In mid-March, as the temperature gradually rose, the people in the valley who had rested all winter gradually walked out of their homes and walked towards their fields carrying the farm tools they received from the civil administration.
The refugees who were recruited one after another were also placed in Tyniec County and the Wells Valley, one hundred people per unit, and under the command and protection of civil servants and peasant soldiers, they spread towards the undeveloped wasteland...
Spring returned to the earth, all things revived, and Wells Province was full of vitality.
Early in the morning, Art ordered Cooper to summon officials from all levels of the Ministry of Government to come to the wooden castle in the valley to discuss matters. This is the first meeting held since the establishment of the Welsh Provincial Department of Government. Therefore, Cooper and his officials in the Ministry of Government specially dressed up and changed their appearance one by one, looking quite like palace officials.
After everyone arrived, Yat laid out the focus of the civil affairs work this year.
"Everyone, now that the Province of Wales has been established for more than a month, we must seize the time to open up wasteland and carry out spring plowing. The food in the autumn can be guaranteed, so as not to starve the tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the territory of the Province of Wales." It is not realistic to feed tens of thousands of territorial residents. Now the vast wasteland extending from the south of the valley to the northern border of Lombardy belongs to my territory, and the refugees recruited in the early stage are basically in place. Therefore, we must take advantage of the beginning of spring to organize the territorial residents to reclaim all the wasteland and turn it into fertile land before winter comes."
Everyone nodded.
“In addition, while the Tunnel Department is reclaiming land to the south, the Construction Department cannot be idle. You must organize manpower to build a commercial road south that can accommodate three carriages, extending all the way south along the river.
We have visited the south of the valley twice before, and I have also ordered people to search ancient books. There is an ancient trade road in the south, but it has been swallowed up by the wild forest. You can try to find the ruins of the ancient road and carry out restorative construction along the ancient road.
· The construction of the trade road does not require speed, but the road foundation must be solid. Drainage ditches will be dug on the sides. In the future, a post station will be built every ten miles or so along the commercial road, which will serve as a resting place for the caravans in the future. In the future, houses will be built on both sides of the commercial road to form villages. The refugees recruited will be gradually settled in these villages, and the surrounding land will be allocated to these people for farming.
"Your Majesty, most of the refugees are currently opening up wasteland under the leadership of the Tunnel Department. Most of our Construction Department's people are building Wellsburg, and we don't have that much manpower to build trade roads."
Lawrence told Art about the current predicament of the Construction Department.
Atl thought for a while and said, "In this case, we don't have enough farm tools and cattle anyway, so one-fifth of the people under the Tunnel Affairs Department will be placed under the management of the Construction Department. In addition, the Civil Affairs Department will continue to recruit refugees and assign them all to the Construction Department to be responsible for construction matters in the south of the valley."
"Yes, sir, I will arrange for the Civil Affairs Department to continue recruiting." Cooper said.
"Okay! You are all senior officials in my Welsh Provincial Government Department now. The prosperity of the Province of Wales will depend on you to a large extent in the future. As long as you do your best to build this new land, I will never treat you badly!"
"I am willing to serve the Earl!"
Everyone stood up and said loudly.
………
At the junction of the northern part of the city of Tyniec and Lucesien Province, Salter, the general manager of the European trading company, who was riding a horse, glanced at the dense forest behind him from time to time. The guards responsible for escorting the caravan are also on high alert.
Before setting off to leave the city of Lucesien, a shop steward from the Lucesien branch of the Continental Trading Company hurried to the camp where the caravan was located late at night and reported the most worrying thing to Salt~
According to a businessman in the city who had good relations with the European Continental Trading Company, the Continental Trading Company relied on Yate's position in the War of Succession to transport grain, grass baggage, weapons and other supplies for the Liberation Army, and then monopolized the north-south trade of the entire princely state after the war. Only those trading houses that have good relations with Yate can get supplies from Yate. Many other business nobles are not satisfied with the current status quo and hope to rebuild their own business markets.
Previously, they might have suppressed European commercial banks. But now, as a palace-chartered trading house, the Continental Trading Company not only has the support of Flanders and Baldwin, but is also extremely large in scale. It has established close ties with major chambers of commerce in the north and south, and the cost of acquiring goods is far lower than that of these commercial nobles. As a result, it is difficult for them to sell their supply of goods and they have been losing money.
Seeing that they could no longer survive, these red-eyed merchants took the risk and secretly formed a team, dressed as bandits, to rob the goods purchased by the European trading companies, in an attempt to cut off the transportation chain of the European trading companies step by step.
