Chapter 140: Plan and Preparation

Name: Ives Barnett

Specialty: Intelligence (14)

Abilities: Categorizing, Administrative Analysis, Decision Support

Relationship: Respect

Looking at the new ability that had appeared for his assistant before his eyes, George understood that this was the other party’s growth after his own long absence from the Bolerum Territory.

It was mentioned before that because of the matchmaking, the time George spent away from the Bolerum Territory to go to Karada this time was far longer than before.

During this period, the practice of letting them decide on some small matters by themselves was a catalyst.

Similarly, with the continuous development of the port, although the situation in the Bolerum Territory could not be described as changing with each passing day, it was still getting better year by year.

The prosperity in commerce also brought a busy scene in government affairs; the matters that needed to be handled and processed by the administrative organs became heavier year by year.

Just as George had prepared to do before, he wanted to thoroughly categorize the existing general and complex administrative system.

Previously, promoting the cooperation with the Lord of Justice with all his strength was to semi-independentize the judicial system within the territory.

This could greatly reduce the burden on the City Lord’s Mansion while also reducing a lot of trouble—such as the various relationship entanglements and networks of favors during trials.

Of course, this was just George’s plan for now; specific implementation in this aspect still required further effort.

This should be the main task George set for himself in territorial government affairs within the next one to two years.

As long as he succeeded in this aspect, George could follow up the victory and carry out a new round of social division of labor for the government affairs within the territory, and even the production modes of various factories.

The so-called social division of labor referred to the social division and its independence and specialization of various labors undertaken by humans.

Social division of labor was one of the symbols of human civilization and also the foundation of the development of the commodity economy.

Without social division of labor, there would be no exchange, and the market economy would be impossible to talk about.

The advantage of social division of labor was letting people who were good at something do what they were good at, greatly shortening the average social labor time.

Production efficiency would improve significantly.

Only those who could provide high-quality and efficient labor products could obtain high profits and high value in market competition.

The deepest meaning of “putting the right person in the right place and making the best use of everything” was derived from social division of labor.

Unlike the situation in the past where productivity developed continuously, prompting producers to spontaneously carry out division of labor.

The situation George faced now was one where although he had arrived at the door, he could not enter.

And George himself was preparing to be the one to kick that final, decisive ball.

However, George’s current actions were far from being called a revolution; it was merely reform.

But even so, the risks involved were truly not small.

Although it wouldn’t lead to him being smashed to pieces, it could destroy the excellent situation the Bolerum Territory currently had.

Therefore, George could be said to be very cautious in this regard, preparing to start with the most certain choice.

Then, step by step, he would use one success after another to exchange for the public’s confidence in him and reduce the possible pressure from the external environment.

If the whole process went smoothly, it might take five to six years.

And the final successful result would at least increase the administrative efficiency of the Bolerum Territory by thirty percent.

The production efficiency of the factories under his own family’s name would increase by fifty percent.

The loyalty of the subjects and the pride in the territory would also be greatly improved.

Only in this way could he obtain the maximum benefit in the possible further commercial waves while ensuring the stability of the territory itself.

Having experienced the globalization before transmigrating, George deeply understood the terror of capital.

Even in this world where one could fight against human wave tactics with super-strong personal strength, George did not have enough confidence to guarantee absolute control over his own territory when facing the penetration and corrosion of capital at all times.

Before transmigrating, he didn’t know how many once iron-willed tough guys didn’t die under the enemy’s guns and butcher knives.

In the end, they were defeated by the sugar-coated bullets of capital.

In fact, when George built Bolerum into an important commercial transit point based on the foundation developed by his predecessors.

He understood the pressure and risks he might encounter in the future.

It was precisely because he understood this that George prepared to take precautions early and make response measures.

Instead of waiting for the other party to come knocking on the door and then passively dealing with each move.

Turning passivity into initiative, and then utilizing the home advantage of his own territory, was the only way to achieve the results George envisioned in the upcoming turmoil.

Of course, there was one most important point, which was to be able to attract Migrants.

Yes, to attract Migrants.

In fact, in this world, the population on the territory was the most precious resource in the hands of the Nobles.

Because all wealth was created by these people.

And the power to defend this wealth could only be composed of humans.

There was no such bullshit as family planning here; “more people, more power” was the absolute truth.

As long as you could afford to raise them, you could give birth to as many as you wanted.

However, thanks to the extremely unbalanced medical system in this world, every childbirth for a poor woman was a trip to the gates of hell.

And even in a territory like the Bolerum Territory where the living environment for Commoners was relatively good, out of three Commoner children who could live to adulthood, at most only two would.

For those fragile infants, the dangers and uncertain factors existing in this world were truly too many.

And in some territories with harsh external environments, only one out of four of these children could live to adulthood.

