At the end of the Tang Dynasty, it was a feudal town, but in Western Europe

The most important thing is that job fields and Yongye fields are conflated, and they are operated by several generations. If they are not hereditary, they will be hereditary.

And Feng Sen's decree is to separate the official and the noble, and use the method of salary increase in exchange for the power in the earl's hands, and distinguish the title of earl from the power and responsibility of the local governor.

What Feng Sen has to do is to advance by retreating. The taxes of the seven counties will not be collected for a while anyway, so he can not use it in exchange for higher centralization.

Chapter 248 A Bloody Banquet

For the Earls, this was already a pleasant surprise, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was a pie in the sky.

The earls were stunned for two seconds, and after reacting, they quickly shouted: "I agree, of course I agree."

"The lord is wise!"

"My lord, my daughter is 14 years old this year, and I admire you very much..."

[-]% of the taxes, the Earl only felt that his blood was on fire. In the past, their income was only one-third of the grain and fines collected by the workers, but now, within the scope of their territory, [-]% of all the land taxes belonged to them.

The earls had objections to Feng Sen before, because they felt that he was biased, and what they objected to was why the Saxons did not pay taxes, but they themselves had to pay them, but now, everything is different.

The Earl of Eresberg knew that the trouble he had discussed with the other earls was gone, and he also knew that the other party would not be able to do so. Such a mouthful of blood is not a loss.

But in fact, the food towns that the earls can manage are quite limited.

In Charles' time, regions were divided into counties (comitatus), roughly the size of a Roman city, or an area settled by a Germanic tribe.

And each earl basically has to work with a bishop, and the two sides cooperate. Generally, the earl is in charge of the city and the upper-level construction, while the church is in charge of the grass-roots governance.

The point is that counties are not connected to each other.

In other words, the earls' control did not extend to the entire territory, they were only representatives of the power center of the territory. According to Feng Sen's secret investigation, it would be good if the earl's actual controlled territory accounted for one-third of the entire land.

As far as Feng Sen knew, there was even an earl's territory with only a castle the size of a village, like isolated islands in the wild sea.

There was no way to do this. During the Five Barbarians and Chaos Period, the damage to the kingdom's rule was too great. Communication and communication could only rely on the severely damaged ancient Roman roads and slow barges, and the emperor could directly control very limited managers.

In order to manage these territories, Charlie had to do it as a last resort. Like a processing factory, he put models one by one on the newly conquered lands, forming a highly homogeneous but independent rule.

The land measurement this time is only to confirm the sealed land, and the missing tax can be fully made up by Feng Sen through establishing churches and reclaiming the remaining wasteland in the future.

So, in fact, this move just created a bunch of military lords. In the future, it is impossible to change their earls to soldiers.

"Very good." Feng Sen applauded with a smile, "In order to determine your food town, you need to measure the land and count the population, so I will send agricultural officials and priests to measure the land, help collect taxes, teach people to plant better, and preach. Do you agree?"

"Agree, agree!" The earls replied happily.

Thinking that these people existed to determine the land for themselves, none of the earls said anything wrong, only the earl of Eresburg felt a little strange, but he didn't think much about it, after all, he was also greedy for Feng Sen's manure, he had prepared it himself Quite a lot, but judging from this year's growth, it is still not as high as Feng Sen's territory.

This kind of thing means that the people here have no experience, and they are replaced by officials from the Central Plains. The central and local governments have been fighting for hundreds of years.

That is, their history books, waiting for Feng Sen to teach them a good lesson.

Pressing his hands, the chatter of the counts slowly stopped, Feng Sen smiled, and continued: "But correspondingly, I will start this year, and I will gradually move my wool spinning workshop and printing and dyeing workshop to Hannover.

I hope to get your support, because this is what the heavenly father guides me to do for the benefit of his people. No matter how many devils and heretics stop me, I will complete it! "

It is said that they hope to get support, but the earls all understand that this means, don't make trouble, or you will be sent to hell when the time comes, the kind that is merciless.

The earls nodded in agreement, and wished Feng Sen prosperity and endless life.

"Okay, now that the serious stuff is out of the way, let's talk about something light.

This year is a good harvest year, so I also decided to give all the guests here a Christmas gift, even if you are a Saxon, please don’t refuse, the Heavenly Father is merciful to all the lost lambs. "

Cheers erupted in an instant.

"Thank you for your generosity!"

"It's like an angel came to me!"

