I became a witch, but I started the industrial revolution

"Drive! Drive!"

Suddenly, there were a lot of horse hoof sounds and shouts at the entrance of the village. The soldiers, who were covered in bags and gathered together, looked at the source of the sounds in confusion.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Before they could see the specific appearance of the attacking cavalry, a large number of strange noises were heard, and then their companions around them fell to the ground, and those who were not dead let out earth-shaking wails.

From time to time, ragged soldiers ran out of other houses and were shot to death.

At this time, several soldiers holding their belts also ran out of the old village chief's house. When they saw this scene, they were immediately terrified and subconsciously ran back into the house to hide.

The cavalrymen had already rushed forward on their horses, raised their spears and fired in turns, quickly dealing with the soldiers around them, whether they were standing or kneeling, all were treated equally.

"Don't kill me! I surrender! I am a noble! Otherwise I will take her with me to death!"

The officer hiding in the house was horrified as he watched the incomprehensible weapons outside killing his men in large numbers. He stood at the window, holding a long sword and pulling a naked girl to stand in front of himself and others.

The girl's skin, which should have been white and delicate, was now covered with stains and blood. Her messy long hair covered her face, and her body was exposed nakedly to the eyes of dozens of men.

The young sergeant on horseback, with his collar flashing silver, raised his rifle and aimed at the opponent, but he was hesitant to pull the trigger and his eyes subconsciously shifted away.

The other cavalrymen also changed their bullets one after another, and they were a little hesitant with their guns in their hands.

Chapter 23: When the Old and the New Come Together

"Put down what you're holding! Put down what you're holding!"

"Don't point it at me, or I'll kill her!"

The officer in the room was yelling like crazy, and the long sword in his hand was pressed on the girl's neck from time to time. Blood had already begun to flow out of the girl's neck in his hand, and was flowing down her body.

The young sergeant holding the gun said in a deep voice: "Put down your weapons and surrender. I promise that the territory law will give you a fair judgment."

"No! I don't want it! I want you to let me go safely!"

"Me, me, me! And us!"

It was absolutely impossible to let him go, so the situation was deadlocked for a moment.

The disheveled girl raised her head with difficulty, revealing her eyes hidden under her messy hair. She looked at the sergeant outside the door, and the other was also looking at her, with pity in his eyes.

She forced a smile on her swollen face and nodded.

"boom!"

After a gunshot, a blood mist burst out from the girl's forehead, and there was silence all around. The sergeant lowered the spear in his hand to cover his trembling arm, and squeezed out a few words from between his teeth:

"Everyone! Get off your horses! Don't kill them directly yet, put on the bayonets."

"Yes!"

"understand!"

With a "crash" sound, the large army jumped off their horses, pulled out the 30cm Mitsubishi bayonets hanging on their waists, pressed them against the muzzles of their guns, kicked open the wooden door and rushed in with big strides.

After a brief burst of gunfire, there were screams and the dense "puff" sound of sharp weapons piercing flesh.

The old village chief followed into the house numbly, ignoring the bloody scene around him, and took the relatively intact clothes on the bed and put them on the girl: "Ni'er, I didn't hide you well, I'm sorry for you."

The sergeant also walked in at this time, came behind the old village chief and looked at the young face of the dead girl.

The old village chief turned around, looked at him and whispered, "Thank you, sir. You can take whatever I have at home."

There was no emotion in his eyes, no sadness, no hatred, and the girl's death did not change his expression at all, only indifference and numbness.

This is the way the world is. Live as long as you can, and die to be liberated.

"Sorry, we're late."

After saying that, he walked out. The soldiers behind him went out in groups of two, carrying a corpse. They erected wooden stakes in the center of the village, tied them into knots, and hung the corpses on them.

"Listen, all villagers. All land will be taken over by Lord Astar. Now everyone can cultivate two plots of land without paying grain tax. All previous taxes will be abolished and exempted."

