The Uncommon Villainess

Chapter 20

College will be starting soon and time was something I had little now. I had a lot of things to settle on the Duke's territory but I needed to solve it at slow pace now since I'm not finishing my study yet.

After the proposal about the orphanage finished and I presented it to my father, father was very delightful with my ideas and he personally appointed himself to be the one supervised the construction. I didn't actually had the experienced on those complicated things so I handed it father on one condition which was to let me knew every single details of it and I have the major words on it. Father eagerly agreed with me and asked me to let him handle that. It was such an achievement for me to came out with the proposal and he didn't want to burdened me more with work.

Now, what I was about to do was to settle the poverty rate at certain towns and cities. While I was venturing , I saw vast of untouched fields that suitable for farming. I was thinking to give it to my people. A family with a field. They can work with the field and turned it into a farm. From that they could earned money and it will help with the economy also.

I asked Chief Jethro to send me all the documents about inhibited lands and he did his work fast than I thought. Currently, we had about 500,000 acres unused land and I was baffled at the amount of it. This really could save many. From that, I summoned the head at every town and cities and workers from the headquarters.

       "My lady, all of them have arrived and waiting for you." Clarissa informed me and lead me to a empty hall turned into meeting hall at my request. We had a lot of unused rooms in the mansion and I just used one of it as a meeting room. When I arrived, they hastily stood up and bowed down their head.Arriving at the head seat, I urged them to take their seats.

       "Thank you for coming on short notice. I have a plan which I need your opinions on it. You can freely expressed your feelings without any constriction."

I saw each one of them nodded their head while facing me. Slowly I took a breath and continued my speech.

      "I wish to implement a land grant system. Currently we have almost 500 000 acres unused  fields and I wanted to give a family 40 acres of field for them to cultivate it."

      "My lady, you meant those unused fields to be divided among the commoners?"

      "That's right. The initial plan is for them to grow crops for sustaining their lives but the further I look into this, I believed when every one of the fields cultivated to farms, we will never have any shortage of crops anymore."

As I finished talking, every one of them had a thinking expression on it. I gave them some time to  think about it and when I saw each of them showed me smile faces, a relief washed over me.

       "Well, any questions or objections? I will hear it all." A man in his forties raised his hand and I beckoned him to talk.

      "What about refugees my Lady? They receive it too?"

       "Of course they will receive it too but they must swear loyalty to us by willing to be our people and will not changing their loyalty at will."

        "To add from that, I will exempt taxation in the first year for all of them no matter either they are commoners or refugees."

When they heard there will be no tax in the first year some of them had bulging eyes. Why? Did it too much for the condition?

       "My Lady, if you exempted the tax for the first year I believed they will be eagerly to cultivated those lands. What a brilliant idea, my Lady!"

Suddenly, the hall filled with claps from them. I felt a little ashamed for that praise. After all, the idea was from my past life.

      "Well, for those that agree with it can raise your hand. We will go with majority votes."

When I said that, all of them raised their hands and I couldn't help to smile looked at it. After that we continued to discuss the details about it such as whether they can sell and buy the land, if they own the field eternally and others. After hours of discussion we came to conclusion for the terms and conditions. Next, I instructed to collect the names of every family and their wealth status. Not anyone to be left behind which included the refugees.

*******

After a few days, I received the list of family in every place and names of refugees as well. With that, I summoned a few workers from headquarters to sort it out. By the end of the day we managed to settle the list and about 5000 families need it. We then proceeded with assigning the fields and our works only finished after two days. Then, I instructed Sir Hobert and Chief Jethro to handle the rest.

In the meantime, I reported about the land grant system to my father. I told him every single details about it from the start until now. Unexpectedly father rose from his seat and walked to my side. He stretched his hand and patted my head.

       "When did my girl grew up to be this brilliant?"

      "Father...."

      "Don't grow up too fast Ava. Father still want to watch you for a long time."

I hugged him and patted his back. I could say nothing at him. We hugged for a while until father detached himself first. He looked at my carefully and I could see his eyes were red. I swallowed my emotion and flashing a gentle smile at him.

******

      "My lady, it's time for you to get up." I could sense someone shaking my shoulder to wake me up. I had been staying up late lately for my work and I wanted to compensate for my lost of sleep but Clarissa never allowed me to do that.

      "Let me sleep more. I'm so tired." I tossed around and clutched tightly at my blanket ignoring Clarissa.

      "But my Lady it's already noon. Duchess will be mad at you if she find out about this."

      "Let her sleep Clarissa. She's too tired. Let she have a free day once in a while."

      "My grace."

Hearing a tender and soft voice, I immediately opened up my eyes. Mother!

     "Mother..."

     "What? Now you know to wake up?"

Mother sat on my bed and ruffled my already messy hair. I sheepishly looked at her and cling to her arm. She sighed at me and urged me to take bath and eat lunch with her. Not long after that, she left my bedroom and I reluctantly left my bed and prepared myself.