Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 406 - 405: Gawain’s Grand Plan

The question from Aunt Heidi was expected by Gawain, and he knew that Aunt Heidi actually had a clear understanding of the answer—she was asking on behalf of others present.

"Every one of us knows the strength of Cecil," Gawain surveyed everyone in the conference room, from the Agricultural Manager Norris to Hummel in charge of steel smelting, and then to the senior clerks of the Administrative Office and other department heads. These familiar faces were all witnesses and promoters of Cecil’s growth until now, "Then every one of us should also know that Cecil’s strength is built on the foundation of ’magical industry’ and advanced social systems, built on an order distinct from traditional aristocratic territories."

"Hosman and his disorganized seventy-thousand-strong crowd have already disintegrated. In the southern borders, aside from those who depend on Cecil, only three types of land nobility remain: one has already died in the artillery fire at Broken Stone Ridge and White River, another is detained in the prison camps at the Hosman Region and banks of the White River, and the last is in exile, whose destruction is only a matter of time. Once these nobles and their entire armies disappear, the entire southern region will be left with over forty undefended and ungoverned empty cities. Cecil will take possession of these lands and rebuild the order on this land—in Cecil’s way."

Gawain needs to establish a new order, and now he is on the crucial path to unifying the entire southern region. He must extend Cecil’s success to the whole southern region, making it a strong, stable, unified Cecil Principality, rather than letting those over forty fiefdoms continue to operate in the old way. Otherwise, even if the people on those lands are loyal to him, he would merely be replacing the aristocratic groups in the entire southern region without any real change.

In any case, the foundation of the traditional aristocratic system in the southern borders—land and population—must be changed from the roots, and this war is the opportunity for change in everything.

Gawain had considered two plans.

The first plan was to migrate the entire southern region’s population to the Cecil territory and ultimately form a large population-dense area along the White River-Dark Mountain Range, and on this basis build a powerful industrial empire. This would allow the maximal use of the population’s power in an industrial society and rapidly develop Cecil’s magical industry to the next stage. But after roughly estimating the population of the entire southern region and investigating the distribution of resources and the geographical positions of cities, he abandoned this simple and crude plan.

Because the population of the entire southern region reaches millions (a rough estimate, likely more), exceeding his expectations. The presence of extraordinary powers allows for relatively abundant food production in this world, and ordinary people’s physical constitution is quite strong, resulting in a high population even under difficult living conditions. Even in the most desolate, poor, and backward southern borders of Anzu, the number of people is enough to cause Gawain’s straightforward first plan to fail.

Although Cecil has a relatively advanced social system and rapidly developing magical industry, it is also impossible to complete the migration, resettlement, and transformation of a million-level population in a short time. Even if the plan’s cycle is extended to three or five years, the enormous resources and social pressure generated during the large-scale population migration process would also cripple Cecil.

Not to mention this plan would mean giving up over eighty percent of the land in the southern borders in a short time—once the population is concentrated in the White River-Dark Mountain Range area, what happens to the resources and cultivated farmland in other regions? Without those resource outputs and food production areas, Cecil’s current level of development is not enough to support a self-sufficient industrial structure for a million-level population.

Therefore, Gawain can only choose the second plan: to migrate only the population from the southern region, allowing them to establish new industrial zones on Cecil’s northern banks Development Zone, the east, and west sides. Meanwhile, conduct close concentration of the population in other southern regions. By establishing Grade 2 Bureau of Affairs, several secondary new cities can be built in other areas—this plan is quite feasible due to previous experience in organizing Grade 2 Bureau of Affairs in the Kant Region.

Moreover, this approach ensures Gawain’s control over most areas of the southern borders. The resources distributed in various parts of the southern borders will be fully developed and continuously poured into the colossal beast that is magical industry.

Of course, this will still face great pressure, but Gawain has ample reasons to do it.

"Population migration, establishing a magical industry system similar to Cecil, having experienced Cecil officials oversee the construction—creating a new order and promoting magical industrialization are only one goal. The other goal is to destroy the foundation upon which the old aristocratic system survives."

Aunt Heidi, having been influenced by her ancestor Gawain, immediately understood her family’s intentions: "Is it land and population?"

"That’s right," Gawain nodded, "It’s not enough just to abolish or kill this batch of land nobility. As long as their land and population system exists, new land nobility will emerge sooner or later, so we must break this system to ensure that the old nobility can never return."

The old nobility ensured their system’s power and stability through land enfeoffment, and the land system existing alongside land enfeoffment bound commoners to those lands firmly. Commoners could not leave the lord’s land freely, nor could they do anything other than farming. When Anzu was newly established, this kind of enfeoffment ensured the basic order of the entire country. However, in the era of magical industry, this situation of binding people to land became a shackle.

With the current agricultural model established under Cecil’s large-scale industrialized production of alchemical potions and concentrated efficient farming, a considerable part of the agricultural population can and needs to be transformed into industrial population.

On the one hand, Gawain’s population migration is a necessary means to build magical industry, as a sufficient and basically labor-free population is the prerequisite for ensuring productivity. On the other hand, it aims to completely destroy the living soil of the old aristocracy in the southern borders.

Additionally, saving management costs is also a partial reason. After all, Cecil’s administrative power is limited, the southern borders cover a vast area, and Gawain’s goal is to establish an advanced administrative system in the southern borders, like Cecil’s. To achieve such level management across the entire southern borders, it is necessary to change the current spacious and sparsely populated state and the chaotic settlement structure.

