Aiden returned straight to the office.
“Jamie... is out. Kalisa is out too.”
Jamie seemed to be going around conducting various surveys in order to write the report.
Kalisa was probably racking her brain with several Commerce Development Department employees, estimating this year’s northern farmland area based on the newly gathered census data and drafting the corresponding budget proposal.
“I’ll have to do this one alone.”
That was even better.
Humming to himself, he took out a fresh sheet of paper and dipped his quill in ink. A pleasant scent of ink began spreading.
-Farm Household Income Improvement Project
It was the first title he wrote at the top of the report.
“Mm, good. I like it.”
As expected, when a project was to his liking, even the title came smoothly.
‘We’ll divide the lord’s castle’s directly administered farmland as much as possible and encourage cash crop cultivation.’
In this age, as was often the case in poor regions, the overwhelming majority of land was used to secure food.
In other words, they mainly grew rye, barley, and oats.
It was not as though northerners did not know that cash crop cultivation produced far greater added value.
However, such crops required a great deal of care, needed skill, and most importantly, required a place to sell them.
‘The care is something the private sector can handle on its own. Technology can be spread through the Administrative Welfare Office, and there’s a place to sell them: the trading post.’
The pieces fit together perfectly.
As expected, for anything to run properly, at least a minimal administrative foundation had to exist.
“Who is this good at work?”
Aiden grew more and more excited, even humming as he moved his hand without pause.
“Come to think of it, I saw residents who raised sheep and goats before. Then it might be possible to use the commons and encourage animal husbandry as well, not just cash crops.”
An increase in livestock had value beyond simply obtaining meat.
Shearing wool and processing it into goods was work that women and the elderly could also do.
In the north, which suffered from a shortage of population, creating work that women and the elderly could do meant the working population would increase as it was.
‘And an increase in the working population means an increase in taxes.’
An increase in taxes meant that even more projects could be carried out in the north again.
It was a perfect virtuous cycle.
“...And for that, what we need first is....”
***
“I’m going to operate a pilot site.”
When Jamie and Kalisa returned from their outside duties, they could only raise question marks over their heads at their superior’s sudden announcement of a project.
“A pilot site?”
“Yes.”
On the blackboard in one corner of the office, the outline of the project had already been organized at a glance.
“I think this is a project we can carry out because it is sowing season.”
“In other words, it is a project that must be implemented quickly.”
“Exactly.”
Perhaps because they had spent some time together, Jamie understood him perfectly.
“The purpose is to improve farm household income. That is good.”
“However, farm households will not challenge themselves to grow new crops so easily. The results have not been confirmed yet.”
“That’s why we need a pilot site, isn’t it?”
Kalisa had some doubts, but dissenting opinions were important.
A yes-man who unconditionally agreed with the superior’s opinion was unnecessary in Aiden’s meetings.
“We’ll give the pilot site several benefits as incentives.”
As though he had been waiting, Aiden began writing several more points on the blackboard.
“First, we plan to provide the land at a low rent. Fortunately, the lord’s castle has idle land, so using that should be enough.”
“Excluding the land leased to tenant farmers, this is the amount we have left.”
Jamie quickly found a document and handed it over.
“This much will be enough. Next is taxes.”
“Are you planning to lower the taxes?”
“If crops grown on the pilot site are sold to the trading post, let’s lower the tax rate for them. However, if they dispose of the crops separately instead of selling them all through the trading post, the tax rate remains the same.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the Technology and Labor Department will provide various support for the crops grown on the pilot site going forward. Things like arranging labor at a low price or teaching cultivation methods.”
And in order to determine whether a policy carried out by public office was working properly, it was better for public office to be able to check the results in bulk as well.
‘If we continue a policy without properly checking the results, things will go wrong in the end.’
One wrong move, and they might end up with the bear performing the tricks while Mr. Wang took the money.
Aiden thought this.
At least in the north, he would not leave alone those who treated “public money” as “blind money.”
The meeting continued late into the night.
Since this was a project that had to be implemented within the sowing season, time was important. It was inevitable that civil servants would be ground down.
Knock, knock.
“The kitchen has brought a late-night snack.”
While Kalisa and Jamie were fiercely attacking and defending each other’s opinions with veins standing in their necks, the late-night snack arrived.
“Sorry. Because of us, the kitchen cannot close either.”
“No, Administrator. This is only natural.”
The kitchen worker placed a sausage made from unidentifiable meat, wrapped in potato dough and fried in oil, in front of each of their desks.
“Um, thank you, Administrator!”
Then his face suddenly reddened, and he abruptly bent at the waist in a bow.
“...Me?”
Aiden, who had received the thanks without understanding why, pointed at himself with a finger.
