“Additionally, we must make greater use of the power of the Church,” Joseph instructed. “Often, the Church’s efficiency far surpasses our bureaucratic system, and peasants are more convinced by the words of a priest.”
Venio nodded in firm agreement, “Indeed, Your Highness, the Church has put forth considerable effort in promoting the new composting methods.”
Joseph said with a smile, “We can’t let them collect so much tithe for nothing, can we?”
In the recent actions to diminish feudal privileges, to minimize resistance, Joseph had temporarily spared the Church, considering the current Chief Minister originated from being the Archbishop of Toulouse. Though Foreign Minister Talleyrand was a “wine-drinking monk,” he was nominally an archbishop as well.
Since the Church in France was heavily dependent on royal power and had a working relationship with the Royal Family, it would be addressed gradually through later reforms. After all, it was a lot easier to deal with than the nobility.
However, upon hearing this, Venio was taken aback, as the Church was not something one could easily mock in those days. He immediately turned his head, pretending he had heard nothing.
Joseph continued with his agricultural plans, “A large number of former lords’ hunting grounds will gradually be converted to farmland.”
The abolition of hunting privileges was a crucial element of the recently enacted “Decree Abolishing Nobility Privileges,” which returned many public lands monopolized by the nobility as hunting grounds to the peasants for cultivation, significantly increasing the available farmland—of course, this was contingent on how peasants could purchase the land to make it truly theirs for farming.
“You need to make some plans to encourage the peasants to plant vegetables, especially in parishes close to cities. For example, we could provide financial subsidies in the early stages and have the government organize transportation of the vegetables to the cities for sale, reducing the peasants’ transportation costs.”
In France at the moment, because of high transport costs, peasants hardly made any money if the distance exceeded four kilometers.
As Joseph spoke, he looked down, “Therefore, we still need to build more railway transportation. With wooden tracks, vegetables from the countryside could be transported to places tens of kilometers away.”
With some hesitation, Venio said, “Your Highness, based on what I know, the cities already have enough vegetables like onions and carrots.”
Onions? Carrots? Joseph couldn’t help but facepalm. Coming from a nation of foodies, such words from his Minister of Agriculture were absurd to him.
But he also knew that the daily diet of the French populace consisted primarily of these items. Or rather, having some vegetable soup along with black bread for each meal was considered quite a fair living standard.
“You can’t limit yourself to just these items,” Joseph broadened his horizon, “First, there’s chili pepper. You only need to plant a little, and it can greatly enhance the flavor of food. Read exclusive adventures at empire
“Then there’s tomatoes. Yes, tomatoes are indeed harder to cultivate and don’t store well, but you can promote making them into tomato sauce—it’s very simple, just need some glass jars. We will discuss this in more detail later.
“Apart from these two, plant asparagus and artichokes in the less fertile fields. These plants are easy to grow and produce high yields.”
The vegetables he mentioned had already been introduced into France, with the Palace of Versailles having them, but their cultivation was still quite limited among the general populace.
After carefully noting down the Crown Prince’s instructions, Venio was still perplexed, “Your Highness, but why should we put effort into vegetables? I mean, grains and potatoes are most important.”
“Commercial value,” Joseph said with a smile, “With just a small amount of land resources, we can significantly improve the quality of life for both peasants and city dwellers, why wouldn’t we do it?”
Joseph was well aware that after the abolition of aristocratic privileges, the lower class could barely manage to survive, far from eliminating their dissatisfaction with society.
In a situation where both the Old Nobility and the military were restive, this could be dangerous.
Therefore, improving the quality of life for the lower classes is also an extremely important task at present.
In fact, if we could gain the absolute support of a large number of the lower classes, the Royal Family would have nothing to fear… However, with the current level of production, to satisfy more than 96% of the population is virtually a pipe dream.
But it is still possible to improve their quality of life as much as we can.
For example, by making their meals more varied.
And this can be achieved with some inexpensive vegetables and a few cooking techniques.
As for cooking, the chefs of France do have some skill. Moreover, Joseph can also pass on the traditional craft of the great food-loving nation to everyone, ensuring that even ordinary cabbage can be turned into a delicious stir-fry.
When the common people come back from a day’s work, if they can have some stir-fried dishes and soups in addition to gnawing on rye bread, they will surely be deeply grateful to their King.
Joseph said to Venio, “You also need to cooperate with the Church to produce a simple cooking manual, so that priests or nuns can organize cooking lessons for the women every week.
“Hmm, remember to include this promotional slogan—’If you want to capture his heart, first capture his stomach.'”
As he was saying this, the carriage suddenly came to a stop.
Eman leaned out of the window for a glance, then turned to Joseph with a bow, “Your Highness, the wooden railway has come to an end. From here we must switch to horse-drawn carriages.”
Joseph nodded, as the wooden railway had only just barely reached the western part of Reims. This thing was still very expensive to build, so for now, it stretched only a few dozen kilometers from Paris out to the surrounding cities.
Before boarding the carriage, he caught a glimpse of the three horses drawing the wagon and was suddenly reminded of something. Turning to Venio, he asked, “By the way, do you know about soybeans?”
Venio was rather well-read and immediately nodded, “Are you referring to that bean from the Far East? Some botanists are quite interested in them. Oh, and some farmers in Georgia, United States, grow them to feed their cattle.”
Joseph was relieved to learn that France had already introduced soybeans; he had indeed been worried that he might need to acquire seeds from Asia.
“I need you to promote this crop in France, especially in the northern provinces.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Are we going to use it to feed cattle as well?”
Joseph gestured for him to get into the carriage, “You can feed it to the cattle normally, or make soy sauce… oh, a kind of condiment. But in times of war, soybeans become the best feed for warhorses—small in size, easy to carry, and feeding just a little to the horses can significantly boost their strength.”
Compared with the oats currently used as a “nutritional supplement” for warhorses in Europe, soybeans have unparalleled advantages, requiring only a third of the quantity to achieve the same effect as oats.
This would be a great improvement for logistical transportation—the feeding of warhorses constitutes the largest part of military logistics.
Moreover, soybeans are easy to carry, and the Cavalry only need to fill their pockets with a few handfuls to sustain their horses for several days, eliminating the need to repeatedly return to base for supplies.