When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#653 - The First Four-Year Plan Hearing Session (Part 1)

December 3, 1446, Holy See, Holy See Building.

Today's meeting was different from the usual; it was not held in Horn's Stag Room, but in the larger collective meeting room, Clement Hall.

Present were Madeleine, Truth Speaker of the Truth Court; Cici, Holy Treasurer of the Holy Treasury; Bussac, Gospel Speaker of the Gospel Court; Jeanne, Exorcist General of the Exorcism Court; Martial, Judge President of the Judgment Court; and of course, the Holy Woman and Catherine, Governor of the Central Bank.

In addition, there were Armand, Chief Councillor of the Privy Council, and Pettier, Second Councillor, as well as the three main figures of the Internal Affairs Department—René, head of the Cheka; Raphael, captain of the Gendarmerie; and Duvalon, commander of the Night Watch.

The five Central Courts, plus the Privy Council and the Internal Affairs Department, constituted the highest-level bureaucratic institutions in the Papal States (publicly known as the Patriarchal Guild).

Not only were the Papal Cardinals present, but also the directors of the various divisions under the Central Courts, including the chief priests of various townships and the envoys and officials of local city halls.

If a mage were to release a fireball spell in this meeting room, not only the Holy Axis Papal States but also the entire Thousand River Valley would grind to a halt, fall into chaos, or even collapse.

Therefore, the security and defense of the Holy See today were the strictest ever, and even access for outsiders had been prohibited since before Advent.

Because today's meeting was not only a weekly meeting but also a summary meeting for the two years of 1445 and 1446.

After all, the summary meeting of 1445 was disrupted by the war and could not be held, so it had to be held twice at once, which was a large part of why Horn was so busy before.

By about nine o'clock in the morning, the personnel were basically all present, and although it had begun to snow outside, the room without a fireplace was still warm.

This was because Clement Hall used a heating system; the peat boiler on the first floor continuously heated the cold water, and the winding brass pipes radiated heat no less than a fireplace.

After a brief opening speech, Chief Papal Cardinal Madeleine began to speak.

"In the year and a half from 1445 to 1446, we basically completed the medium-level grassroots control of Langsand County, and the basic grassroots control of South Mand County, Lower Ruifo County, and Kaxia County..." Madeleine flipped through the official documents in her hand, "In terms of political reform, we have exceeded our task."

A neat round of applause immediately rang out from the seats on both sides of Clement Hall.

According to Horn's previously proposed four-year war preparation plan from 1445 to 1449, it was said to be four years, but it actually included the second half of 1445.

From the second half of 1445 to the end of 1446, Horn set three goals—political centralization, economic industrialization, and military modernization.

The first thing Madeleine reported was essentially about political centralization.

The goal of political centralization was to complete central centralization and preliminary government structure, and strengthen the central government's comprehensive control over the economy and society.

Specifically, it was to weaken the power of nobles and lords, establish central bureaucracy, and implement direct state control over taxation, resources, and labor.

In the past year and a half, Horn successfully completed the direct connection from the Papal Palace to the Hundred Households Area through war, the formulation of a constitution, the abolition of the death tax, the promotion of perpetual lease rights, and the establishment of a government structure from the Hundred Households Area to the Priest Guild.

The situation where royal power does not extend to the countryside does not exist in Horn's case. If the country is compared to a person, then the Thousand River Valley in the past was at most a hemiplegic.

It could raise its arm, but it could not control its fingers, and sometimes it could not even be sure where to hit.

Although the current Thousand River Valley still has randomness in controlling the fingers to close into a fist, at least it can control where the fist hits.

Even if each Hundred Households Area recruits only 5 soldiers, based on the current priest guilds in various places, they can quickly recruit tens of thousands of people within a month.

When the priest guilds at all levels are established, they don't even need to drain them dry (25% of the eligible population), and using on-demand military service (10%) can produce an army of 100,000, but the quality is not satisfactory.

Of course, from the current level of the empire, 10% is considered to be draining them dry.

Not to mention the military, the fiscal revenue of Langsand County alone has soared from less than 20,000 gold pounds in 1444 to the current 30,000 gold pounds in the central treasury and 20,000 gold pounds in the local treasury.

