Gwen stood on the rock, looked at the numb and cowering faces below, and took a deep breath.
The people were not stupid, but it did not mean that they were not ignorant.
Ignorance is a judgment made with prejudice and disdain, but ignorance — it is only a statement of fact.
In this era, the commoners and serfs were ignorant. The social structure determined that they had almost no access to knowledge and knowledge, and the heavy cost of living left them with no energy to pay attention to things other than survival. Living in such a situation for a long time, they did not seem to think, and thus had the illusion of "ignorance". But in fact, they could think, but their ignorance made it difficult for them to understand things that were too far away from life.
Therefore, he could not talk to them about the ideals, the future, the prospects of the territory, and the logical relationship between the development of productivity. Once he talked about these, they would immediately put these concepts that sounded "high and mighty" to the "lord's side", and draw a clear line with themselves. Therefore, the best way was to talk to them about things related to their lives.
"People of Cecil Territory," Gwen said loudly, "you should all know who I am, so you should also know that I am now the most powerful person in this territory. My words represent the laws of Cecil Territory, and these laws will provide you with protection and are something you must obey.
"We are developing a new territory, so we need some new rules. So, I hereby announce three things:
"First, because the old territory has been destroyed, all the past wealth has been cleared, so I declare in the name of the ancestors of the Cecil family that all debts related to the lord in the territory will be written off. From today onwards, no one will bear any debt to the lord, regardless of whether they are freedmen or serfs.
There was a slight uproar in the crowd below, but it was not obvious. Although the commoners and serfs in this era owed the lord more or less, no one had the ability to repay the debt in today's reconstruction of the territory. Based on the kindness of Lord Rebecca in the past, they had already guessed that the debt would be written off.
Gwen continued, "Second, all serfs in the territory will have the opportunity to become freedmen. The lord will issue a series of tasks, such as building houses, building roads, excavating mines, and joining the army. All these tasks will have a corresponding scoring system. As long as they strictly follow the requirements and complete the corresponding tasks, they can accumulate contributions. When they reach the standard, they can become freedmen. As for those who are already freedmen, they can get a corresponding reward after completing these tasks. I will announce the specific calculation method in the near future. I can assure you that any diligent and reliable serf can become a free person after working hard for two or three years, and a free person can get his own house after working hard for five or six years! "
This time, the uproar completely turned into an uncontrollable discussion.
Serfs becoming free people — this was a rather challenging thing in this era. Although the laws of the Ansu Kingdom did not strictly prohibit serfs from becoming freedmen, and there were no clear regulations in the laws of the nobles' territories, in fact, almost no nobles would casually let their serfs become free. To them, serfs were cheap, meaning that they could squeeze every drop of blood out of them without any burden. Those nobles who only knew how to constantly raise taxes and work hours to plunder wealth would never think of the benefits of letting serfs become free.
Rebecca had caused a commotion when she proposed that serfs be freed by joining the army, but this time, Gwen had clearly taken a big step forward.
As for getting paid to work, and even getting a house … many of the free commoners almost did not believe in it.
Working for the lord and getting paid? Who would believe that?
Gwen did not give them time to continue their discussion and continued with the third point.
"Third, the tents and fences to be set up today, as well as the drainage ditch in the camp, are the first tasks the lord has given you in the new law. I have already recorded the scope of each of your responsibilities, and only those who strictly follow my instructions will be considered to have completed the work. In addition, as an incentive for working hard, the first ten people to complete the work will be able to eat meat. "
After finishing this sentence, Gwen did not care about the reaction below. He directly jumped down from the rock and returned to where Heti and Rebecca were.
The gathered commoners and serfs were stunned for a moment before they suddenly shouted and rushed to the seemingly completed camp. They wanted to reinforce the loose ropes and nails, as well as drive the fences deep into the ground!
For them, the calculation of contribution and scoring standards mentioned by Gwen were still too difficult, and they did not believe that the soldiers in charge of supervising the work and Master Knight would seriously help them calculate the workload. But there was one sentence that they could understand: There will be meat to eat at night!
Only those who finished the work in advance and had to finish it seriously could have meat to eat!
