Gawain greeted the two warmly, and when he learned that the more than twenty tax collectors of the Plonian estate in the entire region (in fact, equivalent to the knights of the Iqta estate), along with the nearly a thousand private soldiers belonging to them, were willing to contribute, he couldn't help but be greatly appreciative, and asked cordially, "None of you have participated in the battle of Firomeron?" ”

"Yes...... We were ordered to garrison Fort Alanya on the eastern side of the Shore, and were unable to take part in the fierce battle that had preceded us. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info," replied the two knights.

"That's wonderful, because about a third of the thousand Pronian cavalry on the Emperor's side who participated in the Battle of Firomeron were killed. It's great that you're safe and sound now. Gawain repeatedly and enthusiastically stated it, much to the embarrassment and fear of Arcro Borites and Bekus.

Then the Grand Patron set up camp on the open field in front of the castle of Atalya, and continued to say to all the Plonian knights who had come down, "You have all received permission from His Majesty the Emperor or His Highness Penipas Bastos, and each of you has a share of the land or any other income here, all of which is recorded in the Praktika (Archives of the Plonian Estate) of the Imperial Capital, isn't it?" ”

All the knights immediately replied yes, and then Gawain spread his hands and replied in a deep voice, "However, now that the Emperor has been defeated by me, it is common sense that I do not need to recognize your prison domain. Just as I used to in Seleucia and would not have recognized the old Genat military aristocracy. ”

Suddenly, the original atmosphere in the entire tent quieted down for a while.

In fact, whether it is the Jinat (hoplite cavalry soldiers) or the current Plonian prison system, even if it is the previous peasant and soldier system, the essence is the same - the emperor used the land in exchange for the service of the soldiers, at first glance it seems that the emperor is deliberately feudalizing to "make his own death", but the truth is not the case, that is, the Byzantine emperor has never hastily included the authority of the land into the local soldiers, to a certain extent, no one is not clear about the contradiction between "feudalization" and "centralization", but it is all forced by the situation.

For example, the peasant and soldier system, in the time of Constans II, the empire had the Crescent in the east and the Slavic invasion in the west, and the original system of the central field corps of the empire, which was supported by state finances, had collapsed (in fact, the peasant and military system was not established by Heraclius, otherwise it would be impossible to explain that some books said that he established a military district peasant and military system, and on the other hand, he used a large number of mixed mercenaries in the campaigns with Sassanid Persia and the Crescent). Needless to say, the threat of the Crescent Cult was that the western part of the empire at that time, with the exception of a few isolated cities such as Thessaloniki, had been reduced to the preserve of the Slavic barbarians, who did not even believe in Christianity (they only received limited respect for St. Dimitrius), let alone pay taxes for their service to the empire - so that Heraclius could not even pay a minimum salary in the face of the Crescent invasion in his later years, which easily explains why the Crescentists, who were not very well equipped and tactically savvy at the time, set off a storm of conquest. No matter how brave a soldier is, he will not be able to effectively resist an invader without a salary. Therefore, Heraclius' successor, Constans II, simply exchanged land for military service: soldiers were allowed to occupy land in the military districts to offset the burden of the state on military pay. All of a sudden, the military expenditures of the entire empire were reduced by two-thirds, and they were brought back from the brink of bankruptcy to organize a "peasant army" capable of counterattacking the lost territories in the future.

However, were the peasants and Jinat loyal to the Empire? The answer, of course, is no, after the establishment of the military district system, the peasants and the Jinats were most obsessed with not the interests of the empire, but the interests of their own land, and in this respect they were even inferior to the army that had simply received military salaries. As a result, it is easy for them to gather around ambitious generals of all kinds and wage wars for the throne. Locally, because of the closed agrarian social model (especially in Anatolia), they themselves could starve to death in a famine year, so the only feasible way was to constantly use all kinds of power to devour other fields and develop themselves into "land monsters" (this has been clearly stated in Gawain's Seleucian social survey earlier in this book), which is all too familiar to everyone in China and abroad, land annexation.

Of course, land annexation gave birth to the "peasant and soldier aristocracy", and of course they would launch endless coveting and competition for the emperor's throne, and the reigning emperor was of course even more unhappy, so several emperors of the Macedonian dynasty were not so much "peasant soldiers" (many people mistakenly thought that the peasants were poor peasants or small yeoman farmers, but in fact they were misunderstood, they were all large landowners who could afford a full set of weapons and equipment, at least they were also rich peasant class, ancient ' The Dios' diaosis really can't even afford to be soldiers), rather than protecting the small peasants and village communities who can still own the land, and not letting the manpower and land be annexed by the peasant and soldier nobles.

In addition, the Macedonian emperors were more likely to support the "new military aristocracy" against the "old military aristocracy", and the Plonian estate was established in this situation. Yes, the Plonian estate was not the pot of the Komnenian dynasty, but in fact appeared as early as the 10th century - the emperor promoted some of the smaller nobles who were close to him (in fact, Komnenos himself was the leader of the new aristocracy), or sent some trusted tax officials to the whole of the empire to supervise the fields, woodlands, customs, and fairs, in short, to ensure that "the taxes could be sent to the imperial capital", and if necessary, to provide military services, which would also weaken the old great nobles of Genat. Of course, in return, the emperor will give this group of "tax collectors" a small tax commission, and will account the output of their prison territory into a table file, or praktika, to protect the other party's royalty income, but it cannot be hereditary. To put it bluntly, the Plonian landlords were not so much a military class as a variant of a combination of taxmen and peasants and soldiers. Therefore, when talking about the Plena estate, it is simple and crude to say that the emperor changed his ways, engaged in feudal fiefdoms or engaged in the "Byzantine knightly system" - it was really a replacement and development of the ancient peasant and military system, and even in the extremely declining Palaiolegh Dynasty, the Plonian estate ensured that the emperor could recruit 500 hoplite cavalry in the remnants of the territory of Asia Minor.

However, the military struggle of the Komunens dynasty has been very tense, the original romana-style state order has not been restored, customs and trade rights have also been lost, in order to keep an army, the Komnenos emperors can only further decentralize power, give the Plonians the right to tax and judicial power in the land, let them occupy manpower, land and privileges, the country from the "imperial form" to the "dynastic form", that is, the emperor and the nobles divided the country, public service gradually became private, and each other used blood kinship to maintain the bond.

However, this does not mean that the Pronian estate is to blame, and the core problem is the decline of the monarch's power and the loss of the country's territory and customs.