Unknown Knight

The next morning, Aix bid farewell to King Ragnar and led his team back to the territory.

He was now extremely anxious, feeling that Idenyal might attack him and his territory at any time. He had to rush back to the territory in time and make the necessary preparations before anything happened.

After returning to the territory, Aix immediately summoned Robin Hood, who had been in charge of reconnaissance in the surrounding areas recently, and asked him if there were any suspicious things happening recently and if there were any suspicious people approaching the territory.

After receiving Robin Hood's negative reply, he felt relieved. Maybe Edenyar had not received the specific situation yet, so he did not respond accordingly.

But he couldn't take it lightly, so he ordered Desevi to select ten more archers as members of Robin Hood, and asked them to strengthen patrols of the territory, but report any abnormalities to him in a timely manner.

Nearly another month passed like this, and the area around the territory was still calm, without any abnormalities. This made Aix wonder if he was too cautious. Maybe Idenyar didn't realize that it was his contribution to the last crackdown on the pirates.

Or maybe his imagination was too rich. They had never thought of launching a large-scale invasion of Nord pirates. They just organized and hired those pirates to plunder property because they were short of money.

Aix couldn't get any accurate information, and was completely in the dark. He was really unsure, so he had to send Desevi to disguise herself as a huntress to go to Tiha city to gather information.

During this period, the construction of the territory has been basically completed, and the two planting villages under the village of Talboliya have also been completed. Aix also built a wall and a trench outside the village, and two watchtowers at the two entrances. The defense capabilities of these two villages are considered to be at the ceiling level among the villages of this era.

During this period, he did not go out to do business, but asked Bandak to lead the team out twice. Instead of taking the route through Tiha City, they went directly to Sagos City. Aix also asked him to collect all kinds of information along the way, and the feedback he received after returning did not show anything unfavorable to the territory.

Soon Desevi also returned from Tiha City. After being away for nearly half a month, she reported that there was no special situation. Apart from a few incidents of drunkenness and riots by pirate-like Nords, the city of Tiha was calm and there was no large-scale military assembly.

Only then did Aix put down his worries and started to build the territory with peace of mind. In his opinion, since Idenyar could become the city lord, he must be a man who knows how to deal with things. He has proved his strength with actual actions, so he may not dare to easily become his enemy.

With this mentality, Aix still asked Desevi to strengthen patrols around the territory, but he no longer regarded this as the main goal of territory work, because there was something that gave him a headache and attracted most of his energy.

Due to the rush work in the past period of time, the whole territory concentrated its efforts on major tasks and produced results. The current construction of the territory has been basically completed. This has allowed most of the people in the territory to have some free time. Now it is the slack season for farming, so there are people with nothing to do everywhere in and outside the village.

The key is that if they really have nothing to do, it would be fine, especially young people, who can endure the restlessness? There were actually several cases of molesting women, but fortunately nothing more serious happened. Aix asked the leaders to whip those people more than a dozen times.

Then Cress secretly reported to him that some people were organizing gambling in the back alley, and there were quite a few people. Before, Aix had made propaganda in the territory that gambling was not allowed, let alone gambling in groups. He was so angry that he sent the army to arrest people everywhere.

If you calm down and think about it carefully, these people should be idle. If you let them idle any longer, they might get involved in pornography, gambling, drugs, fighting, theft, rape, murder, or even gangsterism. We have to think of some way to deal with them.

At this time, a report from Yamanti gave him inspiration. It turned out that the blacksmith shop, leatherwork shop, wood processing workshop, wine processing workshop, and olive oil processing workshop had been built in the workshop area of ​​the territory. The blacksmith shop, leatherwork shop, and wood processing workshop had already started business, and they had received a lot of orders from inside and outside the territory. However, they could not recruit qualified technical workers for the time being and could not meet the production needs of the workshops.

Although wine workshops and olive oil workshops have not been put into use, workers still need to be skilled in the early stages. It will be too late to find a solution when the harvest comes, and there is a serious labor shortage in the territory.

Aix had originally hoped that these subjects would be able to spontaneously find ways to make a living and work to earn money like the migrant workers in the original world. Apparently, he had overestimated his thinking. How could these medieval peasants, who had only lived on porridge and wild vegetables all their lives, envision the sweetness of industrialization?

The only thing they can think of for a happy life is to have enough food to eat and to wear good and warm clothes. It doesn’t matter whether the clothes are new or old, beautiful or ugly, or bad or rotten. As long as they have clothes to wear, it’s fine. As for housing, they now feel very happy as long as they have a bed to sleep in and a house to shelter them from the wind and rain.

As for what thoughts and pursuits they have, the only thing they have left is "wealth leads to lust, and leisure leads to trouble", which is also the main reason for the chaos in the territory during this period.

Looking back to Britain in the past, if it weren’t for the vicious nobles who launched the bloody enclosure movement, it is unknown when the British farmers would have taken the initiative to move from the countryside to the city, and when the country would have become an industrialized power.

