Working Prophet

"Master Graymane, please think again." Herbert almost blurted out, seeing Wilde glance at him, he hurriedly added.

"I know that Prophet Merlin saved Donia's life, so of course we should give him some rewards, such as two thousand golden lions, and the friendship of the Singleton family.

But I don't think it's appropriate to send Miss Donia to the green field. I mean she is your only granddaughter and you should keep her with you. "

Wilder's face softened a little, but he still shook his head and said, "I can't protect her for the rest of my life, and she's not young anymore, it's time to go out and see the world and learn something."

"Then you can come to the Church of the Earth and Grain to study. We will send the most knowledgeable priests in the church to teach Miss Donia." Herbert suggested.

"Oh, what can you teach her, can you help her improve her martial arts? Or can you teach her how to manage the territory, or remove the curse for her subjects?" Wilder asked.

Herbert was speechless.

The Earth and Grain Church are definitely not as good at improving martial arts as Shuangxiujiao. After all, the latter just helped Ilea win the championship in this martial arts tournament.

And they are not the opponents of Shuangxiu Church in managing the territory. Since the Arias family converted to Saturday, they are now thriving, as long as they are not blind, they can see it.

Not to mention getting rid of the curse, syphilis, which left the church helpless, was defeated by Li Yu.

Hulbert racked his brains and could only think of one aspect in which the Church of Earth and Grain was dominant.

"We will not instill toxic ideas like 'rest is people's birthright' into Miss Donya."

The priest said seriously, "That will only make your subjects lazy, and you and your family will suffer heavy losses, and you also know those greedy untouchables, if you give them a little sweetness, they may be grateful to you at that time, but time Over time, they will only ask for more.

"Once this precedent is set, things will get very bad and no one will work for you anymore."

Donia couldn't help interjecting, "But we went to the capital together with Sir Ilea and Prophet Merlin, and we haven't seen the guards of the Arias family and the Hughes of the Shuangxiu Church slacking off for a few days. .

"Hmm... You want to say that you always run outside all day long, especially there are two people who go to the tavern, but they are bards, and they are still bards after Saturday. Their job is to go to the bard." Various banquets.”

"That's because what you saw was the elite of the Arias family, of course they are more obedient than ordinary people, and they are right under the noses of Sir Ilea and Prophet Merlin."

Herbert looked at Wilder, "Master Gray Mane, I remember that the old castellan asked you to manage several farms when you were young, so you have dealt with those farmers.

"Then do you think if you let them rest for two days out of seven days, they will work hard in the remaining five days?

"Or is it that they will also be immersed in the two days of rest in the future, lazily unable to raise their spirits, and just constantly looking forward to the arrival of the next rest day?"

"This..." Wilder couldn't help but hesitated a little. Indeed, those warriors who have undergone rigorous training, and nobles with relatively strong self-discipline may be able to live strictly according to this new routine.

But the common people, especially the serfs, will definitely become more and more lazy.

Wilder turned his attention to Li Yu again, wanting to see if the latter had any good solutions.

In fact, similar things have already happened in Green Field.

Long before Li Yu and Ilea left for the royal capital, Jin Tong and Marco from the tribunal had handled a forced work case.

The reason was that a housekeeper of a farm felt that the serfs were being lazy in their usual work, so he ignored the precepts of the weekend religion and forced them to work overtime in the field.

He was later punished by the referee, but the young referee named Marco was also confused after that.

Because in his opinion, the fat butler was certainly at fault, but the serfs were indeed lazy and caused the farm owner to suffer losses.

Jin Tong's answer to this is that we are referees and we only have to deal with things that violate the precepts, and we have no control over other matters.

Later, Li Yu found out about this and summoned all the referees to praise Jin Tong's actions.

In Li Yu's view, the answer to this question is actually very simple.

As long as all the land is rented to farmers, those lords will only focus on collecting rent from now on, and naturally they will no longer worry about such things.

To put it bluntly, the serf labor system itself was relatively backward. Even if there were no weekends, those serfs did not work hard in their own fields when working for their masters.

This is not even lazy or cunning, it is just a rational choice of an economic man.

Of course, this is easy to say, but it is very difficult to reform it.

Because the nobles on the continent of Bratis are already accustomed to this method of production.

Even if renting crops can bring them greater profits, it will be difficult for them to turn around in a short while. Secondly, due to various reasons, many homesteaders go bankrupt and become serfs every year.

Especially in disaster years when there are good harvests, the number of serfs in major families will increase greatly. Even some bankrupt farmers who want to become serfs cannot become serfs because there are too many refugees.

And after taking in so many serfs, of course the nobles had to have a place to place them. This was also an important reason why those farms existed.

But Li Yu has now developed a pedal-operated textile machine, and has also opened a textile factory. In addition, he also has a paper mill, a brick factory, and an ironmaking factory and a glass factory to be built in the future. etc.

There was no place to absorb those bankrupt farmers, so the only thing that prevented the nobles from giving up serfdom was local tradition.

Li Yu did not intend to force this matter forward, because it would likely arouse strong dissatisfaction among the nobles. In contrast, he preferred to adopt a relatively mild method.

By telling the nobles which method is more profitable, guide them to slowly transform into pure land renters.

However, this kind of thing cannot be said in person now, as it may scare the nobles in the city.

Li Yu just said to Ilea on the side, "Tell Sir Wilder about the output of the Arias family's farm this year."

Miss Rabbit nodded, "This autumn my farm harvested one and a half times more crops than in previous years."

"How is this possible?" Herbert was shocked. "Why are there so many? Was your farm affected by a disaster last year?"

"No, it's all thanks to Saturday."