an unknown small town. The residents of the town came out of their homes and did their work as usual.
Outside the city, endless farmland surrounds the small town, and from time to time one can see farmers cultivating the land and sowing seeds in the fields. They are composed of serfs and free people from various villages. They come here early before dawn to do farm work for their noble masters.
This was not because these farmers were hardworking and loyal, but because the nobles extended the time of their compulsory labor, forcing them to work early so as not to delay the spring plowing of their own fields.
Because the previous plague had claimed some lives in the territory, especially the most valuable strong laborers, the lack of manpower caused the efficiency of local agricultural production to continue to decline. Coupled with the collapse of commerce, the towns that originally relied on crop exports as their main business soon fell into financial crisis and famine, which in turn led to a large number of civilians in the territory fleeing.
Fortunately, the plague did not last too long. After the plague dissipated, most civilians chose to return to the land where they were born. After all, they were just landless refugees outside. At least they had a piece of land and a house of their own when they returned to their hometown.
Along with the returning people, there also came a noble family who had fled the famine long ago. However, the noble of this territory now was not the original noble master, but his son who only knew how to spend his days in debauchery.
As a young master of an aristocratic family, the original old nobles sent him to the big city very early. They originally wanted him to learn some knowledge and etiquette so that they could use their connections with Windham to find him a position. However, when he arrived in the big city, he became obsessed with the luxurious life there, and his academic performance plummeted.
When the plague came, the old nobleman could not withstand the ravages of the disease and soon passed away. The young master who succeeded him soon became the new noble master and returned to his territory soon after the plague ended. It was not that he suddenly became concerned about the development of his territory, but after several years of squandering, he had squandered all the money he could control, and he simply came back to see if there was anything valuable in the territory left to him by his father.
However, after searching through the castle, he was disappointed and did not find anything valuable, so he soon turned his attention to the civilians under his rule. But when he picked up the report given to him by the local tax collector, he became furious.
The direct reason for his anger was that in the past three years, the grain production in the territory had been getting lower and lower, and it even did not reach the share that should be paid to his family.
Although he is uneducated, he is not a fool. In the past few years in the big city, he has often dealt with bills and is familiar with the prices of various luxury goods in the big city. Even if all the food is sold, it will only be enough for him to spend for one month.
In his eyes, those civilians were the culprits that made him unhappy. Putting aside the plague, if these civilians had not fled their territory without permission, how could the agricultural efficiency in the territory be so low.
If no one works, agricultural efficiency will be low, and low efficiency will lead to reduced food production. The reduction in food production will directly lead to a decrease in one's own income. This set of perfect logic in his view became a reason for venting his anger on those civilians.
As a punishment for the peasants, the noble lord extended the time they had to work for free on his farmland, but it still had little effect. So he came up with a bad idea, which was to expand the area of cultivated land and designate all the wasteland in the territory as his own arable land. Since the efficiency was low, he would expand the arable area, which would make the peasants who were already busy with farming even worse.
In order to ensure that the farmers would work hard, the nobles appointed their own confidants - a group of their friends in the big cities to supervise them. In the eyes of the farmers, they were just some thugs who relied on the power of others. The only difference was that the backers behind them changed from gang leaders to their own nobles.
Seeing the overseers shouting and spitting on the hill, most of the farmers just spat inwardly and continued to bend over to farm. After all, as the saying goes, a barking dog doesn't bite. If they hurt the farmers who were working for the nobles and delayed farming, they would most likely be whipped.
In the towns, except for some difficulties when the townspeople first moved back, the lives of most of them returned to normal after a month of adaptation. The nobles exploited the farmers the most, and had nothing to do with those who were engaged in other industries.
On the street filled with all kinds of noises, a group of naughty kids, no older than ten years old, were running around noisily, knocking over some vendors' shelves from time to time, causing the adults to scold them. However, the kids didn't care until they saw the vendor pick up the feather duster next to him and then they ran into the alley next to him.
After running for an unknown amount of time, the child in the lead stopped. Seeing that no one was chasing them, the group leaned against the wall of a building and rested in the shade.
"That uncle just now was really annoying. He just knocked over some fruit. Why was he so angry?" One of the children, who seemed to be the eldest, complained, but the other child, who was more sensible, said tactfully:
"That uncle seems quite pitiful. He has five people in his family who rely on others for support. What we did just now was indeed a bit too much."
The child king saw that he was in the wrong, but he blushed and retorted:
"I... I didn't know he was in that situation. Even if that's the case, he can just say no. At most we can apologize to him."
Seeing that no one around him supported him, the leader turned to a child with white hair and asked:
"What do you think, Griffith? You're the smartest one here."
