"Sheep eating men"—this ancient phrase described the massive land enclosure movements in various nations of ancient Terra, an indispensable stage as they transitioned from agrarian societies to industrial civilizations.
Legend has it that when Britannia, the first nation to leap from the fields to the factories, began its great industrialization, the textile industry was in its ascendancy. Workers operated crude spinning machines named "Spinning Jennys" to turn wool into cloth, which was then sold to other nations for profit.
To produce more cloth, these burgeoning factories developed an insatiable demand for raw wool. Consequently, the price of wool soared, eventually becoming far more lucrative than any other agricultural product.
Unsurprisingly, the news that producing wool generated greater profits spread rapidly among the class of landlords and estate owners. Driven by the pursuit of wealth, they converted their lands into vast pastures for grazing sheep, abandoning traditional crops to produce high-priced wool.
Under the old feudal system, these lands had long been leased to peasants who farmed them to sustain their families. However, faced with such immense profits, the landlords discarded their tenants without hesitation. They forcibly reclaimed the land and evicted the families who had lived there for generations.
To better supply the wool trade, these landlords drove countless peasants from the soil they had tilled for centuries, turning fertile fields into sheep runs.
These landless peasants had no choice but to migrate to the cities. There, they entered the factories to operate the "Jennys," weaving the very wool transported from their former homelands into cloth for export.
In this manner, the traditionally docile sheep "ate" the people. Because of the soft down produced on their backs, countless peasants lost the land that was their lifeline and were herded into cities to become the new industrial workforce.
Under the shadow of this cruel "sheep eating men" phenomenon, Britannia's industrialization surged forward. The ensuing Industrial Revolution, led by Britannia, dragged humanity out of the pastoral agrarian world and into an industrial age defined by heavy machinery.
The precedent of "sheep eating men" suggested that for any late-developing nation, the path to industrialization was an inevitably harrowing one. Even thirty thousand years later, it seemed Perturabo's Kislev was destined to reenact this scene.
However, unlike the ancients who allowed the process to unfold haphazardly, Perturabo Rurik Kislovsky—the Iron Tsar—had a more efficient method to make this grand upheaval serve his vision.
In contrast to the spontaneous "sheep eating men" of Britannia, which was dictated by the "invisible hand" of the market, the Iron Tsar used his own very visible, very heavy hand to drive the essential exploitation of the countryside.
To better provide the Tsardom with agricultural products and grain, Perturabo ordered the formation of rural units known as "State Farms." Their purpose was to manage the peasantry with absolute precision.
Initially, these State Farms appeared only on lands under Perturabo's direct jurisdiction. The villages and residents who first submitted to him were organized into these new units. Later, the rural lands and peasants belonging to the princes and cities that surrendered to the Iron Tsar were systematically incorporated as well.
Within a few years, the peasants of all Kislev became "members" of these State Farms. They were no longer individual smallholders but parts of a larger, more efficient economic engine—cogs in a machine. Perturabo had applied his industrial management mindset to agriculture.
Publicly, the propaganda claimed that State Farms were established to better manage the peasantry, providing them with improved living conditions and higher operational efficiency.
In reality, the primary objective of the State Farms was to squeeze more wealth from the countryside to fuel Perturabo's industrialization. Of course, distributing new technologies and leading the peasants to expand production were also goals of these organizations.
Within the State Farms, basic means of production—such as livestock and heavy plows—as well as newer tools like steam tractors distributed later, were legally declared state property. The peasants held only the right to use them.
Peasants in the State Farms worked collectively. Their output, after deducting necessary investments and state quotas, was distributed based on the quantity and quality of their labor. However, under the high tax rates imposed by the Tsardom, very little remained for the individual peasant.
At the same time, the "merciful" Tsar decreed that peasants could retain small private plots, minor tools, and a limited number of livestock or poultry to engage in side-businesses. This ensured they would not starve to death or be driven to open rebellion. All of this was the result of Perturabo's meticulous calculations.
Through his reading of the historical texts in the monastery, Perturabo realized that "sheep eating men" came with a price; Britannia had faced peasant uprisings almost every year during that era.
To ensure his industrialization plans were not disrupted by such desperation, the Iron Tsar designed a system that maximized extraction without pushing the peasants into a corner where they had no choice but to fight.
Thus, with the implementation of the State Farm plan, the living conditions of Kislev's peasants were, in a sense, guaranteed. Under the protection of the Iron Tsar, they no longer feared famine or marauding raiders.
But what was the price? They lost all freedom. In Perturabo's new order, they were bound to the State Farms, destined to provide agricultural products for the Iron Tsar for generations—loyal serfs in a modern guise.
With this new system of serfdom designed by Perturabo, his industrialization plan proceeded without hindrance. As this era began, Kislev slowly transformed.
Under the guidance of the Iron Tsar and his transcendent wisdom, Kislev's technological development surpassed all imagination. Progress that once took decades was achieved in a single year; the work of a single generation exceeded what a dozen generations before could not accomplish.
Next, we shall witness the transformation of Kislev's cities...