However, there are at least a hundred caravan guards of the European Trading Company, and they are well-equipped, and their combat skills are not comparable to ordinary caravan guards. So I could only follow along and wait for the opportunity.
Coming out of Lucesien City, Sarte ordered everyone in the caravan to be on high alert to prevent the group from taking the opportunity to rob the goods.
In this way, the group of people crossed the Lucerne Province and arrived at the border of Wales Province. Apart from encountering a few groups of refugees along the way, I didn't notice anything unusual.
After arriving in the city of Tyniec, Salt finally breathed a sigh of relief. After arranging the caravan affairs, he hurried back to the valley to report the situation to Art.
"Sart, you did a good job. Thank you for your hard work~"
After finishing speaking, Art got up and walked towards the wine cabinet on the side, personally poured a glass of wine for Salt and handed it to him.
"Come, let's have a drink first."
"Thank you, sir."
Sart quickly stood up and caught the wine glass. He drank all the wine in the glass in one breath.
At the top of the table, Art held his chin in his right hand, thinking deeply.
"By the way, sir~" Salt suddenly said, "I also heard from a friend in the city that Count Lucesien is also somewhat dissatisfied with our caravan."
At, who was lost in thought, suddenly raised his head and motioned for Salt to continue.
"Since the caravan became a palace-chartered trading house, it did not need to pay taxes to the local lords wherever it passed. As a result, those guys who relied on taxes lost a lot of money. They were resentful of us and asked the palace to revoke our privileges. The most dissatisfied among them is undoubtedly Earl Lucesian."
"Nowadays, Continental Trading Company is the only one, and other small trading houses cannot compete with us. It is definitely unrealistic to rely on them to support their own people."
Listening to Salter talking about the current plight of Continental Trading Company, Art repeatedly thought about how to deal with it in his mind~
.........
On the second day, Art summoned all the managers of the trading bank to discuss matters. In view of the current series of situations that are not conducive to the development of European commercial banks, it is believed that it is unrealistic to completely monopolize the commercial trade of the Hou Kingdom. This will also cause public anger and create too many enemies, which is not conducive to the future development of European commercial banks.
After everyone discussed it, Art made a decision. Unite the smaller business aristocrats, take advantage of their presence in various places, and provide them with low-priced goods. First, you can win them over and resolve their resentments. Secondly, this can also be used to expand the influence of the European Commercial Bank, so that everyone can be tied to this huge carriage.
In addition, Art also ordered Salter to make a special trip to visit the Earl of Lucesien the next time he went north. From the profits of the European trading company, 50,000 pfennigs were used every year as transit fees for the caravan, in order to resolve his grievances and reduce unnecessary troubles.
Based on the current speed of recovery in the country, Yat also asked commercial banks to speed up their business layout at the meeting. Not only must warehouses be built in important towns in the north and south to stockpile goods. It is also necessary to establish a post station for the traveling caravans and the caravans under their own names to rest and provide food and accommodation. It also serves as a place to collect intelligence, collecting details about merchants, price changes of various goods, increase and decrease in production, etc. This will lay the foundation for the future development of the caravan.
Finally, in view of the development trend of European trading houses, Artisalt is recruiting a group of people with business experience. In addition, apprentices from the Civil Affairs School will also be given priority to be placed in European trading houses to improve the efficiency of the running of the trading houses. At the same time, the burden on Salt was relieved, allowing him to focus more on the strategic direction of the company.
In the end, Art sent a secret order to Stanley, who was setting up nets all over the princely country, asking him to arrange a special team for the European Commercial Bank... I spend every day in my secret room thinking about the development of Wales.
Once the territory construction in Wales is completed, the next step is to continue to expand southward. If you don't plan your next move in advance, you will easily be in a passive position and let others take advantage of you.
At present, few people know the status of this nameless valley sandwiched between several major principalities. But Art knew it in his heart. Once the province of Wales completes the development and construction of the valley, many people will start to be jealous. Not only because of its forgotten fertile land, but also its considerable commercial status.
If you don’t seize the time now to accumulate strength, you will only become the target of being carved up and divided by neighboring countries.
Art knows very well the principle of being prepared for danger in times of peace.
……………
While the construction of the valley was being carried out in an orderly manner, several uninvited guests from the south of the mainland came quietly~
In the grass less than half a mile from the border post, four people in tattered clothes and scarred refugees looked towards the direction of the outpost from time to time through the cover of the grass.
ifies in a ragged cotton-padded jacket and ragged linen trousers ’.