On the tall seat, Feng Sen sat upright, accepting the nobles to come forward and salute one by one.

"You're that boy Cleon's uncle, aren't you? Well, well, well, he's doing well, married three wives, and he's gained a lot of weight. Come, take these two barrels of beer and four horses."

"Oh, Gisela, this is a cousin. Well, I heard that your grain harvest was not good this year, so you didn't pay taxes. That's a pity."

"You are? Oh, you are the chief of Blanken. You have paid all your food this year, right? Oh, and you have given birth to three big fat boys, right? Come, take this amber, ten bolts of cloth, ten Bucket of beer, oh yes, and three bolts of cloth to make clothes for the boy."

After seeing off the chubby Chief Blanco, the Salzgitter Chief came up with a smile on his face: "Hello, Your Excellency, I am Chief Salzgitter Nicholas."

"okay."

Feng Sen also picked up a handful of air from the empty plate with a smile, and poured it carefully into his hands. Chief Salzgitter looked at the empty hands in a daze, and subconsciously murmured: "Li, what about the gift... "

"Where's your gift?" Feng Sen asked him with a half-smile, "Where are my taxes going?"

"I……"

The chief of Salzgitter was blocked in his mouth before he could say anything, blood dripped down Feng Sen's long sword to the ground, and the headless corpse slowly fell to the ground, twitching from time to time.

It was as if a basin of cold water had been poured on the originally lively hall, and everyone held their breath.

"Christmas should be the time to exchange gifts." Amidst the exclamation, Feng Sen coldly threw his head in the middle of the hall, "The gift you gave me is the priest who intercepted me, this is my return gift!"

Looking around the hall, Feng Sen said slowly, the voice was not loud, but every nobleman could hear clearly:

"Today is Christmas, I don't want to see blood, but there are always some people who ignore my kindness, my Saxon brothers, before, you promised well, right? You admitted to be my vassal, right?

Correspondingly, I also fulfilled my promise to help you end the war, so that your population will no longer be plundered, and you will be able to get a fair trial when you encounter a lawsuit. How do you repay me?

I have exempted you from tithes this year, and you only need to pay thirty ones, but what about you?If you don't hand it over, it's fine, attack Griffith, kill my tax collector, do you think I dare not kill?

Let me tell you, three days ago, when I found out that he had robbed my tax collection team, I had already sent cavalry to his tribe. If there were no accidents, his tribe had already been captured by me.

And my punishment is very simple, the men are punished as slaves, and the women are given to be wrapped in clothes as wives.

I don't mind fighting another Saxon war, and you'll be happy if you're all killed and dead?Thirty tax one, you go ask outside, which lord only collects such a low tax?

Well, look at him, he also fought with me against the enemy, but now I have to cut off his head, Saxon is rotten, my heart is going to break, I advise you, what was promised If you do what you say, if you can't do it... then don't blame me for turning out the intestines of those traitors, drying them in the sun, and tidying them up!Check to see if it's blackened! "

Chapter 249 A Small Banquet in Rome

While Feng Sen was massacring at the Christmas dinner in Bremen, on the other hand, Charlie's Christmas dinner in Rome was peaceful.

On the streets of Rome, priests and priests, wearing black or gray robes and holding a cross taller than a person, slowly moved forward, stepping on the thousand-year-old stone road, and pilgrims from far away from Iberia, Aleppo, and even Jerusalem followed behind the priest, chanting sutras fervently.

On both sides of the street, countless clergy or ordinary people sprinkled holy water, bowing their heads to send blessings and prayers to these pious fanatics.

This is a Christmas ceremony. In churches large and small in Rome, countless believers hold hands, or simply hold hands with each other, form a big circle, and perform mass in front of priests or crosses.

The bell of St. Peter's Church rang, arousing the birds in the forest. The melodious bell spread outward in the setting sun, and spread throughout Rome like ripples.

After the bell, the angelic melodious and clear chanting of the choir resounded throughout Rome. These songs sang loudly the miracles of Isaiah and the saints.

Outside St. Peter's Church at the moment, apart from the devoutly praying priests and believers, the most conspicuous ones are the group of Frankish knights wearing chain mail, exuding a faint stench and chilling aura. Most of them are dressed in blue, Wearing a burqa embroidered with the family crest.

In St. Peter's Church, Charles and Pope Hadrian I were sitting at a solid wooden table with their eyes closed, quietly feeling the sacred atmosphere until the arrival of the meat waiter.

