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

Among the local output, the income from food and agricultural products in the territory directly under Feng Sen still accounted for the majority.

Under the previous condition of "not serving in the military for three years", the freedmen had a lot more time to do their own things, and even started to open up new fields spontaneously.

For various reasons, although Hamburg has produced a lot of food in recent years, Feng Sen had to buy agricultural products and clothes from the private sector in order to train soldiers' uniforms and wages.

A large amount of Denier and Solidar flowed into the hands of ordinary civilians. What would ordinary civilians do with their money?It is nothing more than basic necessities, food, housing and transportation. They can basically produce and sell their own clothes and food. At most, they can buy some cheap rotten wool to wear, and they don’t go out very much. The most important thing is to live.

If you have little money, just buy some wood and build a wooden house.

Those who have a lot of money, of course, go directly to brick and tile houses. A large number of black brick and black tile houses were built in the countryside and manors. In addition, the Lijia system naturally required people to live together, so new villages and even new towns popped up.

During this period, the Saxony Church led by Zhenhui played a very important role. The construction of the dirt road at the grassroots level was basically organized and constructed by the itinerant priests sent by the church and the elders.

"...The net income from selling bricks and tiles this year is 2450 Solidars." Flipping through the account book, Feng Sen continued to read silently, "This year's income from beer, woolen and other groceries is 8000 Solidars..."

The income from beer and wool has experienced a big explosion this year. Although the net income of these two items is not high, fortunately they are in great demand.

Especially beer. In some places, clear water is not easy to preserve, so beer is used as a preservative for drinking water, and this kind of beer has also been approved by many monasteries.

They think that this kind of beer will not have the effect of Cui Qin after drinking, and it is more simple and pure than ordinary Groot beer, which has been recognized by many ascetic monks and monasteries.

However, the church still has an ambiguous attitude in this regard, because part of the church's income comes from brewing Groot beer, but Feng Sen took care of Charlie's close minister and the powerful duke, and the church did not do much except warn and silently resist.

Feng Sen picked up the pen and wrote down the two key words church and beer on the paper beside him.

This year's woolen income has been rising, mainly because the North Sea trade has restarted. West British merchants carry woolen goods and can exchange a lot of goods such as honey, guano, cattle, etc. in Pomerania, but in ancient Prussia and Karelia, they can't produce anything of value.

But fortunately, the warrior nobles of ancient Prussia still had at least one specialty that they could sell, which was the ancient Prussians.

These Prussian slaves were collected by Feng Sen at the price of one solidida per person. They could be used as domestic slaves for Feng Sen, or they could be used as coats for the Eight Banners. If not, they could also be sold to free people. Anyway, they were heretics.

In any case, good quality and cheap.

Merchants in West Britain traded woolen cloth for slaves from the Baltic coast, sold it in Hamburg for money, and then took the money to Britain to buy wool, then took the wool to Hamburg to process it into woolen cloth, and finally took the woolen cloth to the Baltic Sea coast for slaves.

Why is it a little bit like triangular trade?Feng Sen scratched his head.

However, during this period of time, the profits of the North Sea Triangle trade have indeed dropped a lot. The main reason is that Offa, King of Mercia, this talented and bold king has now unified all the British kingdoms except Wales and Northumbria.

Especially after the Kingdom of Kent was destroyed, the dominant position of the merchants who "doesn't stay here, they have their own place to stay, and I go to others to do business" gradually declined.

To put it bluntly, Feng Sen's wool trade was stuck by King Offa.

King Offa of Mercia imposed heavy taxes on the export of wool, and Feng Sen had to turn to the East Frankish nobles in Austrasia to buy wool.

But Feng Sen's reputation is relatively bad. Although those manor owners and small nobles are willing to sell, they all have to smuggle by small roads, and the cost is almost the same as buying from Austrian Fa.

Thinking of this, Feng Sen gritted his teeth with hatred. A few days ago, he also received a letter from King Offa, which made him very angry, saying that he was putting gold coins in the prayers, and added a wave of taxes to wool while chatting and laughing.

After writing Offa and Wool on the paper, Feng Sen thought about it carefully, and after that, he wrote Edbert III, Prince of Kent.

Standing up and hesitating for a while in front of the desk, Feng Sen picked up the pen again and wrote the two large characters of Viking on the paper.

Hmph, don't blame me for being unrighteous if you are unkind!

