The busy Minister of Agriculture

"Furthermore, we must make greater use of the Church's resources. 🐍😂 🍮🎁" Joseph instructed. "Often, the Church is far more efficient than our bureaucratic system, and the farmers are more likely to believe the priests."

Venio nodded in agreement. "Indeed, Your Highness. The Church has put in a lot of effort in promoting the new composting method."

Joseph laughed and said, "We can't let them collect so much Tithe nothing."

In this campaign to weaken feudal privileges, Joseph did not target the Church for the time being in order to minimize resistance, since the current Chief Minister was a former Archbishop of Toulouse. Although the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Talleyrand, was a "fair-weather monk," he was nominally Archbishop as well.

Because the France Church was heavily dependent on the Royal Power and cooperated with the Royal House, reforms could be implemented gradually, making it much easier to deal with than the Noble Class.

However, Venio was taken aback by what he heard, after all, the Church was not something to be joked about casually these days, so he immediately turned his head away and pretended not to have heard anything.

Joseph continued, outlining his agricultural plans. "A large number of former lords' hunting grounds will gradually be converted into Farmland."

The abolition of hunting privileges is a crucial part of the newly promulgated "Decree on the Abolition of Noble Privileges," which returns much of the public land that was seized by Nobility as hunting grounds to farmers for cultivation, significantly increasing the area of Farmland. Of course, the land will only truly become Farmland once a plan for how farmers can redeem their land is released.

"You need to develop some plans to encourage farmers to grow vegetables, especially in parishes closer to cities. For example, you could provide some Finance subsidies initially, and have the government organize vehicles to transport the vegetables to the city for sale, reducing farmers' transportation costs."

In France today, due to high transportation costs, farmers can barely make any money if the distance exceeds four kilometers.

Joseph said, then looked down at his feet. "So we still need to build more rail transit. If there were Wooden Railway, vegetables from the countryside could be transported dozens of kilometers away."

Venio hesitated for a moment, then said, "Your Highness, from what I understand, the city has enough onions, carrots, and other vegetables..."

Onions? Carrots? Joseph couldn't help but facepalm. For someone from a country known for its love of food, the Minister of Agriculture's words were utterly repulsive.

However, he also knew that this was the typical diet of France residents. Or rather, being able to eat black bread with some vegetable soup at each meal was considered a pretty good standard of living.

"You can't limit yourself to these things," Joseph encouraged him to broaden his thinking. "First, there are Chili Pepper. You only need to grow a little of them to dramatically improve the taste of food."

"Then there are tomatoes. Well, tomatoes are indeed difficult to grow and store, but you can advertise that they can be made into tomato sauce—it's very simple to make, all you need are Glass. I'll go into more detail later."

"Besides these two, we also need to plant Asparagus and artichokes in relatively barren land. These plants are easy to grow and have a high yield."

The vegetables he mentioned have long been introduced to France and are available at the Versailles Palace, but their cultivation among the general public is still very limited.

Venio carefully noted down the Crown Prince's instructions, but still didn't quite understand. "Your Highness, why bother with vegetables? I mean, Grain and Potato are the most important."

"Commercial value," Joseph smiled. "With just a small amount of land, we can greatly improve the quality of life for both farmers and city dwellers. Why wouldn't we do it?"

Joseph knew very well that even after abolishing Nobility privileges, the lower classes would only be able to barely survive, and were far from eliminating their discontent with society.

With morale low among both the old Noble Class and the military, this was somewhat dangerous.

Therefore, improving the quality of life for people at the bottom of society is also an extremely important task at present.

In reality, if the Royal House could gain the absolute support of a large number of ordinary people, then they would have nothing to fear... Of course, with the current level of productivity, it is basically wishful thinking to satisfy more than 96% of the population.

However, it is still possible to improve their quality of life as much as possible.

For example, make their meals more varied.

This can be achieved with just some inexpensive vegetables and a few Cooking techniques.

As for Cooking, France chefs are quite skilled. Joseph can also teach you traditional techniques from the food-loving nation, ensuring even ordinary cabbage can be transformed into a delicious dish.

When the people returned home after a long day's work, they would be extremely grateful to their King if they could have some stir-fried dishes or soup in addition to eating black bread.

Joseph said to Venio, "You should also work with the Church to produce a simple Cooking manual so that priests or nuns can organize Cooking classes for women every week."

"Yes, remember to add this slogan: 'The way to his heart is through his stomach.'"

As he was speaking, the Carriage suddenly stopped.

Eman peeked out the window, then turned and bowed to Joseph, saying, "Your Highness, the Wooden Railway have come to an end. We'll have to switch to Carriage soon."

Joseph nodded. Currently, the Wooden Railway have only barely reached the West of Reims. These things are still very expensive to build, so they only radiate outwards for a few dozen kilometers from Paris to surrounding cities.

Before boarding the Carriage, he glanced at the three horses pulling it and suddenly remembered something. He turned to Venio and said, "By the way, do you know about Soybean?"

Venio, being quite knowledgeable, immediately nodded. "Are you referring to those beans that came from the Far East? Some botanists are very interested in them. Oh, some farmers in State of Georgia, United States, grow them to feed their cattle."

Joseph breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that France had already imported Soybean; he had been worried that he would have to go to Asia to get the seeds.

"I need you to promote this crop in France, especially in the northern provinces."

"Yes, Your Highness. Are we going to use this to feed the cattle as well?"

Joseph gestured for him to get in the carriage. "Normally, soybeans can be used to feed cattle, or to make Soy Sauce... oh, it's a kind of condiment. But in times of war, Soybean are the best feed for warhorses—they're small, easy to carry, and just a little bit can significantly improve a horse's stamina."

Compared to Oats, which are currently used as a "nutrient" for warhorses in Europe, Soybean have an unparalleled advantage. They only require one-third Oats amount of Oats to achieve the same effect.

This will be a huge improvement for logistics – horse feed accounts for the largest portion of logistics transportation.

Moreover, Soybean are easy to carry; cavalrymen only need to put a few handfuls in their pockets to sustain their warhorses for several days, without having to repeatedly return to Camp for supplies.