The territory of Aix is ​​now facing the same dilemma. He must take the initiative to guide these farmers and let them engage in the production of the territory. Otherwise, with his 10% tax that makes the people in the territory laugh at him for being "stupid", at best he can only be a small lord in the Middle Ages in his life, and he may not even be able to eat four dishes.

After the leaders gathered together to discuss for half a day, Aix took the lead and everyone worked together to formulate a series of relevant policies.

First, Aix issued the first lord's decree since he became the lord, posted it on all the bulletin boards in the territory, and asked all the leaders to organize the dissemination of this decree.

The contents of the decree are as follows:

The Lord of Talboliya, Count Aix, hereby informs all the people of the territory:

Since the establishment of the Tarboliya Territory, all the people in the territory have united as one and worked together to achieve the current situation where everyone has food to eat and a house to live in.

However, due to the increase in population within the territory, huge daily expenses, powerful enemies surrounding the territory, and skyrocketing military expenditures, the territory's finances became increasingly tight.

There are also some naughty ones who have no ambition to make progress. They idle away all day long, stir up trouble, gather for gambling, destroy public property and do other illegal and inappropriate things, which are unworthy of our people.

Now this lord has issued a special order: All the young and strong people between the ages of 14-45 in our territory, in addition to farming, must learn a skill to rely on. The lord's mansion will set up skill training classes in schools, and I hope that the people of the territory will actively sign up for the courses.

For all those who graduate after learning skills in school, the school will be responsible for arranging corresponding jobs and paying wages and related benefits.

The territory will also hold assessments regularly. For those who fail three skill assessments, the territory will arrange new skill learning. For those who still fail, the territory will deprive them of their status as territory citizens and expel them from the territory.

Please work hard, actively learn skills, and do your part to contribute to the development of the territory.

Above

Talboria, Count of Aix

Then Aix asked the leaders to organize each group to conduct lectures, answer the questions of the people, dispel their concerns, and guide them to choose appropriate skills and occupations.

The territory will then organize the existing craftsmen in the workshop to open skill training classes in the school, and recruit the corresponding number of people for training based on the labor needs of the workshop.

Due to personal preferences, the number of workers employed in each workshop varies, so some workshops may not be able to recruit enough or even no workers, and some workshops may have too many applicants. The territory does not intervene excessively, but uses the magic weapon of "money power" to set a basic salary first. If no one wants to work and the workshops do not have enough workers, the salary will be increased until the full number of workers are hired. If there are too many applicants and everyone is scrambling to work in the workshop, the salary will be reduced to reduce the enthusiasm of applicants. With this balance, it can be guaranteed that all workshops can recruit enough skilled workers.

In addition, in order to ensure that the subjects have enough time for rest and entertainment, Aix also has mandatory regulations that the maximum working hours per day should not exceed eight hours, and there should be at least one day off per week, as well as holidays during busy farming seasons and festivals.

In order to ensure the quality of rest for the subjects, Aix also opened leisure places such as taverns, bathhouses, and theaters in the commercial district of the inner village, as well as daily necessities stores that sell all kinds of goods, striving to ensure that the subjects can spend the money they earn in the village and take it home when they leave.

In order to guide the people ideologically and make them understand the direction of their struggle, Aix also personally wrote a stage play called "My Happy Life". The content of the script roughly tells the story of a poor man who came to the territory and how he worked hard to get rich step by step, and finally got married, had children and lived a happy life.

The script was supervised and rehearsed by the famous troubadour Nizza, while the three women, Yamila, Kress and Catherine, were responsible for the recruitment and training of actors. Amanti and Old John were responsible for the planning of the venue and contacting the workshops to make the props. Bandak and Fatis led the army soldiers to provide support and do all the hard and heavy work.

After half a month of hard work, everyone went from being awkward to being proficient, from laughing constantly to speaking fluently. Although there were still problems sometimes, with Aix's personal guidance and encouragement, they finally performed the script to a passable level. Aix encouraged them to learn to grow in battle, and allowed them to perform for free to all the citizens of the territory on this weekend night.

Unexpectedly, this performance with many bumps and problems caused a strong response among the subjects. It made these poor people in the Middle Ages realize for the first time that their lives could be like this and that there were still many areas for them to strive for. They were so much so that they were asked to perform additional days in a row and still received constant praise.

At the same time, Aix also carried out some other publicity work based on the actual situation of the territory. The most important thing was to write a lot of positive energy slogans in crowded and prominent places in the territory, such as "No pain, no gain", "Solidarity and friendship are the basic qualities of every citizen", "Defending the territory is everyone's responsibility", "Protect the environment and do not urinate or defecate anywhere", etc.

The most famous are the slogans on the high walls on both sides of the inner village gate, on which are written two huge lines of words in lime powder: You have to work hard with your hands to get rich, and Talboliya does not support idle people.