landbeastnovel #598 - Constitutional Convention
#598 - Constitutional Convention
The sound of rain lashing against the windows grew more urgent, clearly scattering the brief enthusiasm within the hall, replaced by an oppressive silence.
Horn frowned, turning his head to look at Melia Tee, who shook her head at him with a solemn expression.
In the silence, a legion commander from the left seat was the first to speak, shouting, "Are our sabers not sharp enough, or our holy guns not accurate enough?"
Before the legion commander could finish speaking, Armand excused himself to Lufiel beside him and stood up: "I think Mr. Herman doesn't mean open confrontation, but some undercurrents of rats, right?"
Herman smiled, but his voice was low and cold: "Everyone must understand that we who sit here today, although we may not have the same interests, we must have the same enemies.
But the local knights and nobles are not necessarily of the same mind. Under the pressure of the army, they may obey, but they cannot be of one heart with us."
Slowly standing up, Herman smiled apologetically at Melia Tee: "Your Highness, I could have been shrewd, but everything now is exchanged for blood by our dear friends and relatives, and I must ask clearly."
"Of course you can ask." Before Melia Tee could answer, Horn took two steps forward and stood in front of him, "If I were you, I would do the same."
Herman's sharp eyes stared at Horn's calm face: "You let knights and stewards serve as heads of hundreds of households, but they are not of one heart with us, especially since they have long controlled the voice of the people.
For example, you ask them to hand over 20 gold pounds and keep 15 gold pounds. They agree on the surface and hand over 20 gold pounds.
As a result, they turn around and hide it from you, asking the believers in the hundred-household area for 30 gold pounds, and blame you, what should we do then?"
Now even the representatives of the left seat were lost in thought, even if they wanted to suppress it, they couldn't kill indiscriminately.
If these knights chose to surrender, and then pretended to obey but actually violated, outwardly obeyed but inwardly opposed, or corrupted the lower-level monks, just like they once corrupted the church.
Then wouldn't the original good policies still be transferred to the farmers?
"Aren't Article 1 and Article 4 of the 'Charter' prepared for this?" Horn spread his hands and asked, "The first thing we do to transform the locality is the perpetual lease reform!"
"Oh damn."
"So that's what you were waiting for."
A burst of realization and muttering immediately came from the stage.
The implementation of perpetual lease not only represents the enhancement of farmers' economic strength, but also represents the weakening of personal dependence.
The lord cannot arbitrarily deprive the people of their cultivated land and status, nor can they arbitrarily try or deprive the people of their lives and property.
In addition to violence and the inertia of rule, the people are economically decoupled from the lord to a certain extent. In that case, the people can assume part of the responsibility of supervising the knights.
The knights only have violence, but they cannot gather together, and their efficiency is very low.
Compared with Horn and Melia Tee's aggregated and efficient extraordinary violence system, they can only bow their heads.
Although dissatisfied with the extraordinary hegemony of this world, Horn felt really good when he had the extraordinary hegemony in his hands.
After mastering absolute violence, only a small number of people can form a suppression of a large group of people, ensuring that there may be constant small disturbances in the reform process, but it is difficult to erupt into major disturbances.
"But who will guide it? Even if one person is assigned to each hundred households, nearly 9,000 monks are needed in the entire Thousand River Valley. Do you have 2,000 reliable monks in your hands and in the Blago Monastery?"
This time it wasn't even Herman, but a representative from the middle seat who asked the question.
"It's very simple, a three-step approach." Horn raised three fingers, "Cultivate a group of our own, transform a group of the church's, and introduce a group from outside."
"Aren't we against the Thousand River Valley Church? Now we are going to accept the church again?" As soon as Horn said this, someone from the left seat representatives couldn't help but stand up and ask.
"We are against the church, not the clergy." Horn turned around and said loudly to the representatives in front of him, "Not all clergy are bad people. If you think about it carefully, the grassroots clergy are also opponents of the church.
In fact, I know a good old priest. Although he is sometimes cowardly and cherishes his life, he is indeed a good person and a brave person."
In the church system, grassroots priests are also part of the church's oppression, including the grassroots monks in the monastery.
Secular status is still useful in the church. Since Joan the Empress, who has seen a pope who is truly from the common people?
Horn has seen many thin and scarred grassroots priests, who are almost like slaves of high-ranking priests except for being able to read and write.
Now in Cheka, there are a large number of such grassroots monks, and Horn thinks their methods of opposing the church are too radical.
Moreover, from a realistic point of view, it is impossible to completely abandon the church system.
Even in the current Langsand County, at least 20% of the former priests and former monks are participating in the administrative work of the Priestly Society.
