Lady of the Lord From the East

Naturally, the Pope’s visit will not be a solo trip. There are three cardinals (red-clothed) bishops who accompany the visit, and several purple-clothed bishops. In addition to the high-ranking clergy, there are also nearly 100 entourages composed of low-ranking clerics. The Pope's personal guard and the Knights Templar, one of the three famous knights, are guarding the many clergy.

There were as many as a thousand people in the entire team, of which the Guards and the Knights Templar accounted for half. When they disembarked at the Royal Port and entered the capital in a neat line, they would have imagined And know how sensational that scene was.

And the news of the Pope's visit to Prady quickly spread throughout the empire, and these days, everyone met and talked about it.

Therefore, the Sardinson County side naturally knows the size of the visiting team.

After hearing that there were a thousand people in the visiting team, Wei Wei was once again thankful that she had firmly rejected his willingness to visit. So many people, especially half of them were knights and soldiers. If they were allowed to enter Sardinson County, these people would be private. Wanting to do something underneath, Wei Wei wasn't sure Felix's Cavaliers could stop it.

As an earl, Felix has the standard earl configuration, a knight group consisting of 120 knights and 120 attendant cavalry, and the remaining standing soldiers are 700—these soldiers are still Felix Last year, after training the territorial people, they recruited those who performed well. Before that, there were only about 100 standing soldiers in the castle.

The total number of knights plus soldiers is close to a thousand, which seems to be double the strength of the Pope's visiting group, but the combat effectiveness of the two cannot be compared at all. The Pope's personal guard is composed of mercenaries, and the Knights Templar is even more. A frequent visitor on the battlefield, the combat effectiveness of the two teams is ranked among the best in Europe, and Felix's men, unfortunately, except for those knights, most of the soldiers are just recruits who have never been on the battlefield.

Moreover, these knights and soldiers did not stay in the castle all the time. As before, the number of soldiers guarding the Fort Sardinson on a daily basis was only 100. The other soldiers were sent by Felix to guard the major factories and stationed in three small towns. Now, the knights are also stationed in Sardinson Castle in groups of 12 with their knight attendants in turn. During the rest of the time, they are either assigned tasks to run around, or they are busy with their own affairs in their own fiefs.

Comparing the two, the more I look at it, the more I feel that the situation in Sardinson County is very bad.

If the other party has the heart, can they really stop these people?

"Don't worry too much." Felix comforted Wei Wei who was overly nervous: "Although we only have so many troops on the bright side, if necessary, I can immediately assemble an army with no less than 5,000 troops."

The standing army is not the actual army. Any count with a territory on the standard line can sign an army of several thousand people in a few days. The lords have the obligation to fight against the lord. Even if they can’t get their own weapons, they will also carry the farm tools at home to gather. If someone is unwilling, enforced or killed, they can choose one of the two.

Therefore, as long as there is no irreconcilable deep hatred with them, it is impossible for the visiting group to bring people in directly.

Even if they really had a problem with their brains and called, the soldiers in Sardinson County are not fuel-efficient lamps. Even if they have not been on the battlefield, the soldiers trained according to the training plan and nutritional supplement provided by Wei Wei are better than other nobles. The soldiers are much better, and it is even less likely that they will lose to the church when there are many people and they are fighting locally.

And don't look at King Prady's acceptance of the Pope's visit, but according to the news Felix got, most of the soldiers brought by the church were not allowed to enter the palace, obviously they were also afraid of accidents.

After all, when they did not agree with each other, they directly slashed each other with a knife. This kind of thing is not uncommon in Europe. Of course, the king did not dare to let too many people into his palace, and his relationship with the church was not very good.

"The king can refuse us as well. The church is not as strong as you think."

Sometimes Felix doesn't quite understand why Wei Wei is so opposed to the church. In her eyes, the people in the church are very strong and unreasonable, as if they would kill people casually.

He didn't know that in the history of Wei Wei's world, the church used various pagans as an excuse to kill people, and the signs of this already existed at this time.

Wei Wei, who hadn't read history, but had watched a lot of film and television themes and was deeply impressed by the famous witch hunt, naturally wouldn't have much affection for the church.

To be honest, what she is most worried about is whether the church will suddenly call her a witch one day and drag her to trial, although she knows that this is unfounded worry, and no matter how powerful the church is, it is impossible for the church to accuse her of trumped-up charges in Prady. Trial an aristocrat, but who let her know too much about the black history of the church, and most of the standards of witches can be equated with her, the sense of urgency always pops up on her own, and she can't do it if she wants to relax.

However, after knowing that Felix was prepared and comforted, Wei Wei was finally less worried.

"When will they come?"

"It will not be until mid-to-late June at the earliest. I heard that the king has invited the Pope to temporarily stay in the capital, and he agreed."

