Burned forests, wheat fields that have not been ploughed in winter, broken stone bridges, this is the river land I saw along the way

It used to be one of the richest areas of Vecchia: at that time, the grain was swaying in the wind, like a rippling sea, I heard that countless fine wines and beautiful women made this a paradise for the people of Vecchia, the estates cultivated the best farmers and craftsmen, the fertile black soil allowed the Vecchians to not worry about the harvest at all, and the rich imagination allowed the craftsmen to always make beautiful utensils

A white turban, a maiden on the edge of a birch forest, a dense shamisen, a vast field, and windmills turning leisurely in autumn Every Wikibian knows several stories about the Riverlands, the most famous is that St. George once unloaded his armor here, and any war horse dragged it into the forest, and the barbarians of the forest saw the armor and knelt down to St. George, and from then on accepted the rule of the Wikibians

It was here that the Wikibians once fended off the attacks of numerous nomads

The domineering army came rolling in with sharp swords and countless soldiers, but they always lost their minds in the winter counteroffensive of the Wikivians, so many of the heroes of Vekia that it was not enough to name all the places after heroesMost of the heroes of the Wikipicians are ordinary residents: free farmers, masons, priests, priests, village archers, although these people often do not understand the meaning of justice, their minds are confined to their hometowns, but once their homeland is violated, But they are always able to fight back, and eventually form a storm of counterattacks that will crush any enemy who comes in

The biggest enemy of the Wiki people is always themselves, in addition, the Wikibians have nothing to worry about, any nation that has enslaved the Wiki has taken advantage of the internal strife of the Wikimen, and once the Wikibians are united, they can gather an incomparably strong force, with iron and blood, like a mighty river, to sweep away the neatly armored enemy

But now, the Wikibians are in a miserable situation

I didn't see the Vecchian girls with white turbans, I didn't see their lively smiles and white skirts, I didn't hear them singing in the birch forest, I imagined so many times, in the birch forest, there was a thin girl waiting there, I imagined Kaja riding a horse through the vast wheat fields, and I imagined that Messira was sitting on a flowered wooden chair waiting for me quietly, how I wanted to see a quiet village, I wanted to see countless peasants staying in warm wooden houses to spend the winter, The thick snow made people feel warm, and the white smoke curled from the chimneys, how I wanted to see children and dogs catching pheasants and hares in the snow, and I wanted to watch the white-bearded old man watch over the livestock at the head of the village

I love this piece of land in Vekia, maybe because I have people I love in my heart

But now I can only watch the land being torn to shreds

Giovanni managed to get him and me two horses, and we carried them between them, dressed in thick leather coats, and the mud on the mud roads on the muddy roads of the ruined countryside between the rivers and the horses, the hooves of our mounts were like sticks stirred in butter, and the leaves were frozen with a layer of hoarfrost, and the snow had not yet shaken off the treetops, and the light was shining through the branches, and the whole forest seemed to be quietly whispering, watching the two of us coming

We stopped in front of a village, and two unkempt men were roasting around a campfire, and beside them were a group of equally depressed people, most of them dressed in solemn black, some of them only in brown cloth, and I heard a small cry, these people looked at us numbly, and after a while, we saw a thin coffin being pulled out of the bullock cart, and we were in time for a funeral

The sad procession marched around us, no one looked at us more, the trees were frozen and hard, the mud was trampled under the feet of the funeral procession, a dirty priest held a cross, walking at the front of the procession, the dark clouds in the sky gradually gathered, and the sky that originally revealed a few thin blue patches made people feel depressed

We are already close to the estate of the Lepnin family

Giovanni tried to approach a young man who looked like a blacksmith, and the man with pale blue eyes looked up at us, his eyes were large, but thin like a tassel of wheat, which made his eyes appear larger

"Brother," said Giovanni, "we are strangers"

"Peace be upon you," the young man began

I immediately felt very familiar, this man's accent was exactly the same as that of Caja and Old Leo

"May I ask which unfortunate person is this?" Giovanni said as he rushed to the funeral procession

The blacksmith is using a fork to collect the frozen leaves on the ground, and to pile them into piles, and some dead branches are also to be collected, and in the winter people will begin to prepare the manure for spring ploughing: collect countless rotten wood and leaves, mix animal manure, usually pigs, sheep and cows, and then store this compost until spring, when the weather warms up, the dregs full of fertility can compensate for the fertility of the land, so that the land that has already produced food can be used for cultivation again

"Oh," the blacksmith has the distinctive characteristics of their trade: leather aprons, burnt arms, greasy skin and red, swollen eyes, and rough hands, "it's the baker here, and he's starving."