The System had recorded the territory’s population number as 33128, which had now become 33206.

In fact, the System’s recording method had a huge difference from the population census George knew before transmigrating.

What was recorded inside were the adult male members among the subjects and the citizen class already residing here.

Only families like Knights, which were Noble families, had all their family members included in the records.

Otherwise, George wouldn’t have needed to implement a preliminary population background check system and record files.

In fact, the System’s approach could also be said to be adapting to the local customs!

It was said that in most territories in this world, the Lords only recorded these adult males.

This had both cultural factors and practical significance.

In some places, poor women were even regarded as a type of means of production.

Similarly, due to the lack of clerical staff and for the purpose of saving paper and ink, the actual records were of course the fewer the better.

And most of the time, counting the territory’s population was also done for the early preparation of conscription in wars.

And a territory’s attraction to Migrants was influenced by many factors.

It should be said that the Migrants in this world had a world of difference in meaning from the Migrants in the traditional sense of the Tianchao that George knew before transmigrating.

In the Tianchao before transmigrating, Migrants referred to people who left their hometowns due to disasters and had no means of livelihood.

But in this world, ordinary bottom-level Commoners were not qualified to become Migrants.

Just as said before, population was a Lord’s greatest wealth, so of course, all Lords did not hope for their property to be lost.

However, blind squeezing was not a good method either; this would not only lead to passive sabotage but also bring about violent resistance—things like deliberately destroying production tools.

Then giving them a hope for a better future, which was allowing them to become Freemen after paying a certain amount of money.

In fact, for ordinary subjects, wanting to pay this money was not easy even if they spent their whole lives saving for it.

Those who could truly get rid of their past status as subjects and become Freemen were either warriors with relatively outstanding natural talent or lucky ones taken in as apprentices by Craftsmen.

When a part of these people (the vast majority were Craftsmen; Lords would definitely recruit excellent soldiers) decided to leave their hometown and go out to make a living, they became Migrants.

And subjects were not allowed to leave their Lord’s land; those who left without permission were called Escapers and were wanted by the entire Noble class.

In a certain sense, unless they were second-generation, these Migrants were often the elites among the poor.

Only in this way did they have the courage to give up their inherent foundation in their original place to pursue a better future.

For a Lord, in most cases, a Migrant settling down in his territory was something worth being happy about.

And how to attract more Migrants became a major issue faced by many ambitious Lords.

In George’s view, firstly, this territory must have the support of a sufficiently prosperous commodity economy.

Because it was said before that the majority of Migrants were Craftsmen; without a sufficiently prosperous commodity economic system, these talents could not be supported.

Adam Smith argued in “The Wealth of Nations” that if a Blacksmith brought an assistant, he could make a thousand needles a day.

But in a place with less than a thousand residents, such a Blacksmith would surely not exist.

In a remote village, either there was a part-time Blacksmith who usually worked as a farmer or in other professions, and only temporarily set up a furnace to knock out two needles when villagers needed them.

Or there was a peddler who passed through the village every few days selling needles and thread; the spending power of such a place could not sustain a full-time Blacksmith, let alone one with an assistant.

Only in places like London where tens of thousands lived and hundreds of people needed to buy needles every day would there be room for such an efficient Blacksmith to survive.

It could be said that consumption stimulated production, and consumption also inhibited production.

If the local area really could not support the livelihood of a professional Craftsman, then he would absolutely not stop his steps here.

Secondly, it was being able to provide sufficient protection for the persons and property of those Freemen.

Without a sense of security, no one would be satisfied with the environment they were in.

Sometimes, escaping from such an environment would become the easiest choice for the other party; after all, compared to changing such an environment, the former was much lower in terms of cost paid and risk borne.

And for those Freemen, the protection needed for their persons and property was divided into external and internal aspects.

The external protection was very obviously derived from the defense capability of the territory.

This was a world seriously threatened by wild animals and violent elements like Bandits.

If the territory itself did not have sufficient armed forces, it was like a child carrying gold walking among a group of burly men.

There would be danger to property and even life at any time.

As the saying goes, “if the skin is gone, where will the hair attach?”

If the territory suffered an irresistible attack, then how could the personal and property safety of the ordinary people living in it be guaranteed!

If a territory had just one attack that could break through the town’s defense, and at the same time this attack could not give people an impact that they could absolutely not resist.

Then what the surviving Freemen would probably do was not to rebuild their homes, but how to safely escape this environment that could not give them safety guarantees and flee to a territory with better safety guarantees.

And the internal protection of personal and property safety came from the territory’s own rules and taxes.

Substantially, it was the intensity of exploitation by the higher-status privileged class towards the Freemen.

