Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 23 Unpopular Moscow
Since everyone came to the meeting one after another, Li Xuanying began to complain to Guo Kang in a low voice.

This guy was so eloquent that he even gave Guo Kang the feeling of secretly chatting with his deskmate behind his back when he went to school when he was a child.

"I have always felt that these people are not very trustworthy." He glanced at the representatives of the Ross vassal state opposite him, and said in a low voice: "But to be honest, it would be worse if the Greek officials were to manage it-they must They will extort money, fill their pockets, force all the local civilians and nobles to rebel, and then flee back like hell, let us clean up the mess."

"Then don't worry about it." Guo Kang pointed out: "Sooner or later, people's hearts will be ours."

Although his words were a bit harsh, Guo Kang felt that they were surprisingly reasonable.

The level of the Greeks' land scraping is indeed amazing.It is said that when the Arabs came out of the peninsula, the reason why they were not hindered too much was because Eastern Rome and Sasanian Persia were so exploited.Even with the religious tax of pagans, the Arabs received a lower proportion than them.Therefore, many people would rather seek refuge with the Arabs than follow the empire.

Even if there is no long-term war, the tax of Eastern Rome can be received in a wealthy area like Thrace, where the population cannot grow.This method of exploitation was later perfectly inherited by Osman.In modern times when the world's population is growing rapidly, Ottoman forced the population of Egypt and Asia Minor back to the level of the three generations of ancient times.It can only be said that the people here are a bit powerful...

Of course, different civilizations and different regions seem to have different taxation habits.For example, the Arab tax is too high in the East.Even though the extra tax was exempted, the people of Central Asia still could not accept the taxes paid by the Arab Empire, and they staged anti-tax riots every three days, hoping that the Tang Dynasty would manage it and drive the Arabs away.

It is also because of this that the Tang Dynasty and its affiliated forces are very popular in the local area most of the time-because they want less.Every time, the Tang Dynasty was able to obtain more information and more sufficient supplies, so that in theory, the Arab army could suffer losses because they were not as familiar with the roads, terrain, and water sources as the opponents in their own control areas.

Military operations went smoothly until Gao Xianzhi backtracked and massacred the city, scaring away the local followers.

Therefore, everyone in the Khan Court actually understands that the best way to gain support from the locals is to charge less money.This is much more useful than religion, political system and so on.The support of the local people is actually part of the strategic advantage.This advantage can directly affect the combat effectiveness of the army, and then affect the outcome of the war.

Of course, there are many factors that determine the outcome of a war, and this is only one of them.But unless the difference in combat effectiveness in other aspects is large enough, this factor still has to be taken into consideration—at least, this factor cannot be ignored under the level of combat effectiveness gap between the regular army of the Tang Dynasty and the black-clothed food.

"Aren't your father and the Poles fighting now?" Li Xuanying asked.

"Not yet." Guo Kang said, "But we are not afraid of them. This time we are fully prepared."

The system of the Purple Horde came more from the Liao Kingdom, or from the Tang Dynasty.East Asia is a tax depression.The Guo family's farmland on the northern shore of the Black Sea, the tax is one-fifteenth, and the actual share of the farmer's head will reach about one-third.However, this tax is already very low locally.

Next door, Poland, implements a system based on labor rent.To put it simply, it is similar to the well field system.The difference from the Western Zhou Dynasty is that they are calculated according to the working hours rather than the working area.Peasants had to work on the lord's private fields 3 to 4 days a week.During the busy farming season, because the lord asked to intensify the cultivation of his private fields, the labor time had to be increased, and some people could even add it to six days.

This is just one of them.Since the vast majority of people are serfs, they don't even own the tools themselves.Therefore, livestock equipment such as cattle, horses, and plows had to be rented from the lord, and then a sum of rent was extorted.If the grown grain wanted to be processed, they had to rent the lord's mill, which was also one of the lord's main sources of income.Like this kind of miscellaneous taxes, I don't know how much they will add up, basically it depends on the mood of the lord.

Therefore, Polish serfs in the border areas often fled and came here to seek refuge.

In Eastern Europe, due to the degree of exploitation of everyone, it is very common for serfs to flee, and they even form their own village communities and even political power.These people call themselves "free people" or "Cossacks" in the local language.

With the existence of the Purple Horde Khanate, serfs fled more frequently, and many of them were recruited by Guo and others.The Polish aristocrats were outraged, and the Council of the Republic even urgently issued a letter of credence in the end, protesting to most parties, thinking that everyone is fighting a war, and your approach is too unkind.As an aristocrat, to curry favor with the serfs and poach the corners of other aristocrats, is he still talking about the rules? Does he have dignity?
Everyone in the Guo family didn't know how to answer him.Finally, Lama Wang came forward and told the envoy that we were Nestorian heretics and did not abide by the rules of the Catholic nobles, so we dealt with the matter.

"I'm afraid we won't be able to wait." Li Xuanying continued from the side: "Actually, not only the Poles, but also many serfs and even soldiers from the Rus countries, who escaped to join us. It will take a long time, and it is estimated that there will be a second Civil War. I was mentally prepared anyway.”

"Don't be afraid. Anyway, the Muscovites will report it to us in time." Guo Kang joked: "A few days ago, the representative of Novgorod asked Da Khan to complain. If they don’t collect enough taxes, they will directly rob their caravans.”

"Moscow also denied it, saying that it was not a robbery, but a legal tax collection. Anyway, the difference between the two is not very obvious, so they didn't argue for a reason. I think this time they have to fight again."

"Moscow has always been disliked by them." Li Xuanying nodded and said, "Tver has failed these years. Otherwise, he might have to gang up on him."

(End of this chapter)