Quote:
Originally Posted by kalos72
I guess I need to add something here...
The idea would be to offer the "Manor" to a family or small group of people. They run the farm, supply me with food and they get to live on their own, in their own house with a guaranteed source of food/water/shelter.
I supply farming training, farming equipment and supplies as well as protection.
I am thinking along the lines of a feudal style approach.
Anyone else take this style and maybe add their own twists?
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The project I’ve been working on instead of my math homework is creeping in this direction. A warlord calling himself the Shogun has established a tributary relationship with Nevada and portions of the surrounding states. He taxes the locals for food, fuel, and manufactured goods. He maintains secret police in the larger communities and networks of informants everywhere. In return, the Shogun’s motorized army runs down marauders in and around his area of taxation.
The dynamic is unstable, though. The economy of the surviving Nevadans has been geared towards maintaining the Shogun’s army. The force consumes huge amounts of fuel, principally produced from alfalfa, as it rolls across the Silver State and into western Arizona, northeastern California, southeastern Oregon, and southwestern Idaho. Thus far, the Shogun has been successful at using his motorized force and his secret police to keep the locals under control. However, in order to improve the economy of his realm further, he is going to have to promote trade and a certain freedom of movement. Freer trade and movement of people within the Shogunate will tend to foment rebellion. Threat of massive retaliation has kept the surviving Nevadans (about 15% of the pre-war population) from murdering the Shogun’s secret police or rising up. If the Shogun’s force should lose a big battle, the larger communities might decide it is worth the risk of throwing off the Shogun’s yoke. As it is, virtually the entire surplus of the Nevadan economy is going into feeding, fueling, and equipping the roughly 1100 combatants and 3000 direct support personnel of the Shogun’s rolling army, plus his secret police and base operations people (fewer than 1000). Improving the ability of the Shogun’s force to withstand major losses means increasing the number of fighters and machines. There are several ways of doing this, including improving trade to enable more effective specialization, improving agricultural output, shifting some of the crops from alfalfa (for fuel) to grains, or trading outside the Shogunate to get the necessary resources.
As the Shogun and his daimyo see it, increased trade means either increased freedom of independent movement within the Shogunate or a tightly controlled schedule of trade. The former is highly dangerous to an organization whose main fighting strength is outnumbered by the civilians they are trying to control by more than 230-to-1. (I’m not including the secret police or the support personnel in the army.) A tightly controlled schedule of trade, such that goods and merchants would move under the supervision of the Shogun’s people, would entail a significant increase in the demand for manpower. Also, the main army would lose an element of unpredictability in its movements that the Shogun uses the keep the locals in line. They never know when the main motorized force with its gun trucks and well-disciplined infantry will appear. Rebellion becomes less likely thereby, the Shogun believes. Tying any significant number of troops to merchant convoy detail dilutes the striking power of his main force, which is not desirable. Forcing groups of merchants to move with the main force would be wasteful of fuel and would tie the movements of the main force to trade. All of these options have serious drawbacks for the Shogun.
Improving agricultural output means providing tools and education. Specialists from the State of Nevada and the University of Nevada system survive to this day. Some of them are on the staff of the Shogun. However, improving agriculture is a long-term venture involving educating the farmers, improving the existing soils the old fashioned way, improving the available mix of crops, manufacturing the appropriate tools, delivering more water to the existing fields, opening new fields to cultivation, and so forth. The effort is worth making, overall; but the Shogun knows he won’t reap major benefits anytime soon. There is also the dangerous aspect of increased cooperation between communities full of people who remember that they are Americans and that the Shogun has committed some atrocities in the past.
Planting less alfalfa for biofuel and more potatoes and corn will improve the economy in the medium term. Unfortunately, fuel is security. The Shogun’s main force has to keep rolling because the colors have to be shown from Needles, CA to southeastern Oregon and from Wendover, UT to Lake Tahoe. Consumption of fuel vis-Ã*-vis the output of alfalfa is quite high. The Shogun perceives that a reduction in mobility for the main force means losing the tribute from the Mohave Valley along the Colorado. He would either have to split his force into smaller elements that would lose some of the overwhelming force that has been key to his success or face giving up the outlying regions of his realm. Neither option has been attractive so far.
As a consequence, as of April 2001 the Shogun is seriously considering entering into what amounts to a feudal arrangement in Nevada. Thus far, he has kept the locals in line through threats of violence and the use of secret police. He is thinking seriously that he needs to become chief executive of a more legitimate government, which would have laws and which would impose obligations on the Shogun as lord of the realm. Giving the locals some sort of voice in the power structure should keep rebellion at bay, the Shogun thinks. Needless to say, there are drawbacks to giving the locals a voice in the management of the system that has subjected them to a reign of terror for more than two years.
What is obvious to the Shogun is that things can’t go on as they have been going. Marauders have been appearing in the Sierra Nevada as they are pushed eastwards by forces of 6th US Army in California’s Central Valley. It’s only a matter of time before Milgov troops appear in Truckee on I-80. Utah has been stabilizing. It is only a matter of time before a threat arises from the east. Mexican Army prisoners captured in the Mohave Valley report that the 111th Brigade has been conducting joint anti-marauder sweeps with Brigada Nogales and that the Mexican Civil War has effectively ended the Second Mexican-American War. Worse, the workshops under the Shogun’s control are reporting increasing shortages of critical materials and worn-out machines. The Shogun knows that if he wants to survive, he is going to have to change before change is imposed on him. A Japanese-style feudal arrangement in Nevada may fit the bill.
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