Chapter 357: 352: Medieval Problems Are Caused By Medieval People

"La tierra es de quien la trabaja con sus manos."

"The land belongs to those who work on it with their hands."

-        Emiliano Zapata

Antonius changed that pleasant grinning expression from his face within a blink of an eye, replaced with a face of rage as his eyes bulged up in anger standing up from his stool. The two farmers before him totally did not predict that the lord can have such a violent reaction towards what they have said earlier on, they do not even know what they have said wrong in their words that caused the admiral to develop such a temper, and the only thing they could do is to kneel on the ground before the lord's feet, shivering and begging for mercy.

In the end of the day, Antonius is still a lord ruling over this region despite him always trying to show a positive and friendly stance towards his people, and the farmers still treat themselves as slave like peasants serving the land lords back under the Ottoman rule which perished years ago, this concept of nobles and peasants have been inlayed in to their brain so deep that it is almost impossible to have them realise that in the end of the day, Antonius is equal to them as a human being when born, with nothing special in particular, as there is certainly not even the base idea of equality in the era.

Realising that he has just lost his temper, Antonius pulled these two people up from the ground forcing a fake smile on his face. "Do not worry, I am not mad at you two, not at all. Instead, I must reward you two, for what you have told me, this is an important piece of information that enables me to get a better understanding on what is going on here…"

As Antonius talks before the two still startled men, he began reaching for every single pocket on him trying to find some thing to serve as a decent reward. However, this turned out to be embarrassing for him as no matter how deep he dig in to his pockets, he cannot even find one single piece of copper. The admiral that owns half of Greece Peninsula made a dry laugh and looked at Yuri with his men, but these brothers in arms shook their head repeatedly at the same time, signalling that they do not have any money.

Without any other solutions, Antonius has to keep his words and took out a sword he brought with him all the while, made with fine iron from Orhan's work shop. "I now reward you two with this sword, but remember, you can only use this blade for self defence, nothing else, if you break this promise with me, I shall send people to come after you and deal with your crimes, is that clear?"

The two men nodded their head repeatedly making vows to Antonius, and then left this mini camp hurriedly back to where they came from.

"Yuri, you know why I am so furious and fed up about what those two people mentioned just now?"

Yuri kept silent as he knows from the prolonged time together with Antonius that the admiral will not expect him to answer for this kind of brain killing questions, and he will give the answer by himself.

"The Greeks… Roman's government failed in this piece of land, because their land lords and nobles who occupied large amount of land for agriculture under their names without paying tax to the central government, mean while the poor and peasants are forced to survive on a bare minimum amount of rations every day with almost no land to plant or live on. But even though these land owners had large amount of land properties, they refuse to pay taxes to the government in Constantinople, to the point where by they even recruited an army to fend off the government tax collectors, the emperors of Constantinople had no choice but to collect more tax and draft more man power from the poor, which made the entire situation even worse…"

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"…As time goes on the land owners became increasingly powerful, to a point where by they developed the physical power to force the emperor of Constantinople to appease them fearing that they might jump board to the side of his enemy, or supporting another rebellion against his throne. Thus, although it seems on paper that the emperor rules a state that is much richer and populous than the Ottomans, but the later can still easily mobalise more capable man power and wealth than the empire decaying from its inside."

Yuri nodded a bit thinking that he has caught an insight of what Antonius has just mentioned in the long winded speech. While the elder teenager standing behind looked up and observed this supposed admiral standing before him, with his pupils in his eyes turning, thinking of some thing.

"…We only managed to solidify our control and governance on this piece of land because we got rid of those land owners, no matter whether they are nobles for generations, or land lords with a million riches, we got rid of them all by either force or soft power. Then we split the land fairly to our citizens and our veterans, making sure that every one living in my domain has a piece of land to work and sufficient food to last them through the year, we even managed to build a healthy taxation and drafting system with this although we only have less than half a million population… This is a miracle, that only us can build! Like this time, we can draft eighty thousand people serving in the war with out our economics getting screwed up! Is this not a miracle!"

"Yes, of course it is." Yuri answered.

"But these people… They are trying to slaughter our hard work for the past five years, right under my eye lids! Forcing the commoners to sell their land to these greedy arses? Where did they even get the guts to do this? Wow… Wow! I am astonished! Good job! Yuri, who is the governor of Drama?"

This time surprisingly Yuri knows the answer to the question. "The governor of Drama is Captain Tom." He answered. "A war hero and veteran that got an injury when battling an Ottoman fleet off the coast of Izmir, and he received this posting because he knows how to read those fancy letters from the papers."

"He needs to answer for his crime." The rage in Antonius' mind is not yet over, he thought for a while walking in circles and then flashed out the cutlass in his buckles, handing it over to the Varangian before him. "Yuri, take this blade with you, go to Drama, drag that Captain Tom out from his luxurious estate, and execute him in front of all the people of Drama, make him an example to show that I, Antonius, shall never tolerate any form of corruption! Is it clear?"

Yuri dared to say no more words except to acknowledge Antonius' command and scurried off with Antonius' blade and three other cavalries, totally ignoring the two teens he brought over here for questioning. While Antonius did find out about them, but the only thing he could do is to ask them to take a rest first beside the fire place, as he is obviously not in the mood for another chattering session at this moment with fury still burning inside his mind.

A couple of minutes later the elder teen seems to have finally made up his mind, as he comforted his younger brother asking him to behave himself and not make any movement or noise that will attract any unwanted attention, as he still does not have full trust on Antonius' soldiers. Then he paced himself carefully and nervously towards the tent pitched for Antonius, where the ruler of this land seems to be writing some thing inside. The teen cleared his throat and requested. "Honourable lord, may the moon over you always shine your way forward making you never lose your way, may I enter? I have some information that I think you are interested."

Inside the tent, Antonius is writing a letter to Abdullah trying to conclude all the things that has been happening around here in Drama, and consulting him on what to do next. Though his thinking process is interrupted by this sudden call, but he is already too tired to get angry again and he still tries to keep that portrait of him against his people and soldiers.

"Come in." Antonius replied. "Is Yuri back? Or do you have any thing to report?"

Instead of a soldier coming in, Antonius saw a commoner wearing a shabby woollen robe and a pair of worn out straw shoes, with a rather juvenile face telling the man's age. The young man bowed before the admiral, and continued nervously. "I might have information on the governor of Drama, my lord, and how did Drama become like this."

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