No matter what their relationship is, this kind of polite invitation is still required, so for the time being, Pope John cannot be separated from the capital.

"At that time, the wheat was about to be harvested. They really picked a good time."

June is the harvest season for wheat, not only the wheat for the winter, but also the oats and barley planted in March this year will mature in early July. Although the harvest has not yet been carried out, the residents who are busy in the fields all day can naturally see that this year's wheat grains are fuller than ever before, and there are few empty husk grains. They can be sure without waiting for the harvest. This year will certainly be a harvest day like never before.

Likewise, other crops are looking better than in previous years, with some even ripening early to be harvested with the wheat.

After the harvest, it is natural to pay taxes. Originally, Felix and Wei Wei thought that the tithing to the church this year would still be paid according to the minimum standard in previous years, not much at all. Anyway, the nobles are different from the commoners. Paying taxes will be punished. It is a routine operation for nobles to pay less or even no tithing. If the harvest is not good, it can be dismissed. Even the priests serving in the territory have no way to refute, even if they know that the harvest is good, they will not. Will directly offend the lord because of this.

Don't look at the power of the church, but in the end it can't overwhelm the nobles of the local snakes. It really angered the lord. The latter directly sent troops to demolish the church to drive out the clergy, and even killing them is not impossible, and most nobles do this. Even if they received a reprimand from the church headquarters, they basically apologized and then paid a fine. After all, even their kings couldn't control these nobles, especially those who were not directly under the vassals and were powerful.

It can be said that if the church in the Middle Ages was black, the nobles would not be much better from the beginning to the end, they were all the same raccoon dog, and no one should look down on the other.

So even if they knew there was a problem with the taxes paid by the nobles, the church could only turn a blind eye.

But if the church directly sees a good harvest in their territory, it is too much to use the poor harvest as an excuse, and there is no way to fool people.

Just thinking about how much more taxes will be paid this year, the earl and his wife are equally distressed.

"No, before they come, let's harvest the early-ripening wheat fields first. The wheat will be sent directly to the pasta factory, and another batch of oats will be replanted in the fields, so don't leave the fields empty."

Although oats are generally sown in spring, it is not too late to plant in June. As long as you carefully manage this time, you will be able to harvest a batch of grain after three or four months. With fertilizer, you can plant winter wheat again.

Wei Wei originally had this idea, but was planning to arrange it after the wheat was harvested. Although oatmeal was disliked by people in this period and used as feed, in fact, it has high nutritional value and certain medical effects, which would make it unpalatable. Part of it is because of the variety, but more because of the production method. Of course, boiled oatmeal without anything is not very delicious. Foreigners who have not seen the future are almost always eating oatmeal every morning, not only because of convenience and nutrition, Also because oatmeal with added milk and sugar doesn't taste bad.

However, for the time being, the residents cannot afford sugar to eat. This method of eating can be implemented later. The main purpose of replanting oatmeal is to increase the feed.

Sardinson opened a meat sauce factory last year. This year, the scale of the meat sauce factory is also slowly expanding. It needs a lot of meat. Last year, they raised chickens, ducks, sheep, pigs and even some cows and horses that were eliminated. The slaughterhouse is slaughtered and transported to make meat sauce. This year, Felix let people raise more livestock, and also relaxed the restrictions on serfs raising livestock, allowing them to go to the castle and carry piglets back to raise them. The castle provides it, and they don't charge, but when they grow up, two-thirds of the meat on these pigs belongs to the castle, and the remaining one-third goes to the serfs, and they don't need to pay taxes on these piglets.

Of course, if you raise it to death, you have to pay the piggy back for the cost.

As soon as the news came out, the serfs were very excited, because in the past, they had to pay taxes to get the right to raise livestock, and many people could not afford young livestock, so at most they exchanged some eggs with others and raised chickens and ducks by themselves. , the harvest is limited.

But now the Count is willing to pay for them without tax, and in the end they can get one-third of the meat, which seems to be a lot for the serfs who have been paying heavy taxes, and all they pay is empty It takes some time to rush the pigs out for food, which can be handed over to the children when the piglets are young, so that they can exchange so much meat on a pig, which is a great thing in their opinion.

Of course, some people worry about the compensation for raising dead pigs, but most people are still willing, because when the earl said that he will arrange for someone to teach them how to raise pigs, and even if the pigs are raised to death, the compensation price for piglets is also Most serfs could afford it.

So after this decree came out, the serfs who wanted to raise pigs in the manor immediately boiled, and they all ran to the castle, for fear that the piglets would be transferred too late.

Of course there are piglets, and there are many of them. Some of these piglets are wild piglets brought back by Felix's team. It is the sow piglets, of which the wild piglets are left in the castle to be taken care of by slaves, most of the boar piglets are prepared for the serfs, and a small group of the best condition and the remaining sows are sent to the town of Uk for breeding. field.

