Chapter 268 (1/2)

Chapter 268 The first plenary session (Part 1)

Roland held Border Town’s first high-level plenary session in the castle’s drawing hall.

Compared to the time when he had held it with Barov and his ten apprentices in name only, the City Hall nowadays had expanded to a large group consisting of nearly one hundred people. The group contained nobles, surrendered knights, squires, as well some natives who had completed the primary education and received their diploma.

Thanks to the growth of the population, various departments could be formed in succession, which caused the City Hall to finally reach a size the Prince was satisfied with. No longer was it as before, where he had to do everything on his own, at present in the case of a simple policy or program, as long as he explained the concept to them, the new City Hall was able to distribute it according to the department and manage to complete the task, something which filled Roland with a sense of gratification.

The participants of the first high-level meeting were all the heads of departments, namely there was the Minister of Agriculture, Sirius Daly; Minister of Education, Scroll; the Minister of Chemical Industry, Kyle Sichi (temporary); Minister of Construction, Karl van Bate; the Head of the Army, Iron Axe; and finally, the City Hall Premier Minister, Barov Mons. The Ministry of Industry was still personally managed by Roland. After all, except him, no one else knew what industrialization looked like.

A bucket of ice water was placed next to everyone, releasing bursts of cold air – Candle had placed an enchantment on the ice cubes, which preserved them within the water for at least the whole morning. Even though the sun was shining fiercely outside, the castle hall still maintained its cool and refreshing temperature.

“Then let’s start with each department reporting on its recent situation,” Roland took a kettle from the bucket, and poured himself a cup of ice water, “The first one is the Ministry of Agriculture.”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” Sirius answered, he stood up and saluted, then spread out a roll of paper he had prepared in advance. “Currently we have acquired around 17’000 hu of grain, which is already enough to satisfy the townsfolk until next year’s last month of summer. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture has according to your request also purchased the surplus grains in accordance to the market value. However, this amount is far less than the amount we’ve gained, for now, it is only accounts for 4’500 hu.”

The so-called “hu” was a commonly used wheat weighing unit during ancient times, measured by using a deep basket made out of thin bamboo. Therefore, even after he heard these numbers, he still didn’t know how he was supposed to convert them into kilograms or liters. Fortunately, this wasn’t the important point; the crucial point was that they had enough food to feed the all of the townsfolk.

The critical fact laid in the second aspect, if the Ministry of Agriculture took 7/10, it would mean that the serfs had 3/10 which they could sell themselves and accumulated to 7000 hu, but the discrepancy was much larger than the amount of grain needed to set aside as foodstuff and seeds for the next year. In other words, some serfs had not sold the remaining 30% of the food to the City Hall and instead chosen to hoard it in wooden sheds.

Although he had already anticipated a situation such as this beforehand, seeing it turn out this way still caused him to let out a gentle sigh. Their purpose in hoarding the grain was apparent, they were speculating to resell it at a profit later – for example, if Border Town gave birth to a food shortage, or was struck by a natural disaster. They would be able to sell the food at prices much higher than the market price, an increase of ten times wouldn’t be impossible.

This was also the reason why Roland had decided that the City Hall would hold a monopoly over the grain transaction and also why the buyer must first show their identity card. The grain operation was related to Border Town’s stability, in case the grain transaction was unable to create a surplus during the early period and the sale wasn’t restricted, it would likely lead to speculators acquiring and hoarding the food and in that way artificially increasing the food’s price. However, by using a system of limited sales and only selling to people who had an ID, while at the same time stopping any other sales channels, Roland was able to keep the food price at a steady position.

“Your Highness, why don’t you force the serfs to sell their grain?” Sirius asked puzzled, “In any case, it’s not like the law permits them to give it to other people.”

“Because the grain is their property, how they choose to handle it is their choice,” Roland replied. “I never set a rule not allowing the serfs to hold on to their own food. You can also understand it as, ‘as long as it isn’t prohibited, it is allowed’.”