"Listen, all villagers, all the land will be taken over by Lord Astar..."

The soldiers of the Fourth Division rode their war horses around the village, posting notices and shouting out new policies, with a corpse more or less dragging behind them.

You have plundered so many things from this land, you must pay some back with your body.

The same size of team and the same treatment were repeated in all the villages in the four regions.

Finally, they gathered in front of the territory of the noble manor owners who actually managed these small villages.

When the territory guards first saw the galloping horsemen, they were a little confused. They didn't think that these people on horseback were soldiers. After all, they were not wearing armor and had no weapons such as swords or spears.

It was not until more and more cavalry gathered that they realized something was wrong. These troops, which were gathered at the battalion level and above, had already begun to attack the city.

The cavalrymen rushed towards the city with long-barreled muskets in hand, shooting at the guards who gathered at the gate to intercept them.

Bursts of gunfire rang out, and the soldiers at the city gate fell to the ground one after another. The city gate was easily breached in a short time, and the elite private soldiers of the nobles who came behind were killed in a daze after being hit by musket fire.

What followed was a standardized process, where they would find the noble manor and enter to search for property. Nobles with evidence of guilt or resistance would be shot on the spot, with a guilt sign hung on them and hung at the entrance of the manor for public display.

Afterwards, notices were posted everywhere in the city and a new territory policy was announced, including distributing land to individuals, fully exempting taxes, and distributing food.

The previous offensive campaign against the Astar Territory drained most of the military forces of several neighboring territories, which meant that she did not encounter much resistance in implementing her policies.

This is also related to the fact that the nobles are generally not very cautious.

Medea was once a noble, which made them think that both sides were in the same class, and that if they were defeated, at most they would be fined some money, and their personal safety would still be guaranteed.

Money is the thing they have the most. The most they can do is to plunder some of their subordinates.

However, this was only what the nobles thought. Medea was the national agent who opened the era of national society, and was naturally in opposition to the aristocracy.

The old aristocracy occupied most of the land, industry, commerce and population, and the national social policies she promoted were exactly what she needed.

She needs population and resources, and the people need to be well fed and clothed. The advancement of industry enables her to meet the people's needs, and the people can then become her helpers.

So what is the point of an aristocratic group that does not produce anything, wastes labor, disrupts the market, and has its own military?

This is an irreconcilable contradiction between the emerging interest groups and the old interest groups, and it is destined to end with the complete withdrawal of one side.

In this case, it would be better to let them contribute some of their own meager strength to Media when they leave, such as their heads and property.

She was merciful enough not to delegate this power to the poor and slaves whom they had oppressed for many years during the purge.

However, with Medea's actions, more and more nobles came to their senses and fled with their families or retreated to the castles to put up a desperate resistance.

With their financial resources, even if they were surrounded by heavy troops and cut off from water and food, they could still survive comfortably for a long time relying on their reserves.

Medea's strategy for this was to launch a campaign to capture nobles alive in exchange for bounties. For every noble captured, the reward would be 1% of his confiscated property, with a maximum cumulative amount of 10%.

This amount of money was at least enough for the other party to support three generations without any problem, leaving many nobles with nowhere to hide. It also greatly shook the class stability within the closed castle, causing them to fall into a chain of suspicion.

Of course, it's not all about strategy. The expansion of territory has brought more minerals. The Titos Territory also has a medium-sized magic immunity mine, which puts the miniaturization of artillery on the agenda.

When field artillery is manufactured in a while, their tortoise shells will inevitably be shattered.

The new ruling team gradually took over the major territories, began to merge farmland and villages, remeasured the land and distributed it to households, and once again preached the abolition of excessive taxes and levies, as well as the popularization of new tax laws.

The Astar Territory currently only collects progressive taxes on agriculture and commerce. For example, the initial tax threshold for commerce is 100 silver coins, and % of the profit is collected. The more you earn, the higher the progressive rate will be, up to %.

