The promise of slow wear for the rest of your life

After the slaves officially started working, in order to prevent some lazy slaves from stealing and cheating, Arnold personally drew up a system of rewards and punishments for them.

Specifically, they will be divided into multiple teams to supervise each other.

Every day, each team must reclaim a certain area of ​​wasteland, dig a certain distance of ditches, or plant a certain area of ​​land according to the requirements.

Teams that fail to meet the requirements will be fined with half of their food the next day, and teams that exceed the requirements will be rewarded with an extra bowl of animal bone soup the next day.

Teams that fail to meet the requirements for more than seven consecutive days will be fined to replace the team that collects river mud and feces for composting, and do the dirtiest and most tiring work.

Teams that exceed the requirements for more than seven consecutive days will be rewarded with daily necessities, such as a change of clothes, shoes and socks, and soap and tooth powder.

As for the bones needed to make the animal bone soup, they all naturally come from the leftover prey bones that Orgus ate.

In addition, Arnold also set up an amnesty reward for those slaves who worked hard.

As long as they obey the command honestly and work hard, they will be pardoned after three years, regain their status as civilians, and get a household registration belonging to the people of Thorn Ridge.

Since these rewards and punishments were in place, the more than 500 slaves worked harder.

Even those bandit chiefs who were obsessed with dawdling in their thoughts silently put away their tired thoughts and began to work honestly.

When everyone is united, the progress of the work is naturally surprisingly fast.

No, after more than ten days, the thousands of hectares of wasteland around the manor were completely reclaimed.

Field ditches were also dug.

A few days later, more than 500 slaves worked together to sow the thousand hectares of land.And a half-person-high fence was built around the periphery to prevent small and medium-sized wild animals from entering the field and ruining the crops.

By the time the knight commander who had gone to count the population of the three counties in the west brought back his people, the seeds planted by the slaves had already germinated.

The entire manor is also surrounded by this large green space.

Basil, the old housekeeper, would go to the fields and walk around a few times almost every day to check the growth of the crops and seedlings.

The agricultural officer Kudo even lived directly beside the field, watching the growth of the seedlings no less than thirty times a day, for fear that those seedlings would be the same as the crop seedlings they had planted before, and most of them would die as they grew.

After Arnold learned of this, he really couldn't laugh or cry.

The news that the knight commander brought back was not very good, but it wasn't too bad either.

At least, although the land in Xisan County is very barren, it can grow some common crops anyway.

Although the total population of the three west counties is not too large, they are all in the thousands.

The total population of the three counties together is more than five thousand.

There are seven or eight times as many people as the original people of Thorn Ridge.

Compared with the Earl who has a rich territory, the number of people in this area is indeed too small, at most it can only be regarded as a fraction of others.

But fortunately, the total area of ​​Thorn Ridge is large enough, even more than three times larger than the total area of ​​the Earl's territory, which is the largest in the kingdom.

Therefore, in Arnold's view, although this territory is still poor and desolate, its future development prospects are better than any other richer territory.

Even if he was allowed to choose by himself, he would only choose Thorn Ridge, which has a larger area and better development prospects, as his territory, rather than those tiny lands that are richer, but smaller in size and have less development prospects.

Openly speaking, the current Thorn Ridge is like a blank paper, no matter what Arnold wants to draw on it, he will not encounter any resistance.

To be honest, Arnold is quite satisfied with this.

The knight commander finished his business but didn't mention leaving.

Arnold saw that he still had something to say, so he speeded up and stamped the lord's private seal and the Thorn Ridge official seal on the stack of territory handover documents, and then handed them over to the accompanying administrator's subordinates to take them back for filing and reporting.

After the administrator files and reports these documents, the Three West Counties will be officially renamed as the Three West Counties of Thorn Ridge.

Waiting for the administrator's subordinate to leave in a hurry holding the documents.

Arnold then looked at the knight commander and signaled him to speak directly with his eyes.

Saimid bowed his head and said respectfully: "My lord. When I counted the population of the three western counties, I heard that the original noble lords there, after handling the handover of the territory with the people sent by the administrator, All ran away."

All gone? !No way? !Is he so scary? !

Anol froze for a moment: "Where did you run?"

Saimed replied truthfully: "It is said that he moved to live in the more prosperous Dacheng County."

Arnold was quite surprised and said: "Even if their territory is under the name of Thorn Ridge, he still retains the title of nobility and privileges!"

