When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#738 - Results in Lower River County

After seeing them off, Horn also breathed a sigh of relief.

He had to admit that, according to Catherine, these two were relatively easy to manipulate among the 17 members of the Megiddo Merchant Guild.

With these two nails in place, he had secured 9 out of the 17 senior partners of the Megiddo Merchant Guild.

But in reality, it was still not foolproof, because not everyone is rational, and too many random factors can make even the most certain vote have a degree of randomness.

Horn didn't want to abuse his ten-thousand-vote right casually; it was a mechanism for correcting errors, not for making decisions.

"René, keep a close watch on these individuals in the coming days. If necessary, remind and warn them not to forget their promises to me."

Watching René leave the room, Horn pulled out the annual report submitted by the Lower River County Priesthood from the desk drawer and placed it alongside the Rapid Falls City Hall yearbook.

Due to the Hundred-Household District system and the paper and ink printing revolution in Thousand River Valley, the Holy Union had fully entered the era of paper-based office work.

The combination of massive amounts of information and Horn's administrative reforms created enormous control through information.

As the saying goes, one has no right to speak without investigation, and information itself is a considerable foundation of power.

Opening the Lower River County yearbook, the title page showed that the current registered population of Lower River County was 500,000.

The agricultural population accounted for 65%, including independent farmers, tenant farmers, manor stewards (landlords), shepherds/beekeepers, and so on.

The handicraft industry population accounted for 20%, including blacksmiths, weavers, carpenters, stonemasons, tanners, etc.

The commercial population accounted for 8%, including traveling merchants, shop owners, bankers, brokers, etc.

Clergy and scholars accounted for 7%, including monks/nuns, scribes, astrologers, miracle/alchemy priests, notaries, government employees, and so on.

At a glance, it was clear that Lower River County relied on handicrafts and commerce as its pillars, a stark contrast to Langsand County, where the agricultural population initially exceeded 80%.

Therefore, compared to the loss-making town construction in the early days of Langsand County, the process of building standardized town centers in Lower River County according to the Priesthood's construction template was quite smooth.

To date, 14 Priesthood towns have been established throughout the county.

According to Horn's requirements, each township must have 3-5 towns as administrative residences for the Priesthood.

These town centers are basically transformed from markets, small towns, and large villages, mostly using the standardized reconstruction template of a church, town hall, and bell tower.

Of course, due to the different specific conditions in each place, these towns have different variations.

For example, Langsand County, due to its good economy, mostly uses standard template town construction.

Other plain counties, due to financial problems, control issues, etc., often combine the church, town hall, and night watchman's office into one.

The Priesthood towns in mountainous counties are even a combination of church, town hall, night watchman, clinic, school, and armory, basically just a church courtyard with a believers' square.

Most of the time, a sausage and bacon workshop and a leather tanning workshop are also added.

Similarly, these small towns are also attracting a large number of craftsmen and shop owners. Many relatively wealthy or geographically advantageous towns have begun to have permanent shops.

A large number of high-quality talents from the original manors and villages are flocking to these towns, even forcing the various Hundred-Household Districts to build roads.

Otherwise, everyone would run to these small towns for everything: praying, getting married, seeing a doctor, joining the army, going to school...

Those excessively bad dirt roads were really affecting the villagers' schedules.

Don't think the villagers' opinions are unimportant; this is also one of the promotion indicators for the lower-level monks.

If a villager complains to the local representative or to the Elder, it will be recorded, and serious cases will even be investigated.

The local monastic leader will be the first to disagree if any Hundred-Household Head dares to mess around.

Of course, due to the current shortage of manpower and the relatively immature laws and systems, this system only plays a partial role.

It is useful in this township, but it may not be useful in another.

It even has a great deal of randomness sometimes, ignored if it is related to the interests of the Elder or the public representative, and only handled according to mood if there is no interest involved.

Within the various levels of the monastic order, upper-level monks will often help cover up some "small problems" in order to ensure that their direct monks work honestly.

This is why Horn still retains the strong law enforcement power of the Cheka to this day.

Horn is using the higher irrationality of the Cheka (Cheka terror) to counteract the primary irrationality (bureaucratic randomness).

Every month, clergy, Hundred-Household Heads, and public officials, both large and small, are sent to Black Serpent Bay to have their 'sweet branches' chopped off for various violations or corruption.

Unknowingly, Horn had turned the yearbook to the last page.

Below the last page, the "Workshop and Chamber of Commerce Registration Act" and the "Financial Real-Name System Act" documents were revealed.

"Am I being too ambitious?" Horn's voice echoed in the room, as if talking to himself.

The tips of the stenographers' pens, which had been rustling, suddenly stopped, as if they were holding their breath.

According to Horn's original intention, in the upcoming war, if the Lye people really occupied those important cities, Horn could relocate the workshops and craftsmen concentrated in the large cities to small towns in advance.

At that time, the Holy Father Society would forcibly take over all craftsmen and workshops, even entering a primitive form of total war.

They would have to put all productivity into the war while maintaining a minimum standard of living.

But after reading the Cheka's reports and the various monastic orders' investigation results, Horn had to admit that he didn't have the ability to do it.

Political reform often starts with official governance, because no matter how good or precise the plan is, someone must execute it.

In order to resist the Lye people's attack, Horn forcibly applied a relatively modern system to the Holy Union, using economics, public opinion, military, and espionage.

Neither the public's quality nor the officials' quality met the standards.

Taking insurance as an example, there was the kind of fraudulent insurance as before, but there was also the sale of normal insurance, such as sailor's insurance against drowning.

When someone really died (sometimes even suicide), the family would complain, "We bought insurance, why isn't it being paid out?"

The reason was simple: the sailor "fell from the roof and died," not drowned at sea.

But in the eyes of the public, they bought insurance, so what's the difference if they all died?

The people's wisdom was not yet developed, and Horn had unknowingly become too radical.

This is why Horn was determined to use lottery funds to establish enlightenment schools and literacy classes in various Priesthood towns.

These schools would forcibly collect all school-age children within a day's journey and implement a simple three-year compulsory education.

Although the coverage of an enlightenment school in a town might only be two hundred students, it would add up, requiring huge financial expenditure.

But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done; just because something doesn't show benefits now doesn't mean it has no benefits.

After pondering for a long time, Horn threw the "Workshop and Chamber of Commerce Real-Name Registration Act" and the "Financial Real-Name System Act" documents into the to-do box.

"Put it on the agenda. I want to attend the Megiddo Merchant Guild's senior partners meeting in three days."