283: Chapter 155, Food Gap_1 283: Chapter 155, Food Gap_1 These little tricks were trivial and couldn’t make any real impact, but they were annoyances.
If he had less self-restraint, Hudson would have wanted to kick them out directly.
Especially when he heard the word “borrow”, it nearly choked Hudson to death.
There were lots of bad debts outside that couldn’t be collected back, and adding new debts would surely lead to the collapse of the Mountain Domain.
If it weren’t for diverting funds from the swamp development project, the finances of the Mountain Domain would have already been bankrupt.
The diverted funds would eventually need to be returned.
The swamp project must not be affected at the very least.
If the problem was discovered by Belsden, his reputation would be bankrupted.
Draining a pond to catch all the fish was absolutely out of the question.
There was no money to lend, let alone resources.
Wages for hired labor were settled with unrefined ironware.
Not only these, but Hudson was also prepared to hoard some of the goods collected from the nobles for his own use, then use iron goods to fill the hole.
Don’t underestimate the nobles complaining of poverty.
In reality, they still had some savings.
They might not be able to bear the pressure of providing money and food for a long time, but they definitely wouldn’t go bankrupt in the short term.
Everyone knew the simple truth that you should store up food in troubled times.
If you don’t push them, you never know how much the nobles really have.
Collecting money and food for the front line wasn’t the first occurrence.
Similar events have happened dozens of times over the past few hundred years.
Experienced nobles would set aside some money and food each year as emergency funds.
These are the foundations of the family, as long as the family doesn’t produce spendthrifts, the accumulation of ancestors is enough to tide over tough times.
Apart from those families who suffered huge losses in the Skeleton Society uprising, all other native nobles could seek help from their families.
Increasing training time was nonsense.
Military training was extremely physically demanding, and without meat in the diet, demands couldn’t be met.
If they followed West’s proposal to exercise once every three days, the food expenses would eat up most of their wages, wouldn’t that make the noble lords’ efforts fruitless?
Without Hudson having to say anything, it was unanimously voted down by everyone.
One exercise every ten days was enough to ensure basic training, only a small number of soldiers needed to be focus trained on normal days.
If it came to the point of national conscription, the Kingdom of Alpha would be at its last gasp.
Sending large numbers of serf soldiers to the battlefield would only delay time.
The discordant interlude didn’t affect the final result of the meeting.
For the nobles of Layton County, renting out labor power during the slack farming season, not only could they reduce the consumption of food in their territories, they could also earn some wages, filling the financial deficit of their territory.
Why reject a win-win situation?
As for whether Hudson earned more, that wasn’t something these little guys should worry about.
No one would be so foolish as to choose to offend their boss at this time.
If they didn’t handle the relationship well now, it would be too late to cry on the battlefield.
…
Nobles couldn’t keep secrets from each other, the changes in Layton County quickly spread.
It became a hot topic of discussion after meals.
The nobles in other areas didn’t care, this was the first time they were being pressed to pay up and their wallets could completely bear it, there wasn’t too much pressure for now.
It wasn’t the same for the nobles of Wharton County.
As part of the Unlucky Duo County Group, they were all plagued by the Skeleton Society, victim of local rebellions, suffered locust plagues, and now jointly licking their wounds while collecting money and grain for the front line.
If the nobles in Layton County can’t bear the pressure, the situation in Wharton County wouldn’t be much different.
Watching Hudson help his little brothers solve their problems, everybody was as green with envy as could be.
Soon, the pressure cascaded onto Viscount Caryo.
A continuous stream of nobles came to his door pleading poverty, urging him, their leader, to come up with solutions.
“Steward, how have the prefectural governors in other regions dealt with this situation in the past?”
Viscount Caryo asked worriedly.
No need to panic when bumping into problems.
Looking at the experiences of predecessors first and then slowly making a decision wouldn’t be too late.
In the past few hundred years, basically all the unpredicted events had happened.
The successful solutions of predecessors were the best references.
“Young master, special situations like that of Wharton County rarely happened in the past.
It’s unexpected that natural disasters and man-made misfortunes all came together.
Most of the time, even if there were rebellions, the losses in the prefecture wouldn’t be too big.
The Rebel Army occupying two prefectures was the first time since the establishment of the Southeastern Province.
In the early stage of collecting goods, the noble lords below are able to hold on.
It’s only in the later stages when they run out of money and need to borrow from the prefecture government.
The worst year was when a flood disaster occurred during wartime.
Each prefecture in the Southeastern Province suffered heavy losses and was unable to bear the responsibility of collecting goods for the Kingdom.
In the end, they were forced to buy a batch of goods from overseas, led by the clans of various local nobles, completing the mission for the Kingdom.
In situations like now, where the nobles are having financial problems before the war has even fully broken out, this usually only happens to nobles who have fallen from wealth.
Usually, everyone would just ignore them.”
The old steward said with pride.
That decisive emergency response really made the Dalton Family stand out.
To this day, it is still talked about with relish.
After experiencing a deficit once, everyone has developed good grain-storing habits.
Especially the Dalton Family, who established their own emergency goods storage warehouse, which was pretty much full at ordinary times.