"The fields, forests and gardens they used to occupy, as well as the private property of the house land, should still be preserved. In the end, they lost their territories, and they didn't even want their homes?! Why are these people here?!"

"It is said that because of fear, you have taxed them for forest land, land and field occupation," said Semid.

"As far as my subordinates know, the grain harvest in the three western counties is not much better than that of Thorn Ridge. There are no other special products that can be sold outside, and the mineral resources and forest resources are also pitiful."

"Although the people there are self-sufficient every year, they can't bear heavy taxes. And those nobles used to rely on the exploitation of the people to live a prosperous life."

"Now the people and the land there belong to you. If they want to stay there, they will not only have no people to exploit in the future, but also have to pay you taxes on fields, woodlands and land occupation. In addition, they have to hire People take care of these private properties."

"After such a careful calculation, if they only rely on private property to live in the future, they will definitely be unable to make ends meet and cannot pay taxes. Therefore, they simply gave up these privileges of retaining private property and ran away."

Arnold shook his head and sighed: "Tsk! Just run away. Without these people, the leaders of the three counties will manage better."

The knight commander echoed, "Your Excellency is right."

"You have worked hard during this time. Take a good rest for a few days next."

Arnold suddenly remembered something when he said this, and asked, "That's right. Do you have a fief under your name?"

The head knight said with shame on his face: "No. Before the subordinate came to you, he just came out of the knight training camp. He has never made any contribution to the king, nor has he received any rewards."

"Then you will have it in the future. I will grant you the village more than a dozen miles southwest of the manor as your fief. There are about 50 villagers in that village, and you will be in charge of it from now on." Now, the name of the village will be officially changed to Said Village in the future.”

While speaking, Arnold took out a knight fief acceptance document, quickly filled in the name of the beneficiary, the old and new names of the rewarding village, and the name of the enfeoffer, and then stamped the private and official seals and handed it to the other party.

"This is your sealed document, you just need to keep it."

The knight commander hurriedly bent down and took it with both hands: "Thank you for the reward, my lord."

Arnold said: "Okay. You go to rest. I can take a look at your fief in the past few days, so I can let the people there build a manor for you as soon as possible."

"I obey, my lord." The knight commander saluted respectfully before leaving the study.

However, less than 10 minutes after the knight commander left, the old butler suddenly hurried over and asked after entering the door:

"Master, did you really confer the title of Gedun Village to Knight Commander Semid as fief?"

Anol nodded readily: "Yes! Is there any problem?"

The old housekeeper immediately grieved and said: "It's a big problem! Conferring a knight fief is a very solemn and grand event that requires a ceremony. How could you confer a feud in private like a child's play!"

"Hold the ceremony?" Anol raised his eyebrows and said, "There is no need for that! You know what the current situation in our territory is like, you know it, I know it, the knight commander knows it, and everyone knows it. At this time, it's time to waste people and money to hold the ceremony , is not advisable."

The old housekeeper also knew this, but he still felt sorry for it: "Then you can't give someone a seal in private! It's too immodest!"

Arnold comforted him softly: "It's okay. Don't worry. The knight commander won't mind."

The matter has come to this point, even if people mind it is useless.

Thinking of this, the old butler couldn't help but sighed deeply: "Oh! I hope so."

Anol glanced at him silently, and didn't answer any more.

The old butler came in a hurry and left in a daze.

After Arnold finished handling the official affairs of the territory, he also left the study.

Nick, who was guarding the door of the study, asked him: "It's getting dark, master, will you have dinner with Young Master Elliott today?"

Arnold nodded irresponsibly: "Yes."

"Then I'll send someone to notify the young master." Nick hurried downstairs.

Anol followed behind him, walking slowly.

Arnold has made several attempts to reach out to Elliott recently.

Then he discovered that although the little guy was somewhat introverted, he was very smart.

Anol intends to get closer to him, and has had dinner with him for several days.

In the first few days, the little guy was still a little cautious, but he has only recently let go.

After the meal, while it was still dark, Arnold took the little guy for a walk in the manor and chatted for a while.

As for the content of the chat, it was all about the little guy's learning progress.

Regardless of how young the little guy is, his memory is super good.

Every night, I can talk about what I learned during the day.

Arnold listened with relish every time.

Today the old housekeeper took the time to teach him a few arithmetic problems.

The question is probably about how many geese and ducks a villager named xx has raised, how many geese and ducks are left after killing a few, and how many geese should be left in total after buying more goose cubs Geese and a few ducks. :) :)