Ch.291Epilogue – The Empty King (1)

Although I had ascended to the throne as “Camille I,” the first Grand King of the Alzar Grand Duchy, the royal position was originally meant to be passed down to me after my father had taken it first.

Since I hadn’t received proper successor training, I was still generally inexperienced in areas like political ability. Moreover, there were definite advantages to having my father serve as a stepping stone.

Political machinations such as forcibly passing controversial policies during my father’s reign, then having me inherit the throne to solidify those policies.

However, there was surprisingly strong opposition to this approach.

And it came from—my father himself taking a direct stance.

“…Camille, I want you to become the first king and let your reputation shine even brighter.”

My father, renowned for his usual taciturn nature, overcame his embarrassment to say those words. To be honest, after hearing that, it became practically impossible for me to voice any different opinion.

Of course, as he had repeatedly mentioned, he probably did want to work while taking it easy now that mother had finally returned as well.

Thus, in the situation where I ended up ascending to the throne, the very first decree I issued as Grand King was…

“Hugo de Alzar, former Baron of Alzar, I hereby appoint you as Regent of the Grand Duchy!”

As previously agreed, I appointed my father as regent to handle the practical affairs, while I took time to become accustomed to my duties as Grand King.

As arranged with my father, he would step in as regent until I developed proper practical skills, while I entered a process of familiarizing myself with the duties of leadership.

As the monarch of a nation, it might be impossible to personally check, review, approve, or reject every matter, but at minimum, shouldn’t I understand the organizational structure and how each organization operates?

Thanks to the practical skills I had gradually learned while managing the village, adaptation wasn’t particularly difficult. By this point, I could perform the role of monarch reasonably well.

However, after appointing a regent, there were also self-proclaimed loyal subjects who were actually sycophants trying to climb the ladder.

There were traitors who thought I had been reduced to a figurehead, planning to stage a coup under the guise of protecting me, and those who tried to cling to me to somehow gain power and establish their own authority.

…Yes, there “were” such people.

Most were arrested on charges of inciting rebellion or insulting the royal family, and among them, the particularly vile cultists were well-boiled as ingredients for Zwaieuz stew.

Now, after using some of these clueless individuals as sacrifices and establishing the royal family on solid ground, we determined that our authority was properly established. We then unveiled a policy that could truly be our trump card.

“From this day forward, private ownership of land by anyone other than actual cultivators shall be regulated. There are limitations on the amount of land that non-cultivators may possess.”

It was, in fact, land reform.

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In the current era, which is still not quite modern with relatively underdeveloped civilization, the foundation of “power” comes from land where primary industries flourish.

Agriculture, forestry, gathering, hunting, pasturage, livestock farming, and mining—even as technology advances, the world is still dominated by primary industries, so naturally, power also stems from the land where these primary industries operate.

This is why ownership of manors and similar lands is permitted only to the strong (mid-tier), and consequently, those who legitimately inherit and protect manors are treated as “lords.”

The content of the decree I proclaimed was not about extending ownership rights of manors—which had been the exclusive domain of the noble class—to common people.

From the beginning, in this world, the number of potential enemies targeting economic entities like manors is virtually limitless, and anyone can become an enemy who kills people and plunders land.

To be frank, in an ecosystem where biological tanks (mid-tier magical beasts) can emerge from the mountains at any time, it’s often better to grant fiefs for flexible village-level responses.

Especially in dangerous unexplored territories, which are at a level that needs no further explanation.

Therefore, to clarify my words more precisely, the exact target of these regulatory measures was the general class of large landowners.

In this world teeming with thugs disguised as nobles, when we speak of landowners, except for small-scale ones, we’re mostly referring to nobles.

Without the power to protect what one has, no matter how much one possesses, it will eventually be taken away. Thus, there was naturally no room for the emergence of a class like the large landowners of the Joseon Dynasty era.

However, as territories expanded and public security stabilized, the situation changed.

Since the territory (kingdom) took care of maintaining public order, and quite large lands were newly incorporated, a full-fledged class of large landowners emerged to take advantage of this.

These people, who held only land ownership rights without governing authority, typically cultivated large farms or employed tenant farmers.

One might wonder what the problem is, but the biggest issue lies in the actions these large landowners commit.

Despite only having cultivation rights to the land, they act as if they are the true rulers, or they exploit their tenant farmers harshly for their own gain—such behaviors are by no means beneficial.

Currently, the Grand Duchy’s cultivation tax averages around 20%, but these landowners abuse this by impersonating officials and imposing double taxation, which naturally led to regulations being implemented.

The most significant problem was that these landowners, despite not being lords, treated tenant farmers as if they were true lords. Since this could potentially become the seed of something much larger in the future, we took action.

The most representative measure was limiting the area of cultivable land an individual could own to about 200 acres. Considering that roughly 10 acres is sufficient for an individual to live abundantly, this is not a bad limit.

Especially since wealthy farmers typically own around 60-120 acres of land, one would truly need to be what is commonly called a large landowner to exceed 200 acres.

With 200 acres of land, even using the old three-field system, one could feed approximately 30 people, and with other means, it’s more than enough to support an entire extended family.

Additionally, since this regulation applies only to “individuals,” families can divide land among themselves, which effectively meant uprooting the emerging class of large landowners.

In any case, with the declared figure being 200 acres, one might wonder what happens to land holdings beyond this limit.

The answer is a policy of “compensated purchase and compensated distribution.”

Land exceeding 200 acres is purchased by the state at a reasonable price, and the acquired land is then sold to nearby poor farmers as debt.

Ten years interest-free with ten-year installments. Even the poorest farmer can purchase it if they work hard, making this an option that effectively redistributes land imbalances.

Meanwhile, while actively implementing land reform, we also deliberately inserted several other policies, a prime example being regulations on the governing rights of subordinate manors.

Currently in our Grand Duchy, there are manors that have been handed down since the days of the old barony by granting them to vassals. These manors were inevitably irritating from the perspective of pursuing centralization.

Individuals freely collecting taxes, enacting policies, operating where external laws don’t apply, and even raising private armies without hindrance.

Honestly, in terms of potential threats, no region contained as many latent dangers as manors, so as rulers governing the nation, we felt the need to exert some control.

For instance, by dispatching local administrative officials to each manor to help with control and administrative assistance, most knights—who are more interested in fighting than manor management—would actually welcome this.

Additionally, since manors cannot be inherited by single-heir nobles anyway, we could simply reclaim them and not grant them again.

But imposing such tight controls naturally leads to unrest among those feeling oppressed, so to mitigate this to some extent, we directly introduced a new measure.

Namely, spreading the worship of the great “Baal,” goddess of abundance and fertility.