On the country roads of Mecklenburg, several horseback attendants were looking around, they were Harlan and others who had come to investigate the land production on the orders of Arrod, this Arrod's personal attendant searched the village everywhere to try to understand the reason for the decrease in land production, in order to increase the production enthusiasm of the farmers in Mecklenburg, Arold ordered the land of the villages in his territory to be divided equally among the peasants, and changed the former collective farm-style production model into a small amount of collective arable land, and most of it was divided into a small family-type small-scale peasant economic model, But I don't know why, after about a year of implementation, Arold strangely found that the tax collector had not collected as many crops as before.

"There's a village in front of Harun, let's go and rest there today, it's getting late."

"Okay." Harlan looked up at the sun that was gradually sinking in the west, although there were rangers in Mecklenburg who were safer than other territories, and these rangers could not only deal with infiltrated spies, but also sometimes be responsible for cleaning up wild wolves and other beasts, after all, the ecological environment of this era was still very rough.

The attendants rode close to the village, which was a Slavic cottage where more than a dozen peasant families gathered, and a wooden cross erected at the entrance of the village, which was supposed to be a converted Slavic cottage, and when the horseback attendants approached the village, the Slavs in the village did not run away, and Mecklenburg treated these converted Slavs as ordinary farmers, as long as they paid enough taxes to Arrod, because nominally, except for the parishes and fortresses that Arold had divided, All Mecklenburg lands were the property of Arrod, which was slightly different from that of the other lords, because the lands of the other lords were either inherited or supported by the nobles, so there would be a large number of subdivided noble estates in the domain. Arold, on the other hand, relied on a group of mercenaries to defeat Mecklenburg, so he had a large amount of land in his hands that could be re-feuded.

"Honorable gentlemen, I am the elder of this village, may I ask what is the matter with your visit?" A gray-haired Slavic man stepped out and asked the horseback attendants.

"We are the attendants of Lord Count Mecklenburg, passing through your village. Hopefully we can rest here for the night, and tomorrow we will set out again for the journey. Harlan said to the village elder at his horse.

"If that's the case, we'll be happy to entertain Lord Earl's men." As soon as they heard that it was someone from Mecklenburg, the village elders did not dare to wait slowly, and hurriedly took Harun and the others to the village, and many children laughed and ran in front of Harun and the others, most of the people in the village were old people and women and children at this time, and most of the old people sat on the eaves and the open ground, looking at Harun and the others with puzzled eyes. The women, on the other hand, returned to their humble farmhouses, for if they were robbers, they would be fatal to such a defenseless village.

"This is the big house in our village, and you can stay here for the night." The village elders brought Harlan and the others to one of the largest huts in the village, and Harlan knew that it was a collective decision of the village, and that it was usually a warehouse house, and that most of the countryside in Europa at this time still retained the system of primitive communes, and the tradition of collective labor and sharing of the fruits of labor was the system.

"Thank you for your hospitality. But what about the men in the village? Harlan looked around curiously, then asked the village elder.

"Oh. They went to work in the collective fields and should be back soon. The village elder explained to Harun and the others that he had only said this after careful consideration and weighing, after all, if it was a group of robbers, they would not be able to resist these unarmed farmers.

When night fell, Harlan and the others crowded into the big house, holding the wooden bowls provided by the peasants and eating oatmeal. The porridge was as hard to swallow as a sticky paste, but Harlan and the others knew that it was good enough to have something to eat in a barren farmhouse, and in order to complete the task assigned to them by Arrod, these people ate the pile of paste with a disgusting state of mind.

"Haha." At this time, it was not only Harun and others who were in the big house, under the light of the flames of the fire pit in the big house. The villagers of this village sat around and watched Harlan and the others laugh, in an extremely closed environment, it was a very new thing for outsiders to come, and at this time, even the women who had been hiding at the beginning appeared at the door of the house and looked inside.

"Excuse me, Lord Count Mecklenburg has issued an order to divide the land of the village equally, so why do you continue to cultivate the land collectively? Have you not heard of this decree? After eating the oatmeal porridge in the wooden bowl, Harun reached out and wiped his mouth before asking the village elder.