If a territory’s own rules were perfect, or even if there appeared written laws, then the oppression of the bottom-level people by the privileged class would also be relatively reduced.

And reasonable taxes could ensure that those handicraftsmen lived a relatively satisfactory life.

Otherwise, if these Freemen didn’t die at the hands of Bandits or in the mouths of wild animals.

But died under the tyrannical behavior of the privileged class within the territory, or became miserable due to heavy taxes.

Then would they still possibly stay in this environment?

Perhaps force was a solution, but this would return to the old problem of how to treat subjects originally.

Tyranny was truly fiercer than a tiger.

And the reforms George was carrying out, if they could really succeed.

Whether it was the external protection in terms of armaments or the internal management in terms of administration and law.

They would all receive very large improvements.

It could even be said that the attraction to many Freemen could even rank among the top in the entire Western Continent.

Of course, all this was built upon the first step George had already taken—the success of the judicial system.

If this action failed, George would also have to put away his ambition and lie low for a while.

Putting other things aside, at the very least, subsequent actions would be delayed.

What George could do at that time was to maintain his image of being capable and shrewd, while quietly waiting for the next suitable opportunity.

Because of the shadow of failure, the confidence in George within the territory would also be considerably affected.

Wanting everyone to regain their confidence in George was by no means an overnight achievement!

However, when he really built a complete administrative system framework in his own territory.

Then the manpower needed would probably be two to three times the current manpower.

George didn’t want to take the path of “small government, big society”; the miserable state of European countries in the new century was still vivid in his mind.

“Small government” referred to, on the basis of decomposing the government functions under the original system, handing back a large number of the government’s micro-functions—mainly microeconomic functions—to society.

The government concentrated its energy on specifically handling those matters that were very important to the whole society but which other social organizations or individuals had no ability to handle.

Becoming the center and hub for guiding, coordinating, and supervising the operation of the entire society’s economy.

“Big society” referred to, while shrinking government functions, adjusting government institutions, and streamlining government personnel, fully expanding the self-management functions of social organizations.

To put it simply, it was weakening the government’s functions in social activities.

The government transitioned from managing “broadly” to managing “narrowly,” fully bringing into play the self-regulation ability of the market and social organizations.

Government power became smaller, and relatively, society’s power became larger.

The things the government didn’t interfere with were all solved by the “big society,” giving play to the self-management of enterprises, citizens, and social organizations.

George’s current identity was that of a dictator; if for no other reason, just to guarantee his own interests, he could not make any concessions on this.

This was the butt determining the head, or it could be said that class stance determined one’s own choice.

Furthermore, George was not prepared to place his future on the conscience of capitalists.

Because that thing was probably non-existent!

If someone really believed it, one could only say “too young, too simple.”

And in this world, even the training and replenishment of suitable servants was a small yet significant trouble.

Then the training and replenishment of a suitable civil servant was an even more headache-inducing problem.

In addition to passing the test of loyalty, civil servants also needed to learn different skills and methods of handling affairs according to their respective posts.

And their biggest difference from servants was the learning of language and writing.

This was truly a luxurious behavior!

Similarly, the time required was also calculated in years.

In this regard, George had already started making preparations long ago.

At the very least, for the children of many civil servants in the territory, as long as they were willing to study writing with care, he gave them certain subsidies.

Similarly, those who had a certain kinship with him or the family relatives of the Knights under his command also enjoyed the same or even better treatment in this regard.

However, the latter often hoped more to take the route that could allow themselves to obtain power.

Of course, there was definitely an agreement in this to prioritize working for the Bolerum Territory.

As for the situation of nepotism, even modern society before transmigrating could not stop it.

Let alone the current external environment.

At the same time, George also allowed Commoners with knowledge to enter his own ruling system through assessment—Ives Barnett was their model.

As for the common practice before transmigrating of letting some officials in the army transfer to civilian posts in local areas, George temporarily did not have such plans.

Because for the soldiers here, this behavior was absolutely not considered glorious.

Similarly, George also intended to cultivate Ives Barnett to become the person in charge of a single department in the future administrative framework.

Such a model effect would also become stronger and more obvious.

Attracting more Commoners and the middle class to throw themselves into it.

So he was also very happy about his progress.

Over the next few days, George spent his time in a sea of various documents.

First, he placed large orders for grain with several major Merchant Guilds; this time, he even specially used expensive magic Contracts as a guarantee.

At the same time, regarding the newly added stone docks and the repair of the road leading to the north, he negotiated and signed new agreements with the arriving Mason Guild and Stone Mason Guild.

Plus the budget for labor.

George spent more than half of last year’s financial balance.

Other miscellaneous things need not be mentioned; everything George did now was early preparation for his trip to the Northern Fortress for garrison duty this year.

Volume 4