Serfs and Freemen

Gawain stood on a rock, looking down at the numb, timid faces below, and took a deep breath.

The people were not foolish, but that did not mean they were not ignorant.

Foolishness was a judgment made with prejudice and contempt, whereas ignorance was simply a statement of fact.

The commoners and serfs of this age were ignorant. The structure of society gave them almost no means of acquiring knowledge or broadening their horizons, while the crushing cost of survival left them no energy to care about anything beyond staying alive. Living under such circumstances for so long made them seem unwilling to think, creating the illusion of "foolishness." But in truth, they could think; ignorance merely made it difficult for them to understand things too far removed from their lives.

So he could not speak to them about lofty, empty ideals. He could not discuss dreams, the future, the territory's prospects, or the logical relationship between productive development and society. The moment he did, they would immediately place those concepts that sounded so "high above them" on the lord's side and draw a line between them and themselves. The best approach was to talk about things connected to their lives.

"People of Cecil Territory," Gawain called out, "you should all know who I am. That means you should also know that I am the person with the greatest authority in this territory now. What I say can represent Cecil law. Those laws will protect you, and they are also things you must obey.

"We are opening up new territory, which means we need new rules. So I hereby announce three matters:

"First, since the old territory has been destroyed and all past wealth has been wiped away, I declare in the name of the Cecil Family's ancestors that all debts owed to the lord within the territory are canceled. Whether the debtor is a freeman or a serf, from this day forward, no one will bear any debt to the lord.

The crowd below stirred slightly, but not much. Although commoners and serfs in this era more or less owed debts to their lords, now that the territory was being rebuilt from scratch, nobody had the ability to repay them. Given Lord Rebecca's past kindness, they had long guessed that the debts would be forgiven.

Gawain continued, "Second, every serf in the territory will have the opportunity to become a freeman. The lord will issue a series of tasks, such as building houses, constructing roads, excavating mines, and joining the army. Each task will have its own corresponding point system. As long as you complete the required work strictly according to the requirements, you can accumulate contributions. Once you reach the standard, a serf can become a freeman. Those who are already freemen will receive corresponding payment for completing such work. I will announce the specific method for calculating rewards soon. I can guarantee you this: any hardworking and reliable serf can become a freeman after two or three years of effort, while any freeman who works steadily for five or six years can obtain a house of his own!"

This time, the stir below completely turned into discussions that could no longer be suppressed.

A serf becoming a freeman was itself something that greatly challenged convention in this age. Though Ansu's kingdom laws did not strictly forbid serfs from becoming freemen, and the laws of noble territories everywhere contained no explicit rules on the matter, in reality, almost no noble would casually allow his serfs to gain freedom. To them, serfs meant cheap labor. They meant people who could be squeezed dry to their last drop of blood without any burden of conscience. Those nobles who only knew how to amass wealth by endlessly raising taxes and labor hours could not possibly imagine what benefit there was in granting serfs freedom.

When Rebecca had first proposed allowing serfs to gain freedom through military service, it had also caused quite a stir. But Gawain had clearly gone a major step further this time.

As for being paid for work, or even receiving a house... many commoners who were already free hardly believed it.

You got paid for working for the lord? Who would believe that?!

Gawain did not give them time to continue discussing it. Instead, he announced the third point:

"Third, the tents and fences to be built today, as well as the drainage ditches in the camp, are the first tasks the lord has assigned you under the new laws. I have already had people record the area each of you is responsible for. Only those who complete their work strictly according to my requirements will be considered finished. In addition, as an incentive for diligent work, the first ten people to finish can eat meat."

After saying that, Gawain ignored the reaction below and jumped directly off the rock, returning to where Heti and Rebecca stood.

After staring blankly for a moment, the gathered commoners and serfs suddenly shouted and rushed toward the camp that appeared to be finished. They were going to reinforce the loose ropes and stakes, and drive the fences deep into the ground!

To them, things like calculating contributions and point standards were still far too abstruse. They also did not quite believe that the soldiers and knight lords overseeing them would truly help them carefully calculate their workload. But there was one sentence they understood: there would be meat for dinner!

Only those who finished early—and finished their work properly—would get meat!

Just as Gawain had expected, only when it concerned their own immediate interests would people be driven to their greatest effort.

Watching the commoners and serfs scatter like a swarm, Heti felt somewhat dazed. It was not until Gawain stood before her that she came back to her senses and asked in disbelief, "Ancestor... was everything you just said true?"

