I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 291 New Changes
There are generally two broad approaches to solving problems.

One approach is to honestly solve the problem, while the other approach is more likely to cause significant long-term consequences, namely, dealing with the person who caused the problem.

Chris is now preparing to use the second method.

……

Spring has arrived, and Valentine is leading a donkey along the muddy dirt road of the King's Plain. The donkey's hooves make a squelching sound as they tread through the melting snow and mud, bringing joy to the heart.

Valentine squinted his cloudy old eyes and watched as a dozen farmers surrounded a strange machine in the fields by the roadside... The iron thing was steaming and lurching forward on its own, with the plow blades in front turning over the black, oily soil. The peasant women following behind only needed to use their hoes to knock down the more stubborn, hard soil.

This thing is actually a steam engine, or more accurately, a steam engine. It was created because Chris lacked oxen and packhorses, so he had no choice but to provide the materials and money for players to craft it by hand to replace oxen in plowing the fields.

These things are very valuable, and the poor farmers of Bagnia certainly couldn't afford them. Therefore, these camel-drawn carts belong to Prince Chris as his private property.

When the property was lent to farmers, not only were there dedicated instructors to guide them, but several armed soldiers would also be present to guard it and prevent theft, robbery, or damage to the prince's property.

The soil of the King's Plain was originally fertile and loose, but after such good land was burned by fire, the soil became hard and compacted. If the soil is not loosened, nothing can grow except weeds.

Of course, loosening the soil doesn't mean everything is fine; many troublesome things await the farmers later.

"Does the old man need a ride?"

A bullock cart loaded with wheat seeds stopped beside Valentine. The driver was a young man with a missing front tooth. He wore a copper wheat ear badge pinned to his coarse cloth clothes. Barbarossa noticed a small wooden plaque hanging from his waist, with words written in Baghian script and Chinese.

Spring farming technical instructor - Level 3, Agricultural Church.

"no thank you."

The old knight declined the young man's offer and continued leading the donkey carrying the bundle onward, sighing as he went.

The Kingdom of Bagnia has changed so much. As soon as spring arrived, the King's Plain became lively, and the busy atmosphere of spring plowing filled the air.

After a great fire last winter, Valentine realized that there was no hope for this year's harvest, so he took his only animal, his knight's sword (which he had earned when he was a knight), and went to Minicia to find work.

Now, Valentine is returning home with the food he bought from abroad, estimating that it will be enough to help his wife and son get through this year's food shortage.

Before long, Valentine's boots sank into the annoyingly damp mud, the mud clinging to the boots with a dirty, blackish-gray hue, forcing the old knight to stop and admire the silver pipes winding between the furrows.

That was a canal that had just been repaired two days ago, and it was precisely delivering melted snow water to the farmland that needed it.

Several girls wearing straw hats and carrying baskets ran swiftly across the hard soil by the irrigation ditch, laughing and running towards the land that had been allocated to their families this spring. Their parents, brothers, and sisters, having worked hard tending the land, were hungry and waiting for the girls to bring them food.

When Valentine saw this scene, he couldn't help but sigh. It had been a long time since he could remember that he had seen such a sight.

How long is this time span?

Valentine carefully recalled his memories, and finally found the scene he had seen in the deepest part of the ocean of memories... Ah, it turns out that such a thing never happened.

The farmers in Bagnia have always eaten two meals a day. They eat one meal when they get up in the morning, then go to work, work until they return home in the evening, eat another meal, and then go to sleep.

People who can eat three meals a day don't need to do farm work at all; they are all big landowners, big merchants, or nobles. People who eat two meals a day don't need their families to bring them food and water at noon.

Why can they afford lunch now?

Why are farmers so enthusiastic about cultivating the land?

In Valentine's memory, farmers were always lazy when they worked, never as excited as he saw today.

"Get out of the way, get out of the way!"

A clear shout made Valentine turn to the side. Two boys with braided pigtails were pushing a wheelbarrow past, which was loaded with newly sprouted green vegetable seedlings. Where the wheels rolled, a few stubborn wildflowers sprouted from the soil.

Valentine stared in disbelief at the scene, while the donkey behind him took the opportunity to lower its head, open its large front teeth, and nibble at the wheat seedlings beside it.

"Hey! That beast!"

A peasant woman carrying a hoe, who was following behind, reacted quickly and struck the donkey on the nose with the handle of her hoe.

The donkey, in pain, backed away, crushing the newly laid lime marker along the ditch. The peasant woman panicked and squatted down, desperately trying to mold the deformed marker back to its original shape.