Hearing the child king calling him, Griffith, who was resting with his eyes closed, opened his deep blue eyes, thought for a while, and said:
"This matter is actually not that troublesome. First of all, this uncle doesn't know us, so he probably won't find our door. If the uncle finds our parents, we can just apologize to him."
Seeing that Griffith agreed with his point of view, the child king immediately said loudly:
"See, Griffith said so. He's so smart. If he says it's okay, then it must be okay."
The other children were relieved after hearing this, because Griffith was the smartest among the group of children. If he said nothing was wrong, then there was a high probability that nothing was wrong. Soon, laughter filled the entire alley.
Seeing the atmosphere become cheerful again, the child king ran to a pile of garbage, raised a ball-shaped object and said to his brothers:
"How about we go play ball!"
This ball was made by the leader of the children himself using a torn leather bag he found, which he filled with small stones and chopped straw and then sewn together. In addition to making a toy for his friends, it also helped him become the leader of the group of children.
After passing through several alleys, the children arrived at their own base, which was a large open space far away from the noisy streets. There were basically no adults around except for a pile of sundries. The children's previous base was in the open space around the castle, and later the noble master moved back and found this place again.
"Okay!"
The leader of the children who arrived at the base threw the ball to the children who had been prepared, and the children began to scramble for it while shouting loudly.
It was noon soon, and the children felt a little hungry after playing all morning, so they gradually left the base. Seeing this, the child king also wanted to go home for dinner, but before leaving, he did not forget to take back his ball.
"Griffith!" The leader of the children said to Griffith who was holding the ball in the distance:
"Give me the ball!"
"Okay, I caught it!" Griffith was only concerned about going home at this time, so he raised the ball high above his head and threw it hard in the direction of the children's king.
However, the rapidly spinning ball went directly over the head of the children's king and flew behind him. With a loud bang, the glass on a window was shattered, some glass fragments fell out of the window, and the ball fell directly into the house.
"It's over!" At this time, the Child King, Griffith and those children were frightened by the sudden shout. Then, some children hurriedly ran out of the alley, leaving only the Child King and Griffith.
The main reason why the leader of the children did not run away was that he still wanted to get his ball back, and Griffith did not run away because he was being pulled by the leader of the children at this moment, and with his current strength, he was unable to break free from the hand of this big child.
"Want to run? What should I do if you run away?" The child king said as he held tightly to Griffith who was still struggling. If Griffith ran away, not only would he not be able to find the ball, he might also be regarded as the culprit. It would be better to hand him over to the people in the house for disposal.
Just as the two were fighting, a series of metal collision sounds were heard from the entrance of the alley, and then two men in black armor walked into the stronghold under the horrified gaze of the two children.
In the eyes of the two children, the two men in black armor were like demons in storybooks, and the shining swords in their hands made them feel that they were demons from hell coming to claim their lives.
Griffith first calmed down from his fear, and when he saw the two armored men getting closer and closer, he immediately broke free from the hands of the child king who was almost peeing his pants with fear, and then ran deep into the alley.
While escaping, Griffith looked behind him as he ran. After confirming that the armored man was not following him, he adjusted his direction and ran towards an alley.
As early as the establishment of this base, Griffith had already explored the surrounding roads in order to avoid any accidents so that he could run back home. This allowed Griffith to move freely in this alley where even the locals could get lost.
After taking a long detour to shake off any possible pursuers, he ran to the street and, taking advantage of the crowd, ran towards his home.
However, when he returned home, he found his parents standing at the door as if waiting for him to come back. When he was about to say hello to them, he found some worry on his parents' faces. Then he saw the two black armored soldiers he had met before standing behind his parents.
"How do they know my home address?" Just as Griffith was wondering, someone suddenly grabbed his ear. The pain made him look to the side, but he found a familiar middle-aged man staring at him with a gloomy face. Griffith quickly realized that this was the sheriff who was in charge of his area.
"You are such a naughty boy." The sheriff grabbed Griffith and walked towards the two soldiers, explaining the reason why he was arrested this time:
"You are the only white-haired kid in the whole town. People came to me to report that it was a kid with white hair and skin, so I knew it was you who did it. If it was someone else, they might just apologize and leave it at that. But the Blackwatch mercenary group you two belong to was hired by the noble lord at a huge price. This time, unless the noble lord saves you, you will definitely get beaten!"
That afternoon, in front of his neighbors, Griffith received his first spanking in his history. This childhood memory was seared into his memory and could not be forgotten. It was as unforgettable as the pain in his butt. It was Blackwatch, a mercenary organization he had come into contact with once.
At the same time that Griffith was beaten, a royal letter was delivered to John's desk. As expected, the king wanted to summon him to Windham to discuss the replacement of the governor's position and report on the various situations in the forest governor's territory.
After reading this transfer order, even though John was calm, he couldn't help but sigh:
"This time we really have to go our separate ways."