Gawain looked at her with an ambiguous smile. "Which part exactly?"

"...The part about serfs becoming freemen through work," Heti said with a frown. "Of course, I do not oppose it. Rebecca already issued a decree allowing serfs to rise through military service. But you said even things like building houses and roads could count as contributions, and that they could become freemen after only two or three years... Is that true?"

"Of course it is," Gawain said, looking at her. "What do you think is wrong with it?"

"If becoming a freeman is that easy, then before long, every serf in the territory will become a commoner," Heti said, utterly bewildered. "The children of commoners are also commoners. Does that mean Cecil Territory will become a place without serfs in the future?"

Gawain kept looking at her, the smile on his face unchanged. "Is there anything wrong with having no serfs?"

Guided by the class-based habits of thought and worldview ingrained in her, Heti instinctively felt that something was wrong. Yet guided by her insight and thinking, which far surpassed those of nobles of her generation, she also felt that even without serfs, there seemed to be nothing wrong with it. For a moment, she fell into conflict.

Rebecca, however, frowned in thought for a moment before saying, "Actually, I think... the serf system is no longer that necessary today. It would not be bad if it truly disappeared."

Gawain looked at this stubborn descendant with some surprise, then nodded. "Go on."

"Serfs are laborers, and the purpose of laborers is to provide labor. But if turning them into freemen can instead produce more labor, then why insist on preserving the concept of 'serfs'?" Rebecca scratched her hair. "Father once told me that the main reason serfs were not allowed freedom was that once they became free and there was no whip to lash them, they would immediately become lazy and stop working. But I think whips may not necessarily be the best way..."

Gawain looked at her approvingly. Receiving encouragement from her ancestor for the first time, Rebecca immediately grew bolder and said fluently, "And I noticed that if you send one serf to work, they always find ways to slack off. But if you send two serfs to do the same job and tell them that whoever finishes first gets an extra piece of bread, they can suddenly accomplish the workload of three or four people—far more value than that piece of bread... So I thought then that making them stop slacking off did not necessarily require whips. Maybe another method would work better."

"This is already quite a good enlightenment." Gawain could not help smiling. It was an exceptionally simple matter, yet almost no one in this age paid attention to it. In fact, nobles simply never observed how the serfs or even commoners under their rule worked, nor did they have any concept of measuring work efficiency. Whipping people and sending soldiers to watch them were the ultimate expression of their ruling techniques. Rebecca, on the other hand...

All he could say was that this poor country viscount's daughter really had a lot of free time.

And thanks to having so much free time, she had been able to think of these things.

Of course, based on her own observations, she could only arrive at such surface-level conclusions. Gawain knew very well that the emergence and abolition of slavery were not merely matters of "whips and bread." The deeper issue was whether productivity had reached a sufficient level, and whether society had truly reached the point where change was necessary.

After observing for some time, he believed that, at least within his line of sight, the serf system no longer matched this world's productive capacity. Vast populations were piled into repetitive, inefficient menial labor, relying on sheer numbers to produce all kinds of materials at the lowest efficiency in order to support the upper classes. And these people had no path upward whatsoever. The upper classes who wielded magic had clearly reached the stage of watching fireworks and listening to music in castles, even using fluorescent lamps powered by Magic Crystals for lighting, while the commoners below lived scarcely better than primitives. The whole society was nearly deformed.

On Earth, earthshaking changes would have occurred long ago by this point. Yet here, the existence of supernatural power had halted that process.

Because a hundred commoners with pitchforks could not defeat even a low-ranking mage or knight, even if they feared no death and doubled their numbers.

Perhaps if this world continued developing, it would eventually break this stalemate someday. But Gawain did not intend to wait. He had to change everything ahead of time and begin his grand development plan.

Because he had a feeling—the Magic Tide was probably truly coming.

Even the Gondor Empire at the height of its power had been unable to withstand the Magic Tide. Were the nations of this continent, now regressed in every aspect to the ignorant state of the Middle Ages, supposed to withstand it with their faces?

And even setting aside the Magic Tide, Gawain had other concerns.

Those "eyes" in the sky whose origins were unknown.

A backward medieval world could not easily escape gravity. With gravity clamped around its throat, it did not even have the right to raise its head and look at the sky, much less study the secrets among the stars.