The agricultural tax is levied on each household and per person if the annual harvest is more than 300 kilograms. There is no tax if the annual harvest is less than 800 kilograms. % is levied on kilograms, % is levied on less than kilograms, and the maximum tax is %.

Only luxury goods are subject to heavy taxation, starting at 30 percent.

This set of tax policies basically completely excludes the poor from the tax system, and puts them all in a tax-free stage. As long as they do not meet the standards, they will never be taxed.

Of course, you need to pay rent for renting land, usually 10% of the total output. If you don’t want to pay rent and taxes, you want to have the right to distribute all the output of the land.

Then please join the army. You will be given land when you join the army. After you retire from the army, the land will still be tax-free for twenty years. This is the only way.

One piece of land exempt from rent may not seem like much, but if there are three members of a family serving in the military, and three pieces of land are exempted from rent by 100% for twenty years, this ratio is really not small.

Chapter 24 I can't sleep unless they die~

Medea's new territorial laws were welcomed by everyone except the nobles on the stakes, giving them hope for life rather than just survival.

The most direct reward brought about by this is that all the recruitment offices in the four territories are crowded with people. People of all ages, including those with gray hair and those who are not yet adults, are all eager to join the army.

The number of Media's troops was growing exponentially, and in terms of infrastructure, tens of millions of slave laborers were arranged in batches to begin laying sleepers and road rollers along the planned lines.

Rails and steam locomotive carriages were also being produced overtime. In order to catch up with the progress, she also organized a large number of horse-drawn teams to transport industrial machines to various territories to build factories and expand production capacity.

Basically, the system can be debugged and put into production around the time the first batch of recruits graduate.

Then they will be transferred to the workshop to work as workers for a few months to make equipment for themselves and the new recruits who come later.

At the same time, a brand new corps is also building the basic framework, waiting for new recruits to arrive.

There is no shortage of magical beasts in the wild of the magical world. They are not interested in dead objects like railroad tracks, but they are very interested in locomotives running back and forth and making a lot of noise.

Although steam locomotives were later equipped with steel rams and even heavy machine guns were mounted on the roofs of the carriages, several of them would still be destroyed by powerful or large monsters within a month.

If it was just freight, it wouldn't be a big deal, but if it was carrying passengers, there would be hundreds of people on a train, and an accident would be a major incident.

Therefore, it is necessary to form one or more railway protection corps. They integrate military and industrial forces, and build residences and small stations along the road so that supply trains can stop.

They are also responsible for regularly clearing out the surrounding monsters. Faced with the complex and changing environment and the difficulty of supply, the casualty rate is bound to be high.

This team may be the loneliest and hardest-working of all the troops in the future, so Medea has given them the highest priority for supply and the most allowances and compensation.

The four highest-level earl families in the four territories were also escorted to the Astar Territory one after another in the past few days, ready to receive the final judgment of the territory's laws and people.

All the men, women, old and young of the four earl families were imprisoned, and none of them escaped.

Who is guilty or not depends on the evidence. People who deserve to be shot don't mind lending a bullet. She has no plans to implement the law on child protection for the time being. She will sentence them as she wants, regardless of age.

She doesn't take the saying "misfortune will not extend to one's family members" very seriously, unless the other party can "benefit his descendants".

Perhaps because she was getting too lucky recently, Medea encountered a very difficult problem.

The Pope of the Magic Goddess Cult has arrived.

The church believes in the magic goddess Ifdine, which is the common belief of the seven surrounding countries.

Although they have not established a country, they can legally form an army composed of believers, and the total number of them is much larger than that of a kingdom.

Churches throughout the cities and towns of the seven nations also firmly occupy the work of medical treatment. In a sense, they control the life and death of ordinary people. Even Medea has received help from church priests.

The succession and coronation of the kings of the seven countries will only be legitimate with the blessing of the Pope.

To be honest, Medea didn't want to touch this behemoth, so consciously or unconsciously she was trying to avoid too much contact and conflict with it.