pdf-ebookys Chapter 26 Differences · 1
Chapter 26 Differences · 1
In these circumstances, after passing through these villages, the boy discovered that all the farmers there were being employed.
At the same time, due to long-term debt, although these farmers were nominally employed, their fate was actually controlled by the noble landowners.
These aristocratic landowners, who controlled vast amounts of arable land, managed these peasants through methods far beyond just debt and employment relationships.
Another aspect is martial prowess. Basically, every noble family will have a descendant who awakens innate soul power and then becomes a soul master under the family's resources.
Even those members who haven't awakened their innate soul power will enter some of the industries controlled by their families. In towns, the vast majority of industries are monopolized by these noble families and sects.
Within noble families, the cultivation levels of these Soul Masters vary, but they also recruit other Soul Masters to expand their combat power.
Of course, in most cases, noble families that control several villages will not use the Soul Masters they recruit to fight against farmers.
This is not out of any genuine goodwill, but is completely unnecessary, because even an adult Soul Master with a first-ring cultivation level has enough power to defeat a dozen unarmed farmers, and Soul Masters with higher cultivation levels will make this ratio even higher.
Therefore, the military strength possessed by noble families was not only for dealing with peasants, but also for dealing with other nobles and the imperial family.
The reason the empire sought the support of these nobles was not only because its governance was difficult to extend into the villages, but also because the nobles were responsible for the management and taxation of villages within the empire.
Most importantly, the military power these nobles possessed made the empire reluctant to expend or eliminate them in many instances.
As far as Huo Yuhao knows, not to mention the distant past, since the collision between the Sun Moon Continent and the Douluo Continent, the conflicts between the various empires, which had never ceased, have become even more intense.
As for the local nobles, the empire had neither the time nor the capacity to sustain the conflict, which made the nobles the de facto controllers of the empire's grassroots villages.
Of course, some sects are in a similar situation, but the situation they have is more complicated, and they do not have a real subordinate relationship with the empire.
Furthermore, as the boy passed through these villages, he discovered that many of the villagers were unaware that they too could awaken martial spirits, believing that martial spirits were exclusive to nobles.
In some villages, people are unaware of the existence of martial spirits, only knowing that the nobles possess some kind of powerful force.
In many villages, few people are literate, and no one teaches them, since Soul Masters or town residents do not live in the villages.
These villages were often isolated from the outside world, with few outsiders coming except for the conscripts sent by the local nobles.
In this context, ignorance became another means for the nobles to control these peasants, because in the peasants' minds, literacy would not lead to a bountiful harvest or alleviate their meager livelihood.
Furthermore, in the eyes of these people, nobles were no longer just nobles, but beings who possessed powerful and incomprehensible abilities.
These peasants gradually transformed their fear of the nobles into an unassailable reverence, while the noble landowners controlled these peasants on an invisible level.
The so-called employment relationship, through these methods, has become a relationship between slave owners and slaves, though not explicitly stated.
It can be said that noble landlords held the power of life and death over everyone in the villages they controlled, and any rebuttal or resistance could be brutally suppressed.
However, under a series of disciplines, farmers often lose the ability and the will to resist.
Of course, such a desolate situation does not always exist; in fact, an absolutely isolated village does not exist.
Merchants still pass through these villages, but not as frequently or regularly as they do in towns. From the merchants' snippets of conversation, some young people in the villages have glimpsed what the outside world is like.
However, what they see is only a partial picture, but it is enough to make those young people unwilling to stay here for their entire lives. Young people's yearning for the outside world often prompts them to leave the village and go to the outside world.
There is another situation, which is due to long-term debt, loss of working ability due to accidents, or poor harvest this year.
In order to survive, these families would sell one of their members to alleviate their difficulties and find a way to make a living. Those who were sold or left the village would become servants in noble households, or go to other villages or towns to find work or join the army.
However, this was only the most ideal outcome. The boy once lived in a village with an uncle who had to go out to find a way to make a living when he was young due to family reasons, and then returned to farm after more than 20 years.
The older man mentioned to the boy that he wasn't the only one who went out, since the poor harvest wasn't just an isolated case in one farm, but affected the entire village.
Then the group of men and women went out like this, otherwise their parents who were in poor health would have to go out, because after paying the taxes, there wasn't enough food at home.
I originally thought I would just go out and find a piece of land to continue farming, or become a maid, or find a job to make a living, or if all else fails, I could see if I could join the army.
However, things did not go smoothly. Not long after leaving the village, they encountered bandits on their way to the town, and several people died in the process of resisting and escaping.
Then they went to the town. Although the group stuck together, thinking that they could make a living by finding a job, they found that it was not easy to find a job. There were not enough normal jobs for the residents of the town. After staying in the town for two days, they faced extortion by the gangs there.
Because they didn't have much money, the gang beat them up and then forcibly separated them under the pretext of offering them jobs.
Those who disagreed were beaten; some were beaten to death, others were knocked unconscious and dragged away, and then the group dispersed.
He was knocked unconscious and didn't know how many days had passed. When he woke up, he was sold to some place, inexplicably signed an employment contract, and then arrived in a place he didn't recognize.
He worked in that place for fifteen years, then found an opportunity to secretly escape. With the little money he had saved, he stumbled and finally returned. As for the other people who had been with him, he never saw them again.
The uncle said all this because he saw the boy coming alone from outside the village and wanted to persuade him to find a village to settle down in first, and then talk about it when he grew up in a few years.
The older man didn't know the boy was a Soul Master; he just saw that it was too dangerous for him to go out at his age.
Huo Yuhao understood what the other person meant, but he did not agree.
However, from the uncle's experience, he had already guessed the fate of the others in that group.
No matter what happened during this process, the final result was nothing more than death, or being sold somewhere and dying for other reasons. This uncle was just one of the lucky ones.
The boy thought of the brothels in town that had been sold, or places he could never see.
The noble landowners had no worries about a lack of labor. In fact, the situation outside was more dangerous than inside the village. The bandits and hooligans the boy encountered along the way gave him a deep understanding of this.
At the same time, although the areas where soul beasts roam have shrunk to certain specific locations in this era, these are not absolutely fixed.
After all, nobles and sects would raise some soul beasts in their respective regions and release them into specific small soul beast forests, and in this situation, a few soul beasts would inevitably escape.
These spirit beasts, bandits, and other such entities form an invisible wall around the people of each village, both in their minds and in reality. Leaving the village often means facing danger.
Therefore, the majority of people who remain in the village stay behind. Moreover, given that manpower is the primary means of farming and there are few means of medical treatment when someone falls ill, the village's population is forced to maintain a relatively increasing number of births each year.