Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 327: Chapter 18 Funeral and Militia_3

So when Gerard was both the mayor and the Garrison Officer, the town government had almost no enforcement ability.

Even for minor matters like “lumberjacks fighting with villagers”, Gerard would have to personally go out with his saber; otherwise, he would have to seek help from his former subordinates in Dusa Village.

And in fact, such trivial incidents as “lumberjacks fighting with villagers” happened quite frequently, occurring almost once a week, much to the annoyance of Mayor Mitchell.

Even the newly-appointed Winters experienced it once when several young men from the village east of the river were beaten black and blue. At that time, Winters was busy dealing with the threat of wild beasts and let both parties off with a warning after some admonishment.

In order to realize his desire to make Wolf Town a truly prosperous market town, Gerard Mitchell was very keen to establish a formal security force.

In his view, a security force might not be necessary, but it could not be nonexistent. Ensuring public safety was essential to attract more people to reside in the town center. It would be best if the security force members were full-time, but part-time would also do.

Mayor Mitchell even actively proposed to help Winters solve the budget issue by directly funding and hiring a security team for the town.

The authorities granted to officers stationed in the Newly Reclaimed Land were significant, and the powers of a mayor were also considerable. The Paratu Council only cared about taxes; as long as the taxes were delivered, everything else was inconsequential, and the mayor practically had the same powers as the Empire’s tax farmer.

Moreover, since all property belonged to the army, the common folk in the Newly Reclaimed Land had to pay taxes for almost everything they did. Going into the mountains to chop wood incurred a tax, fishing in the river incurred a tax, and setting nets to catch birds incurred a tax—these and many other activities were taxed in addition to the basic agricultural and poll taxes.

Take a hunter’s family, for example. Besides paying the poll tax and road tax, they had to pay a hunting tax for their activities in the mountains, providing eight deer skins and eight fox skins annually, or paying three large silver coins.

As for Mitchell’s, they had a small boat, and whether Gerard Mitchell fished or not, they still had to pay the fishing tax.

These additional taxes were paid annually, and some were mandatory, such as the firewood tax. Even if a farmer only burned his own straw for a whole year, he still had to pay the tax, which was virtually a form of poll tax.

When Winters heard Monk Reed casually talk about these “exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes”, he could hardly believe his ears. The taxes in the Far East Newly Reclaimed Land were completely different from those in Vineta; one could even say they were worlds apart.

The ruling class of the Vineta Republic almost left the rural areas to fend for themselves. The merchant Republic was innately skilled in calculations and used to weighing everything on a scale as a business deal.

What the commercial Republic needed was currency—actual silver and gold, precious metals that could be used for trade. Besides that, the Republic needed manpower and material supplies to maintain its trade fleet and urban crafts.

And what farmers lacked most was precious metals; small households could not save up much money. Transactions among farmers were commonly conducted via bartering year-round. Even the smallest silver coin was too large in “face value” for a farmer; it had to be cut into smaller pieces to be used in the rural areas—that is, “silver fragments”.

Therefore, in the eyes of the rulers of the Vineta Republic: scraping money off farmers was simply too costly. Every silver coin scraped from farmers would cost two silver coins in maintaining the Standing Army that suppressed them.

What a loss! Such a huge loss! This business was doomed to hemorrhage money!

And frequent farmer rebellions would also disrupt the supply of materials and labor to cities.

Therefore, the rural tax system of the Vineta Republic is primarily in-kind, and the supervising government is only responsible for annual taxation and suppressing bandits (as bandits rob caravans on Guzhi Road, which is very bad for business).

All the wealth of the noble Commercial Republic of Vineta is in the cities, the cities, and the cities.

The cities are the key; as long as cities can keep receiving a steady supply of materials and labor, do the farmers live or die? The ruling officials of Vineta don’t really care that much.

However, it is also for this reason that the farm taxes in the Vineta Republic are among the lowest of the republics; farmers just need to pay their grain quota annually.

Other times? Don’t cause trouble, and fend for yourselves. [Note: However, the farmers of the Vineta Republic do not enjoy any civil rights, such as the right to carry weapons in the city.]

“They don’t rebel against this? They can tolerate this?” Winters said incredulously to the old mendicant monk, “If such taxes were imposed on the farmers of Vineta, Sea Blue City would have been set ablaze by rebels.”@@novelbin@@

“Lad, do you think the Dusack is for nothing? There is a Dusa Village in every town in the Newly Reclaimed Land. Why do you think the Paratu council goes to such lengths to arrange this? Why is it Dusan Gerard Mitchell who becomes the town mayor?” Monk Reed squinted and smiled, patting Winters’ shoulder, “You! Too young, too simple.”

“Uh… could it be that the Dusack is especially used to suppress the farmers?” Winters was almost too shocked to speak coherently, “But I see that Wolf Town’s Dusa Village has a decent relationship with the other villages, right?”

“Decent?” the old monk asked with a beaming smile, “Really decent? Lad, I told you your political sense is dull, and you didn’t believe me. If you could distribute some of your martial skills to politics, you might have some potential.”

“Decent… maybe?” Winters stammered, recalling carefully, “The two Protestant villages indeed seem unfriendly toward the Dusans, and now that I think of it, the attitudes of the other two villages also seem a bit subtle.”

The old monk laughed heartily, “That’s right, politics are very subtle. Do you know what the other four villages call Dusa Village behind their backs?”

“Isn’t it just called Dusa Village?”

“Wrong! They call it ‘Barbarian’ village. Barbarians, savages, and blood drinkers.” The old mendicant monk chanted some ancient verses with a rise and fall in his voice, “Understand?”

“Hmm…” Winters was at a loss for words for a moment.

“The relationship between the several villages of Wolfton is actually quite good,” Monk Reed said with a light chuckle, savoring a sip of the Mitchell’s homemade grape wine, “Gerard Mitchell, although he seems brash, is simple on the outside but shrewd on the inside, and knows well the ways of lenient governance. He turns a blind eye to the other villages not paying taxes and rather fishing or hunting rabbits. He also overlooks them secretly cultivating on the edges of their lands.

With Mitchell’s having a ‘capable wife,’ naturally, the relationships between the villages are quite harmonious. In Newly Reclaimed Land like Wolf Town, there are plenty of small towns; some govern leniently, while others govern strictly. I have visited every small town in the Newly Reclaimed Land, and speaking of places where governance is too harsh, I have seen massacres. Despotic governance is as fierce as a tiger, from the Far East to the Near East, and here as well, the world over is no different.”

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