paranoianovel #608 - What exactly does he want to do?
#608 - What exactly does he want to do?
Splashing a handful of clear water on his face, Bryson forced a smile at the blurry reflection in the basin, waiting for the ripples to settle.
But the smile quickly faded, his eyebrows drooping and the corners of his mouth turning down in bitterness.
At the age of 40, Bryson wasn't sure if welcoming a second spring in his career was a good thing or not.
Compared to his previous job teaching armed farmers and the bear-like children of knights at the church school, this job was much busier and more difficult.
There was a reason why the mountain knight's manor was in such a state; the mountain people lived in closed circles and were inherently xenophobic.
Although the armed farmers had a lot of power after taking up positions in the manor, it wasn't as if they could do anything they wanted to the knights.
As long as the knight joined forces with the lower-level tenant farmers and seized one or two small handles of the armed farmers, they could easily eliminate these 'relatives' who ate inside and out.
With evidence of their crimes, even if the knight expelled his own relatives, it would be reasonable and he wouldn't be labeled as a beast who killed his own kin.
The fact that Adrian couldn't do anything about Henderson meant that either he had no leverage, or he had extremely high control over the tenant farmers.
Even the knight himself, the highest person in law, couldn't defeat Henderson, let alone Ansel, who was an outsider.
He didn't not admire people with dreams, but it would be better if those dreams didn't affect his life.
He needed this priest's job, but he didn't want to offend these local overlords.
After cutting a large number of church institutions and reducing taxes, although the overall income decreased, the amount distributed to each person increased.
Whether it was the Holy Path faction of Hohen or the Juan Nuo faction, they both had one advantage: they allowed priests to marry.
Although he wasn't so fond of that fat woman, she was his only choice, and besides, their illegitimate child was already five years old.
After hearing that he was allowed to marry, the fat widow was all lovey-dovey during the few days he was home on leave after passing the exam, not only completely breaking off with her lover, but also trying many things she hadn't tried before.
Not having to live in a cold monastery, having a salary sufficient for food and clothing, having a son and a wife, and being able to buy a few new clothes at the end of the year, what more could he ask for?
Ansel was always going to leave, he would never be able to defeat Henderson, why should he meddle in other people's business?
Walking out of his room, he forced a smile and walked towards Ansel in the small courtyard: "Good morning, Brother Ansel."
"Let's go, I'll take you somewhere."
"Oh, oh, okay." He guessed at Ansel's mysterious method, but as they walked closer and closer to the field along the bushes, Bryson inexplicably felt a sense of unease.
Ten minutes later, beside the manor's strip fields, under the scorching yet slightly cool morning sun.
Holding a sickle, wearing a straw hat, Bryson stood on the ridge with a numb expression: "You said you had a way, I thought you would have a brilliant plan, why use such a crude method?"
"Why is it crude?"
"Even helping the poorest farmers harvest wheat won't make them rebel against Henderson."
"Although the mountain people are xenophobic, they are also simple and honest." Carrying the grass rake on his shoulder, Ansel adjusted his straw hat. "They have one major characteristic: they always repay kindness and grudges."
Repaying kindness and grudges was a common consensus among the mountain people, or rather, it was precisely because of the harsh living environment that such a consensus or even unwritten rule was created.
Because the mountain counties were all bitter lands with a lack of resources, the competition was fierce, and they would always bully you if they thought you were easy to bully, so it was difficult to survive if relatives and friends didn't help each other.
Especially in hunting and disaster resistance, if others took the initiative to help you, and you didn't help others, then others were likely to die because of it, so who would be willing to help?
Revenge was the same; if you didn't take revenge, you would be bullied until your family was ruined.
Once you were considered to not repay kindness or revenge, you would suffer social death in the mountain people's society.
In modern society, social death was just social death, but in the closed circles of the empire's grassroots, social death was only a matter of time away from real death.
The armed farmers in the mountain counties had great power, partly because of their relentless revenge and resistance against the lords.
This kind of behavior was outrageous in the eyes of ordinary imperial farmers, but in the eyes of the mountain people, it was absolutely just and reasonable.
Bryson awkwardly held the long-handled sickle that he hadn't touched for a long time: "Excuse me for speaking frankly, but I don't see how helping others farm can bestow any kindness? It would be better to just give them some dinars."
"Giving them dinars would be wrong; helping you with labor is helping, giving you money for nothing is charity." Ansel looked at the oat field swaying in the wind. "The former makes them treat you as one of their own, the latter makes them treat you as an outsider."
"Seriously, even if you help them with this little bit, you can't dispel their prejudice, our voice can't compare to Henderson's." Bryson earnestly advised, "This little favor isn't enough for them to support the right of perpetual lease."
"What's the rush? I have a three-step plan." Ansel smiled and held up three fingers. "This is only the first step, let's go, let's harvest the wheat."
When he saw Ansel and Bryson harvesting oats, the farmer named Laroel stood on the ridge for a long time.
