As everyone knew, conquest and rule were two completely different concepts.
The former often only required defeating the ruling class that originally occupied a region, then beating the hell out of everyone who refused to submit. It was a military operation so simple it could hardly be simpler.
The Mongols who emerged from the steppes had taken this to the extreme.
Because they had never established truly effective rule, they often relied on indirect methods to extract wealth and maintain their vast territories. The tax farming system was the best proof of that.
The latter, however, required thorough reforms in politics, economics, culture, and other areas, or integration into the existing system. It was absolutely not something that could be completed overnight.
Under normal circumstances, conquerors who wished to rule conquered lands had to exchange benefits with local strongmen to ensure that they would cooperate in collecting taxes.
Otherwise, the costs of administration, maintaining public order, and collecting taxes alone would be a terrifying astronomical figure.
If those problems could not be solved, then so-called conquest was merely a game of coloring in blocks on a map.
Anyone who played that way would, without exception, eventually collapse and disintegrate because of financial problems.
After all, the essence of rule was the ability to extract wealth and resources from the land and people within one's control.
When a vast stretch of land and the population living upon it could not be put to use by the ruler, it had no value whatsoever.
However, Raymond's method of solving this problem was quite ingenious. He excluded the original aristocratic system of rule and brought merchants, craftsmen, and other urban classes in to build a new governing framework.
He then had them distribute land to serfs and tenant farmers, transition from the old manor