Lord Harland.

Richard stayed in the recruit camp for three months, watching the recruits complete their training almost every day.

Starting this year, Li Cha tried to hand over a large part of his daily work to his assistants.He focuses on the management of the territory himself.

Now the Harland territory has an area of ​​nearly 30,000 square kilometers, and the number of troops exceeds 10,000. Managing such a large stall makes daily tasks very complicated, prompting Richard to further delegate power.

He handed over the government affairs to Rogge, who is the third brother of Sophia and has served the Harland territory for ten years.

After Richard was promoted to Earl, Rogge was appointed as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Harland Territory, equivalent to Richard's Prime Minister of the Cabinet, with an overview of the overall situation, mainly in charge of taxation and financial work.

Now the earldom of Harland has been divided by Richard into one county and eleven cities, forming a three-level management system of county, city and village.

This management system is still relatively simple. In fact, the area of ​​​​the Harland territory is only slightly smaller than the Gedda province. Normally, it should be divided into two or three counties, and management would be slightly easier.

It's just that the population of the territory is relatively small now, so a county was established. When the population increases, it will be better to divide it into three counties according to the geographical situation of the Earl of Harland.

After entering November, heavy snow began to close the mountains, and the witcher team that went deep into the Eagle Mountains returned to Fort William to rest.

Sura once again joined the Demon Hunting Team, but unfortunately they were unlucky this year. They entered the Eagle Mountain Range for two months and returned with almost no success. Instead, they scouted the cavalry and defeated three Galewind Wolves, earning some money.

In just three months, Su La noticed that Fort William had changed quite a bit. The streets were full of people, even though it was winter, it still looked very lively.

All the shops on the roadside have also been rented out, and basically all of them are open for business.

Looking at the unfamiliar sight, Sura felt as if he had gone to Black River Castle.

After Sura returned to Aodaye Hotel, she asked suspiciously, "What's the matter recently, there are so many people on the street?"

"Earl Richard will hold a commodity fair tomorrow. In the past few days, many foreign caravans have come to Fort William. I heard that there are also caravans from the Church of the Goddess of Wealth, who want to sell the goods from the territory to other countries."

"This person comes and goes, will the secrets of the craftsmanship of the territory be leaked, why no one persuades Master Li Cha?"

Sulla had been a squadron leader for many years and had developed some political sensitivities. In order to cultivate the overall capabilities of officers, Richard will show the territory's annual economic report to mid- to high-level officers.

Through these reports, Su La understood that the monopoly goods produced by the territory contributed the most to the tax administration.

Most of the soldiers' salaries and supplies depended on the income from trade in commodities such as brown sugar, liquor, woolen cloth, and steel.

And these trade incomes are heavily dependent on the production process. Once the production process is leaked out and there is no monopoly advantage, the trade income will drop severely.

In the past few years, the liquor distillation process was stolen by Viscount Cisse, which caused the profits from the liquor trade to drop by 70%. It took almost five years to recover the original profits.

This incident had a great impact on the Haaland territory. Many officers in the territory had objections to Richard's policy of relaxing the ban.

Sulla was very satisfied with his current life and had a sense of belonging to the territory. He had doubts in his heart and decided to go to the city lord's mansion to talk to Mr. Richard in person.

It is very easy for a mid-to-high-ranking military officer like Su La to meet Li Cha.

When Sura came to the City Lord's Mansion, Richard was talking with Rogge who was in charge of preparing for the commodity exhibition.

After discussing the work with Rogge, and specifically exhorting some details, Li Cha received Su La, and after listening to Su La's persuasion, Li Cha specifically explained a few words to him.

"The fact that you came to me to talk about this matter shows that you have a sense of belonging to the territory and have some overall view of the political situation. Now most of the secret-related units have moved to the swamp basin. Although the larger factories cannot be relocated, there is a lot of intelligence Personnel keep an eye on it and outsiders are not allowed to get close, making it difficult to leak the craftsmanship.

The most critical issue is brown sugar, steel, and textile trade, which rely on the scale of operation to make profits.Even if the production process is leaked, it will take a long time to cultivate brown sugar saplings and raise a large number of sheep.When others produce products, we can also sell them at a reduced price, or even at a loss, to seize his market and cause a backlog of his products, making this business unprofitable in the short term.If you want to compete with territorial commodities, the threshold is very high. "

Seeing that Su La could not understand what he meant, Richard poured Su La a cup of tea and asked, "Su La, when you talk about this matter today, is it your own idea or the opinions of many officers and soldiers?"