But then he neither asked nor drove them away, but silently picked up his sickle and continued to harvest the oat field on the other side.
Laroel had already seen Ansel's purpose, but he couldn't refuse; as the poorest household in the village, he also had nearly 20 acres of land to harvest.
From July to the end of August, it was the busiest time of the year for the mountain people, because it was the harvest season.
The mountains cooled down faster than the plains; once September arrived, the temperature would start to drop, and sooner or later, it would start to rain cold.
This meant that from mid-July when wheat, oats, and barley gradually ripened, to mid-to-late August, each household with two or three laborers had to harvest about 30 acres of land in a little over a month.
A month seemed like a long time, but it wasn't really long, because they had other farm work to do—mid-to-late July was just the time to loosen the fallow land for the second time.
Although he didn't understand why they couldn't move the date forward or backward, as long as they moved it, the harvest on the fallow land would be bad next year.
So they could only choose to loosen the soil at this time, and the real harvest would start from the end of July, in fact, only 15-20 days.
The problem was that in addition to harvesting their own land, they had to spare one or two days a week to harvest crops on the lord's reserved land.
What's more, the whole family needed to be mobilized; in addition to the housewife who took care of the housework, all the labor force, big and small, had to help the lord with farm work and housework.
Not only harvesting, not only the lord, the sedge, ferns, and firewood used by the armed farmers to keep warm in winter had to be provided by them, repairing houses had to be done by them, feeding livestock, helping with threshing and binding straw, all had to be done by them.
But they couldn't not do it, because these tasks, whether light or heavy, were arranged by the village head; if they angered him, he would arrange heavy tasks for several consecutive days, and even the strongest person would be exhausted.
Then the subsequent harvest would be completely over.
Laroel didn't want to offend Henderson, but the only labor force in his family was him, and he was in debt, and he even had to go to the lord's reserved land to harvest tomorrow.
If he drove Ansel away, maybe he wouldn't be able to finish the harvest this year, and the farmers adjacent to the ridge would forcibly cut his wheat on the pretext of 'not wasting' it.
There was a reason why the poorest farmers in the manor were poor; after a natural or man-made disaster, they used up all their favors and didn't get up, and eventually they would keep going in a vicious cycle.
So Ansel was helping him work, and he could only pretend not to see it.
Although Ansel was sweating profusely, he smiled, which was why he asked who the poorest households in the manor were.
Laroel had no reason to refuse.
After harvesting for a morning, at lunchtime, Ansel took the initiative to find Laroel.
He didn't mention the issue of perpetual lease and the hundred-household area, but instead suggested: "It's too inefficient and tiring for the three of us to harvest and bundle separately.
Why don't two people harvest and one person bundle, and the person bundling can just take a rest, and we can take turns, the farmers in our Pingyuan County do it this way, it's very particular, how about it?"
Anyway, he had already accepted Ansel's help, and Laroel didn't care about having more lice, and after weighing the pros and cons, he still agreed.
From harvesting in the morning to the evening, their farm work gradually stopped until the sun set.
Ansel still didn't say anything about the right of perpetual lease, he just agreed to continue in two days and left. Standing on the edge of the field, Laroel looked at the two of them leaving with a complex expression.
In the old days, he could only harvest about one acre a day, and he was so tired that he couldn't even eat when he got home.
But today he wasn't too tired, but he also harvested a full 4 acres, and at this rate, three or four days would be enough to harvest his land.
But what exactly does this Brother Ansel want?
The next day, Ansel and Bryson continued to carry their sickles out and found the second poorest in the village.
This time the farmer wasn't at home, but had gone to the lord's reserved land to harvest, and only his wife and a twelve-year-old child were working in the field.
Compared to the man, the mother and daughter were even less likely to refuse Ansel's help, and it was still the same, Ansel and Bryson harvested, and the mother and daughter were responsible for bundling.
It has to be said that whether there is a strong labor force or not is different, they only helped to cut less than 4 acres of land from morning to night.
In the following days, Ansel either helped the poor farmers in the manor to harvest, or helped the farmers whose strong labor force went to serve corvée.
The strange behavior of this strange monk also quickly spread throughout the manor.
I don't know what others think, but Henderson was laughing.
When he heard the news, he couldn't believe it at first, and then he followed his idle men to the field and looked at it several times before he dared to confirm it.
A dignified cathedral monk was actually covered in grass clippings, squatting down and helping the farmers harvest wheat?
Most importantly, he actually believed that he could win people's hearts just by helping people harvest wheat!
Little kid, sure enough, little kid, all his moves were ones that Henderson couldn't even think of after countless simulations.
"Boss Henderson, should we put pressure on those who accept help?"
"No need!" With a generous wave of his hand, Henderson shook his head with a smile. "Let him help, how many can he help? If we punish them now, it will give them an excuse instead."
Standing in the shade of a tree, looking at Ansel sweating profusely, with a grimace on his face, straightening his back and rubbing his waist, Henderson showed a contemptuous smile.
Keep wasting your time, I have plenty of time to waste with you.