Leo thought without hesitation, "Of course, we should mobilize the young and strong villagers to do forced labor to build walls, pave roads, dig canals, and build infrastructure!" By participating in the construction of River Bend throughout the entire process, Leo has become quite experienced in how to run a village. Build organizations, build infrastructure, and develop industries! The small villages in this world are full of uncertainties except that they are difficult to resist from external enemies, but the internal management of the villages is actually very simple. The lord himself represents the organization and has absolute ruling power. He does not need to go through the trouble of building a team or winning over people's hearts. The villagers also hold the same view. Except for a few ruffians, most of the villagers are willing to obey the lord's powerful rule. No villager would interfere with the lord's orders. They would often hold a village meeting to veto the orders, or even appeal to the town and hold a new election. It is not the case that any construction proposal will be opposed by half of the villagers. As long as he does not arbitrarily change the laws, kill innocent people indiscriminately, and the taxes collected do not cause people to starve to death, he is a merciful enough lord. People like Solovy and Ulyanov are simply angels descended to earth, and it is no exaggeration to say that they are one in a million.
After all, Uliyan's original intention of opening up the river bend was not to become a noble lord who exploited his people, but to truly lead his people to live a good life. Solovie followed the traditional chivalrous code and was unwilling to use his power to bully the weak. Not only did he halve the tax rate, he even exempted the villagers from three months of labor. Without internal resistance, developing infrastructure and industry will depend solely on the lord’s management capabilities. The father and son of the Mirvis family do have certain management capabilities. They are able to withstand external pressure and run a pioneering knight territory of nearly 600 people outside the Western Watchtower. The tall and sturdy wooden walls, the canals crisscrossing the fields, and the well-planned pastures and forest farms all show that they indeed put in a lot of effort. Unfortunately, with the decline of the family, the Miswich family lost sufficient military power and foreign aid, and was hostile to the contemporary Count Frylov, making it difficult for them to preserve the cakes they made. But Knight Solovy was obviously inferior in comparison. He selected village leaders who could command the support of the people and provided them with sufficient armed protection, thinking that this alone would be enough to make the village prosperous. However, without a strong leader, the villagers are scattered and will only focus on the little piece of land in their hands, and are unwilling to take the initiative to do anything else. No one cares if the wooden wall is broken, no one cares if the road turns into a mud pit, and it is none of your business if the canal is blocked. The villagers whose fields were upstream of the canal were delighted because the canal was blocked and they could use water without worries. The villagers downstream of the canal are unwilling to contribute because the canal is blocked upstream. When water is needed, the villagers downstream would carry hoes and fight with the villagers upstream. It is impossible to build the canal. I can't swallow this humiliation! Even if the villagers upstream lost the fight and eventually dug a canal, because the headman who mediated failed to handle their grievances, some people would dig up the canal in the middle of the night and drain the water. After repeated incidents, the villagers downstream gave up on the canal and had to spend ten times more effort to fetch water from nearby streams. In backward and remote villages, some villagers are simple and kind. But what is more common is barbarism, ignorance and all kinds of unreasonable mistakes. Even in the 21st century, there are still villagers who refuse to accept the decisions of the village committee and dump pesticides into reservoirs and throw dead pigs into the village courtyard. The only way to prevent the villagers in the Middle Ages from making mistakes was to have a powerful and decisive lord.
Uliyang did a great job in this regard, managing the villagers in a militarized manner, with clear rules and ruthless punishments. People from the refugee camp continued to join the villagers' camp, and there were also cases where villagers from the villagers' camp were expelled to the refugee camp and reformed. The village chief in the North is similar to the clan patriarch. He is either a powerful family leader or a respected elder. And Soloviev chose exactly the latter. He tried his best to mediate the conflicts among the villagers and prevent them from bringing the matter to the presence of the lord. But asking him to organize large-scale infrastructure construction is really too much to ask. Infrastructure construction requires not only organizational ability but also investment, and this leader just doesn't have these two qualities, and he doesn't dare to mention them to the noble Lord Knight. Moreover, in the eyes of the chief, life nowadays is already very good and there is no need to create trouble anymore. Even if some villagers bring up issues, they will be suppressed by him. Having lived two lives and seen the negative subjective initiative of the villagers, Leo is not as idealistic as Knight Solovy. Hearing Leo's words, Solovie frowned, his face turned slightly cold, and he did not respond. What the other party said was very simple, but it was also the same as what his eldest brother had instructed, which was to fulfill the responsibilities of a lord, organize young and strong people, initiate labor, and not let them be idle. The people of the Knights' Territory, whether serfs or hired farmers, not only had to take care of their own fields and pay taxes, but they also had to perform three months of forced labor every year. The essence of these three months of labor is to make use of the slack farming time and force the villagers to maintain the village infrastructure. But most of the noble lords would use this three-month labor period to let their subjects repair their houses or castles. The mansions and small castles of the lords at the village and town level are not as exquisitely made of materials as the castles of kings and dukes. Many of these stone and wood structures cannot even afford tiles and can only be covered with platycodon like the villagers' huts. The bricks and stones are cracked and the wood is rotten, and a large amount of manpower is required every year to carry out maintenance and repairs. In some territories, it has gradually evolved into a situation where repairing the lord's house has become the duty of the subjects, and the three months of labor is calculated separately. This impression also made Knight Solovy disgusted with the forced labor villagers and unwilling to exercise this power - he even disdained to live in the lord's mansion. In fact, he had never thought of becoming a knight lord. Wouldn't it be better to just delegate this matter to the family's steward? But his elder brother Rigolav believed that as a knight lord, he must have certain ability to manage the territory, so he forced him to come here and was not allowed to go back until he had stayed for three years. Soloviev is not a fool, and naturally he has some business ideas, but thinking is one thing and doing is another. In the end, it can only be left unresolved and let go. Seeing that he didn't respond, Leo had no choice but to give up and finally gave him some advice, "If you really want to run a knight territory well, you still have to make some noise. If you stay at peace with the world, you will sooner or later attract the covetousness of others." "The situation in the west is good now. There are fewer foreigners and bandits than in other places. You have established a firm foothold here. Even if you are not targeted by others, what about the lands further west?" "Uncle Solovy, I'm going back first." Watching the young man who came to get close to him riding away leisurely, Solovie fell into deep thought.