“After you came, Administrator, everyone talks about tomorrow.”
The boy who did odd jobs in the kitchen stammered on, speaking without much order.
“There’s more work, but it isn’t hard at all. Before, there wasn’t any work, but it was so hard. I, um.... I don’t really know what I’m saying either. I’m sorry. But, I mean, I want to become an innkeeper someday.”
Now even his ears and neck were bright red.
He was practically a carrot.
“All right. If you open an inn later, I’ll come visit.”
Aiden gave a small laugh and answered.
“After hearing something like that, everyone has to earn the cost of tonight’s snack, right?”
“Yes, sir!”
“...Yes.”
Kalisa and Jamie also nodded, somehow looking choked up.
The boy’s rambling words had not praised their abilities or expressed admiration for their greatness.
But those words were probably what officials wanted to hear most of all.
To see people, in the land they were cultivating, looking at hope and drawing the future.
That day, the three members of the office leadership clung to their work past midnight, and not one of them went home.
***
After a winter when even the sun barely rose, spring was now in full swing.
The mornings of northerners began early.
Among the residents heading to the fields with pickaxes, shovels, and the like, some habitually circled around the trading post and discovered a new notice had been posted.
[Farm Household Income Improvement Pilot Site Recruitment]
-Priority for residents hoping to cultivate cash crops
-Low-cost lease of lord’s directly administered farmland
-Trading post priority delivery rights and Technology and Labor Department cultivation method support benefits
-Tax reductions planned for crops within the pilot site when traded through the trading post
-Applications: Commerce Development Department temporary counter inside the trading post
“Huh?”
“Isn’t this what Babe and the administrator were talking about yesterday?”
When a retired soldier among them, who could read despite some stammering, read the notice aloud, people gathered from all sides.
“It says they’ll reduce taxes too?”
“Hiss. Should I try it too?”
Each person’s eyes began to shine as they sank into thought.
Wanting to increase one’s land was practically an instinct for farmers.
The size of cultivable land was the size of wealth.
“I came to apply for the project!”
While others were still hesitating, someone had already entered the trading post and was shouting that he wanted land.
“I came first, so you will give me the largest plot, right? Yes? Right?”
It was Babe.
“What crop do you intend to cultivate?”
“I’m thinking of growing marjoram. I have some seeds.”
“Then the land suited for that would be, let’s see....”
When project applications had already begun inside the trading post, the farmers outside grew anxious.
“Honey, you should hurry and apply too!”
“Huh? Us too?”
“What will you do if you hesitate and all the land the lord’s castle is offering gets taken?”
“But we haven’t even decided what to plant on that land yet, and....”
“If we have land, we can plant something, can’t we? Hurry!”
Originally, when one’s cousin bought land, one’s stomach hurt.
But this was not even buying land. Was it not practically receiving land for free?
“I would like to apply too, sir!”
“I came first. Start with me!”
“Goodness, you people! An elder is coming in, so move aside!”
In an instant, the temporary reception desk inside the trading post was packed with people.
“It was good that we secured seeds and seedlings in advance. I never imagined they would be used like this.”
Watching the scene from the second-floor railing of the trading post, Jamie looked at Aiden in admiration.
‘Could he have planned even this far?’
He remembered the order to purchase leftover seeds and seedlings from various villages while traveling around to make the cultivation calendar.
His body trembled.
‘Now that I think about it, everything has been connected as one.’
As soon as Aiden had taken office, he had personally gone from house to house to conduct the census and check the situation.
Based on that census, he had realized that the number of merchants was strange and had secured the unregistered villages.
‘He opened a temporary market and made the north’s surplus goods spread.’
After that, he realized that northerners were weak in their sense of dates and numbers, so he distributed calendars. After realizing that the crops grown differed from village to village, he had also made the crop calendar.
And now.
The crop calendar had ultimately led all the way to a project to increase farm household income.
“Administrator!”
“Ah, you startled me. I’m not deaf yet, but if you keep shouting into my ear, I think I will be soon.”
“Please teach me! I will learn diligently!”
Aiden’s expression crumpled at once.
His aide was, how should he put it?
‘He really does wake up and bang on the wrong window frame.’
Jamie’s enthusiasm felt especially burdensome to Aiden today.
***
The night was far too dark to rely on moonlight and starlight.
“What I asked for?”
“It is prepared here.”
“Tsk! This is all?”
“We barely managed to secure even this.”
“Try a little harder. This cannot be the entire supply.”
“That may be true, but everyone is sowing now, so nothing is piling up. What can we do?”
In the darkness, the man roughly pulled back the hood of his robe, revealing his face.
It was Jenkin, the merchant who had been driven out after offering a bribe.