At that time, there were rumors that their countess liked to castrate piglets in Sardinson County. The serfs took a peek at the piglets assigned to them, and sure enough, there were wounds in key parts, and they exchanged an indescribable expression.

Some people couldn't help but ask the steward in charge of distributing piglets, would these piglets die easily if they were castrated? Could he be replaced with a piglet that didn't use castration?

The other serfs thought the same thing in their hearts. If they were destined to not survive, they would not dare to support them.

The steward scolded the person who spoke angrily: "If you don't want to raise it, let me put it back. Do you want an uncastrated piglet? Well, pick one over there, and you'll see how you will pay for it when you raise it to death."

The serf who asked the question looked along the direction pointed by the steward, and saw a group of piglets in cages ready to be transported away.

And these piglets are much smaller than the piglets in their hands, and they have been screaming and screaming in the cage, and there is no meekness in their hands.

The serf who asked the question had raised pigs for Lord Earl before. At first glance, he could roughly determine that the piglets in the cage should be about a month old, just weaned and weighed less than ten pounds. Although they were noisy, they were healthy. A bunch of good piglets.

The piglet they received looked like two months old, weighed about fifteen pounds, and had a very docile personality, not too noisy. It was also a good piglet, and there was nothing unhealthy about it. The serf who had raised pigs knew that docile piglets were easier to raise. After the comparison, he silently stopped to change piglets.

Seeing that he stopped talking, the steward scolded him angrily and said, "Look for yourself, the pigs on both sides are piglets that are about forty days old. Can't you tell which one is better? ? The countess is kind-hearted, so she is willing to give you piglets that can feed you better, and you don't know how to be grateful for anything else."

The serfs who originally thought that the piglets they were leading were bigger than the piglets in the cage were dumbfounded.

"It's all 40-day-old Piggy? Are you kidding me? How can they be the same size?"

The residents didn't believe the steward at all, these piglets were so different in size, could they be the same size? This is absolutely joking.

The first serfs who came to pick up the piglets were all serfs who had experience in raising pigs. They could judge the size of the piglets according to their weight. The one-month-old piglets were qualified if they weighed about seven or eight pounds. The bigger ones are hard to exceed ten pounds. Those in the cage said that they were more than a month old. They believed that, but the piglets in their hands had just been weighed, and none of them weighed less than fifteen pounds. They said They were piglets around 40 days old and they didn't believe it at all.

Usually two-month-old piglets do not have this kind of weight.

"What am I fooling you to do, believe it or not, castrated pigs grow faster than uncastrated pigs. If you don't want to raise them, give them back to me. Anyway, my family also brought piglets. After the piglets grow up, you Seeing that your pigs are thinner than mine, don't blame me for not reminding you."

If it wasn't for the fact that he was also a serf, the serf who came to collect the pigs had his own relatives, and he wouldn't talk much.

When the serfs heard that he had taken it himself, whether they believed it or not, they were unwilling to change piglets. Although they thought that castrated pigs might not be easy to raise, what they saw in front of them was that they were taller than their peers. The piglets are bigger, and their bodies are full of flesh, and there is nothing that is not easy to raise at all.

And when these territorial people brought the piglets back to raise them for a period of time, they found that, as the steward said, these piglets were indeed easier to gain weight, and they were always stronger than uncastrated piglets of the same age. They have a good temper, which makes the serfs who live directly with the pigs in the same house feel a lot more comfortable. They don't have to worry about them suddenly becoming violent and hurting people. After all, the piglets that grow up will also be able to Those with long tusks, although not as good as those of wild boars, are still in danger of hurting people.

Of course, soon the serfs stopped living with the piglets. Wei Wei sent someone to teach them that the first step in raising pigs was to let them build pigsties. In captivity, she also provided the formula for pig food, and asked the serfs to cook them before feeding them to the piglets. The pigsty should also be cleaned regularly. After the two-pronged approach, the piglets grew faster.

Originally, some people thought that cooking pig food for pigs was a complete waste of time, and did not follow the Countess’s orders in private. I had to pay attention to it, but unfortunately I missed the best time to gain fat. In the end, I didn't catch up with others, and lost several kilograms of meat, which made them regret.

In June, most of the piglets survived smoothly, and they basically grew to about 50 kilograms. This weight is already the weight they have been raised for seven or eight months before, and the pigs will only have the weight when they are released into the slaughter. , If you keep raising pigs, they won't grow any longer and will only waste food.