In addition to this, in the past two months, the West Britain Company has also experienced a sudden increase in income, and that is road construction.

Yes, build the roads, Charlie's road laws are successfully in force.

At the autumn meeting in October last year, he proposed this decree, requiring that several major cities must be connected by roads, and the capitals of the earldoms must be connected by dirt roads with avenues.

However, the passage of the road decree was not so smooth. The nobles have been citing Charlie's behavior in Thuringia and the forced oath of allegiance, and resisted openly and secretly.

Finally, Charlie finally let go, saying that as long as the road can be repaired, it is equivalent to taking an oath of allegiance.

Before the oath of allegiance was finished, Charlie finally implemented the town transfer system, and the standards had been released in advance. All the nobles who failed to meet the road construction project or failed to complete the road construction task on time, all had to move towns to Thuringia and border areas .

In this way, the nobles breathed a sigh of relief, after all, a dead fellow is not a poor daoist.

But the second problem followed. Road construction is a technical job. Not everyone can do it. If you don’t do it well, you will be sent to the frontier.

Under pressure, nobles and lords from all over Frankish came up with a solution, that is outsourcing, just like they outsource tax collection to taxpayers, they also outsource to those who know how to build roads, so who are these people who know how to build roads?

The merchants of the West Britannia Company, of course, no one knows how to build roads better than the Saxons and the engineering team of Fengsen Construction Company.

Of course, this is basically only the rich lords can outsource, those in the poor valleys, just ask for more blessings, force labor and tax, and bribe the royal inspector for inspection, maybe they will pass the customs.

After all, it is just to choose at most seven or eight earl-level or baron-level unlucky ones. There are so many dignitaries in this level, as long as they are not in the bottom ten, it is not a big deal.

Hey, Feng Sen suddenly slapped his head. Isn't the reason why Charlie only moved seven or eight towns to the border because the space that Thuringia can vacate is small. If the border is enlarged, can more nobles be accommodated? What?

Those nobles did not come to the frontier alone, but with their families. Maybe the families in the interior would support a group of people.

Thinking of this, Feng Sen took out a blank piece of paper, scribbled vigorously, and wrote a letter in Latin.

"Follow it!"

"The minister is here."

"Give this letter to Zhenhui." Feng Sen showed a demonic smile on his face, "Let him send this mail to Charlie, and tell Priest Fields by the way, let him use his The contacts here, this matter, is beneficial to us."

Chapter 338 A Suffering Noble

"...Hearing that His Highness is sorry for this, I am deeply sorry. In order to repay Your Highness's kindness, I am willing to lead my subordinates to attack the Vileti people. First, to avenge our Oppolite allies and stabilize the borders of the kingdom. Second, to expand the territory of the kingdom, just to accommodate more nobles who have moved to the town.

Your Highness, please suffer the nobles again, and let me bear the burden of scolding! "

Diodorf's voice echoed in front of the desk, and Charlie sat behind the desk, with an unconcealable smile on his lips, and a touch of emotion and regret flashed in his eyes.

"Okay!" Charlie stood up and took the letter from Diodorf, "As expected of my new Roland, he is as loyal as Roland. When he finishes this battle, he will be named Paladin, let him come to the palace to report his duties."

At this moment, Charlie even hesitated a little, whether it was right or wrong for him to transfer Feng Sen from Saxony to his side.

Diodorf picked up the jug on the side, poured a full glass of beer and put it on the table: "It would be great if other nobles could do the same as His Excellency Anthony."

The smile on Charlie's face froze for a moment, and then slowly dissipated. Today, he invited eight nobles to participate in his Seine Palace.

These nobles are basically nobles located outside the territory of the royal family directly under Charles. During daily expeditions, Charles often needs to promise them enough benefits and spoils in order to get their troops.

In many cases, in the spring and autumn legislative assemblies, apart from the opinions of the elders of Mark villages in various places, the most important opinions are the opinions of these great nobles.

For example, the Brysonsim family of the Earl of Orleans, the Gerard family and the Autun family that Feng Sen had worked with before, as well as the Hieronymus family and the Childebrand family who were descendants of the royal family's illegitimate children, and even A former royal branch family left over from the Merovingian dynasty.

These great aristocrats have often cultivated in an area for dozens of generations, and they are deeply rooted. Even if Charlie wants to remove their earl position, they cannot remove their existence.

