Chapter 3
The members of the Sejm shouted in outrage as Jurko led a donkey into the hallowed halls of their ponderous pontification.
"Bear with me," said Jeremi.
In front of all the Sejm, Jurko unbuckled the side baskets and poured out gold and jewels.
Then he handed the donkey back to the grinning servant who had charge of the beast.
The gold had the attention of every member of the Sejm.
"It's very pretty, my liege, what is it for?" asked Janusz Radziwiłł.
"Ah, thank you, Janusz, I miss Jerzy Ossoliński and his quiet sarcasm," said Jeremi. "I'm glad someone has stepped up to keep me humble."
As Radziwiłł later said to his cousin, Bogusław, 'The thing is, he even means it; you have to admire the bastard.'
Jeremi smiled on Radziwiłł.
"You've visited the Netherlands as part of your education, Janusz, so you'll appreciate, I am sure, the thesis of my argument as to where this money came from. Gentlemen, my friends! This is the yearly increase to my income, gained by certain measures and changes I have been implementing on my lands over the last few years. I couldn't bring it all as gold, it would have killed the donkey."
"What... er, what percentage increase would you say you have made?" asked Radziwiłł, one of the richest magnates in Poland, and well capable of totting up in his head how this increase alone was more than many szlachcice took in a year.
Jeremi smiled beatifically.
"Jurij made it twenty-three and a half percent," he said.
There was a stunned silence; then the Sejm erupted into shouting. Jeremi hitched one buttock onto the arm of his throne, and smiled gently, arms crossed. Jurko shovelled the money and gems back into sacks and with a nod to waiting servants indicated that it was to be taken out. The time for showmanship was over, and the time for facts would only be disrupted by that cascade of wealth.
"How?" said Radziwiłł as the clamour quieted.
Jeremi smiled.
"You can't guess?" he said.
"I have no idea," said Radziwiłł.
"First, I emancipated my serfs, and negotiated that on top of their salaries, they would have a bonus of a percentage of what they produced each year," said Jeremi.
He had to wait again whilst the outraged uproar ran its course. He was grinning openly.
"Nobody denies that you're a clever bastard, Jeremi, so you're going to have to spell it out," said Bohdan Chmielnicki. "And by the way, I also increased my income by a similar amount by copying our king, only I did it when he first proposed it five years ago. And it took five years to reach that full increase of a quarter; but the results were palpable from the beginning."
"It's not just emancipating the serfs, is it?" said Radziwiłł.
"No; but free men who are not treated like dumb animals work harder, especially if anticipating a bonus for their work," said Jeremi. "They can also learn to understand why changes are made, and therefore work with me, not just for me. The difference is known to any military commander who has had peasant infantry... or even towarzysze... to train. Men who follow orders blindly are inclined to make mistakes just because they are blind to why they do things. How many of you have had tents falling down in the field because your idiot towarzysze have checked the guy ropes at night, without understanding that this means loosening them, because they don't know that dew tightens the ropes and pulls the tent apart? Yes, I see some of you nodding. And we all know that the towarzysz who is a flaming nuisance because he's the clever one is the one who goes on to high rank. I remember a Cossack recruit whose exploits were legendary... like surreptitiously attaching all the tent pegs of his commander's tent to the saddles of his guard, so when they followed him, his tent fell down. Then he crept one night into all the officers' tents to fill their boots with what I was told was 'un-nameable slime'. And arranged to pay off the prostitute his captain had ordered, and introduce, wigged and rouged, in a nightrail, a sheep into the captain's bed. And to add insult to injury, it was a wether. I never found out if this lad was also the one who took the man who was too fond of the whip and spur and left him tied to the straining bar in the latrines with his buttocks lashed bloody and his sides well rowelled. Was it?" he looked at Jurko.
"It was," said Jurko, cheerfully. "The un-nameable slime was gelatine made from cows' hoofs, and it was disgusting to make. I coloured it with spinach juice. Papa! I had no idea you followed all my youthful peccadilloes!"