"Oh, in fact we have heard the words of the herald of Mecklenburg, and in the first year we did according to the orders of the Earl, and divided the land of the second garden in the original village among each household." Seeing that Harun and the others were approachable, the village elder also relaxed his vigilance and said to Harun that the so-called two-garden system requires that the land of the whole village be divided into two large plots, one for autumn planting and the other for a year to restore soil fertility.

"And then?" Harlan then asked.

"Each family cultivated the allocated land, but the crops harvested were not as many as in previous years, so we changed it again." The village elder stretched out his right hand, which was thickly jointed, and reached into the felt hat he wore and scratched it, the lice in his hair tickling him.

"Why is that?" Harlan asked dutifully.

"Even though the land was divided equally among each of our families, it was really difficult for us to cultivate the land by our own family." A farmer who was watching the excitement in the big house sighed, and then said to Harun and others that there was a lack of effective farming tools in the village, but everyone used to work together collectively, and they were all busy with the collective first, and then they harvested themselves, and the two-garden system of land can make a piece of land keep the fallow mode at any time, but when the land is divided equally among everyone, it will be found that backward cultivation tools and no fallow land will make the cultivation of the land barren and understaffed.

"I see." Harlan nodded, in fact, he didn't understand what was going on, but he kept it in his heart, and was ready to report it to Arrod truthfully.

"I remember that the Earl had proposed a way to increase the fertility of the land by sprinkling animal and human feces on the land." One of Harlan's attendants told the village farmers that Arold had indeed introduced this method to Mecklenburg, but the stubborn Mecklenburgers felt that it was unclean to sprinkle dung in the dirt, so no one took it seriously, and they were more accustomed to this method of turning fallow.

Harlan couldn't help but shake his head as he looked at these clumsy farmers, it seemed that Arrod's orders were really incomprehensible, and it was really not easy for Arold to promote these measures one after another, because there was no more conservative and traditional group of people than the farmers.

"Ahem." Looking at the calm Harun and the others, the farmers in the big house were a little overwhelmed, they were very afraid of offending these people from Mecklenburg, so they made eye contact with each other, only to see several farmers stand up, they clapped their hands around the fire and danced awkwardly, trying to please these distinguished guests from Mecklenburg, as farmers are good at imitating the actions of farming and harvesting, but Harun and the others quickly understood and couldn't help laughing.

"Let me do some dancing too." To avoid spoiling everyone's interest, Harlan smiled and stood up, drawing his sword.

"Ahh Hearing the sound of Harlan drawing his sword, the peasants retreated to the base of the wall in terror, all with frightened expressions on their faces.

"Don't panic." Harlan hurriedly stretched out his hand to show that he had no ill will, only to see him carefully put his sword on the ground, and the other attendants immediately understood what he wanted to do, so a knowing smile appeared on their faces.

"It's been a long time since I've seen Harlan dance, and these hillbillies are blessed."

"Da-da-da-da." I saw Harun bow gracefully to the people around him, and then stood firmly on the left and right sides of the saber with his feet, while the other attendants laughed and clapped their palms, in the rhythm of applause, Halan's feet jumped quickly on the left and right sides of the saber, his movements were very light and elegant, his hands were inserted around his waist, and his upper body did not move at all, the farmers were attracted by this peculiar dance step, the rules of the game of this dance step were not to touch the sword on the ground when dancing, And the closer he was to the sword, the more he showed that his dancing steps were exquisite, and the peasants finally overcame their fears, and stepped forward with their mouths wide open, and when they saw Harlan's light and fast dance steps, sometimes jumping and sometimes crossing, they couldn't help laughing and clapping their hands.

"Oh oh oh~~~." Suddenly there was a round of high-five and laughter in the big house, which was an unusual night for the farmers who worked and cultivated every day and lived a closed life, and then these enthusiastic farmers took out their own treasured bitter and weak beer, and at this time Harlan and others had fully integrated into the village, and they were like celebrating a festival, and Harlan and others also enthusiastically taught some clever farmers to dance this dance, which was a popular aristocratic culture in the court. And the farmers also enthusiastically taught Harun and others a kind of collective dance that the farmers danced, which can be said to be an exchange of aristocratic culture and vulgar culture. (To be continued......)