What Charlie is most afraid of is that Feng Sen will become such a nobleman, and finally get mixed up with these insects. His big Roland is pure and loyal, and Anthony, the little Roland, is loyal, but purity is not necessarily.

At today's banquet, the great nobles collectively persuaded Charlie to stop reforms, give up the mandatory oath of allegiance, and tried every means to learn from Charlie how many nobles he planned to send to the town.

They talked about him again while Charlie asked about their road repairs.

For these people, Charlie has no good solution. They are all relatives, and they still hold real power. What else can they do?

On the one hand, they are Charlie's enemies, but on the other hand, they are also Charlie's strength.

These great nobles are not stupid. Charlie has already conquered Thuringia and paid such a high price, so he will definitely not let it go. So under the suggestion of the Earl of Paris, Gerard, the great nobles successfully led the topic to regional discrimination——

"Your Highness, those clever Lombards must have failed to enforce the road laws! I will report it!"

Of course Charlie knew what they were thinking. That was a rich Italy. Moving those Lombards back to their hometowns in the north, the extra rich land would already make the nobles salivate.

In the end, after all parties weighed the pros and cons, Charlie had no choice but to respond and said, well, I will check this matter on the way to visit the Pope.

The remaining nobles understood and stopped persuading Charlie.

This is the result of today's small meeting all day - back to the original point.

Although Charlie launched the Tang Wu movement according to Feng Sen's reforms, he didn't plan to do it so thoroughly. Didn't the Tang Dynasty also rely on the clan to control the army?

Charlie has already asked someone to investigate carefully. In the Frankish territory, apart from the family branch of the Charlie family, there are [-] families as powerful as these great nobles, but those who came today are all close to the royal family.

Charlie understands that it is certainly difficult to eliminate all the nobles, but at least in his lifetime, eliminate three or five, so that the remaining nobles understand that their position is not secure, and they still have to attach to the royal family after all.

In this way, the great nobles can obey the orders of themselves and the next and next Frankish king.

Charlie understands that the plan for the imperial army and the frontier army is a good strategy, but he has to modify it a little bit, otherwise he will be too turbulent to bear the turbulence as planned.

Charlie imagined that at his current age, he would follow Feng Sen's plan of leaving the castle in the east, going down to Iberia in the south, then completely occupying Jerusalem, and finally ascending the throne in Jerusalem. It would definitely be endless.

But he had a compromise plan, that is, under the call of the Pope, Charles led the Crusaders across the sea to conquer Jerusalem.

Before the Abbasids could react, they directly proclaimed themselves emperor in Jerusalem, then quickly sealed Jerusalem to an unlucky member of the royal family, and finally withdrew.

In any case, having conquered the title of Jerusalem is enough to bring the Frankish Empire unprecedented glory and give his Carolingian family unprecedented legitimacy.

Then use this legitimacy and the movement to organize the Crusades to subdue and unite the nobles in the country.

Then according to Feng Sen's proposal, three provinces and six ministries were slowly established. As for the civilian officials attached to the emperor, they could be promoted from the priests.

The promotion system of the priests is already very complete, and many of them have experience in grassroots governance and can read and write. Most importantly, in the name of God, he can completely avoid rhetoric such as the theory of noble blood.

Considering that many priests now have noble blood, Charlie may have to continue communicating with the Pope.

But in any case, the first step is to remove the unstable factors in the country.

The first was to relocate the Lombards to Thuringia and Villetti.

Charlie didn't want the big nobles to contaminate the vacated land at all, so he wanted to sit in Italy himself, on the one hand to prevent the possible rebellion of the Lombards, on the other hand, to supervise the nobles and prevent them from reaching out.

If Saxony is taken as the first test site of Charles' reform, then the northern Italian area occupied by the Lombards is Charles' second test site. Good for this piece of land.

Thinking of this, Charlie picked up the glass beside him, frowned and took a sip of beer.

Charlie didn't like to drink, it seemed to him an act of impiety, but he had to.

Charlie usually doesn't stay in one place all the time, but travels around with his standing army. At this time, Europe is very humid, and the carrying and preservation of clean water has become a big problem.

Alcohol is a natural preservative, so Charlie sometimes had to drink.

Perhaps for future generations it is drinking, but for Charlie, it is actually drinking water.

