After entering Sheriff Baron Nxima's private box on the second floor, Balian realized what grandeur was. This small dining place for the Sheriff was so luxurious.
The floor in the box was covered with a fine wool blanket shipped from the Principality of Bacchus far to the east of the Verin continent. After entering, I took off my shoes and stepped on it, and I could feel the very comfortable softness.
On one wall of this box, there is a wool tapestry with the family crest of Baron Nxima hung, and on the other three walls there are deer antlers and other decorations.
The most surprising thing is that on the wall in front of the door to the box, there is a golden shield hanging on it, with various gemstones used to spell out the coat of arms of the Baron Nxima family.
Balian took a long look at the box and couldn't help but sigh in his heart. He was indeed the Sheriff of a wealthy area. He was really not an ordinary luxury person. He was much richer than Viscount Plum.
Not long after Balian came in, Gamgee also came in. Gamgee himself had a title, and his family was also very powerful. In addition, he basically had business dealings with the people in front of him.
After he came in, he was warmly welcomed by Baron Nxima, Sir Sandiman and the young nobleman.
After everyone sat down, after introduction, they found out that the young nobleman was a tax collector with a license issued by the palace.
His name is Orsan, and he is the second son of a court viscount. He also has a knighthood. He is the kind of person who is responsible for managing the family property in Brick, a middle- and upper-class aristocratic family in the country.
Ganmoji saw that Balian was a little confused about "tax collectors", so he took advantage of the break of going to the toilet with Balian to briefly explain it to Balian.
It turns out that tax collectors are a special kind of businessmen who are responsible for helping nobles who cannot manage their own territories, manage their territories, and collect taxes.
Of course, these tax collectors are not kind and good people. In the eyes of nobles and common people, these tax collectors are complete vampires.
For the nobles, they take away at least 30% of the territory's taxes every year, and for the ordinary people, they take away as much as they can. After all, every penny increases their own pockets.
I can drum up a little more.
It is precisely for this reason that they adopted extremely severe and bloody punishments for those civilians who had no money to pay taxes, or who concealed the actual output of their fields, the number of their own livestock, or even wanted to use force to resist taxes.
The lords entrusted their power of taxation and life and death to these hateful tax collectors, and they used these two powers to the extreme.
They have set up a wide variety of tax items. An ordinary person starts paying taxes from the time he is conceived by his mother. There is a pregnancy tax when you are pregnant, there is a production tax when you give birth to a child, and there is a milk tax when a child drinks milk...
As for weddings, funerals, birthdays, etc., taxes must be collected. Inheriting the inheritance of elders also requires paying a lot of taxes, so many people give up inheriting their parents' inheritance.
It doesn't matter if they just create a name to collect taxes. The key is that they still keep an eye on these ordinary people and try every means to find reasons to collect fines.
Gamgee shared with Balian a very funny thing that he had heard about. It was that the tax collectors of a tax collector couldn't sleep one night and were wandering around the village when they heard a loud noise coming from a house.
A loud purring sound.
After listening to this for a while, the tax collector's eyes immediately lit up. He quickly kicked open the door of this family's house, pulled the family out of bed, and collected their snoring tax.
This surprising discovery of the tax collector was regarded as a successful experience and was promoted in the area contracted by the tax collector, becoming a temporary joke.
Although what Gamgee said was a joke, Balian knew that what these tax collectors did was indeed very excessive, basically squeezing ordinary people to the extreme.
When Balian asked why no one resisted, Gamgee shook his head with a wry smile and explained to Balian, and then Balian understood.
It turns out that these tax collectors themselves are from the nobility. Not only do they have strong backgrounds, they also have a tax collection army organized in the name of mercenaries. When the tax collectors go to the village to collect taxes, these mercenaries will follow them.
Go, as long as someone dares to resist, he will definitely not end well. Almost every year, people are beaten to death by tax collectors.
The villagers were angry but dared not speak out. They had no weapons and no one to lead them to organize them, so there was no way they could fight against these well-trained mercenaries.
Gamgee told Balian that he had witnessed a village being destroyed by mercenaries led by a tax collector. Almost all the adult men were killed, and the women and children were sold into slavery. There was such a tragic precedent that those
Farmers and serfs did not dare to resist.
However, after Ganmoji said this, he added that in the past two years, there have been many floods and droughts, and the farmers themselves cannot survive. The tax collectors are still exploiting them as usual, and more and more people are fighting against them.
Much more.
At the beginning of this year alone, Gamgee had heard of several cases where small groups of mercenaries sent by tax collectors were surrounded and eliminated by angry farmers.
However, despite this, the tax collectors did not realize that this was a problem of over-exploitation. Instead, they believed that the combat effectiveness of their mercenaries was not strong, and began to look for and recruit those with strong combat effectiveness to join their
Join the mercenary team to increase the combat effectiveness of the army in your hand.
At this time, Balian understood why they forced Oromi to join them. It was mainly in the hands of these tax collectors. Those mercenaries who could only bully the farmers on a daily basis could no longer defeat the extremely angry and armed farmers.
Already.