It was just as Gawain had thought. Only when one's own interests were at stake would one's greatest motivation be stimulated.
Looking at the commoners and serfs running away like a swarm of bees, Heti was still a little confused. It was not until Gwen stood in front of her that she reacted and asked in disbelief, "Ancestor … Is what you just said true?"
Gwen looked at her with a faint smile and asked, "What do you mean?"
"… The part where serfs become free people through work," Heti said with a frown. "Of course, I don't object to this, because Rebecca has issued a decree that serfs can join the army and be promoted. But you said that even building houses and roads can be counted as contribution, and it only takes two or three years to become a free person … Is this true?"
"Of course it's true." Gwen looked at her and asked, "What do you think is wrong?"
"If it's so easy to become a free person, I'm afraid it won't be long before all the serfs in the territory become commoners." Heti looked confused. "The children of commoners are also commoners. Will Cecil be a place without serfs in the future?"
Gwen continued to look at her, the smile on his face unchanged. "Is there anything wrong with having no serfs?"
Heti instinctively felt that something was wrong from her own thinking habits and worldview, but from her knowledge and thinking that far exceeded that of the nobles of the same period, she felt that there was nothing wrong even if there were no serfs. So, she suddenly fell into a dilemma.
Rebecca frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "In fact, I think … the serf system is not so necessary today. There's nothing wrong with having no serfs."
Gwen looked at his stubborn descendant with a little surprise and nodded. "Go on."
"Serfs are labor, and the purpose of labor is to provide labor. But if they become free people, they can get more labor. So, why do we have to keep the concept of 'serfs'?" Rebecca scratched her head. "Father once told me that the main reason why he didn't let the serfs regain their freedom was that once they were free, they would immediately become lazy and stop working without a whip. But I don't think the whip is necessarily the best …"
Gwen looked at her approvingly. Rebecca, who was encouraged by the ancestor for the first time, suddenly became bold and said fluently, "And I also noticed that if you let one serf do the work, they will always find ways to be lazy. But if you let two serfs do the same work and tell them that if they finish first, they can get an extra piece of bread, they can finish the work of three or four people in one go. The value is far more than that piece of bread... So, I thought that it was not necessary to use the whip to make them not be lazy. It might be better to use other methods."
"This is already a very good enlightenment." Gwen could not help but laugh. It was a very simple thing to understand, but almost no one in this era paid attention to it. In fact, the nobles did not observe how the serfs and even the civilians under their rule worked, nor did they have the concept of statistical efficiency. Using the whip and sending soldiers to supervise was the ultimate embodiment of their ruling skills. Rebecca was like...
It could only be said that this poor country viscount was usually very idle.
But thanks to her idle time, she could think of these things.
But she could only think of these superficial things based on her own observation. In fact, Gwen was very clear that the emergence and abolition of slavery was not just a matter of "whip and bread." The deeper reason was whether the productivity was enough, and whether the society had really reached the point where it needed to be changed.
Through this period of observation, he believed that at least in his field of vision, the serf system no longer matched the world's productivity. A large number of people were piled up in repetitive and inefficient low-end jobs, relying on the number of people to produce all kinds of goods with the lowest efficiency to support the upper class, and these people would never have a way to rise. The upper class who mastered magic had entered the stage where they watched fireworks and listened to music in the castle, and used fluorescent lamps (magic crystals) for illumination. But the civilians below were not much better than the primitive people, and the whole society was almost deformed.
On Earth, there had already been earth-shaking changes, but here, the existence of supernatural forces stopped the process.
Because a hundred civilians with pitchforks could not defeat a low-level mage or Knight, even if they were fearless and doubled their number, it was still impossible.
Perhaps the world would continue to develop, and sooner or later this stalemate would be broken. But Gwen did not intend to wait. He had to change everything in advance, and then start his own big development plan.
Because he had a feeling that the Demonic Wave was really coming.
Even the Kingdom of Gondor in its heyday could not withstand the Demonic Wave. Now that the continent had regressed to the ignorant state of the Middle Ages, how could they bear it with their faces?
And even if he did not consider the Demonic Wave, Gwen also had other things to care about.
Those unknown "eyes" in the sky.
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