Chapter 1709: Thirteen. Icewind Forest (1)

Late autumn is a sentimental season.
The transition from vitality to Xiaosuo cold is excessive, and the obvious differences in landscape and temperature are easy to touch the heart. Therefore, in the writers and artists, late autumn always appears in the form of aria.
"Ah!"
Just after walking down the ramp, too late to sigh the exotic late autumn scenery, Parsifal sneezed three times.
"Sorry."
Pulling out the handkerchief and blowing his nose, he hurriedly adjusted the whole instrument, and Parsifal re-established and saluted, and said in the most serious tone:
"Those who worked hard came to meet you."
Parsifal's tone and movements were all impeccable, except that the lazy atmosphere and the shabby temper of his whole body were incompatible with his military uniform. The original handsome Rear Admiral's uniform, knight's cross medal, and first-level iron cross medallion on him became a weird combination of dragging the bakery apprentice out of the hard suit, and the handsome uniform was worn out by him. Donut flavor. In the face of this lack of temperament, appearance and fame, the Lapland officer who was responsible for the reception work was very knowledgeable, and at a time it was difficult to extricate himself.
After ten full seconds, the two Lapland noble officers above the head of the Viscount, with the rank of Major General on their shoulders, remembered the salute.
In fact, Parsifal was also a major general, and the title was only an imperial knight (the original upper class intended to grant him the title and territory of the Viscount. As a result, he justified the "not good at operating the territory" as long as he received a pension and barely accepted the title of knight. There are rumors in private that the real reason for his rejection of the title and territory is "If there are excess things around, I will not be able to live a leisure life after retirement"...), in the case of equal military ranks, the lower title is crushed. It's a very common thing, but the two lords dare not show up.
Not to mention that the opposite is the Admiral of the Fleet, who enjoys great honors. This time he came to help Lapland rectify and promote military reform under the name of "friendly exchanges." Now Lapland’s position itself makes its nobles and soldiers lack of confidence when facing the empire.
At the joint meeting half a year ago, all countries around the world signed the Bonn Treaty to ensure the permanent neutrality of Lapland. From a political perspective, Lapland’s permanent neutrality has been recognized by the world. In theory, it is Holy and inviolable. But including Lapland, no one really believes that peace and neutrality can be completely guaranteed with a single paper.
Especially when facing the United Principality of Ross.
Based on historical factors and geopolitics, the Principality has always been ambitious towards Lapland. As a matter of fact, when Bonn was met with opposition from the entire world and was forced to sign the Bonn Treaty, the Principality should abandon unrealistic ideas and concentrate on dealing with internal affairs, alleviating increasingly acute social conflicts, repairs, and countries. Relationships and other important matters. However, the Principality did not do this. Instead, it continued to strengthen its military deployment against the Karelia isthmus and created an unfriendly atmosphere against Lapland in domestic public opinion.
Judging from all the signs, the Principality clearly has some "idea other than good neighborliness and goodwill", and this idea has entered the planning stage.
As an old neighbor and an old opponent for many years, Lapland was not surprised by the behavior of the Principality. Even the thoughts behind the Principality's behavior were clear.
In simple terms, the Principality has reached the point where it must use a "small victory" to alleviate the domestic crisis.
The crisis of the Principality stems from the reform initiated by its upper level, that is, to end the serf system and rejuvenate the country-this very beautiful vision, while sending a breeze to this old and decaying country, began to shake the whole. The cornerstone of the country.
The essence of modernization is the rapid accumulation and development of capital power, and urbanization is a secondary product of capital development. In order to meet the huge labor demand of various factories set up in the city, a large number of young and middle-aged people in rural areas have moved to the cities. After a large influx of rural population, its food supply will inevitably weaken. In addition, as the living standards of urban residents continue to grow, the city's demand for various crops and food is also increasing. Affected by the previous war, the Empire, Albion, and Castile are the main buyers of domestically produced grain, and 20% of the total grain output of the Principality is exported for the year. With the end of the war, the unprecedented international preparations for war began, and the supply demand for domestic and domestic food was not affected by the armistice, and continued to grow.
Demand stimulates production. In order to increase grain output, some visionary nobles and landlords tried to introduce the latest foreign agricultural machinery equipment and agricultural knowledge, build water conservancy irrigation facilities, establish a modern farming system, and strive to increase production to meet market needs. But this part of the people is only a minority in the upper middle class of the Principality. The vast majority of nobles and landlords think that the cost of improving planting methods and introducing foreign technology is much higher than that of directly squeezing serfs (the same is true). Rather than taking time and money to make long-term plans and changes, they are more keen to increase their income by increasing labor rents and increasing service rents. As a result, the serf life that had been struggling on the poverty line was getting worse. The serfs in some areas often worked hard for a year, but even the rations to feed the family remained.