Half of these 30,000 gold pounds are only passing through, and they have to repay the bonds at the beginning of next year. The actual fiscal surplus is about 10,000 gold pounds.

Although it is not much, it can finally enrich the Holy Treasury, which has only 20,000 gold pounds left.

"Very good." With a smile, Horn clapped along, "Good, you have done well, Madeleine, you are very powerful now."

After this period of training and the tutoring of the Hilov cram school, Madeleine, now wearing a simple black robe, is still amiable, but the majesty in her eyes is completely different from that of the previous fugitive.

After Madeleine sat down, the second to take the stage was Holy Treasurer Cici.

Today, she was wearing a capable wide-sleeved white shirt, and her pants were tight black silk breeches that tightened her thighs. Her long hair was tied into a slightly curled high ponytail at the back of her head, revealing her fair and slender neck.

It's just that the Adam's apple on her neck was a bit eye-catching.

Cici's androgynous and difficult-to-identify voice echoed in the venue: "From 1445 to 1446, our fiscal revenue doubled, we built a total of 125 kilometers of mortar roads, 32 state-owned factories and 9 private workshops, and we participated in 52 workshops and 7 chambers of commerce..."

"The grain market in Langsand County increased from 80,000 tons to 102,000 tons, an increase of 27.5%, and the cloth market increased from 28,000 pieces to 50,000 pieces, almost doubling..."

"In the past, Langsand County's commerce was mainly based on self-sufficient agricultural economy, with small-scale and decentralized chambers of commerce and transactions, inefficient logistics, and luxury trade dependent on nobles. In response, we proposed commercial capitalization..."

"In agriculture, it is also self-sufficient agriculture, mainly single crops, decentralized land management, low yield and inefficiency, so we proposed agricultural commercialization..."

The economic industrialization proposed by Horn was broken down into commercial capitalization and agricultural commercialization by Cici, Bussac and others.

In this year and a half, the Langsand County government relied on canals and mortar roads to initially solve the inefficient logistics of Langsand County.

In order to solve the problems of small-scale decentralization and trade dependent on nobles (excessive luxury goods, but lack of daily necessities), Horn raised a large amount of local idle funds through the bank and bond market.

As for the self-sufficient agricultural economy in rural areas, it was violently bombarded by the priest guilds' processing of supplied materials.

Relying on these funds and tariff policies, the Papal Palace massively monopolized key industries, participated in chambers of commerce and workshops, and relocated and merged large and small workshops to concentrate resources.

With various towns as the core, a Thousand River Valley market encompassing the entire plain county is slowly forming.

The prices of daily necessities are plummeting.

When the sugar-grain trade and proto-industrialization begin to operate, the Thousand River Valley market will become a money-sucking black hole with high profit margins.

As for agricultural commercialization, it is designed for the Thousand River Valley to transition from an agricultural country to an industrial country.

This part of the work is mainly done by the two state-owned monasteries, Holy Plow and Holy Sickle.

The main methods are to concentrate land, promote the planting of improved varieties of agricultural tools and cash crops.

After the Hundred Households Area untied the shackles of feudal relations, there are still a large number of farmers whose land is small and scattered.

The Holy Plow Monastery increases the amount of farmland by reclaiming and building water conservancy projects, while the Holy Sickle Monastery increases land output through agricultural economy.

That is, renting land from farmers, concentrating a large amount of scattered land together, and hiring vagrants to plant cash crops or simply use it to raise livestock.

Through the financial policy of paying money and keeping grain by the priest guilds, a large amount of grain and agricultural products are first concentrated in the priest guilds, and then flow into the market through the priest guilds in various places.

Since it is unified sales and unified purchase and unified transportation, the efficiency and circulation rate are not comparable to farmers selling it themselves.

A large amount of grain and cloth poured in, coupled with convenient transportation conditions, with Langsand County as the center, the number of people who starved to death and froze to death dropped drastically.

As for Red Leaf Township and Daze Township, they even achieved the two miracles of zero starvation and zero freezing deaths this winter.

"...Although some actions had to be stopped due to the impact of the war, the preliminary economic reforms were basically completed by this year."

A round of warm applause rang out in the venue again.