V8.Chapter 61

Slavery was a serious hindrance to productivity.

Without releasing the slaves, there is no way to liberate enough laborers. The future development of Modo City needs a large number of civilians, not the worthless slave class who can only sell coolies.

Sauron's "Abolition of Slavery" seemed to have thrown a heavy bomb on the material plane, and even the City of Glory shook. Because even the radiant Lord of the lawful good camp rejects slavery, but the Church has never proposed such an idea.

even!

Some paladins also took the initiative to maintain slavery.

Sauron didn't care about the reactions of the outside world at all. He started the third census of Modo City as soon as he promulgated the "Abolition of Slavery Decree".

All the slaves are freed as the underclassmen, they will be registered in the population of Modo City, and from now on they will have personal liberty and property liberty. However, as slaves, they have almost no wealth of their own, so the next arrangement of Modo City Hall is to allocate land to them.

Every inch of land in Modo City is very precious!

Therefore, it is naturally impossible for these lands to be given to these slaves for free, which is unfair to all the meritorious classes.

Modo City has reclaimed a lot of land near twelve large towns. These lands belong to Modo City, and now they are rented to all slaves. The city hall of Modo City uniformly distributes housing to slaves, Farming tools and daily necessities.

But there is only so much.

Too many gifts can easily have the opposite effect. Sauron will only give them the opportunity to rely on their efforts to fight for the future.

All the houses belong to the wealth of Modo City, the freed slaves only have the most basic residential areas, and all the farming tools also belong to Modo City, and they only have the basic right to use.

The slaves were still penniless.

However, they can then rely on themselves to earn and accumulate wealth. The land allocated by Modo City only charges about 30% of the rent, which means that 70% of the income from farming in a year can be used as the property of these tenants.

Of course Sauron would not let the slaves go free.

Freedom is only relative!

Sauron had already arranged their fate, and they had no choice but to follow Sauron's orders.

Because Sauron is the god of lawful evil.

Slaves have become tenants, they have the right to cultivate the land by themselves, and thus gain the foundation for accumulating wealth. At the same time, they also begin to provide tax burdens for Modo City, and solve the problem of the lack of a large number of civilian laborers in Modo City. .

Under the slave system, they hardly had any freedom of life and property rights, and their labor was more reliant on whipping.

Now that they have property rights, the income from farming will be their private property, which greatly stimulates their enthusiasm. At the same time, Modo City also opened a more favorable policy to them compared to outsiders. Freed slaves could use about one-third of the wealth of the outside world to buy the ownership of the residence and convert the land into private property. All of these properties have the title deed of Modo City, and being recognized by the City Hall is equivalent to truly gaining a firm foothold in Modo City. Sauron's promise has long stood the test of time, so none of this needs any questioning.

The third census is very fast.

The city hall of Modo City has long been accustomed to efficient operation. After the third census, the counted population has reached about 270,000.

It seems that there is a lot of hidden population in Modo City.

The blacksmith is stepping up the forging of farming tools. This time, the arable land in Modo City has nearly doubled. Because of the "Abolition of Slavery Law", Modo City has an additional agricultural population of about 50,000. At the same time, twelve towns will be It's all up and running.

The deep ploughing system is being popularized. Relying on the promotion of fertilizers, the grain output of Modo City is expected to be enough to maintain about 500,000 people.

but.

For Sauron, agriculturalization is only the most basic part, and he needs to do more than that.

Everything he is currently planning is only to pave the way for a large-scale farm economy. When farming has grown to a certain extent, what he needs is to liberate these working populations and move them to other places at the same time.

Slaves can only squeeze a little strength, Sauron needs more and more.

………………

The morning sun shines.

Covano woke up just before dawn. He looked at the clean bed he was lying on. Everything was clean and everything was like a dream.

He is a slave.

From Shipwreck Bay, bought by a merchant, used to be a guard turned slave for noble reasons. Life as a slave was not easy. The merchant urged him to work with a whip every day. The other five slaves like him were beaten and scolded. As a slave he had nothing, even if his master killed him, he had no responsibility whatsoever until the promulgation of the Abolition Act. At that time, the merchant hoped to urgently transfer him to the south coast, and then resell it for money, but unfortunately he was caught by the guards of Modo City.

He is free.

Everything is like a dream.

But freedom is only relative, and Covano soon discovered that the guards did not let him leave, but placed him and another group of slaves in a place called Qiushui Town.

A row of neat brick houses.

Each of them was placed in a house here, and the next day, a man dressed as an official came to count them, followed by the distribution of tools. Covano thought that everything was no different from what he had experienced in the past, but soon he found that it was really different.

No one beats, scolds and urges, even blatant laziness will not be punished.

Slaves like him have many blank expressions, some work hard, and seem to be full of hope for the future, while others do nothing, as if they don't know what to do.

These days lasted for three days.

Covano doesn't know how to face the future, so he just does the usual things every day. As a civilian, he has learned how to cultivate the land since he was a child. Three days later, the officials of the city hall reappeared. They secretly conducted an assessment on everyone. The best-performing slave named Nord was given a farming ox. as his personal property.

This made many slaves envious.

Because once their own value was no better than a cow, and the man named Nord was even more surprised.

But.

What soon followed unnerved others.

Another slave was expelled. Because he was lazy every day, he failed to do the most basic cultivation. The officials of the city hall deprived him of everything that the city of Modo gave him, including housing, utensils, food, and clothing. So everything that Modo City had given was deprived. The poor man was driven out of the town wearing only a thin piece of clothing. The man didn't even have food for the next meal. He was thrown out by the guards, and it was like letting him kill himself.

This time, everyone felt uneasy.

Fortunately, however, the guards only expelled three people, and no one knew their fate, only that the shelter, food and clothing they originally had were taken away.

at this time.

Others realize how valuable what they have now is. They don't have to worry about starvation, they don't have to get cold, they can live in clean and tidy houses, and they can fill their stomachs as long as they work hard every day. Covano began to adapt to this change of fate, and he gradually found that he seemed to have become a tenant, because everything he did now was no different from that of a tenant.

but.

In any case, the status of a tenant is higher than that of a serf, and it is even higher than that of a slave.

About a week later.

The city hall officials reappeared, much to the dismay of many slaves.

They have become accustomed to the present day. They have a clean place to live, a solid house, and they don't have to be beaten, scolded and whipped. They cherish these days very much. Fortunately, this time the city hall officials didn't evict the others, they just took all the children between the ages of seven and twelve, whether slaves or commoners, and then Kenwano heard that there seemed to be a lot of people in the town. a school.

And these kids are being concentrated in it for...learning? ...

Yes.

Soon, they learned that Modo City was educating these children.

This kind of thing sounds a little weird, because elsewhere only the nobles and merchants were formally educated.

Covano somehow felt that the owner of Modo City seemed to be doing a very great thing, but he knew too little knowledge, and he didn't know what Modo City was going to do at all.

He just feels hopeful for the future!

………………

In addition to the numbers, the third census also counted the ages of all residents.

Then, under the operation of the City Hall, all the territories of Modo City, including Modo Port, began to establish academies one after another, which taught the most basic knowledge, numeracy, literacy, reading and writing, etc. Basic knowledge is completely taught by Modo City for free and compulsory to all children of school age.

At the same time, some huge and dense buildings began to appear in Modo City. These three- or four-story buildings were placed in the south, and a large number of laborers were transferred to work there.

No one knew what Sauron was going to do.

But today's Modo City seems to be a starting machine, and it is gradually running at a high speed!

………………

(ps: I will go to Beijing to talk about things tomorrow.) (To be continued.)