The Trickster’s Harvest
In the markets of Valladolid, the grain trade is shackled by the iron grip of public regulation. Every seed and every bushel must pass through the Alhóndiga, the public grain exchange. Any private storage or trade outside this system is branded as hoarding and strictly prohibited.
To make matters worse, the alcabala—the transaction tax—claws away ten percent of every deal, so no one in their right mind trades grain for cash. Consequently, the only way to dodge the taxman is to trade grain for livestock. This is why cattle merchants act as the de facto clearing agents for grain deals, skimming their own commissions off the top.
The gap between the written law (de jure) and the harsh reality (de facto) is wide. The Eastern proverb that "for every policy above, there is a countermeasure below" holds just as true in this great Western empire. To elaborate: the law mandates that a portion of the public reserves and seeds collected via the Alhóndiga be stored in massive granaries called Pósito. But because the state imposes price ceilings and mandates, it is common knowledge in this era that high-quality seeds and grain will never be traded through official channels.
If premium seeds were to enter the Pósito, the administrators would inevitably embezzle them for their own profit. When a peasant goes to the public granary to borrow seed, they are handed rotten husks and forced to repay the loan in high-quality grain. It seems the corruption of the Hwangok system in the Joseon Dynasty wasn't a unique cultural phenomenon after all.
Of course, grain from the royal estates is exempt from transaction taxes and even the portazgo, or transit tolls. No one dares stop a cart bearing the royal seal as it rolls proudly through the streets of Valladolid. Whether I dump it on the black market or scatter it in the streets is entirely my business. However, I didn't cross the gates with the seeds I’d brought by oxcart. I stopped just short of them and met with 'Bartolomé of Segovia' to commission his services as a sales broker.
"The landowners around Valladolid who know a thing or two about farming have been waiting with bloodshot eyes," Bartolomé said. "If your cart had crossed those gates, you would have been picked clean down to the last grain of wheat."
"Haha, as you’ve surely heard the rumors, this is grain from the royal estate. Would the city council really dare to bare their teeth at it?"
"It’s been a string of bad harvests; people are starving to death. They’re on the verge of rioting, royal estate or not. What choice do they have?"
I offered a subtle smile at the cattle merchant’s words.
"Of course, no matter what they say at the top, there are rules at the bottom, aren't there? I believe I need the help of the Feria."
Bartolomé let out a wicked laugh.
"I’ve been trading livestock in Valladolid for over twenty years. If I say it can't be done, it can't be done by anyone. So, what do you want?"
"First, young bulls, cows, pigs, and chickens. I also need a carpenter and a blacksmith to build the items I’ll be commissioning. I need as much iron and cloth as possible. Fuel, too, if you can manage it. Slaked lime for construction, bricks, and a skilled stonemason. If you tell them their wages will be paid in seed wheat that survived this drought, I’d be grateful."
"Heh heh heh. Do you think that’s possible, dodging a city administration that only knows how to take bribes? And from what I see, even if this is a royal estate, you don't seem to have any intention of paying the tithe, do you?"
As expected, rumors in a local community travel faster than a messenger, and everyone who matters knows everything. The local churches and administrators are likely sharpening their knives. But I am not worried—not in the slightest.
"I only need to hold out for five years. I’ll be leaving after that."
"My, my. Why think of leaving when we should be seeing each other for a long time, sir?"
"My dream is to own my own farm, but isn't that an impossible dream here in Castile?"
"Sigh. When smart people like you think of leaving first, what will become of this country... Still, hasn't it been a bit better since the new King ascended?"
I chuckled at that. If the King had resumed the war the moment he took the throne, would these people still be saying things were "a bit better"?
"That’s exactly why I have to leave now. If someone like the Duke of Lerma from the previous reign appears again, I won't even be able to leave, will I?"
As I mentioned the GOAT of Spanish political corruption, the merchant shuddered, waved his hands in disgust, and gave me a subtle nod of agreement.
"You're right, but..."
"In any case, can you do it?"
"Just leave it to Bartolomé."
We harvested about seven to eight tons of wheat this time. I gave one ton to the surrounding villages as a sort of advance payment, telling them not to slack off on the upcoming construction and to send their young men. In a famine like this, a workplace that pays in advance with physical food is practically non-existent, so even though I slashed the labor costs, they shouted "Thank you!" with genuine joy.
Excluding the two tons set aside for seed and the two tons that barely fit into the village's shoddily repaired small granary, I had about four tons left. I used the seed-grade wheat to procure materials and recruit stonemasons and carpenters to prepare for construction.
It might seem incomprehensible why someone planning to leave in five years would make such a fuss about building a granary instead of just farming. But for a farmer, owning a private granary to store at least one year's harvest is a matter of pride and the ultimate safeguard against bad weather, like rain during the harvest season. To be honest, the communal granary of this abandoned village is built on stone pillars—a decent enough method to keep out moisture and rats—but its storage capacity is far too small.
Under normal circumstances, launching a major construction project with this much grain would be impossible. But in a famine where the value of food has skyrocketed, if you attach the condition that payments will be made in food, even the most cut-rate construction site becomes a place where everyone fights to work.
I secured a temporary private granary through Bartolomé’s sponsorship. He took about ten percent of the total construction cost as his commission, but in return, he provided me with excellent craftsmen and materials.