The blacksmith seemed to be telling a joke, so much so that Giovanni and I were stunned for a moment when the blacksmith saw us stunned, and seemed to be very proud of his own words, "It's weird, yes?" The baker actually starved to death, but it really was."

He told us the story of this baker

In the past, the surrounding lords, including the nobles of the Lepnin family, had abolished the iron furnace tax, the oven tax, and many other taxes, that is, if the farmer needed to make bread, he could make it in his own home, and if he had difficulties, he could borrow an oven from his neighbors, and if the farmer needed to grind flour, he could build his own windmill after applying, and the farmer did not need to pay more than the agreed tax

Many farmers formed communes and even guilds with a certain strength, these organizations collected a certain amount of food and materials internally, which was used to support the farmers in difficulty when the disaster came, and externally, these people used the help of the church and the town hall to negotiate with the lords to help the farmers gradually get rid of the dependency relationship and end the life of serfsAlthough only some farmers eventually became free farmers, the farmers did become more and more secure in life, especially after several great plagues. The number of farmers has declined, and summer day jobs have become scarce and expensive, making the farmer's living conditions more comfortable

In times of war, the peasants suffered as much as everyone else, but in reality there was much more to it

The surrounding peasants had been ordered by the town and the lord to form a militia to support the regular army, but a few months later, they were told that the war was over and that the militia had been disbanded, and many of them had not seen the Burkes in person, but had only heard terrible rumors about the Burkes

Then, the Lepnin family's territory was suddenly taken over by a nearby lord, which was probably even greater for the farmers than the Berks replacing the Vicchians in the city, and the lords immediately expelled the peasants' militia and defense groups, and confiscated most of the farmers' land

The tenant farmers and free peasants of the past began to become serfs one after another, and there was no large-scale revolt, but small-scale escapes and resistance incidents occurred from time to time, but these lords, with the help of the Burkes, easily defeated the resistance of the peasants, most of these peasants only fought blindly for their homeland, no one ruled over them, and no one helped them, they fought on their own land in various places, and it was natural that they were broken

After that, the life of the people was unlucky

Not only grinding flour to extract a certain percentage of grain, baking bread, making beer, exchanging grain, buying farm tools, repairing roofs, slaughtering pigs, planting vegetables, almost every detail, the lord will unceremoniously extort money, the farmers joked, unless they stay at home, otherwise they have to pay the lord money, but in fact, the lord here is thinking about asking the farmers to pay for living in the house, the lord's idea is very simple, the serfs are his semi-slaves, and they should work for him wholeheartedly, Then the serfs who stayed in their own homes should be counted as sabotage, and should be fined

All kinds of whimsical ideas were experimented on the territory, and although the Burke's soldiers knew that such an approach was stupid, the Burkes were happy to let the Wikibians fight against each other, so that the Wikibians would be tired for a long time, so that the Wikibians would not have the strength to fight the Burkes anymore

In fact, on the land of the Berkes, the peasants were quite easy to tax and labor, at least easier than the Wikipicians, and the Berke farmers had ample freedom and wealth to continue to produce valuable goods outside of work, which circulated throughout the kingdom, supporting prosperous towns and rich villages, and the Berkes knew that a healthy rural base and a vibrant network of towns were the guarantee of the country's prosperity, while the reckless lords of the Wikiians were only farmers who exploited themselves, And he was looking for an opportunity to curry favor with Burke's adults, 'The internal chaos of the enemy country is the stability and unity of our country', this political motto of the Zen masters was widely praised among Burke's officials in Wiki