A waiter in black carefully brought a plate of meat with a towel, followed behind him, and other waiters also put butter, hummus, cheese, white bread and various fruits, vegetables and nuts on the table.

However, except for the fat and thin plate of steamed pork with fermented soybeans, the rest of the food is very small. After all, there is a Christmas dinner at night, so this can only be regarded as a mat for the old Romans before dinner.

After praying for a while, Charlie picked up the silver chopsticks, picked up a piece of sauced meat with fat, and stuffed it into his mouth.

"It's like a cloud, it melts in your mouth."

But the Pope smiled and didn't respond. He really couldn't eat this kind of fat meat. He just tore off a small piece of white bread, spread butter on it, and chewed slowly.

In official history, the relationship between the Pope and Charles has always been deep. Some scholars even said that the coronation of Charles as Roman Emperor was actually led by Pope Hadrian I, and Charles himself did not even think about it.

The deep friendship between the two should have been cultivated from the war against the Lombards.

In 772, that was the fourth year of Charles' succession, and his younger brother Carloman had just died a year earlier. Charles took the opportunity to declare himself the sole king of the Franks and annexed his younger brother's territory. The remnants of his family fled to the land of the Lombards with his widow.

With the support of the Lombards, Carloman's widow declared that her son had the right to inherit the Frankish kingdom, trying to split Frank, and her request was to let the Pope of Rome anoint her son. If the Pope refused, the Lombards would go south, attack Rome, and force the Pope to anoint her.

Under such circumstances, Hadrian I withstood the heavy pressure and stood firmly on Charles' side, unwilling to anoint him until Charles miraculously crossed the Alps, launched a pincer offensive, and completely defeated the Lombards.

The personal relationship between Charlemagne and the Pope is very deep, but the ass determines the head, and the two belong to a political alliance after all.

On the one hand, the Pope relied on Charlemagne's military strength. Rome was sandwiched between the Lombard barbarians and the Greek Eastern Empire. He needed a strong support, but on the other hand, he also wanted to retain the independence of Rome.

As the pope of Rome, he also undertakes the noble mission of the church for centuries:

One is to try to maintain the original power of the church, and the other is to unify beliefs, preserve culture and rebuild civilization.

This led to the fact that although Hadrian I was not as powerful as his later generations, he at least tried his best to maintain a certain degree of independence.

This is reflected in the controversy over icon worship and the approval of the Council of Nicaea.

"Is the Pope curious about the tableware in my hand?" Charlemagne laughed when he saw the Pope looking at the chopsticks in his hand, "These are called chopsticks, and they come from Siris in the East. Recently, many people eat and drink with this tableware.

Because the nobles believed that silver chopsticks could expel the heat of meat and balance the body fluids, but in fact, since using chopsticks, the diarrhea has indeed decreased a lot.

With this kind of chopsticks, the soup will not be spilled on the precious silk or fur, but it is very difficult to learn, but it has become a toy for the noble earls. Only the nobles can use chopsticks. Nobles can be so polite. "

Seeing Charlie holding the chopsticks awkwardly, the Pope smiled and replied, "But my lord, you prefer to grab it with your hands, right?"

A smile bloomed on Charlie's face. Regardless of the hot steam, he grabbed a handful of fat with three fingers and threw it into his mouth: "Yes, I prefer the way Franks eat, this is a Frank The way a man should eat."

Dipping the broth with white bread, the Pope took a bite: "Where did that thing called soy sauce come from?"

"Like chopsticks, it comes from Seres in the East. The raw material is a crop called soybean. This soybean can also be eaten directly like our chickpeas, but it can also be made into soy sauce. In fact, it is similar to our butter, except that one is sweet and the other is salty.

I have sent people to try planting, and the growth is gratifying. You can actually plant one acre and reap five, which is much higher than wheat, but this thing is not resistant to hunger, so it can be used to feed horses at most. "

In fact, with the gradual expansion of the agricultural technology brought by Feng Sen, in Charlie's royal territory, the land planted with new technology has achieved a significant increase in production.

In the fertile Paris Basin, in the hands of those Romanized aristocratic families with good farming traditions, a result of 1+1>2 has even been achieved, and there has been a magical yield of ten per mu, and even a small number of fields have yield ratios Feng Sen is tall.

The Pope said with a sigh: "This year is a miraculous year. Not only the war is over, but the food harvest is also abundant. We are going to hold a large-scale blessing ceremony. At that time, I will invite the priests of Byzantium to participate."

