As the sun draws down, the Red Rock Bridge Farm train station blows its whistle and the laden load of grain, tax police, and sold-out vendors return to Krasbourg.

Anthony wandered around the country all day, very tired from the wind and sun, and didn't want to squeeze into the sweaty carriage, so he pulled Roland to climb into the truck to cool off.

Sacks full of paddy are stacked neatly on the wagon, like fluffy mattresses. Roland crossed his hands behind his head and lay comfortably in the rice pile with his eyes closed. The sunset was slanting, the breeze was blowing, and I dozed off unconsciously.

Half-asleep, he heard a rustling movement beside him, and he didn't pay attention to it, until a muffled sound came into his ears, and he opened his eyes in surprise. Following the prestige to the outside of the tracks, a silver-gray mass was tumbling and falling into the roadside ditch, quickly moving away from the moving train.

Roland initially thought it was a hedgehog, but when he looked closely, he couldn't help but smile. It was only after wearing it all day that Anthony remembered to take off his cumbersome and useless chainmail shirt and throw it away on the side of the road.

……

Roland's 200 rural agricultural reform pilots are located in the north and south of the kingdom of Kolas, with very different climates in the south and north, with the former mainly located in the double-cropping rice growing areas, where early rice is harvested in late July, and the latter is mainly spring wheat and corn growing areas, where wheat is sown in early April and harvested in mid-August, and corn is harvested even later, usually from late September to early October.

By the end of August, when the spring wheat harvest in the northern regions was almost complete, Roland began to travel frequently to the countryside, inspecting at least two farms a day. The great success of these experiments in agrarian reform was more than enough to compensate for his efforts: the more than 100 northern collective farms produced more than 500 pounds of spring wheat per acre, while in those places where traditional farming methods were adopted, neither intensive yeoman farmers nor large landlords who pressed tenant farmers could produce even 300 pounds of wheat per acre.

Most of the rural farmers do not understand abstract terms such as "agricultural industrialization" and "labor productivity," but they are not stupid, and when they learn through the newspapers that the crops per mu of the farms participating in the reform pilot project have exploded, it is natural that there will be many psychological activities.

At first, people were suspicious of the propaganda in the newspapers, which was normal, after all, the frightening figures such as "700 pounds per mu of rice" and "500 pounds of wheat per mu" deviated too much from their actual farming experience, and it was unheard of to go back to the traditional farming experience of their ancestors. When things go wrong, there must be demons, and the countrymen have reason to suspect that these data are forged.

It is not difficult to verify that the news in the newspaper is true. Roland had taken into account the universality of agricultural reform, so the first batch of 200 agricultural reform pilots were deliberately avoided to be concentrated in similar areas, but were evenly distributed in the Far East, north and south, and the hydrothermal conditions were very different, so that the experimental results obtained were more universal.

The 200 pilot farms are not isolated from the rest of the world, but of course they are in contact with the outside world, and farmers from other places can learn the real situation of those productive farms through the word of mouth of business travelers. The results of their inquiries were rather frustrating, and the rumors of travelers who had visited the farms were even more exaggerated than the newspaper propaganda.

Those who do not believe in evil will try to visit a nearby farm if they live close to the pilot farm and see for themselves whether the yield of crops there is really twice as high as the yield per acre. As a result, almost all of these people immediately made up their minds after their own inspection: my family will join the commune next year!

For farmers, farming is a survival skill that they rely on to earn a living, and it is a business that has been passed down from generation to generation. Most of them do not have the courage to abandon farming and move to the cities to earn a living, and they want to improve their income levels and quality of life, and the most direct option is to try to increase crop yields, and more food means higher incomes. For thousands of years, farmers in the Far East have tried to improve agricultural production techniques in various ways, and in the long run they have been effective, but they have not been able to significantly increase their incomes in a short period of time. It wasn't until the agricultural reform program advocated and implemented by Roland was released that it proved to be effective over a period of one year.

With the unprecedented harvest of the pilot farms, the relevant good news was announced in the newspaper every day, and the on-site pictures taken by the "Saliya Photography Technique" - the joyful smiles of the farm members from the heart, the mountains of grain in the warehouse - were presented in the newspaper in the most intuitive and realistic way, and conveyed to every corner of the Far East through the ubiquitous news network, touching people's nerves.

The hustle and bustle of the world is profitable, and word of mouth is the best weather vane. The success of the agrarian reform is a sure thing, and those farmers who use traditional methods of farming will inevitably be red-eyed and restless, and who doesn't want to seize this golden opportunity to plunge into the tide of reform to fill their wallets as soon as possible?

Beginning with the early rice harvest season in July, the "Far Eastern Agrarian Reform Office" presided over by Roland received letters from peasants all over the country, unanimously asking for the establishment of communes in the localities and the organization of scattered plots of land into collective farms as soon as possible, drawing on the successful experience of agricultural reform.

"Agrarian reform" is also a social experiment, and the letters from farmers everywhere are the positive feedback triggered by this social experiment, which shows that the experiment of agrarian reform, which was originally confined to 200 communes, has been widely supported by the peasant strata throughout the country, and these calls from the people have accumulated strong momentum for further intensifying agricultural reform.

Most of the social reforms were initiated by the elite at the top, in an attempt to make slight adjustments to the relations of production in order to achieve a more optimal allocation. But social reform is almost impossible to succeed if it is confined to the small circle of the elite at the top and does not mobilize the enthusiasm of the masses to participate. On the other hand, when social reform has achieved initial results and won the active participation of the masses, the will of the masses is too strong, and it will often overwhelm the few elites who are at the vanguard of reform, and if the latter are swayed by this populist force, they cannot insist on controlling the rudder of reform according to the predetermined rhythm and are pushed forward by the surging passion of the masses, then the ship of reform will be at risk of getting lost or even running aground.

Today, the decision-makers of Krasbourg are in a situation where they are caught up in the trap of public opinion. From several ministers in the cabinet to King Rudolf I himself, they were all influenced by the enthusiasm of the people to participate in the agricultural reform, and believed that it was necessary to strike while the iron was hot and implement the successful experience of agricultural reform throughout the country.