Concentrating the population appropriately, redistributing land, and establishing a more scientific and standardized structure of towns and villages are all effective plans.

Not everyone can completely understand Gawain’s comprehensive theory, but those present at least witnessed Cecil Clan’s rise firsthand and saw how the new order on the territory was enacted and operated. They understood the necessity of population migration and turned their attention to the specific challenges this grand plan would face.

Norris was the first to raise a very practical question: "What if the farmers are unwilling to leave their land?"

During this era, land was the shackle and tool that aristocrats used to bind the residents, but sadly, most commoners did not understand or acknowledge this point. On the contrary, they even accepted this bondage—the farmers not wanting to leave their land is almost an inevitable situation in any agrarian society. Those being liberated are unwilling to accept your liberation; this is a problem Gawain must face.

Even if one might argue that people in this world lack much specific sentiment of "reluctance to leave their homeland," forcibly making so many people move will inevitably face enormous resistance. Even according to Gawain’s second plan, he is just asking those people to move to the nearest city surroundings, yet those civilians who have lived their entire lives without leaving the village would also have significant resistance.

Traditional aristocrats might not care about the people’s resistance, but Cecil Clan’s rules cannot operate this way—Gawain also has to consider the issue of social stability during population migration.

"Firstly, population migration will be a long-term plan. I initially plan to complete it within three to five years, and this timeframe can be extended," Gawain explained. "Therefore, we can conduct population migration in batches. We can utilize the experience from Cecil’s establishment—first migrate serfs and slaves. Over eighty percent of serfs and slaves are the property of leaders and knights, and now they have become people without owners, making them the easiest to migrate;

"Secondly, ensure the supply of land, which can be done through land exchanges, the cultivation of new lands, and the reclaiming and redistribution of old aristocratic manor lands to ensure migrating populations have sufficient farmland to accommodate them, and ensure it doesn’t impact the broader agricultural production of the southern borders in the process;

"Finally, emphasize rewards and guidance through propaganda. This aspect should have been experienced by everyone at the Administrative Office and the clerks under you. We don’t want to force civilians to leave their homes; we want to prepare them a better new home. By using propaganda that allows them to become city citizens, gain land granted by the leader, or have new leaders redistributing estates to attract them, making them see population migration as an opportunity rather than a compulsory command, it can also make everything proceed smoothly."

After Gawain finished speaking, Norris nodded repeatedly. As someone who comes from a farmer background himself, he believed Gawain’s proposed solutions were sufficient to deal with most migrating populations.

In fact, even without these solutions, the population migration plan could still be enforced forcibly—this era’s commoners have astonishing endurance towards orders and various adversities from leaders. Often, leaders could prohibit the entire territory’s people from going into the mountains or command everyone not to fish in the river based on a whim. If Gawain were to enforce population migration, the civilians would likely think it was just another whim of the new leader and then grit their teeth to accept the arrangement. After all, following this war, the Cecil Clan has indeed become the absolute authority of the southern borders.

It’s just that... Gawain is unwilling to do it this way.

In the establishment stage of Cecil Principality, every stain left by every action he took would have to be compensated at tenfold or even a hundredfold cost years later, or even be impossible to make up for. He is quite clear about the gains and losses in this process.

With the existing experience, with the Druid potions produced by the Alchemy Factory, with Agricultural Study Associations facilitating farmers exchanging their high-yield techniques, coupled with advanced systems, food output across each region will significantly increase. When food production is sufficient, the large amount of free population gathered can enter the factory, thus forming an important link in magical industry.

Aunt Heidi then raised another issue: "Forefather, establishing Grade 2 Bureau of Affairs will still require a large number of personnel. Although the Administrative Office has continually been training various administrative staff, we can barely gather the necessary personnel for Grade 2 Bureau of Affairs, but at more fundamental positions like clerks and assistants, we will likely have a significant shortage, and we also have to solve the issue of rallying power... Despite Cecil having defeated the Allied Army of over forty aristocrats from the southern borders, we have enough power to take over those aristocrats’ lands. But the administrative personnel sent to these areas lack sufficient rallying power. If we send some military personnel to control the order, that might work, but to establish a unit like Grade 2 Bureau of Affairs... the local people may not cooperate."

Aunt Heidi then organized her language and added another point: "Additionally, we also need to consider that there remain remnants of die-hard loyalists of the old leaders in some areas who are looking for opportunities to cause damage—though their number may be small, such disruptions have a substantial impact on social order."

"Remaining rebel factions will certainly exist, and the military will provide escort and clearance," Gawain nodded. "The issue of rallying power is also indeed present, so I have already instructed Byron Kirk and Sir Philip to first escort back the aristocrats and knight captives from the prisoner-of-war camp, and I will ’talk’ with them properly. Once they ’cooperate,’ we can more easily recruit intellectuals from various places and cultivate them, thus alleviating the personnel shortage."

Gawain is destroying the old aristocratic system of the southern borders, but as he has realized before—whether one wants to admit it or not, in this era, the vast majority of intellectuals and senior talents are concentrated among aristocrats and their affiliates. To establish a new order, especially to establish it within a short period, he must still find a way to leverage these people.

Therefore, he needs to destroy the old aristocracy system but has no choice but to preserve—at least preserve a portion of aristocrats and their affiliates who are willing to cooperate and accept reform, allowing their resources to be utilized.