The entire Thousand River Valley has 26,000 priests to maintain grassroots rule. In Horn's view, it is seriously overstaffed, but even if it is to be reduced, at least 40% to 50% must be retained.
Because one is that there is no one to fill the vacancies, and the other is that a complete replacement may lead to instability at the grassroots level, giving those knights who falsely converted a chance to make trouble.
Taking this opportunity, Horn simply revealed the next transformation plan:
"First, we will select 400 reliable monks, 100 accountants and auditors, and 20 Cheka commissioners from Langsand County and Blago Monastery.
They will form the Efficiency Exorcism Society and the Agricultural Exorcism Society, and go to the local area with 4 legions and more than 2,000 Salvation Army soldiers.
After arriving at the local area, we must first completely disperse the church system. All priests will be laid off first, and all affairs will be temporarily taken over by the Agricultural Exorcism Society.
During this period, they will count and summarize all tax registers and church property in the area.
After obtaining the summary tax register, with the help of the Salvation Army and the county chief's army, we will sincerely persuade the local knights and public farmers to sign the 'Perpetual Lease Contract'.
At the same time, the Efficiency Exorcism Society will divide all priests and monks according to the division of townships and conduct examinations and reviews.
Those who pass the examination and review will remain in their posts and participate in the Holy Path School training class for two to three weeks of intensive training.
Those who fail the examination will be sent to the Blago Monastery for retraining, and those who fail the review will be sent to the Lubyanka Monastery for retraining.
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In this way, with manpower, tax registers, and church property, we can carry out the reform of the hundred-household area.
Determine the hundred-household area according to the tax register and population, then register their names, ages, and household registration, and hold a collective oath to join the Thousand River Valley Holy Monarchical State.
Then, according to every ten hundred-household areas, one itinerant monk is assigned with two or three retained monks, and a Priestly Society is established."
The reason why so many people can be pulled out to do this is first thanks to Huannuo's legacy of talent reserves, and second is the result of Horn's cultivation for so long.
At the beginning, Horn sent all the monks and priests of the monastery to the Holy Hoe Monastery, forcing them to work with the laborers at the same salary.
After more than a year of development and training, apart from those being used by the Holy Machinery Court government, Horn has at least 200-300 usable devout monks in his hands, and at least 200 people are in training.
It can be clearly felt that the monk group representatives in the left, middle, and right seats breathed a sigh of relief in unison.
Some monks even had expectations in their eyes. The outrageous point is that even within the monastic system, the situation of large monasteries bullying small monasteries is common.
Moreover, this obviously lifted some of the restrictions on monks' participation in politics and would cause an uproar in the Imperial Court.
At this time, Herman had returned to his seat, but he did not close his eyes to rest as before, but squinted his eyes and spoke again:
"I have seen too many good laws change when they are passed down. The traditions of the church and the knights have been around for thousands of years, and the farmers have long adapted to them.
Can you really guarantee that between you and the knights, the farmers will choose to stand on your side, instead of standing on the knights' side according to tradition?"
After thinking, Horn slowly opened his mouth, his voice steady and low: "People's hearts are the most unpredictable, even if I guarantee it won't, you can't believe it. In the short term, we cannot prevent the knights from pretending to obey and the farmers from being ignorant and shortsighted.
But the reality is that we must take this risk, to fight for it, to supervise it, to fight wits and courage, and even pay the price of blood."
Raising one finger high, Horn's voice gradually became impassioned in the quiet hall:
"Do you think the war in Thousand River Valley is over? No, it has just begun! And the blood shed may not be less than before.
We can't be perfect in everything, we can't get everything without paying anything.
I also want to directly eradicate all the nobles in Thousand River Valley, I also want to unify the entire Thousand River Valley and convert to the Holy Path School, I also want to directly unite politics and religion in the entire Thousand River Valley.
But that would mean a terrible civil war, which means being picked peaches by the Leia Kingdom. If we don't want to be a flash in the pan, we have to endure temporary unwillingness and compromise.
If you ask me now, can we defeat the Leia Kingdom in the future if we endure unwillingness and compromise?
I still dare not guarantee it, but I still have to fight for it, even if I know it may be meaningless, shouldn't I fight for it?"
Staring blankly at Horn, Herman's eyes flashed with an incomprehensible light.
"Huannuo knew he was going to be burned to death, did he run away? He didn't, he chose to stay!
Our reform of the locality may not succeed, so don't reform it? No, we still have to change it, even if we have to pay a heavy price!"
Learning Melia Tee's action, Horn slammed his fist heavily on the table, making a crisp sound. His face was a little distorted, but he still endured the pain and shouted in a high voice:
"The church can burn Huannuo to death, but it can't burn the truth, the knights can resist the truth, but they can't resist the future!"