After Gamgee told him this, Balian had a preliminary judgment on the matter, and when the two sides discussed it later, he would be able to better control them.
Balian knows that these guys who are used to doing evil every day must have no sense of morality or shame in their hearts. They only care about interests. Therefore, the only way to deal with them is to lure them with benefits and impress them with actual benefits.
By the time Balian and Gamji returned to Baron Nxima's luxurious box, the food and wine had already been served. They had removed the ones they had just eaten and then re-served them. It seemed that Baron Nxima was still interested in him.
Take it seriously.
After sitting down, everyone toasted each other with a few glasses of wine. It was considered a formal greeting. Balian asked Rohir and Orome to talk about the situation. After all, Balian now wondered how they were related to the tax collectors.
The matter of owing people money is not clear yet.
The two of them and the mercenary team leader under the tax collector Orsan were not qualified to eat at the table. They stood aside and watched these nobles eating and drinking.
When Balian asked Rohir and Oromi to talk, the two of them were stunned for a moment, and then they exchanged glances and asked Rohir, as the eldest brother, to tell the whole story.
Rothschild was originally a horse dealer, because the horses he sold were of high quality and the prices were not deceptive. Because of this, Balian's father, Baron Ourre, had a particularly good impression of this horse dealer.
Almost every autumn, when Rohirr passed through the town of Frondo, Sir Orry would stay with Rohirr for a few days, firstly to see if there were any rare horses, and secondly to listen to what Rohirr had to say.
The third reason he has traveled all over the country in the past year is to find a wine lover who can match his drinking capacity.
Rohir also reciprocated Sir Orry's kindness. Sir Orry provided him with free accommodation and often invited him to dinner. Not only did he sell the horses to Sir Orry at a cheaper price, but he would also give him to Sir Orry before leaving the town of Frondo.
Send one or two mules and horses to show your sincerity.
When Balian was five years old, Sir Orre also gave Balian a group of ponies and taught Balian how to ride a horse for two consecutive years. Balian was deeply impressed by this experience.
It was precisely for this reason that after hearing Rothchild's name, he thought of this familiar person. Balian would never stand by and watch his old friend suffer.
After Rothier had been selling horses for several years, as there were more brothers around him and the horse dealers' livelihood was not so easy, they started to work part-time as caravan guards and mercenaries.
.
There are more than 20 people in Lochiel's group. Not only can everyone ride a horse, but their martial arts skills are also very good. Naturally, they have been praised by many employers.
In this way, within a few years, Rochiel's side business became its main business, and its main business, horse selling, became a side business. They mainly engaged in mercenary work. Although there was no official name for the mercenary team, it was undoubtedly the current mercenary team.
A de facto mercenary.
Just last month, they took over a job from the tax contractor Orsan, who asked them to escort a batch of property. But when they arrived at the scene, they discovered that the tax contractor wanted them to attack
A village fighting against the tax collectors.
Rohir and others were from lower-class commoners. Although they did not dare to fall out with the tax collector Orsan because of their integrity, they were not willing to help them massacre the kind-hearted villagers.
Therefore, Rohirr sternly refused to participate in the battle because of the discrepancy with the employment requirements, and directly led the team to leave.
After Orsan learned about Rohirrim's behavior, he became furious. After the angry Orsan stabilized his mood, he made up his mind to either subdue the Rohirrim warriors for his own use, or to get rid of this sympathetic and confrontational gang.
Tax farmer's guy.
Orsan's life creed is, if you don't get it, destroy it.
Therefore, Orsan demanded that Rochiel break the contract and ask him to compensate him for liquidated damages five times the contract commission amount, and to pay it off within half a month, otherwise, they would start charging interest.
However, if Rohirr and the others are willing to become Orsan's tax mercenaries, Orsan will not only forgive them this debt, but also provide Rohirr with no less than fifty dinars per week.
Employment compensation.
The bloody man Rohir naturally ignored this sinister noble boy. He was born into a peasant family and knew the hard work of farmers and the miserable life of being oppressed since he was a child. After he read the letter Orsan gave him, he directly
Throw the letter aside and ignore it.
But what she didn't expect was that Orsan would send someone to negotiate with his good brother Oromi, the third person in their small mercenary team.
Today, Balian saw that it was Oromi who overturned the table after hearing the conditions proposed by the people sent by Orsan. He felt that his personality had been greatly insulted.
It turned out that Orsan asked his men to tell Orommi that as long as he killed Rohir and brought the remaining people to him, he would give him a thousand dinars, and Oromí's child could become Orommi.
Ersan, a knight attendant of the palace baron family, will have the opportunity to advance to the nobility.
Orsan's condition is indeed very tempting. It is estimated that if it were the third person in the mercenary team, he would probably agree. After all, who among ordinary people can refuse the temptation of money?
Besides, there is also the opportunity to be promoted from a commoner to a noble, which is a big killer. You know, in this world, it is almost impossible for a commoner's child to become a knight's attendant, unless someone like Balian,
A weak knight with no foundation.
From being a commoner for generations to having the possibility of becoming a noble, there are probably not many people in this world who can refuse it, but Orsan's calculations were wrong this time.