Petition to the Imperial Senate¶
Filed by Aldren Mosswick, licensed grain merchant, Greystone province. Registered with the Office of Commerce, Valtharion, on the 8th of Bloomond, 5A 852. Status: Received. No hearing scheduled.
To the Honorable Members of the Imperial Senate, the Office of Commerce, and Whoever Else Reads These Before Filing Them Away,
My name is Aldren Mosswick. I have been trading grain in Greystone for thirty-one years. My father traded grain before me. His mother traded grain before him. We are not important people. We are the people who make sure important people eat.
I am writing this petition because the current Imperial grain requisition policy is killing Greystone, and I believe the Senate either does not know this or does not care. I am hoping it is the first one.
Here are the numbers.
In 5A 845, Greystone produced 140,000 bushels of winter wheat. The Imperial requisition took 40,000 bushels — roughly twenty-eight percent. This was hard but manageable. We fed our people and we fed the capital.
In 5A 852, Greystone produced 118,000 bushels. The harvest is shrinking. The soil is not what it was. The old Tharuns say the Leylines under the fields are “quieter,” whatever that means. I am not a mage. I know dirt. The dirt is tired.
The Imperial requisition for 5A 852 is 55,000 bushels.
That is forty-seven percent of a shrinking harvest.
I will say that again in case the numbers did not make it past the clerk: the capital is taking nearly half our food while we produce less of it every year.
The villages along the River-Cross have already started rationing. Children are eating two meals instead of three. The Elder Council sent a delegation to the provincial governor in Stormrest. The governor said the requisition quotas are set by the Senate and cannot be adjusted at the provincial level. The Senate has not responded to three previous petitions on this subject.
I am not a rebel. I do not want to be a rebel. I want to sell grain and fix my cart and watch my daughter grow up in a province that is not starving.
But I will tell the Senate what I told the governor: hungry people do not stay loyal. That is not a threat. It is a fact that every farmer knows and every politician forgets.
Reduce the requisition. Send agronomists. Fund the irrigation projects that have been “under review” for six years. Or do nothing, and explain to the Silver Legion why Greystone stops sending food and starts sending problems.
Respectfully, but not patiently,
Aldren Mosswick Licensed Grain Merchant, River-Cross, Greystone
Office of Commerce stamp: RECEIVED. Filed under Provincial Grievances, Agricultural. Priority: Standard. Note from clerk: “Another one from Greystone. Same complaint as the last twelve. Forward to Agricultural Subcommittee?” Margin note in different handwriting: “Subcommittee dissolved in 5A 850. File and close.”