The entire July Valley Barony is busy. As the leader of both military and civilian affairs, Art keeps shuttling between the army and the territory every day.
On the fourth Friday of July, Art finally had a day off. He planned to take his two deerhounds into the mountains to hunt for fun, but he got news that an old friend had come to the valley.
The visitor is none other than Art’s knightly brother—the palace guard knight David Patrick.
Since we said goodbye in Salburg last year, we haven't seen each other for more than half a year. The spring appointment at that time was postponed for several months, but when we saw each other again, Art had become a baron.
Hall of the lord of the wooden castle in the valley, Art and Odo Angus, several army commanders, accompanied David and his party to hold a simple dinner.
After a few glasses of delicious beer, David started chatting with everyone, "Baron, sirs, please forgive me for breaking the promise. I have been fighting against the Swabians from the beginning of this spring to now, and I really can't get away to see you." David apologized to Art as soon as they met.
Matt also generally knew what happened after David returned to the north. After returning north from Provence, David was recommended by Art's personal letter and knocked on the door of Count Baldwin's mansion with a gift of five thousand pfennigs. Afterwards, Count Baldwin won a military reward for David. The palace guard knight David Patrick was granted a fief in a village located on the northeastern border of Jonne Province in the County of Burgundy because of his outstanding military exploits in Provence...
“...There is no way, it is not easy to obtain a fief. After I was granted the title, I sent the bones of the brothers who died in the war and a piece of comfort gold back to my hometown, and then took a few surviving old brothers to the fief to take up their posts.”
"I expected that the fief granted by the palace would not be rich, because the rich fief would never be enjoyed by a meager person like me. But what surprised me was that when someone introduced that the land granted to me by the palace was very fertile, the village was also very wealthy, and there were more than 100 households and more than 400 people in the territory. I was really excited for a few days at that time. "
“But within two days I couldn’t be happy anymore. After careful inquiry, I found out that I was already the third lord of that place in two years. Because almost every time the place just regained its vitality, the Swabians would lead an army to raid and plunder. When I came to the territory, the lord Most of the people have left, and there are only about two hundred old and weak people left in the territory." After listening to David's experience, Art took another look at the sophisticated weapons and armor on David and his followers, guessing that this brave knight must have a wonderful story.
Matt raised his hand towards David, motioning for him to continue speaking.
David picked up the wine glass and waved it towards Art and everyone, took a sip, wiped his hideous and ugly face with his hand, and continued: "My brothers and I who followed me to the territory to take up posts all crawled out from the pile of dead people. Swabia can be tolerated there. People oppressed and plundered my territory. Soon, I gathered the remaining twenty young and strong citizens in the territory, bought a batch of weapons and armor to equip them, and then trained continuously in the territory..."
"Finally, when the ice and snow had just melted in early spring, we ambushed a group of Swabians who came to plunder, killing eight people on the spot and repelling more than 30 people. That battle greatly encouraged the people of the territory, and many people who had fled originally heard that After hearing about our victory, they all returned to their hometowns, and soon I gathered about fifty young and strong people, and the monk Chaucer in my territory also joined my team to resist foreign enemies, representing God to help us defeat the enemies and defend our homeland. "
As David spoke, he turned sideways and let Art glance at the thin monk sitting next to him. Art nodded and bowed slightly.
"With the advice of Brother Chaucer, we not only withstood two Swabian retaliations in succession, but also took the initiative to attack the outposts of the Swabian army and several small garrison camps, killing more than thirty enemies, and seized a lot of weapons, armor, and baggage money..."
David told about some of their most intense and thrilling battles, which made all the officers at the banquet excited.
"Baron, I have to thank you for your generosity. If it weren't for the 20,000 pfennigs you lent me, I wouldn't have been able to knock on Count Baldwin's mansion. Without Count Baldwin's help, my military exploits would not have been achieved, and the matter of obtaining the fief would have been far away."