But now, it takes three months to grow to the size of a slaughtered pig, so that they can be sure that these pigs can continue to grow. Under the 50 catties of guaranteed pork, the bigger they grow, the more they earn, and the serfs become more and more I have been actively taking care of these pigs. Every time I feed the pigs in the pigsty with pig food, I can smirk and watch for a long time.

Also because everyone is actively looking for food for the piglets, almost all the pig grass in the wild is rounded up by them, and the rations of other horses, cattle and sheep are much less, but this year, there are more horses, cattle and sheep. The pasture is a bit tight. In order to ensure that all the livestock have enough feed to eat in winter, Wei Wei thought about replanting a batch of oats after the wheat harvest to feed the livestock before the scale of alfalfa grass was raised.

Of course, these oats can also be eaten. When the serfs served Felix, they ate mixed grain porridge such as beans and oats. There was a lot of oats in it. Anyway, it was free food. I hate the taste, not to mention the tasteless oatmeal, it is better than the black bread mixed with stones, not to mention that the multigrain porridge is still boiled with bone broth, it is oily and watery, and it has a meaty taste, which is more fragrant to them. .

Felix has always been in charge of things in the fields to Wei Wei. Although there is no precedent for replanting oats after the wheat is harvested before, he believes that Wei Wei, since she said yes, it will definitely work.

The territorial people who farmed for Felix also believed in her. After seeing the effect of fertilizer on the field and the speed at which the barrows grew fat, they had begun to blindly believe that their countess was farming and breeding. It has a power that can almost be called a miracle.

Of course, the most exciting thing for them is the yield of those wheat fields that were harvested in advance.

"Two thousand two hundred catties! There are actually two thousand two hundred catties!"

The heavy stewards and the serfs were all excited. In the past, the harvest of an acre of 1,200 catties was considered a bumper harvest. Since last year, they have followed Wei Wei's instructions from the beginning of the selection to the present. After careful care along the way, the harvest of the field with the largest yield was 2,200 catties, almost twice as fast as in previous bumper years, and the harvests of other fields were also more than 1,800 catties.

The never-before-seen bumper harvest almost made the group of stewards and serfs who were temporarily recruited to harvest go crazy with excitement. Like crazy, he grabbed the people around him and started laughing and screaming, and he kept bouncing around like a fool with joy.

Originally, while listening to the report, I was thinking about how these harvests, which are calculated as 300 to 350 catties per mu according to Huaxia's yield, should continue to be improved. After all, the wheat varieties grown in the two places in the same era should not be bad. There are too many. It makes no sense that Huaxia can achieve an average yield of 400 per mu, but they only have more than 300. There is definitely room for improvement.

It seems that more attention should be paid to saving seeds during the wheat harvest this time. In addition, fertilizers cannot be limited to manure and fire dung. We have to find those alchemists to see if they can develop chemical fertilizers...

Before she could continue to think deeply about the fertilizers that could be made in this era, she was frightened back to her senses by the crazy serfs.

Wei Wei's whole body trembled, and she almost threw the fan in her hand. Fortunately, everyone else was cheering and celebrating, and no one noticed her gaffe.

Seeing that they were so happy, Wei Wei didn't bother to interrupt, and turned her head to let the guards beside her go back to inform Felix of the good news, and then slowly waited for them to calm down.

Fortunately, the butler in charge of weighing still remembered that their countess was still watching, and quickly raised his voice to quiet the serfs. After they stopped yelling and laughing, they directed them to load the wheat into the cart and send it to the serfs. Pasta Factory.

Half of this wheat is produced on Felix's private land, and half is the output of the land rented by the serfs on the farm. They need to pay more than half of the output of the land in lieu of taxes, and the rest is really theirs, and now This part was also bought by the earl, see if they want money or exchange it for bean rye.

In the past, the serfs had a bitter face at this time, because even if the wheat left after paying the tax was exchanged for beans and rye, it would not necessarily be enough for them to eat for a year, but this time it was different. If this year’s wheat fields are all harvested like this, the harvested wheat will not only be enough for their family to eat twice a day for the whole year, but there may be a surplus for the whole year. Take it for money.

The harvest this time also spread quickly in Sardinson County. Wei Wei wanted to keep them secret, but the surprise of the harvest was too great. The serfs couldn't control themselves. Share this happy event, and their family tells the others, one by one, and they all know.

So while these serfs were replanting oats in high spirits, other serfs and freemen who farmed for the earl also began to stare at the wheat in their fields with fiery eyes, wondering if they also had so much harvest.

The people in the manor did not ask for a miracle of 2,200 catties, they were satisfied with an average of 1,800 catties!

Outside the manor, the fertilizer in the fields is low, and the management of the manor is not good. The free people set lower goals, praying every day that the production capacity per mu should be more than 1,500 catties. This is their comparison of the manor. The number that I think can be achieved after the condition of the wheat in my field and the wheat in my own field.