I Am the Crown Prince in France

Chapter 366 The Counterattack of the Indian Natives

Joseph began to carefully read the land redemption plan submitted by Brian.

At the beginning of the document, it was first stated that the public land illegally occupied by the nobles must be returned free of charge.

Joseph could not help but nod slightly. This version is finally an improvement over the previous one.

In the feudal era, the ownership of land in France was very chaotic, and almost no one could absolutely own a piece of land. A large amount of feudal land was jointly owned by the king, nobles, churches, and local governments, or in other words, it belonged to no one.

In addition, the right to occupy, use, and income of land usually belonged to different people. The feudal lords were not actually the owners of the land, but they had the right to collect taxes and the power to designate cultivators. Of course, the king also had some right to collect taxes.

Many of these lands belonged to public lands, such as forests, ponds, wastelands, etc., which usually accounted for half of all the land in a village. According to regulations, farmers can mow grass, chop wood, and graze on these public lands, and nobles can hunt here.

However, after hundreds of years of evolution, the nobles relied on their power to occupy these public lands, turning them into their own hunting grounds, summer resorts, fish ponds or reclaiming wasteland for farming, and levied taxes on these illegally occupied lands.

In the first two versions of the land plan, the public lands occupied by the nobles were converted in proportion and allowed to be redeemed by farmers. The reason was that the nobles had also paid a lot of costs to "develop" these lands.

The latest version of the plan finally forced the nobles to return the public lands.

However, Joseph knew that this matter was not that simple.

The amount of public land occupied by the nobles was huge, and some not-so-rich nobles even had to rely on these lands for food. It was definitely not a simple "abolition" that could solve the problem.

The king could issue a decree to reclaim the public lands, but a large number of desperate nobles might also gather together and mess up the country. And the nobles were the most influential people in feudal society.

Joseph continued to look at the documents in his hand:

Annual tribute, tithes and other rents and taxes will no longer need to be redeemed. Annual tribute farmers can pay 25 times the annual output value of the land, and other types of tenants can pay 30 times the annual output value of the land in one lump sum. At the same time, the transfer fee for such redeemed land is 5 times that of normal transactions. In addition, farmers must first pay all the overdue annual tributes and other taxes before they can redeem the land.

The document also includes an estimated total amount of land redemption in France - 3.8 to 4 billion livres.

Joseph was almost amused.

This thing was made by Mirabeau and his group at first glance.

The abolition of annual tribute, tithes and so on was used to disgust the old nobles, because the emerging nobles like them hardly lived on these feudal rents and taxes.

And a one-time redemption fee of 25 to 30 times the annual output value of the land is something that ordinary tenants can't afford. Looking at the total amount of 4 billion livres, you can see that if French farmers can come up with so much money, there is no need to reform the land system - who cares about your land ownership when they are so rich?

Not to mention the billions of ransom money, in fact, more than half of the French farmers can't even make up for the overdue rent and taxes. In other words, they don't even have the qualifications to participate in the ransom.

This ransom plan is obviously prepared for the capitalist aristocrats to merge and speculate on land. Only they can afford such expensive land.

After buying the land, they can manipulate the land price and resell it to make a fortune. The farmers still have to rent their land, but it's just that the feudal rent and taxes have changed to the surplus value being exploited by capitalists.

Joseph can imagine how disappointed the farmers will be with the royal family after experiencing the excitement of getting rid of the shackles of feudal rent and taxes, and then falling into another heavy exploitation.

Yes, the farmers will only blame these problems on the royal family. Who makes you the "big boss", the biggest target, and the easiest to be targeted. Then it may be that the late but late big destiny will come as promised...

Joseph couldn't help rubbing his eyebrows.

Although this version of the land redemption plan has made some progress compared to the previous one - the previous version even required farmers to redeem 30 years of feudal rent and taxes before they could buy land - it will still seriously intensify social contradictions in France.

Historically, the Feuillants and Girondins would quickly fall, and the fundamental reason was that the land redemption policy was opposed by the whole country.

To be honest, Joseph really wants to launch a great revolution now to eliminate the aristocracy - so that he can copy the practice of the Jacobins in history.

However, if he launches a great revolution, his family will be in danger first...

How to stabilize the aristocracy while reducing the pressure on the lower-level farmers to redeem the land as much as possible, and at the same time take care of the attitude of the capitalist class?

He rubbed his hair irritably and started to revise the land redemption plan.

The feudal rent and taxes must be partially redeemed, and the way of handling public land is completely unacceptable. This is to take care of the jobs of some old aristocrats.

The redemption amount of 25 to 30 times the annual output value of the land is definitely unreasonable, and it is not allowed to be paid in one lump sum. Here, banks can consider providing loans to farmers. The total redemption cost in the country cannot exceed 1.5 billion livres.

Set a minimum per capita guaranteed land area. Before exceeding the minimum guaranteed area, farmers redeem the land at the most favorable price, and the amount of the excess will be gradually increased.

In addition, the longer the cultivation time and the higher the per-acre yield, the cheaper the land redemption will be...

After Joseph finished writing this, he still felt unsatisfied. So he sent the revised document back to Brian, asking the smart people of this era to think of another solution.

However, Joseph did not expect that this "crack" regarding the land redemption policy would soon be targeted by another group of people.

…

London.

The British Foreign Secretary, the Marquess Wellesley, came out of the parliament hall, got into the carriage with a dark face, and drove straight to No. 10 Downing Street.

"How is the situation?" Prime Minister Peter Jr. was obviously waiting for him. He opened the door of his office and welcomed him in. "You don't seem to be looking very well."

"The situation in India is probably far worse than we imagined." Marquis Wellesley hung his hat on a shelf nearby, turned back and closed the door, and said in a deep voice, "When I asked the question in parliament just now, the Whig Party People say that Mysore's army suddenly attacked Kannanur, and more than 200 East India Company men were captured and several ships were lost."

Little Pete's expression suddenly changed. He first cursed the intelligence system in his mind - he didn't know about such a big thing earlier than the opposition party - and then looked at the Foreign Secretary: "What on earth do those Indian natives want to do?! "