Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Obviously Egypt is regarded as the private property of the emperor to a certain extent, and it is not easy for other senators to come in and get a share of the pie. Looking at the current situation, as long as there are no major situations such as civil war and political assassinations in the next few years, the emperor will His private property is not much different from his own. He and Tiya do not settle accounts separately. He is more responsible for helping Tiya manage financial matters.

From this perspective, Orville's plan to deal with Egypt is very troublesome.

Egypt's current financial situation is not very good. The war has had a great impact on the country's food production and trade. Refugees appear in various places due to various factors. The whereabouts of the tenant farmers who originally belonged to the nobles and kings are also urgently needed. To solve, in order for the country to recover as soon as possible, and for Orville to be able to collect food to supply the country as usual this year, Orville needs money, and the Egyptian royal family also needs money.

After discussing the rights and interests with Cleopatra, a detailed plan was presented.

The first is to sell a small part of the land and exchange it for liquid assets. Some tenant farmers who have saved some money or Greek immigrants who were affected by the war can use the land itself and food income to mortgage their own farming at a relatively low price. soil of.

Basically, they were the same things done in Gaul. The difference was that they did not specifically attract people to move in, but mainly focused on internal digestion and flow. At most, Orville personally encouraged some local friends to come and buy land.

In addition, Orville asked Cleopatra to reform the current land system. Most of the land will still be owned by the Egyptian royal family, but the taxes of the tenant farmers will be implemented more accurately.

To be fair, in fact, the land system of Ptolemaic Egypt seems to be relatively reasonable at first glance, and the Central Plains dynasties in the East in later generations will also do the same to a certain extent.

Generally speaking, the proportion of land harvests turned over by homesteaders varies from 3% to 10%, etc. There are some differences in various regions at different historical stages, but it can be said that the proportion is not particularly high.

The situation is different when landlords rent land to tenant farmers for farming. Those who are more conscientious may receive a quarter or a third, but more often the ratio will be half or even higher.

This is the meaning of state-owned land. Rather than saying that land is state-owned, it is better to say that the landlord of these lands is the king himself. The king can charge high taxes from farmers who rent land for farming to fill the national treasury.

The reason why the Ptolemaic royal family was wealthy was largely because they were the largest landowners and monopoly businessmen in Egypt. Many countries in the Central Plains also used this method in later generations.

For example, although Suzhou had a developed economy in the Ming Dynasty, the taxes were extremely heavy. In the early years of Wanli, the court's annual land tax revenue in Suzhou was about 663,849 taels of silver. Land tax accounted for 73.85% of the total taxes and 11.78% of the total taxes. The corvee was converted into silver, of which at least 2/3 was paid into land tax. Therefore, the actual income from land tax was more than 80%.

Rounding off a bit, the imperial court collected 720,000 taels of land tax in Suzhou every year. Considering how much the Ming Dynasty's annual fiscal revenue was, this figure is quite astonishing.

On the one hand, this is because this land is indeed rich and fertile. On the other hand, it is because there is a lot of land in Suzhou that is nominally owned by the emperor. They have to pay taxes according to the standards of tenant farmers. Gu Yanwu said that there is no land but tenant farmers account for 10% of the land. Nine-tenths may be a bit biased, but the number of local tenant farmers is definitely large.

Some modern scholars believe that Suzhou's income from commerce, agriculture and sideline industries is relatively high, so it is "only in the name of heavy taxation, but not in reality". Anyway, in Orwell's view, this is quite unreasonable. Heavy taxation means heavy taxation. have nothing to say.

In Egypt, the richest land was also owned by the king. The king mercifully leased out the land, gave these landless tenants a chance to survive, and charged high taxes on the farmers who rented the land.

It cannot be said that this is a completely bad government. Objectively speaking, the national finance does need more money, but everything has a price. It can only be said that the price of this matter is indeed not small. Egypt's rule has never been particularly stable. The army's combat effectiveness is weak, and peasant uprisings, large and small, occur frequently, which is certainly closely related to this land system.

In the early days of the Ptolemaic dynasty, this system worked quite well. The previous generations of kings were all wise kings. They deliberately controlled the proportion of taxes collected, and the oppression of the tenant farmers was within the tolerance range. In years of disaster, rent exemptions or reductions are often given to tenant farmers on the land, and things such as food distribution are also quite generous.

After that, especially in the last century, it can be said that the Ptolemaic royal family itself was in a state of insecurity. On the one hand, its power was eroded by foreigners, and on the other hand, it was eroded by internal personnel such as eunuchs and praetorian guards. , they don’t even care about themselves, these new powerful people often don’t pay too much attention to the lives and lives of the poor below.

The result has been skyrocketing rents for tenant farmers, the disappearance of what little care was left for them, and widespread systemic corruption.

In Orville's view, there is no need to completely change this land system. This is the economic foundation of the Ptolemaic royal family. He does not want to lose Cleopatra as an ally, but he urgently needs to make up for it in terms of specific implementation.

The Egyptian bureaucracy is slightly better than the Romans, but not much better. There are still many functions that should be the responsibility of the official government but are now handled by the private sector. There is a serious shortage of bureaucrats in taxation and prosecution.

This led to the fact that the tax revenue from the people could not be collected, and the corruption at all levels resulted in the central government getting very little money and grain. Orville could clearly realize that more bureaucrats and stronger supervision were needed now.

After Orville and Cleopatra discussed, they also passed the decision to reorganize the bureaucracy. The new bureaucracy was mainly composed of local people, and some Romans were management bureaucrats, and the Egyptian customs were completely classified as a direct agency of the Roman Empire.

As for the supervisory agency, he was still a little worried about Cleopatra, so he still held it in his own hands.

The system planning seemed to be okay, but now there was a shortage of people. Orville kicked out many of the old beneficiaries, and now there were certain vacancies in the management. Cleopatra asked him to handle this matter, and Orville followed her wishes.

He could only promote local people to be bureaucrats. There were not so many Romans, so it was no problem to do a favor for the other party. He must check and balance Cleopatra, but not on the bureaucracy. This would reduce the already low operating efficiency. As long as she could do things well, it would be fine.

By this time, Orville had probably done all he could as Governor, and there was not much he could do until the situation improved.