Su La is a cadre from the army, and he is more lenient towards Li Cha, a cadre from the army, and attaches great importance to their opinions.In particular, Li Cha must have a rough grasp of the ideological dynamics of military cadres.He will adjust his policies at any time, and cannot go too far with the mainstream ideology of officers and soldiers.

After all, the officers and soldiers of the army are fighting with Harland's territory with their heads up, and their interests cannot be ignored in the slightest.Any ruler who ignores the interests of violent institutions will naturally be overthrown by violent institutions.

"This is just my own idea, because the army's military pay and logistics mainly rely on trade income. If the production process is leaked and we lose our monopoly position, our trade income will drop sharply. At that time, our military pay will be reduced, and we will lose sufficient supplies. The combat effectiveness will be severely reduced. The morale of the officers will become low."

"You are right to think so. Income from commodity trade is indeed very important now. But if we want to develop in the future, we cannot suppress commercial flows forever, prohibit the migration of citizens, and refuse to communicate with the outside world. Seclusion will limit our vitality in the long run. It seems that it is not conducive to the economic development of the territory.”

Richard was very satisfied with the fact that the officers below him could take the initiative to think and give himself some advice. But the counterintelligence work could not be relaxed either. After sending Sulla away, he summoned officials from the intelligence system such as Noel, George, and Vitas.

"During the commodity expo, what measures have you taken to prevent spy infiltration and leakage of product production processes?"

Noel's new official took office, and this was the first fire he encountered.If the matter is not handled satisfactorily and the craftsmanship is really leaked, his life will have no future at all, and he may lose his life for malfeasance.

Hearing Li Cha's question, Noel took a step forward and said: "During the fair, all factory employees are not allowed to leave the factory and stay in the factory for a few days. Our people will cooperate with the city defense army to shoulder the responsibility of sealing off the factory to prevent employees in the factory from meeting outsiders.

In addition, we will arrange special personnel to keep an eye on the caravans sent by several big nobles, and let some intelligence personnel with special talents come forward in person.

Finally, we will strengthen border inspections as the last line of defense. "

Li Cha knew in his heart that only the first one would work.Now that the decision to lift the ban will inevitably bring about the risk of leaking secrets, how to choose is just a matter of weighing the pros and cons.

There is no perfect thing in the world, and the secret information transmission work does not know how it will appear. This world has magical power, and some methods are almost impossible to guard against.

Now we can only do our best to delay the leak of the process for a few years.

The territory of Harland is still developing at a high speed, and every year it is delayed, the territory will become stronger.

The leak of craftsmanship was delayed for ten years, and according to the development speed of Harland's territory, it was enough to fight against the duchy of Grant Kingdom.

"The work of preventing espionage must be closely coordinated with the wizards of the territory. To allow magicians to participate in the intelligence work, I will issue an order to the Harland Mages Association to assign some magicians to the intelligence department to prevent the enemy from using magic to transmit information."

The officials of the intelligence system were sent away, and the first commodity fair opened on the second day.

The Commodity Fair in November was very successful. During the fair, Harland Territory reached a foreign trade order of gold coins.

The fastest growing foreign trade channel is the Church of the Goddess of Wealth. In just a few years, the trade volume between the two parties has exceeded 80,000. Among them, 30,000 are imported and 50,000 are exported.

The main imports are some magic materials and potions. The magic materials are mainly super magic metals such as orichalcum and mithril. Some of them are used to make magic equipment, and some are used for research and magic experiments. Magic potions are mainly Tenghui potions plus a small amount of meditation potions.

Now there is a big shortage of Tenghui medicine in Harland Territory. In addition to the two channels of the Grant royal family and the great nobles of northern Xinjiang, there is also the channel of the Fortune Church. The annual import volume has reached .

The total number of advanced professional soldiers this year exceeds more than a hundred soldiers. Now there are more than 500 professionals in Harland's territory, almost catching up with the Northern Army.

After the expo was held, it was already December in a blink of an eye.

Entering December, the territory of Harland began to collect various reports and make an annual year-end summary.

Today, Harland's largest output value is still agriculture.

The territory has reclaimed 1.9 million acres of farmland, of which about 500,000 acres are free private land and 1.4 million acres are official land.

