About three days later, with everyone working overtime and almost without rest, Manuel finally obtained the land and population distribution of all Theodosia as he wished.
The report showed that the current population of Theodosia was approximately 220,000, mostly concentrated in urban areas, with Theodosia City having over 80,000 permanent residents, Sugdaea City about 50,000, Kerch City nearly 30,000, and the remaining scattered in the suburbs and outside the city, mostly serfs and tenant farmers under the lords.
Lords? Most lords surely live in the cities enjoying life.
In terms of religious belief, Eastern Orthodox Christians accounted for the vast majority, with over 160,000 people and showing a positive growth trend; next were Catholics, who, due to Genoa's emphasis on this trading post during its previous rule, also numbered nearly 40,000; the third were muslims.
During the previous Kaffa period, the city had attracted some Tatar merchants to settle there, and after Theodore, through a method akin to blackmail, reincorporated the Kerch Isthmus region into Theodosia's territory, the number of Muslims in Theodosia increased significantly.
Although some muslims, unwilling to be ruled by infidels, moved to Northern Crimea, the vast majority chose to remain in their ancestral lands and accepted the new rulers; these muslims together numbered over 20,000.
The rest were a scattering of other believers, such as Armenian Apostolic Church followers, Jewish people, and some unassimilable heretics suspected of being Bogomils and Paulicians.
As for ethnic distribution, the dominant ethnic group in Theodosia were the Greeks, or rather the "Greater Greek" group, meaning those whose mother tongue was greek, numbering approximately 140,000 people.
Second were the Italians; although in this era there was no unified concept of 'Italian' as such, Manuel, for convenience of calculation, uniformly recorded all ethnic groups speaking Vulgar Latin as Italians, their numbers fluctuating around 40,000, because some Italians also had property in the Apennine Peninsula, meaning they would move back to their homeland on the peninsula if conditions were unfavorable.
Next were the Tatars, with nearly 30,000 effective people willing to accept Theodore's rule.
What are 'ineffective people'? This is a pair of special concepts Manuel proposed during his tidy, and the division between effective and ineffective is simple and crude: those willing to accept rule and pay taxes are effective people, while those who oppose the Principality's rule, refuse to pay taxes, or even plunder cities despite living on the plains are all considered ineffective people.
Continuing with the ethnic distribution, the fourth largest population group was surprisingly the Armenians; even if only counting settled Armenians in Theodosia, there were over 5,000, and if including those frequently moving between Theodosia and the Caucasus Mountains, there were as many as 7,000.
The rest were a more scattered distribution, such as Jewish people, Circassians, Turks, and Slavs.
At the same time, at Manuel's request, the survey team also additionally investigated the distribution of Goths in Theodosia, using the standard of whether Gothic was their mother tongue, arriving at a relatively vague figure: around 60,000 to 70,000.
As for why it was difficult to determine, the main reason was that in this era, the criteria for distinguishing between Goths and other ethnic groups within the Greater Greek cultural sphere had become somewhat blurred: how many Gothic words did one need to know to be considered a Goth? Were Greeks whose mother tongue was partly Gothic also considered Goths? If one used Gothic grammar but interspersed it with a mouth full of Greek words, were they considered Goths?
Manuel was not surprised by this result; he pondered for a while, then put the relevant information about these Goths aside, saying, "Let future generations worry about racial issues. I believe in the wisdom of future generations... what a joke. I just hope there won't be another Armenian Genocide or something similar."
Putting this issue aside, he turned to the other remaining part of the report: the cadastral section.
According to the cadastral report, currently, less than 1/10 of the total land in Theodosia has been developed.
Excluding cities, Manuel's Gavras Family controlled over sixty percent of the manor private property, while the other dozen or so lords each owned four to ten Greek acres of land; they were either already great lords or new nobles awarded by Theodore, and the rest belonged to minor lords and self-sufficient farmers.
As for the remaining undeveloped land, excluding worthless areas like mountains, salt flats, and sand, it primarily consisted of grasslands, wasteland, and large plains.
These undeveloped territories provided Manuel with crucial support for a certain idea he had in mind: "Perhaps I can try to promote a small-scale farming economy, after all, in this era, land tax is the main source of income." He thought this as he continued to review the distribution of property in the grasslands and large plains.
The grassland terrain was concentrated in a large, narrow strip including the Kerch Isthmus, extending from Theodosia City to Kerch City.
Most of the people living here were Tatars of different religions and cultures; as mentioned earlier, the effective Tatar population was nearly 30,000, and over half of them lived in this area.
In addition, there were an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 "ineffective people"; these individuals completely disregarded Theodore's rule, moving freely as before, not taking borders seriously, and repeatedly harassing the people and lords of Theodosia, threatening border defenses.
In Manuel's view, they were just a bunch of horse bandits who hadn't completely degenerated yet.
Their population count was entirely estimated by the survey team based on statements from Tatars willing to obey the Principality's rule, which explains the wide discrepancy.
As for the Tatars willing to obey the Principality, most of them were nomads, and the most troublesome aspect for Manuel was how to integrate them into a system of governance.
Nomadic management? But these lands were not barren; letting them graze there seemed like a waste, and he felt his heart bleeding.
Small-scale farming management? How could nomads be willing to be tied to the land?
Local lord management? The ties between nomads and their tribal leaders were not strong; if conditions were right, some nomads could completely break away and create a new tribe.
After a long discussion with everyone, he tentatively decided to first attempt agriculturalization of the corridor area by building fortresses, at least distributing large tracts of ownerless wasteland in the corridor region, excluding the Isthmus, to small farmers.
As for why the Kerch Isthmus was not distributed? That was naturally because Manuel intended to continue using it as a propitious place for exile.
As for whose small farmers' hands it would be in, he had some unique views.
While Manuel was diligently working day and night on the upcoming reforms, the protests and accusations against him also spread from Theodosia to Mangup, and through certain shadowy figures, reached the ears of his father, Prince Alexius.
Rumors grew as they reached Alexius, and finally, unable to sit still, he decided to summon his eldest son back to Mangup for a face-to-face confrontation.
① This chapter's data references Khvalkov, I. E.'s "The Colonies of Genoa in the Black Sea Region."
② During World War I, the Ottoman Empire carried out a genocidal massacre of Armenian Christians within its borders, with victims numbering between 1 million and 1.5 million.