"I wish I'd overruled my father-in-law and taken you into my household earlier," said Jeremi.
"Ah, well, it did me no harm to make my own way," said Jurko. He might have wished he had had a father earlier, to avoid the taunts, but what was done was done; and he had grown stronger for having to stand on his own feet.
Only the least sentimental of the Sejm failed to be moved by father and son touching knuckles to knuckles in a gesture which spoke a volume of love.
"So, my king, acknowledging that you have gained pearls from swine, in emancipating your serfs, what more have you done?" asked Jerzy Lubomirski, not quite sneering.
Jeremi smiled, brightly.
"If you treat men like cattle, they will behave like cattle. I believe you have trouble with any peasant volunteer force under you, Jerzy," he added. "And I have a secondary reason in wanting to bring in a law to emancipate the serfs and abolish serfdom in the Rzeczpospolita over the next... say five years."
"And what's that?" a suspicious voice near the back spoke up.
"Well, my lord-brother, we can scarcely take the moral high ground over the Ottoman Empire, and demand that they return those of our people they take as slaves, and stop taking any more if we have what amounts to slavery ourselves, can we?" said Jeremi. "Twenty thousand souls a year seized in Tatar raids and sold on to those devils. Twenty thousand souls a year cast into durance vile, or dying on the march, children, women for the most part, my son's adoptive daughter was one of them, and her idiot family did not want her back, though she had not... quite... been violated at the age of eight when he rescued her. They do not respect families or class or age." He implied that Róża had been a szlachcianka when she was taken. "And if we can show our own serfs freedom, and educate our entire peasantry better to accept back those who need compassion, not prayers for the dead, then we will say enough is enough! We will stop these damned souls of Turks laughing behind their hands at us!"
He got a resounding roar of approval for that.
"It'll be expensive," said Czarniecki, apologetically.
"That's why we need to improve our economy," said Jeremi. "Fine, so I started with emancipated serfs, who were still a little... pliable... to introduce farming reforms. Which is why I wondered, Janusz, if you knew what I was going to suggest, because of having visited the Netherlands."
"Not a clue; I assume they do farm in the Netherlands, but I didn't look in detail," said Radziwiłł.
Jeremi smiled.
"They made innovations almost a century ago which enable them to make the most of their rather meagre lands, and to avoid killing almost all of their beasts for the winter. They also use water- and wind-driven mills, not just for milling grain, but for sawing wood. We've been using their design for saw mills since Jurij first suggested it to me, eight years ago; it's why we actually have a navy, not half a dozen piddly little boats, because I put my money behind the project."
Those who recalled the 'navy' of half a dozen small ships, which was all the Sejm would vote money for, which had been destroyed hardly later than Jeremi's predecessor had inaugurated it, had the grace to look uncomfortable.
"What's more, the canals the ships go on have locks to lift and lower them, and the water is held in pools, where its release can power a water-wheel," said Jurko. "I set up a paper mill on one of the locks I established on the Wisła when we were preparing in case this was the way the Swedes would come. It's near a region where they grow flax, and I buy the waste, and use it in paper. We already have a printing press, and so cheap books to educate the masses can be readily produced. But that's by the by."
"But note, we are ready to try innovation, and I don't think there's anyone who can accuse my son and me of having lost our Sarmatian style," said Jeremi. `
"No, you are firmly a Piast king," said Radziwiłł, who favoured western dress. It was not a compliment, but it should quiet any grumbles about new innovation eroding golden rights. Jeremi was almost aggressively Sarmatian.
Jeremi smiled again.
"It's very simple," he said. "The Dutch use a four-field rotation system. And one of the crops is something like turnips, and another is a fallow crop like clover, to permit grazing, and as we all know, clover and legumes work well to make sure that when the beasts crap in that field, none of the goodness of their shit is lost. And with the turnips, or beets, or whatever, we don't have to cull the beasts for winter, so long as there are barns for them. Essentially I am using my land more efficiently, and not having to start from scratch to build up herds."