The beer from Hamburg tasted slightly bitter, but at least it didn't have the sour taste and choy effect before, which made Charlie feel a lot better, at least he wouldn't have any lustful thoughts after drinking this kind of beer.

"How much is the national income this year?"

"[-] million Solidar, more than [-]% higher than before."

"How much money is left in the treasury?"

"There are still 15 solidads left."

"Send [-] solida and the equivalent grain to Saxony to serve as his army ration for attacking Villetti, and tell him that I am going to exile the Lombard nobles to Thuringia and Villetti, so that he can prepare .”

Chapter 339 I'll give you all the helmets

The autumn wind blew the fallen leaves onto Feng Sen's breeches, and Feng Sen reached out to pick off the fallen leaves. Looking at the copper-yellow veins, he suddenly asked:

"How has the number of horses increased this year?"

"Reporter Jieshuai." The clerk in charge of the racecourse cupped his hands and said, "We have set up five horse farms in the entire Saxony territory, and currently have a total of [-] horses, of which [-] are qualified horses, and the rest are horses. They were all pack horses, rough horses, and young horses.

In addition, some time ago, I went to count the horse breeding situation of the soldiers in Hanover. Basically, every household has a horse and a donkey. The good family is a war horse, and the poor family has at least a donkey and a mule. .

The horses, donkeys, and mules raised by the government soldiers weighed in the early [-]s, but the war horses were mixed together, so it was not easy to continue to divide the statistics. "

"Then what's the situation with the donkey I asked you to raise?" Strolling on the grass of the Celle Horse Farm, Feng Sen gently brushed the somewhat damp fence with his hand.

"Jieshuai, we have collected a total of 800 donkeys from local and other places, and we also brought in more than [-] mules."

"That's right." Feng Sen nodded with satisfaction, "During this time, you take good care of it. At the end of this month, there will be more than 500 horses and more than 500 donkeys from the church and the king, and they will be placed in the treasury. Over here at Lema Fields."

"Here." The clerk happily leaned over and cupped his hands.

In the gray sky, the wind blows.

Feng Sen sighed softly, time flies so fast, it is already the end of October in a blink of an eye, and the winter grain for this winter is basically stocked up, and this year is just right for self-sufficiency.

It was those Villetti and Sorbs who plundered Magdeburg, causing Feng Sen to import food again, these damned Slavic barbarians!

Fortunately, Charlie supported a lot of food and grass, which relieved the pressure on Feng Sen's food shortage, and also made up for part of the military food gap by the way.

In mid-November, it will be the day when Feng Sen sends troops to Villetti. With the Elbe River as the main transportation artery, the transportation of military rations is relatively convenient and efficient.

According to the previous plan, the number of troops sent by Feng Sen this time is likely to reach 5000. For the logistics of these 5000 people, Feng Sen still has to recruit at least [-] civilians to provide the logistics route for the expedition despite the distribution channel of the Elbe River.

In the distribution of troops for the expedition, there are about 1000 people from the Eight Banners Banners, and then 1000 people from the Saxon tribesmen, and finally [-] Nuosyi Cong, [-] Han soldiers, [-] Yabing soldiers and some miscellaneous Nuo The cavalry battalion and the teams spontaneously organized by the little lords.

Among these Han soldiers, the leading team leaders and school lieutenants at all levels are basically promoted from the dental soldiers. Under the lecture hall system, even one of Feng Sen's dental soldiers has a 50-man team. Even ability of 300 lieutenants.

Naturally, other volunteers or tribesmen don't need to think about it. Feng Sen's main consideration now is the equipment of the bannermen and the soldiers.

According to the basic equipment of bannermen, a team of 50 people needs 25 hunting crossbows, [-] spears, [-] large wooden shields, [-] waist knives, [-] short spears, [-] pickaxes, [-] shovels, [-] axes, [-] green jackets, at least [-] pieces of leather armor or chain mail, [-] pieces of tent cloth, [-] horses or donkeys.

According to the difference between infantry and cavalry, a team of 50 infantry requires at least 25 sets of armor, 75 long spears, 25 horizontal knives, at least 150 horn bows, [-] bow strings (spare moisture-proof), [-] short knives, [-] disarmor knives, [-] mo knives, [-] iron bones, [-] pairs of shoes, [-] blankets, [-] tents, [-] medicine boxes, plus horses or mules. fifty heads.