Chapter 65 The Dilapidated Swabian Territory (read more)
Otto's family has several territories in the Principality of Swabia.
The most important among them is undoubtedly Berg.
The Barony of Berg is the place where the Aracholf family thrives.
It was precisely because of their many years of accumulation in the Baron of Berg that the Aracholf family had the opportunity to take over Allgäu.
Berg is located in the south of the Ulm area and north of Ravensburg. Most of the land near this area is owned by the Earl of Ravensburg in the south.
When Otto took Sophie to Berg's manor, he was still very disappointed.
This territory in Swabia is also not rich enough.
Swabia is located in the middle of Germany, and the overall terrain is mainly mountainous. The only difference from the Swiss mountains is the altitude. Oh, and the degree of development is better than that of Switzerland. There are many fragmented flat valleys suitable for farming.
Including the land acquired through marriage with the Sighard family, Otto's total land area in the Principality of Swabia is larger than that of the Allgäu Territory.
But as a result, except for the decent Baron of Berg, the other territories felt very poor. The combined population of the entire Swabian territory was actually only equivalent to the direct jurisdiction of Otto in the Aargau Territory.
What made Otto most dissatisfied was that the policy of light corvee and low taxes he had previously enacted was greatly reduced in the implementation of the family territory in Swabia.
The farmers' taxes that were supposed to be greatly reduced were not even 20% reduced. Moreover, even Otto's most important policy of encouraging land reclamation was not implemented very optimistically here.
According to Otto's policy in the Argau Territory, after three years of reclaiming wasteland, farmers can obtain a piece of land that nominally belongs to them. As a result, the reclamation of wasteland has been carried out here, and the reclaimed land still belongs to the lord.
Otto's taxes are not even exempted.
The only good thing they did was not restricting the farmers' personal freedom.
But this is of no use at all, because Otto's territories in Swabia are not connected together. Otto's territory does not restrict farmers, but farmers do not dare to run around, in case they run into other lords' territories.
Territory, they will be caught as runaway serfs, and their lives will be in danger.
Not to mention, compared with the surrounding lords, the taxes collected by Otto were relatively low, so why did the peasants go to other territories? There were even many serfs who secretly went to Otto's territory.
This actually made Otto call him a good guy. It turns out that as long as he is better than others, he is not bad enough, right?
The problem is that, except for a few knights' territories, these territories are all under Otto's direct jurisdiction. The family knights who are in charge of them do not obey his orders, which makes Otto feel very angry.
My rule has just begun. If the people below have already begun to obey and disobey, then as my territory expands in the future, won't the foundation of the rule at the bottom be riddled with holes?
Facing Otto's anger, the family knights were helpless and had no choice but to defend themselves weakly.
"Master, it's not that we don't listen to you. The taxes you set are really too low. If we collect taxes according to your standards, let alone a decent army provided by the territory, we can't even maintain a small guard force.
rise."
In Aargau, Otto dared to reduce taxes because he relied on the income from commercial taxes. But in Swabia, he could only live on land taxes. If taxes were reduced like Aargau, then Swabia would need
The knights and soldiers who supported him could only drink the northwest wind.
What's more, the situation in the Allgäu Territory is relatively simple, and no one cares about Otto's tax cuts. Land relations in Swabia are complicated, and if Otto's territory reduces taxes, it will definitely attract farmers from other territories to defect.
If something unpleasant happens because of this, Otto, whose focus is on the Argau Territory, will definitely not be able to take action in time, and the ones who will suffer will definitely be these family knights and Otto's territory.
Not to mention, the Swabian territory has been providing blood transfusions to the Allgäu Territory, mainly to repay the debt for the purchase of the Allgäu Territory. Infrastructure and other things throughout the territory need to be maintained and upgraded, and Otto cannot be contacted.
Just speak up.
Therefore, everyone can only continue to suffer the peasants and insult the knights.
Otto expressed full understanding of the concerns and loyalty of the family knights, and did not really punish the family knights. But understanding was understanding, and Otto still could not accept this situation where the territory did not listen to his orders.
Otto felt that the idea of establishing an administrative agency to manage territorial affairs and assist him in handling government affairs must be put on the agenda.
However, if you want to build an administrative organization, the most critical point is to have enough talents. If you build an organization, even if it is called the Military Aircraft Department, and it is filled with the current knights, it will just change the soup without changing the medicine.
That’s all.
The final result must be that nothing has changed.
Talent... Otto thought for a while, and today's talents can almost only be found among the nobility. Even if they are from nobility, given the education level of this era, there are still a lot of illiterate nobility.
I went, and Otto found out helplessly that if he wanted talents, he could only train them from scratch. Other methods didn't seem very reliable.
In fact, it is not that there are no talents among the nobility, but with Otto's current status, such people will definitely not be willing to follow Otto. They are just counts. Among the Frankish nobility, there are a lot of them at random.
Cultivating talents means investing in education. If education in this era is over, the church will be another hurdle that cannot be bypassed.
After returning to Aargauland, it was time to have a good talk with Bishop Valens to see if there was any possibility of cooperating with the church to establish several church schools in Aargauland.
There was no way. These days, knowledge was in the hands of priests and nobles. Otto couldn't rely on letting nobles be his teachers.
By the way, Otto still had an account to settle with the church, which was Count Allgäu's serious injury and the collapse of his old Eagle Castle. Otto had never forgotten these two things.
Otto's identity was still in its infancy before, and he didn't really want to pursue the case with the church, but that doesn't mean that Otto just tolerated it. If I remember correctly, the Carolingian dynasty will be in a relatively stable stage for the next few years, and that's also true.
It's time to settle the accounts with the church.
However, now, Otto needs to do another thing, which is to find a new way to make money for the Swabian territory.
Now that he knew that the local farmers and his own knights were suffering, Otto couldn't just watch and do nothing.
Otherwise, with the increasing development of Aargauland, the economic gap between the two sides will continue to widen, which will definitely produce some kind of dissatisfaction and imbalance, especially for the knights and soldiers who stayed in Swabia.
So, what are some profitable ingredients that are not hard to find?