We listen to the blacksmith's narration, this baker does not have much land, he used to have dozens of acres of land and the right to use a pasture, during the war, these things were not damaged, but after the war, these things were taken away by the lord, the baker once served the Lepnin family for thirty years, his main income came from making food for the people, compared to that income, his income from the field was only a small amount, but now, the lord not only confiscated his property, but also issued elaborate taxes, His stove and even the entire bakery were under the watchful eye of the lord's family, and the lord forbade him to bake food for others at will, because people were supposed to bring grain to the lord's house to process it so that the lord could extract taxes

The baker once tried to go to the lord's house to work as a helper, but the lord's family said that they did not need a superfluous person, and soon after, the lord took the bakery, and the baker who used this place to continue his fortune returned home, facing a room full of wives and children and empty belongings

The ordinary peasants still had a way to live, but the artisans of the riverlands suffered from the fact that they either went to the lord's house or had to enter the town, and a large number of them went bankrupt and had no way out, so they could only attach themselves to the house of the great lord, and lost their freedom and almost all their property

Eventually, the baker was starved to death

Just as the blacksmith told us the story of the place, dust rose at the end of the road, and the sound of horses' hooves crushed the ground

The funeral procession hesitated, but the priest led the crowd on

It wasn't long before I saw who it was, a group of heavily armed boyar knights, some of them standard Vyarian nobles, armed with heavy helmets, shining silver armor, and high feathers, as well as ordinary horseback militiamen, simply armed with leather armor and carrying short bows behind their backs, each carrying two pots of bows and arrows

A young man seemed to be the leader of these men, he was wearing strong armor, a silver iron throat guard around his neck, his hands were wearing the armor of the knights of the west, and his mount was a black and shiny Vecchian horse, with a high ornament on the horse's head, and a fresh coat of angry horses, this young man looked like a young master of the boyar family

Several people knelt in front of the man in the funeral procession, a woman pointed to the coffin, and prayed loudly, and I heard prayers for food and exemption from servitude

"Who is this?" I asked the blacksmith

I followed Giovanni and pulled my horse to the side of the road, trying to make myself look inconspicuous

"Alexander," the blacksmith grimaced, then an evil grin, "our good Shura"

Shura

My heart jumped

I squinted at this Shura, who was more than a head taller than me, a few years older than me, and he was imposingly dressed in armor, like a warrior who could fight in battle, and his guards looked like wolves and tigers

"Shura?" I scrutinized the man

I can't help but feel a little uncomfortable in my heart, the person chosen by Kaja is really much taller and more powerful than me, and he is also a nobleman, but does Kaja know what this Alexander's family has done?

The Shura looked at the petitioning peasants around him, and rode to the middle of them, his head held high, his legs clamped, and proud as a goat

The peasant woman cried, and I could see that she was the baker's surviving person

The peasant woman grabbed Shura's leg and prayed for mercy

Shura showed a look of disgust, and slapped the peasant woman in the face and shoulder with the handle of the horsewhip, and asked some farmers to come behind to protect the peasant woman, but Shura thought that these people were coming to surround him, so he rushed through the crowd, and several farmers were knocked to the ground, and Shura's retinue rushed over, and the funeral procession was frightened and ran towards the downhill slope by the roadside, but the coffin overturned and fell to the ground, and the coffin board was knocked open

The peasants rushed to clean up the mess, and the peasant woman cried as she clung to the coffin

Shura turned his head and looked at the clumsy farmers and laughed, and his entourage laughed with him

Shura suddenly saw me, and I glared at him across the farmer and the soldier, and he frowned, turned back and said something to one of the horsemen beside him, and then walked away with the brigade

The cavalryman walked up to me and Giovanni, suddenly drew his whip, and lectured me, "Boy, the next time you meet a lord, remember to keep your head down"

I didn't even look down on this Shura, what was this cavalry, I still glared at him, and the cavalry was about to fight Giovanni quickly pressed my head, and hurriedly said sorry, saying that the country children had not seen the market, and they were too frightened to move

The man in the distance began to call out to the cavalryman, who found it bored, whipped Giovanni on the shoulder, twisted the horse's head and walked away

After the group was gone, Giovanni shrugged his shoulders, "Victor, you don't see this kid in the right eye."

I pursed my lips and didn't speak

A strange thought suddenly occurred to me: Kaja, you will see Shura begging me for mercy.