This year, there are about 200,000 acres of official land left fallow, and the scale of economic crop cultivation in the territory is not large. In addition to 30,000 acres of cotton, there are about 1.2 million acres of official land for growing grain.

The grain harvested from the 1.2 million acres of government land totaled approximately 105,000 tons. The average yield of dry fields plus paddy fields is 175 catties per mu, which is slightly worse than the 200 catties in good harvest years. One hundred and five thousand tons of new grain, plus part of the old grain left over from last year, the grain accumulated in the Guantian grain storage this year exceeds 120,000 tons.

In addition, there is a lot of tax and grain this year, about tons.

The accounts of tax and official food are calculated separately, and tax and food will be counted in the tax.The grain harvested in the official fields is equivalent to the profits turned in by state-owned enterprises, which are calculated by another ledger.

There are now 90,000 free people in the territory. In the next two years, a large number of indentured servants will become free people. By then, there will be more than 200,000 free people in the territory.

As of this fall, there are still 230,000 indentured slaves in the Harland territory. Among the indentured slaves, there are 40,000 children under the age of fourteen and 30,000 elderly people over the age of forty.

According to sampling statistics from the Harland Territory Hospital, the average lifespan of serfs in the Dawn Continent is only thirty-five years old. The key reason why the average lifespan is so low, in addition to poor living conditions, is that the infant mortality rate is too high.

Within the Harland territory, after so many years of development, some diseases can be treated. According to this year's sample survey, the average life expectancy has increased to forty-eight years.

According to this standard, those over forty years old among the territorial population are considered old.

As for the aristocracy, because they are all professionals, they have strong bodies, good medical care, and their life span is far longer than that of ordinary people. For example, Duke Brenner lived for more than 160 years.

The average life span of ordinary nobles is more than eighty years old, which is better than that of developed countries in previous generations.

There are only about 160,000 young and hardworking indentured slaves in the Harland territory, and the rest are old people and children.

Indentured slaves do not have complete freedom of life, and the elderly and children have to undertake the work within their ability, such as picking up dung, collecting firewood, making bricks, raising chickens and ducks, mowing grass and herding sheep, cleaning wool, and night watch, etc., are basically done by the elderly and children.

There were 230,000 indentured slaves, and Richard needed to support them with daily food and clothing, and he needed to leave 50,000 tons of rations. In addition, 12,000 tons of grain need to be left for planting. The wine market has expanded a lot. Next year, 5,000 tons of grain will need to be left for brewing.

In order to prevent accidents, Li Cha plans to leave tons of grain reserves this year.

This year, the army will be expanded by , and the soldiers and horses will all have big bellies. People will eat horses and chew for a year, and the army rations will also consume tons.

The grain that can be sold outside, plus taxes, is only tons.

Thirty thousand tons of grain are invested in the Heihebao grain market, which will cause grain prices to fall.

However, the Harland Territory sells grain and has a stable large customer, the Northern Army. The Northern Army consumes more than 16,000 tons of military rations every year. Through William's relationship, the Harland Territory can occupy a large share of the military grain sales. Ten thousand tons.

Richard also opened up the channel of the Fortune Church, and sold tons through the channel of the Fortune Church this year.

Richard will not sell the remaining tons of grain at the Black River Fort grain market, but will exchange slaves with the Duke of Guise.

Fifteen thousand tons of grain can be exchanged for six thousand slaves. These 6,000 slaves are all slaves with complete families. There are only 2,000 young and middle-aged slaves, of which only 1,000 are male slaves.

According to the agreement between the two parties, the caravan of the Duke of Guise began to escort the slaves to the northern border in February, and returned to the south with food in March.

The size of the annual transaction needs to be negotiated in the previous winter. In order to trade with the Haaland family, Duke Guise established a large-scale trading station in Black River Castle.

In addition to selling slaves, the commercial station also sells some southern specialties.

This year's battle with the orcs resulted in heavy casualties for the Harland Territory army. Seven hundred officers and soldiers were killed, and another four hundred officers and soldiers were disabled and unable to continue fighting.

As long as the disabled officers and soldiers are in good physical condition, Li Cha will be arranged in factories and in the countryside to serve as the most grassroots cadres and receive disability subsidies.

Including the casualties of this year's soldiers, the current pension issued by the Harland Territory is about gold coins per year.

Time can heal the wounds of war, and it has already entered December in a blink of an eye.

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