N-M #521 - Market Church and the Count
#521 - Market Church and the Count
Having skimmed through the letter from Valentine Tyler, Horn furrowed his brow, then relaxed it with a sigh of resignation.
The situation truly offered no respite; no sooner had Ludwig been assassinated than the Holy Axis's grain trade agreement hung in the balance.
Within the County of Kasha, monks and friars were still fiercely debating the next Abbot and investigating the assassin's identity.
If you asked Horn, what was there to investigate? Who else could it be but the Church? It was nothing but self-deception.
This assassination had indeed created a significant problem for Horn. Abbot Ludwig was undoubtedly a wise man who appeared foolish.
His ability to form an alliance with the Salvation Army, and the various shared understandings, demonstrated his insight. Their cooperation was largely based on the old man's strong pressure and prestige.
Without Ludwig, the Brago Monastery in Kasha County would still be sitting on the fence.
In contrast, that Rang Sandro was more foolish than wise.
Who knows when they'll select a new Abbot.
Shaking his head, Horn could find no better solution than to order increased vigilance.
Before he could resolve the matters in Kasha County, the Holy Sun Army presented him with another new problem.
The nobles, recognizing the situation, were gradually beginning their classic fence-sitting.
Judging from this trend, the natural disasters and man-made calamities of Imperial Calendar 1444 to 1445, along with the Kingdom of Leia's civil war, had significantly weakened the psychological defenses of the nobles and yeoman farmers in Hotam County.
As for the real reason Prince Condé sent the Cuirassier squadron to forage, Horn could roughly guess.
Originally, the entire Thousand River Valley supplied him with nine Edict Companies, but now, although only five remained, only Hotam County could provide for them.
While Hotam County alone provided nearly a third of the entire Thousand River Valley's tax revenue, the question was how much could actually be collected.
The former Langsand County only paid over 8,000 gold pounds. According to Holy Treasury Chief Cici's calculations, the Salvation Army could expect to collect 20,000 gold pounds in Langsand County next year, split equally between the central and local governments.
The entire tax base of Langsand County was only 70,000 gold pounds. Horn could collect the maximum tax because he had financial instruments like bonds and no middlemen taking a cut.
A wartime Cuirassier squadron costs between 150 and 200 gold pounds per year.
To maintain combat readiness, the Edict Companies were still replenishing their ranks and purchasing equipment and medicine.
Prince Condé needed at least 80,000 to 100,000 gold pounds, which the local nobles absolutely could not provide.
So what to do? Only bypass the middlemen.
The idea was correct, but the method was too crude. If it were Horn, he would issue indulgence bonds in the name of the Church and forcibly distribute them to the nobles.
The Cuirassier squadron would only supervise, escort, and suppress, never directly collecting taxes.
The nobles (middlemen) would handle the work, the Church would take the blame, and if they won, the debts could be repaid. If they lost, it would all be over.
Directly robbing and issuing IOUs are two different concepts. The former makes people hope you lose, the latter makes them hope you win.
"Take this letter to the Privy Council. Isn't it the weekly meeting the day after tomorrow? Submit this agenda item urgently and have it copied out tomorrow."
The Privy Council was essentially the secretariat, mostly composed of monks from the Order of the Holy Father.
These monks handled the correspondence between Horn and the Cardinals, as well as the meeting minutes.
"Yes, Your Eminence," a Privy Council monk stood up, took the letter, and left the office.
Horn then stood up himself and took the draft agenda for the upcoming meeting from the file rack by the window.
According to the Salvation Army's system, the Cardinal meeting was held every Monday morning, so the agenda had to be submitted two days in advance, and the meeting content delivered one day in advance.
Basking in the warm sunlight streaming in from outside, Horn leaned against the window and began reading the freshly delivered form.
After quickly skimming through it, Horn basically determined that the main content consisted of three parts.
First was the market issue related to the consumption tax.
Due to the implementation of the "1445 Plan," the central Papal Palace's collection of local consumption taxes largely depended on fixed markets.
However, according to the two-month pilot program in several markets, some problems had emerged, most notably two.
The first was how to calculate taxes. Tax officials could not track every transaction and accurately calculate the taxes due, which was highly likely to lead to tax evasion.
Because whether calculating based on goods entering or leaving the market, or subtracting the two, there was one problem: there were too few people and too many items.
By the end of the day, they would be so busy collecting data that they couldn't even enter the market.
Not to mention the high probability of smuggling and concealed goods.
Or even on-site viewing and off-site transactions were possible.
The second was that bulk commodities could not be traded, because a market could only accommodate hundreds or thousands of people at a time, and each transaction involved only tens or hundreds of pounds of goods.
Generally, a market covered a radius of 10 to 15 kilometers, serving approximately 20,000 to 30,000 people. They traded in many diverse categories of goods, but in small quantities.
Bulk commodity trade, such as local merchants signing contracts with farmers from several villages,
required advance payments, and in the coming year, farmers had to provide a certain number of tons of agricultural products, timber, or wool at once.
They had a large quantity, but few categories and were relatively uniform. How many stalls would a few tons of goods occupy, and how much waste would there be in transporting them?
According to Horn's method, they had to trade under supervision, but this quantity was not suitable for the market.
The Gospel Court, which was currently in charge of this matter, had already provided corresponding plans, and tomorrow's meeting would decide which plan to adopt.
Horn believed that the Imperial Cardinal Council should focus more on multiple-choice and true-or-false questions, and less on fill-in-the-blank and essay questions.
The appearance of fill-in-the-blank and essay questions meant insufficient preparation and communication before the meeting.
Licking his finger, Horn turned to the second page, which was the agenda item for establishing a new construction department.
After the "1445 Plan," several towns would serve as residences for the Priest Orders.
All towns where Priest Orders were stationed had to build the following municipal buildings: a church, a town hall, a citizens' square, a clinic, a bell tower, a school, a watchman's tower, and an armory.
The church and town hall were the main political buildings, serving as the center of religious and administrative affairs.
The citizens' square was a place for commerce and townspeople's activities.
The clinic, bell tower, and school were functional buildings, responsible for providing simple treatment, informing weights and measures and time, and providing education.
As for the watchman's tower and armory, they were self-explanatory: the former provided security, and the latter was for military purposes.
These buildings would be renovated if they existed, and newly built if they didn't.
These buildings would be mainly brick and stone structures, supplemented by mortar, five or six meters high, not requiring much splendor or magnificence, as long as they could be identified as what they were.
In addition to establishing the core, it could also support the brick kiln industry that had sprung up around Grey Furnace Town due to peat.
These buildings were all official buildings, and it was no longer appropriate to use engineering teams and stonemasons of unknown origin from the private sector.
Horn planned to nationalize several well-performing engineering teams and some stonemasons to become a dedicated team for key official buildings.
But the next question, which Horn believed would definitely be disputed the day after tomorrow, was who would manage this engineering team.
All Imperial Cardinals wanted their departments to manage as much as possible, because the more they managed, the greater their power and the less restraint they would face.
The last agenda item was how to receive the Count of Sechinger, who would be visiting next week.