Everyone was talking about Guo Kang's suggestion. Father Marco looked at the numbers above and calculated them.
"How about we try it in the Greek area?" He suggested: "The initial investment can be paid by the church, and it won't be too high anyway. And this will be good for us to integrate various religious orders."
"Okay, you can make a note of it and show it to Lao Yang tomorrow." Lama Wang nodded and ordered: "I remember last time, didn't I say that someone came to ask for our help? We can take this opportunity to talk to others. talk."
"We can help contact the villages where cotton is grown." Father Marco said: "The planting there requires very high irrigation, so the government has a clear understanding of the local situation. And this plant is still being continuously introduced and improved. , our priests often travel to these places. I think we still have a good foundation in this regard."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Here, the scale and number of water conservancy projects are basically directly proportional to the government's degree of local management and control. If you look at a place with developed water conservancy, you will know that it is most likely the base of the imperial court.
This is true even in Greece.
The traditional local villages and plantations are relatively closed. Although they often participate in trade and sell cash crops such as olives and grapes, they basically do not interact with outsiders on weekdays. In addition, over the past two hundred years, invasions have continued, and bandits have appeared in all directions to plunder and plunder. This has caused the locals to become more and more autistic. Whenever they see a stranger, they must first suspect whether they are spies. Prepare to lead people into the village to rob.
In many places, civil organizations have returned to the era before Solon. Clans, large and small, are in opposition to each other, occupying the mountains as kings, guarding each other, and indeed plundering each other. Compared with them, the city-states in the classical era were all united and friendly.
By the time the Purple Horde Khanate was running the Greek region, according to what my great-uncle Guo Di had complained about, there were only two types of typical people left here: one was the Greek who lived in the city by the harbor and took refuge with anyone he saw, including pagans. Old nobles; the other is the old Greek bandits who live inland, especially in the mountains, and rob whoever they see, including other Greek neighbors.
And more ordinary people are caught between these two kinds of people and suffer, and can only serve as their vassals.
In this case, the operation of the Purple Horde Khanate revolved around irrigation and planting. The construction of large-scale water conservancy projects has far exceeded the capabilities of local villages and villages, so it has been monopolized by the government from the beginning.
Although there are not many floods here, and the current water conservancy level is sufficient to cope with the existing agriculture, there are indeed gaps in many places. For example, cotton requires additional irrigation when grown in Greece. In this case, larger-scale water conservancy projects can bring direct benefits to local people.
Moreover, as resources increase and utilization increases, many of the usual things can be solved. If you have needs, you can go directly to the superior for coordination. There is no need to fight with the village next door every day to compete for water. Over time, conflicts between different villages decreased, and larger-scale organizations were re-established in the process of jointly maintaining this larger water source.
These agricultural organizations based on ditch and water networks soon began to squeeze out scattered villages. Whenever a project is successful, more people will want to follow suit and try to actively join in to get more resources for themselves. Villagers who were attached to the cottages came down the mountain to seek refuge one after another, and many cottages disintegrated as a result.
Moreover, there was another phenomenon at that time, that is, the Greek region was actually relatively "vast and sparsely populated".
There are indeed very few plains here, most of them are mountains. However, before that, the competition between Turkmens and Western Europeans caused a significant decline in the population. After the Purple Horde expelled the mercenaries supported by Naples and Aragon and occupied the Greek area, there were not many people left in many developed places.
Because the previous situation was too bad, there was even a surplus of farmland in this place. After adopting more productive technology, it does have the ability to house a lot of people.
And the culture of bandits and bandits was quickly eliminated.
——Yes, these bandits also have their own culture. They advocated force, despised labor, looked down on the weak and women, and believed that real men should make a living by demanding tribute and plundering. This idea is similar to those half-people, half-bandit societies in the Ross area, which made Guo Kang wonder if bandits all over the world are like this.
But the biggest problem is that being ferocious and being good at fighting are actually two different things.
Although the Greek bandits are very ferocious, their fighting power is actually very average. They cannot even defeat the Latin bandits and Turkmen bandits - they are regular bandits, and they often form huge groups under the organization of the state and go out to plunder. These Greek strongholds are simply not enough for them to fight. Fortunately, there are many mountains here, so you can hide back if you can't defeat them. Otherwise, these local bandits would have been wiped out by regular gangs long ago...
Facing the farm where the legion was stationed, the bandits had nothing to do. If the legion took the initiative to search and suppress the mountains, they could still resist, but the Purple Horde Khanate really had no interest in the mountains at that time - even the march into Greece was forced by Queen Mother Helena using her own political resources and was arranged by the court. political tasks. Their main focus is to occupy an area and then start farming.
In this way, the offensive and defensive situation of both sides was reversed. The bandit leaders had to constantly descend from the mountains to harass and venture into plain areas to attack those who were clearing fields and digging ditches. Otherwise, people will continue to waver and seek refuge with the other party.
In short, they can't afford to wait.
Even from a military perspective, with this mentality, more than half is lost.
Moreover, in the course of the attack, damage will inevitably be caused to ordinary people along the way. These bandits were not a very disciplined group either, leading to even greater destruction. The more they mobilized, the more the locals' position became more favorable to the Legion. Some people who didn't care at first began to take the initiative to defect, because otherwise, they would not be able to get safety guarantees.
Under this situation, even many bandit leaders felt that the environment had changed and they had to quickly find a way to see if there was a chance to accept the imperial edict. Those who were unwilling to give up this identity and lifestyle retreated to the mountains in central Greece and gathered together to find a solution.
Finally, they elected the big bandit Cannozes as their leader. He has always claimed that he is a descendant of an ancient royal family. Whether it is true or not is another matter, but he did use the Eastern Roman eagle pattern as his flag all year round, so he was nicknamed "Mountain Eagle".
Under his call, many bandits gathered together, preparing to resist for a long time and fight the Purple Horde Khanate to the end.
However, after the Purple Horde army occupied a circle around Athens, they lost the motivation to continue advancing. Perhaps because they felt that the symbolic meaning here was enough, the legion sent to the local area did not continue southward at all, but hurried back to take care of the fields.
After a group of bandits gathered together for two months, they could no longer bear it. The local supplies were not enough for them to consume, and during the stalemate, internal conflicts intensified.
Finally, in order to compete for several snatched women, another big bandit openly questioned Canozese's leadership. Everyone's dissatisfaction broke out, and the two sides started fighting directly. During the revolt, the stronghold was burned down and several bandit leaders were killed. "Mountain Eagle" Cannozes fled in a hurry.
Among the rebels, several small leaders gathered their forces, ambushed Cannozes, and successfully killed him in one fell swoop. They took their heads with them and came to the legion station to ask for merit, hoping to get better resettlement. The largest bandit organization in the area was thus destroyed.
I was so busy yesterday that I forgot about the update. I just realized it today...
In the past two days, I have made up for the two missing chapters.
(End of chapter)