"I never had you tagged as a farmer, Jeremi," said Lubomirski.
"I'm not," said Jeremi. "But I'm not afraid to try a technique which works for others, whether waging war on an enemy or on the land. If someone tells me that I can increase my reserve troops, or improve my supply lines, I'm interested, and essentially, this is what happens – supply lines to my beasts to overwinter them are guaranteed, and I have more of a surplus which means, I can trade more. We sell grain throughout Europe. And we will be able to sell more, if more people adopt this system."
"And do you want to force us to do so, with a law?" Lubomirski asked, pugnaciously.
"Why, my dear lord-brother, of course not!" said Jeremi. "I don't think anyone should be forced into a particular farming system, I am just hoping that the efficacy speaks for itself, and that others will copy the lead Bohdan and I have made."
"So the only law you want to introduce is emancipation of serfs?" asked Czarniecki.
"Essentially, yes; with safeguards for their wellbeing, of course, so people cannot free their serfs only to turn them out of their homes and off their land," said Jeremi. "And allowing them time to become used to it. Oh, there was one more thing," he added.
"Of course there was," muttered Radziwiłł.
"I have felt for a while that the 'Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth' is a very cumbersome title for our country," said Jeremi.
"I will be damned before Lithuania is called 'Poland!'" yelled Radziwiłł.
"Oh, quite right, too," said Jeremi, making the magnate gape. "And of course we have to consider whether other countries ask to become a part of the Rzeczpospolita in the future. How cumbersome to add, say, 'Brandenburg-Prussia' into the mix. I thought perhaps we might live under the banner of the 'Sarmatian Rzeczpospolita' instead."
There was a long silence.
"And the flag?" said Radziwiłł.
"I thought the tripartite one we have works well for now, but perhaps to permit other additions in future, blue mostly for Red Ruthenia and to some extent, Lithuania; and white also for White Ruthenia, referencing Lithuania. And superimposed, the white eagle on a red shield, because everyone knows the white eagle. It would give the opportunity to add another stripe under the white eagle; because Poland is the senior partner. For example," a ghost of a smile touched his face, "if Sweden wanted to be a part of our nation, we could add the yellow cross over the blue and white, under the red shield."
"A yellow stripe also represents Lithuania and Ruthenia," suggested Chmielnicki.
Several people nodded.
"And if Brandenburg-Prussia joined us, Prussia's flag is a black eagle, and Brandenburg's is a red one; so perhaps two smaller eagles in those colours to each side of our white eagle," said Jurko. "See? It's nice and versatile."
"What, and a fleur-de-lis if we ever absorb France?" the suggestion was presented humorously.
"I wouldn't take France as a gift," said Jeremi, laughing. "Good grief, can you imagine having to sort out the economic and political mess which is France? And how upset they would be when we explained to them that all nobles should serve in the military, and that the younger sons will need to make the army their career to make their own way in the world? They'd faint in horror."
There was more laughter.
Jurko hid a fierce grin, but his eyes spoke eloquently to his father; 'we have them.'
"Prince Jurij represented you at young Louis XIV's official coronation in July, what does he say of France?" asked Radziwiłł.
"I wouldn't take France as a gift," said Jurko, echoing his father. "The hasty road and bridge mending to allow for the pomp was pretty obvious, and all the music, colour, noise and glamour didn't hide the poor buggers living in desperate poverty such as we'd be ashamed to keep szlachciura in." There was some rueful laughter here over the suggestion that there were those nominal nobles poorer than beggars. "They are trying to paper over the cracks with sequins, but what they really need to do is to modernise. As we have done, which is why we don't have as many beggars." He threw up his head and sneered. "And I had something of the cold shoulder for being my father's bastard son, until Jan explained to them that Grand Hetman of the Fleet is equivalent to a Marshal in France. Then they were all over me like smallpox. About as pleasant, too," he added.