I gathered the laborers, had them stay in the vacant houses, and pushed the construction forward fiercely, utilizing the early mornings and late evenings, avoiding the midday siesta. First, I divided the farmland into 12 fanegas—about 8 hectares—and began land consolidation. I leveled the uneven slopes of the fields and dug rainwater pits at the bottom to store the runoff from each plot.
"Boss, this is how we make the famous charca of my hometown in Extremadura."
Among the poor, there was a man from Extremadura—the most desolate, backwater region in Spain, often called the "Siberia of Spain." He had worked as a swineherd there, and after digging into the soil while farming for a year, he claimed the clay-rich ground was perfect for making rainwater pits.
It wasn't a grand reservoir; he simply dug about two meters down, lined the bottom with clay mixed with goat hair, and packed the walls tight to create a natural waterproof seal. It sounded like a quack method, but he insisted it would work, so I let him try.
Throughout the summer, he led the young men from the surrounding villages, digging a long, V-shaped trench about 50 meters long and 5 meters wide. He worked passionately, creating drainage channels leading from the fields and spillways for when the pits were full. On the day the first autumn rain fell, he was the first to run out, cheering as the pits filled up. Honestly, it was a bizarrely impressive method.
"Hmm... but I don't think this will be enough..."
Watching the farmers rejoice as the charca filled with the first autumn rain, I realized the scorching summer sun would likely evaporate it all. So, I made a quick purchase of wheat from the nearby monastery—the very seeds everyone was dying to plant—and used the proceeds to buy a bunch of cypress saplings. I planted them about 5 meters away, spaced 2 meters apart. Excluding the drainage area, I planted about 30 trees, forming a shape that shielded the long, straight rainwater pits in a 'ㄷ' configuration.
To be honest, I didn't have a grand plan for the layout, but since the plots were long from east to west, these trees planted along the south side would provide excellent shade once they grew tall.
Building a granary capable of holding 10 tons of grain on a slightly elevated hill next to the abandoned village also progressed rapidly with the help of the local youths. In the reality of Spain, where forests have been devastated and wood is more expensive than stone or brick, it was a building made purely of brick and stone. It was a thick-walled masonry building with arches that would be prohibitively expensive in France or elsewhere. It was quite low, only about 3 meters high, but that made it sturdy enough to withstand the strong winds of this region.
Now that I had the agricultural infrastructure and was trying to farm in earnest, the shortage of labor became painfully apparent. Thanks to the poor, who considered infinite labor a given as long as they were fed, I was practicing "super" high-efficiency agriculture, but they were human, and their limits were clear.
"Clerk. I think we need more workers. Should we look for more poor people in Madrid or around here to farm?"
"Oh, right. Did I mention that Madrid received this harvest quite encouragingly?"
"Goodness, haven't you been saying that every day for two months?"
"Anyway, do whatever you want! Even the Count-Duke of Olivares is paying close attention to this farm!"
When I asked, the clerk just told me to do as I pleased, so I brought in two tenant families who had fallen into poverty in Valladolid. With two families, each with a wife and four or five children, the village, which had been nothing but ruins, finally started to look like a place where people lived.
The second autumn since I started planting has arrived. For the first plot, I maintained the existing shallow furrows and planted fava beans—a native Spanish winter bean—in the furrows that had become nutrient-depleted from the wheat. This time, however, I took the lessons of last year to heart and built a primitive, yet functional, seed drill.
When a donkey pulls the Y-shaped seed drill along the furrow, it scratches a finger-deep groove into both sides of the ridge, and every time the drill's wheel turns, it drops seeds with a rhythmic *tap-tap-tap*. Two people follow behind to pick up seeds that fell too far or plant them in spots that were missed. It was still backbreaking labor, but it allowed us to plant more seeds along the furrows with less manpower.
Even with the blueprints of the 21st century in my head, this was the limit of what I could achieve with the materials and technology of this era.
The second 12-fanega plot needed to be tilled again, and since the soil felt crumbly rather than moist and dark, I decided to just sow wild radishes and vetch to use as cattle feed. I sold the four castrated bulls to new owners and bought six young bulls; now, feeding the cattle had become a full-time job in itself.
The lupin beans were expanding their territory, and even after I hacked them down in early spring to use for mulching, they kept growing back. I finally understood why the Spanish didn't plant them—a plant that toxic has a vitality just as vicious. Since cattle could die if they ate them after they flowered, the need for a safe pasture land became even more urgent.
But I couldn't just stop planting wheat, so I chose the area where I had sown lupins but had actively mowed them down in early spring, clearing away the lupins and weeds. Benchmarking the first plot, I tilled 12 fanegas—about 8 hectares—and sowed wheat in the furrows.
And I discovered the unexpected side of the wolf bean, the lupin, during the harvest season the following year. First, this lupin bean is incredible for restoring soil fertility. Second, its toxicity is so potent that wheat doesn't grow well in soil where lupins have grown for a long time, unless a significant amount of time passes or it gets cleansed by something like a flood. If it hadn't been for the flood in the spring of 1624, this year's wheat harvest would have been a total disaster.
Author's Note: The three consecutive years of drought from '21 to '24, followed by the flood in '24, are historical facts.