“Thanks to your generosity, I have enough money to summon the young men to buy weapons, armor and equipment to fight against the Swabians...”
David raised the wine glass in his hand, stood up, bowed deeply to At, and said sincerely: “Lord At, from Provence You stretched out your righteous hand to save me from the fire of hell on this battlefield, and you generously showed me the way. Without you, there would be no place for me and my new friends today. This glass of wine represents my most sincere respect for you!” David drank the wine in one gulp.
Att also raised his glass in return and drank it in one gulp.
“This time I brought 20,000 pfennigs in money and a war horse captured from the Swabians. The money is returned to you, and the war horse is a gift for your promotion to baron.” The profits from the war were huge. After a few battles, David’s purse was bulging, and he acted generously.
At the moment, Art is really short of money, so he is not polite to David, "Sir David, I have accepted the 20,000 pfennigs and the horses..."
David and his party are not in the valley. The lord stayed longer because this time he visited Count Baldwin in Besançon before going south. Baldwin secretly gave David the mission of "training soldiers in preparation for driving", so he had to rush back to the fief to continue training soldiers and accept the call of Count Baldwin at any time.
….
At the end of July, Yate held a meeting (military council) in the civil affairs and the army respectively. These two meetings only did one thing-announced military decrees and civil affairs codes.
The recruitment of new soldiers has not yet officially started, so the current number of the army is not too large. All combat team leaders (including other soldiers who enjoy benefits) and officers under Art's command have received officer training in the officer academy, so there is no need to recruit them separately. At the military council, Art personally signed and read out the "Legion Decree".
The "Legion Decree" is divided into three major parts, including 18 prohibitions, 15 military regulations, and 6 promotion and retreat.
The most important part of military law is the eighteen prohibitions, including "five beheadings, six tarts, and seven punishments."
"Five beheadings" include disobeying military orders in war and beheading; escaping from battle in war and beheading; disrupting the morale of the army in war and beheading; private fighting and killing in the army and beheading; smuggling huge amounts of war loot and beheading.
"Six Tarts" refers to the six situations in which one is punished by a military stick, namely, contradicting an officer on a daily basis, wounding someone in a private fight in the army, stealing military supplies, losing equipment during war, training for cheating, bullying good people, and other crimes that the chief officer deems necessary to be whipped. The "Six Tarts" can be upgraded to beheading by the chief officer in wartime or in a state of emergency.
"Seven Punishments" generally refers to minor punishments that require forfeiture of military pay or imprisonment, such as officers who are not qualified in literacy, soldiers whose training is not up to standard, soldiers who compete for power and profit, and who are noisy during marches, etc.
The Fifteen Articles of Military Administration include matters related to daily management such as soldier training content standards, battle formation skills, soldiers' pay and benefits, weapons and armor maintenance and equipment, marching and camping patrol sentries, army baggage collection and transportation, etc.
The Ten Articles of Promotion and Retirement include the calculation of military merit of soldiers and officers, the standards for issuing military rewards, the requirements for military merit for promotion, the punishment standards for demotion, etc.
The entire "Legislative Decree" contains less than fifty articles. The content is simple and popular, without complicated text embellishments.
Yat requires all soldiers and officers above the army combat team leader to memorize the "Legion Decree", and the content of the decree must be taught to all soldiers under his command in the future. The future training of the new recruits will also include the content of being proficient in the "Legislation Act"...
...
Compared with the simplicity and strictness of rewards and punishments in the "Legislative Decree", the code of the civil affairs system is much more complex and cumbersome.
The law promulgated by the Civil Affairs Bureau is named the "Territorial Code" and covers many fields such as land distribution, tax collection, military service, public security and stability, and workshop and commerce.
There are four core areas in the "Territorial Code".