Valentine was about to apologize when the peasant woman suddenly looked up at him and started cursing.

"Old man, get out of here! Don't step on it! Without this, the agricultural official won't irrigate my fields!"

"Your field?"

Valentine asked in confusion, and his words were like a fuse lit on a powder keg. The peasant woman, wearing a headscarf and a brand-new coarse cloth dress, stood on tiptoe, pointed at his nose, and shouted in a shrill voice.

“Of course this is my land. This is land that my son earned by serving in the army for Prince Chris. It’s tax-free land, and you old fool, you’re right here here…”

The old knight, his face and head covered in spittle, fled in a disheveled state, leading his donkey away.

After escaping the peasant woman, Valentine continued his journey along the muddy road, his mind filled with thoughts of the conversation he had just had. "Hyōta..."

Valentine repeated the word under his breath, his mind beginning to conjure up the series of reforms recently implemented by Prince Chris, which had not only transformed the lives of farmers but also given the entire city of Bagnia a fresh new look.

Home wasn't far away. After walking for a while, he saw the stone house on the small hill ahead, weathered by time, which was once the only property left by his grandfather.

Valentine pushed open the creaking wooden door, and a long-lost aroma of wheat wafted into the room.

His wife, Martha, was standing in front of the newly built stove, stirring a pot of thick oatmeal porridge. Beside the stove were several bags of flour bearing the royal crest… this was the village's ration distributed according to the Spring Ploughing Reward Regulations.

"You're back?"

Martha didn't even look up.

"Tie the donkey up, wash your hands and eat."

Her tone remained as unquestionable as it had been forty years ago, only now there was a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

"The village distributed cured meat today, so I cut some up and stewed it in the porridge."

Valentine stared blankly at the stove. The iron pot was new, with a five-pointed star cast on the bottom. Two brand-new sickles hung on the wall, their handles engraved with "Award for Model Worker of Road Construction Team".

What surprised him most was the wooden box in the corner. Without a lid, he could see that it was filled with golden wheat grains, enough to last until the summer harvest.

"What are you looking at?"

Martha stuck the wooden spoon into the pot.

"Come and eat!"

Where did the food come from?

Martha said as she placed the food on the pot.

“This was all earned by my son. He joined Prince Chris’s road construction team and earned it with work points… The iron pot and sickle weren’t; they were rewards he received for his hard work. The foreman admired him and wanted to hire him as a long-term worker, but because you’re not home, he told him to wait until you come back.”

Valentine breathed a sigh of relief and plopped down at the table.

Do you know what happened with Hyota?

“I know. The newly appointed village chief said that if you serve in the army for His Highness the Prince, you can be allocated land, and you can keep it for fifteen years after you are discharged, until someone else in your family continues to serve in the army… Things have changed so much now. Prince Chris is really a good person.”

"Oh, old man, how about you let our son serve in the prince's army? That way, our family will have military land, a full fifty acres!"

Upon hearing that he was to be a soldier, the old knight clenched his fist tightly, but quickly relaxed it.

He remembered the angry look in the peasant woman's eyes on the road, the precise markings on the irrigation ditch, and the strange things cast in iron.

Those farmers who once hunched over now stand tall, protecting not someone else's land, but their own true hope.

The sound of children playing came from outside the window. Several teenagers ran by carrying literacy boards distributed by the literacy class. On the boards, a few square characters that they did not recognize were written crookedly with charcoal pencils.

"Literacy classes? Now even children have the opportunity to learn to read and write?"

Valentine asked in surprise, his gaze passing through the window as he watched the energetic children running around, a warmth welling up inside him.

"Yes, the village chief said this is Prince Chris's new policy, which gives all children the opportunity to learn. Maybe our grandchildren will become learned people in the future."

Martha said with a smile, her face full of anticipation for the future.

Valentine was silent for a moment, his heart filled with complex emotions. He thought of his youth, and now, in contrast, he saw a completely new Bagnia, a country full of hope and opportunity.

"Do you think it's a good idea to send our son to the army in exchange for land?"

Martha asked again, a hint of expectation in her eyes.

Valentine looked up and saw the sunlight streaming through the window onto the children's faces, their laughter echoing in the air.

He remembered the peasant woman's words on the road, the farmers' deep affection for the land, and the news he had heard in the Kingdom of Minicia.

“I don’t know, Martha.”

Valentine finally spoke.

"Because Bagnia will soon be at war..."

"Huh, who are we fighting? Can we not fight?"

"We cannot refuse war, because it is a war that others want to start."

(End of this chapter)