Apinsig
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Chapter 197 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-04-05 17:48:27 +0000 UTCThen came the issue of land ownership. In the end, we landed on currently allowing three possible landowners. The government itself, any homesteader and land given to the clan military. There was a lot of pushback but slowly everything was explained, especially about the class that I would be giving out for free that will hopefully eventually account for a large percentage of our population. While everyone wasn’t completely on board there wasn’t direct opposition anymore.
Things further calmed down when explained that people owned their houses or businesses that they lived in or run. If the government wanted to build something else where you owned a building the government would need to first have an extremely good reason and then compensate you quite handsomely. When David finally mentioned basically interest-free business loans everything was finally settled, and laws were written so everyone knew what their rights were.
With that we are finally done for the day and tomorrow we will be dealing with explaining everything that was currently decided on and opening the jobs building. The day after that it was again time for another meeting that was probably going to be as long as this one. During the night I ran towards one of our borders and took care of a strong monster who was causing trouble and then made it back to eat a proper breakfast. I joined the others when we started to explain the decisions we made yesterday to the general public.
To the others’ surprise people were quite welcoming to the changes but after they thought about it. It was quite clear why. Before they were basically no better than slaves as they didn't own the land they lived on or the buildings they built but now they would at least own whatever they built and with the chance to get a new and powerful class that would actually allow them to own land they weren't really that bothered. When everyone found out that the jobs in the jobs building paid a reasonable wage they were even more excited.
The building was nothing special, but I believe it will eventually be a huge building that would have dozens of receptionists instead of the four that were currently working here. All the walls had specific boards placed on them where people could find job offers so everyone could browse for a job that they wanted. There were categories as well and I walked towards the farming section.
There were listings for clearing weeds from certain fields and how much they paid. There was even quite a generous time scale on the completion so you could take your time completing the job or do it as fast as you can and then come here and try to find another job. Everyone was also made to understand that any jobs that they did might end up being examined and if found poorly done might mean that they lose the credits that they would have earned.
There was also a listing on handling Francis and helping him create new fields. I was a bit tempted to try to claim that listing but unfortunately, I had more important things to do. Perhaps another time. The place was packed but when people started to get their jobs the amount of people here should level out to a reasonable amount. I spent the rest of the day looking after the wounded soldiers and trying to help them in any way I can.
I found myself having to reassure many that their life was not over even if we couldn't get a powerful enough healer to regrow their missing limbs. I explained that a person with one hand could still be useful and find himself work.
There were also soldiers here that needed help with coming to terms with killing other people. I did the best I could, but words weren't going to fix anything, but it was a start. They would need different amounts of time to function normally again or at least as normally they will be able to.
This night I slept. I woke up ready for the meeting that was going to happen. Today’s topics were the military and expansion of the village. We needed a lot of houses built before winter arrived and most likely a lot more refugees were going to come here meaning that we might have to house a few thousand people. That meant a lot of houses.
For a solution, I brought up the possibility of an apartment building. We were going to make large buildings that had many rooms people could live in but they would have a common bathroom and a kitchen. That would save a lot of time and resources while giving plenty of protection from the weather.
After refining that idea for a while everyone agreed to it. While the living conditions would be worse than having everyone in their own home. It was also a fact that most people didn't have a lot of family and most of the individual houses would stay quite empty. Having just one person in a big house was something we could not afford.
We plan to build a few districts of apartment buildings, but I had to stop their current plans. The first thing they wanted to do was to demolish the village walls so they could start expanding. “I want you to understand how stupid of an idea this is. While yes, we know wherever enemies are on our land it isn't smart to demolish our last defence. I have a bit of a different idea so let me show you what I think we should do:” When I finished I pulled the map towards myself and started to show everyone what we should do.
“First, we don’t demolish the walls, but we will still build as thou it was demolished. We extend our current roads and then build the apartment districts. One to the South, one to the North and one to the West. It will be a bit annoying to always use the gate, but we can leave it open for easier access. We could also build ramps over the wall so that, if necessary, we can quickly break them down in case of an emergency.” I looked around and while some were nodding some were deep in thought.
The woman who used to be in charge of the town near our border spoke up. “Why not have a district to the east and how far out should we build the new wall? I don’t think we have enough stone to cover everything.” I looked up at her and I was glad that she chose to stay. Other people seem to be curious as well, so I explained.
“First about the wall. It's too soon to make it out of stone, at least the entirety of it. Perhaps make the main gatehouse out of stone. The one that we would be certain we want at the location where we are going to build it. Otherwise, it will all be made out of wood.” I then marked out the wall that I wanted to build. When I looked up, I saw this belief in almost everyone’s eyes.
“That area is like four times larger than we had planned. Even if we started to get a lot more refugees it would take many years to need that much land.” Said one of the people whose name I didn’t remember.
“Well, not all of the land will belong to the city. We have a lot of stone and instead of using it to make a portion of the wall. I believe we should use it to build a castle on top of the hill. This is also the reason why I didn’t want an apartment district to the east as I would like to make a large portion of that land belong to the military.” After a short pause, I continued.
“There are a few reasons why I want the city area to be so large and to be protected by a wall. For one we are most likely going to expand a lot and building multiple walls would be a waste of time. Second, the legionaries need to practice.” There had already been some counterarguments prepared but my last statement stopped them. There were questioning looks so I explained myself further.
“We have not yet talked about the military but it's going to have to expand constantly. The current amount of soldiers we have isn't even close to enough to keep us safe. A lot of the soldiers we are going to have will be legionaries and legionaries need to know how to build quick fortifications when they are deployed. Building this wall would be a perfect chance for practice:” I needed to explain myself a lot more and further drive into what the legionary would know how to do.
At first, they didn't understand why soldiers would need to know anything else but how to fight. I quickly educated how wrong they were, and those people didn’t speak up again until I was done. We were going to lose a lot of legionnaires as most were just conscripted but I hoped that a lot would stay for the long term. I also explained the Vikings. Some thought that a two-army system would be unnecessary. I once again explained how different a fighter could be when they were strong enough.
Three other people in this room had a military trait and an administrative trait. We all fought hard so we would have enough resources allocated so we could do our job. I also informed them of our spymaster and his needs which took another few hours. We ended the meeting when the sun was rising again. We were able to get a lot of resources that I needed but once again people were the thing that we needed most.