The first is land distribution. The "Territory Code" clearly stipulates that the two fief lands in the Valley Barony all belong to the court frontier baron Art Wood Wells. The freemen (territory residents) of the territory enjoy the "allotment rights" of the lifelong lease of the lord's land on the condition of fulfilling their land obligations. The "allotment rights" are based on the farming population. The amount of land each farmer can obtain depends on the number of people in his family engaged in farming. The specific allocation and rent of land is controlled by the civil government, but it must be based on the principle of justice.
Those who enjoy "land rights" are a class between serfs and yeoman farmers. They have a free status but do not have private land. Every free territorial citizen who has sworn allegiance to the lord, fulfilled the obligations of the territorial citizen, and has the ability to farm can obtain a piece of land from the lord. The territorial citizen's land can be managed and managed by himself. If the territorial citizen loses the ability to cultivate, refuses to perform land obligations, or violates the territorial code, the lord has the right to unconditionally take back the land.
In addition to the most commonly applicable "land allotment rights", the "Territorial Code" also stipulates several special land distribution systems, namely "honorary land rights", "granted land rights" and "public land system".
"Honored land rights" are mainly for military officers and soldiers and civil affairs officials (ordinary citizens also enjoy it under special circumstances). When they retire due to war injuries or are killed in battle, or when they receive major achievements, the lord will personally grant them to them. The honorary land is privately owned by the recipient. The honorary land holder only needs to pay war tax, and all other taxes are exempted. The honorary land can be inherited through certain procedures. Yate once granted permanent land to soldiers who were killed or wounded in battle (retired), which is called "Honored Land".
"Land rights" are essentially the "rights to allocate land" to the subjects, but "land rights" enjoy tax, rent, and other rights within a certain time limit. The first batch of territorial residents who were granted "five years to own the land" enjoyed "granted land rights", and the land they rented enjoyed land tax reductions and exemptions for ten years.
“Public land” is land directly under the jurisdiction of the civil administration. The civil administration pays for the employment of farmers or the recruitment of war slaves (rehabilitated criminals) for cultivation. The crops harvested are completely owned by the civil administration and allocated and used by the civil administration.
The second is tax collection. With the expansion of the territory of the Baron of the Valley, land tax will become an important component of the territory's fiscal revenue, so Art increased the share of land tax collection and divided the territory's land tax into land rent tax (one-tenth), head tax (one-tenth), public security tax (low amount), territory construction tax (low amount), and tithes collected on behalf of the church.
The third issue is service. Art is determined to establish an army based on a standing army in the territory. The army under his command is mainly a professional army, supplemented by temporary conscripts (peasants and soldiers). Therefore, in the "Territorial Code", the forty-day military service period of the territorial citizens is replaced by the payment of shield tax. This tax is used to support the army. At the same time, the code also stipulates that the territorial citizens must receive paid training according to the arrangement (receive military training for a certain period of time, and the lord will provide the trained subjects with food supply and symbolic salary) and respond to the call for free in a state of emergency (in a state of war) and the territory is subject to unconditional taxation when threatened); at the same time, the "Territorial Code" also stipulates the issue of corvee for the territorial residents. In order to allow farmers to work full-time in farming and production, Yat allows the subordinates to use the labor tax to replace the corvee. As long as the tax is paid, the subordinates do not have to put down their farm work and work for the lord, and the labor tax they pay will be used to hire laborers.
The fourth issue is public security. Faced with the rapid increase in the population of the territory and the increasingly severe problems of public security, the "Territorial Code" stipulates the code of conduct that territorial residents must abide by, punitive measures for violating the code and laws, etc.
Matching the content of the Public Security Code, there are also the establishment of two institutions-the Sheriff and the Territorial Judge. The magistrate is concurrently served by the commander of the valley garrison, and the standing peasant soldiers of the garrison are also responsible for the security forces; the territorial judge is concurrently served by the civil affairs officer, responsible for trial, conviction, sentencing, and code interpretation.
The "Territorial Code" is written on parchment and spread throughout the territory to be read.