Under every minute of increased oppression and burden, fleeing or borrowing usury to redeem himself, moving his family into the city to work in factories has become an inevitable choice. However, this has caused a continuous decline in the labor force engaged in agriculture. Landlords continue to increase the ransom in order to prevent the serf from leaving, or simply use violence to prevent the serf from leaving, which leads to further escalation of conflicts and conflicts.
In addition to the contradiction between serf and landlord, the contradiction between the emerging capital power and the traditional landlord and aristocratic class is also accumulating and increasing rapidly.
Due to the need for war preparation, national policy support for industrial development, and the continuous injection of new technologies, the development of the capital of the Principality can be described as rapid progress. With the expansion of the domestic market, various factories began to replace traditional handicraft workshops in large quantities. When the urban population could no longer meet the demand for labor in the expanding factories, employers suddenly found that the vast majority of the labor force in the Principality was being locked in the farmland by chains. Along with this, the price of labor continued to rise. Due to the influence of labor costs, the prices of various products remained high, and the willingness to consume in the market was generally weak. It was completely unable to compete with similar products of the Empire with better performance and relatively moderate prices. This is a severe blow to the capital power of the principality in the developing stage.
Throughout the above phenomena, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion: for centuries, the serf system has been the cornerstone of the Principality, but in the face of the current dilemma, if the Principality does not make changes. The same foundation stones can be used as tombstones.
After fully understanding this point, the Principality promulgated the "Decree to Abolish the Serfdom System" in the name of Tsar Nicholas II, which is in line with practical needs and conforms to public opinion. However, this paper order did not calm down the conflicts and conflicts within the Principality, but made the conflicts more acute and fierce.
Any top-down reform aimed at bridging social contradictions must be based on the release of top-down benefits. Only in this way can the lowest people get the necessary resources to improve their living conditions. But how many high-ranking people are willing to make changes, let go of the palm of their hands, let the benefits leak out of their fingers, and give alms to the common people of ants? Maybe there will be wise people who realize the situation, but these people are only a few, after all, Not enough to change the overall situation. What's more, the largest landlord in the Principality is the Tsar himself. It is unreliable to let the "little father" actively cut the meat for the "animals"...
Therefore, the essence of the so-called abolition of serfdom is that the upper principality of the Principality was forced to imitate the actions of Charlemagne and Albion based on the domestic crisis, which is a foolish play to defraud slaves. However, the title of "serf" was replaced by "tenant", giving them basic personal freedom and political power. Theoretically, at the judicial level, these people have the same status as the landlords, and they can also vote at the local self-governing "gentry meeting". But this has no practical significance. As long as no one buys a ticket, the right to vote cannot be changed out of thin air. And what about freedom of the person? Does this help to support the family? As for judicial equality, it also makes no sense. In the Principality’s situation, the rich and the power have too many ways to deal with disputes. Regardless of buying "rough means" such as homicide, the expenses incurred by the lawsuit alone are enough to make ordinary families go bankrupt, the whole family lives on the street, or they can't bear the pressure to commit suicide and be sent to a lunatic asylum~EbookFREE.me~ let alone others means.
In terms of results, the abolition of serfdom in the Principality just took away the physical chain, and the invisible chain still exists. Giving alms to the "freedom" of serfs is nothing more than allowing them to change from being urged to work by whips to voluntarily working day and night, or to facilitate these laborers to move out of the farmland and move to where they are needed.
Most people chose the latter. Tens of thousands of people left the land where they lived for generations and entered the city, pouring into the city's booming industrialization trend. The addition of a large amount of labor makes the industrial development of the Principality exciting. And there have been signs of development from the export of grain and raw materials to the processing of primary industrial products. However, the good times did not last long. The rapidly growing urban labor force soon became saturated, exceeding the upper limit of demand, which directly led to lower labor prices and increasing unemployment. Because people with skills or lucky enough to keep their jobs, they can only barely make ends meet and taste poverty; those who have no land and no job are forced to live on the streets and become slum dwellers. Under the torment of reality, these people who cannot even stand on the bottom of society have turned into thugs, anarchists, criminals and other unstable factors.
In contrast, the growing poverty at the bottom has seriously weakened the Principality’s domestic consumer market, and the phenomenon of slow sales of products and falling profits has become more serious, causing capitalists to continue to reduce production scale to reduce costs, which in turn reduces employment opportunities and increases the unemployment rate. , Thereby pushing more people off the cliff below the poverty line. At the same time, due to the fact that no profit can be obtained by investing in production, a large amount of capital began to flow to the speculative market. Hot money continued to raise or lower the prices of various production and living necessities, making the market severely disrupted and further aggravating poverty at the bottom.
Under the interaction of various factors, the society of the Principality is becoming increasingly chaotic.