"Listen to me," a few people immediately gathered around. "From today on, you should try not to speak and look at me in everything. If it is exposed, no one will survive!"
起疑心的。」
「好～」
「是的～」
「哎～」
…………
威尔斯省与普罗旺斯交界处，一座小城镇已经初具规模。
"Hey, what are you doing?" Soldiers at the border outpost of the Wells Provincial Guard Corps shouted to a few guys in somewhat tattered clothes.
"What about you, what are you doing here? Hurry up and get checked."
Hurry up and get checked." As soon as the soldier finished speaking, one of the leading men winked at the people behind him and walked towards the checkpoint.
"What are you doing?"
Hand asked the soldier who was responsible for checking the passers-by.
"Sir, we are farmers from Verno in the south of Provence. Last fall our hometown was attacked by bandits, and the village was massacred and burned by the bastard bandits. Only seven or eight young men in the village managed to save their lives by paying taxes and grain to the lord's house.
In the past few months, we had been working with the caravan to make a living by doing livestock work, but we never thought that the caravan was robbed by bandits outside Kitzby. The caravan's guards were killed, the goods were robbed, and four of our eight guys were killed on the spot~"
As he spoke, the man half-hided his face and kept sobbing.
"Since all your employers are gone, why are you going to the north?"
"Sir, we don't have any rations with us. I heard from villagers near the border that the towns in the north are recruiting refugees. Although it is a bit far away, there is a chance of survival, so we~."
"That's right~" The soldier expressed sympathy for the experiences of several people.
After thanking several people, he walked to the civil affairs officer to register, and explained his background and origins in detail.
Though these four guys were dressed in tatters, they were still quite strong, so they quickly passed the selection of the civil affairs officials. Not long after, they were led by a civil affairs official and headed north with another hundred or ten newly recruited refugees~
……………
It was just getting dark, and the group arrived at Boulder Town.
After entering the military fort, the four strong guys walking among other refugees looked around, trying to take note of the layout and defense of Boulder Town.
Along the way, several people couldn't wait to ask the accompanying civil officials about the situation of the Earl of Wales.
"Sir, who is this Earl of yours? Why have you never heard of it before?" For some reason, he was appointed as a patrol officer in the county. Later, due to his outstanding military achievements, he gradually became the newly promoted earl of the prince country. He is a close official of our country. "
There is a sense of pride in the tone of the civil affairs officer.
The man with the flat nose smiled and said all kinds of flattery.
"Where does the count live? Can we be lucky enough to see him?"
"Your Majesty, the Earl, lives in the Wells Valley, but you are really lucky. During this time, the army is doing some training in the wilderness, so the Earl is temporarily staying in Boulder Town for the past two days."
The official stopped suddenly, turned around and looked at the man in front of him.
"Hey, why are you asking so much about our Earl?"
"I~"
"The people behind hurry up and follow, the gate of the military fort will be closed as soon as it gets dark!"
Just when the man didn't know how to answer, an officer from the Boulder Town who was responsible for arranging the return of these refugees suddenly gave an order loudly. The official stopped asking questions and ran to the back of the team, urging them to enter the fort quickly.
"What a risk!"
The man muttered in his heart.
…………
Before dark, this group of refugees stationed at the Boulder Ballast Private Camp.
Art, who was inspecting the army's field training, had been tired for a day. He leaned on the railing of the second-floor window of the newly built command post in Boulder Town and watched the newly recruited refugees today walking towards the temporary shack south of the castle under the guidance of civil affairs officials. Go, these most young refugees will observe in Boulder Town for a period of time and then be sent to the Wells Valley to open up territory and expand their territory. These people will become the people under Art~
"Your Majesty the Earl!" Angus, the deputy commander of the legion, shouted to Art, who was leaning on the railing and looking at him.
"Sergeant, what's the matter?"
At's eyes shifted from the group of refugees to Angus.
"Your Majesty, I have important military affairs to report to you."
"Come up!"
"Yes!"
Angus immediately ran upstairs. Art then closed the propped up window.
One of the refugees passing by heard the conversation between the two and kept staring at the handsome man on the second floor. He didn't come back to his senses until the window was closed.
"Hurry up and follow us, the place ahead is your temporary residence today~"
The voice of the civil affairs official came from the distance. It is night.
In the temporary shack in the south of Jushi Town, several men sat around the corner of the shack and whispered~
"Have you seen clearly, that man is the Earl of Wales?"
"Sir, I'm sure! The officer downstairs called him the Earl. He must be the person we are looking for."
"Very good~"