Charlie licked his fingers: "Are they willing to come too?"

"Since the pious Irina came to power and carried out the movement to restore icons, I think that maybe in our generation, we may be able to bridge the division between the Eastern and Western churches."

"I also hope to see the Heavenly Father brothers of the Eastern and Western churches unite again." Charlie took a sip of the honey water that relieved his tiredness. As a Heavenly Father, he may not be very pious in the relationship between men and women. But Charlie was sometimes stricter than the priest when it came to eating and drinking—he hardly drank.

Swallowing the soaked bread into his throat comfortably, Hadrian I said plainly: "In order to publicize and record this event, I am going to copy the Gospel part from another [-] copies of the "Sun Salutation" and give it to those pilgrims , on this point, I need your support."

"No problem." Charlie smoothed his drooping hair with his greasy hands indifferently, "I'll just talk to my adopted son, and let him collect the shares given to the merchants and pass them on to you."

"Didn't you send craftsmen to learn the craft of this kind of Seris paper?"

"No." Charlie sprinkled a pinch of pepper on the stewed mutton, "I'm going to take away his soybean seeds, his bow-making skills, his manure recipes, and his agricultural techniques, but in order to make up The loss, even the Danish king's indemnity was not distributed to him, forcing him to ask the Jews to borrow money for development.

It would be too greedy to take away even the skill of making paper. "

The Pope nodded slightly, lowered his head and ate two bites of food, and continued to ask: "This year's bumper harvest, what will His Highness plan to do with the extra food and taxes?"

Charlie replied without raising his head: "Anthony told the renovation methods of those ancient Roman roads, and I plan to renovate those main roads, so that the dispatch of troops will be much faster, and there will be no need to fight a year in advance. Inform the nobles everywhere."

"That's good. If there is a rebellion somewhere, it should be pacified sooner, so that the castle will not be captured and the news of the bandits' appearance will be seen by the lord." The pope pondered for a while, and said, "You'd better leave another ration. I heard that the Bretons are showing signs of commotion again. The island of Britain has not been peaceful recently."

2 Chapter Fifty

Perhaps in the farther North Sea, some savage Vikings angered the mighty Kraken Kraken, so he was so angry that he spit out a cloud of mist from his mouth, which dyed the sky gray and the sea water black.

On the black sea, the trireme broke white waves in the black water, the seagulls sang, and the long oars turned, like a long worm, crawling continuously on the sea.

Behind this trireme, followed by twenty or so large and small sea ships and Viking longships, moving forward little by little.

Holding on to the armrest of the galley warship, Edbert III looked at the gray-blue sky, everything seemed so blurred in the bits of rain.

Edbert said to Fowles beside him: "I used to like this kind of weather very much. I stayed on the high tower of the castle, with the stove beside me. My priest Ewen and I told many stories about saints and pagans. My mother would also come to me in this kind of weather and tell me about the history of Kent."

There was no expression on Fowles' face: "You can definitely go back."

"Will there be such a day?" Edbert continued to look at the distant sea and the endless sea-sky line, "When the Romans hired us Jutes to defend against pirates, did you think that the Jutes would lose their hometown again?"

During the British occupation period, Kent, located in the southeast of the British Isle, was often plundered and attacked by pirates.

In order to resist the invasion of these pirates, the Romans once again took out the means of using barbarians to control barbarians, and hired a large number of barbarians to form a new army to resist the invasion of pirates. It was during this period that the Jutes gradually settled in the land of Kent.

With the decline of Rome, a large number of Saxon-Anglos landed in Britain from the sea and built kingdoms one by one, which is the so-called Seven Kingdoms of Saxon: Northumbria, Mercia, Anglo, Wessex, Kent, Egypt. Sykes and Sussex.

But by the time of the 8th century, when the two kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria gradually rose, the whole of Britain began to have a big mess, and the dog's brains were about to be played out.

And Kent is undoubtedly the loser of this big mess.

First, he became a vassal of Mercia. With the rise of the virtuous king, Offa, his desire for Kent's expansion became more and more obvious. In the end, he simply stopped pretending and had a showdown. It was a combination of punches that directly turned Kent into a province of Mercia, and the royal family of Kent was almost wiped out.

Edbert III was the prince of Kent. After the country was destroyed, he urgently contacted Fowles, who had just returned with the woolen cloth, and borrowed his fleet and the last few galleys of Kent to flee to Frank. , asking Charlie for help.