Lord Harland

Richard chose Zhuanyao Village as the first stop on his inspection tour.

Brick Kiln Village was the first gathering place established in the Harland Territory, and its history preceded Fort William by two months.

During the development of the territory more than ten years ago, Richard basically lived in Brick Kiln Village. At that time, his second uncle Powell was responsible for building Fort William, and Richard was responsible for building the brick kiln and leading the indentured servants to cultivate farmland. Richard lived in a tent set up in Zhuanyao Village for several months.

Back then, with his limited hands and feet, he took the first group of indentured slaves from a deserted land and established a foundation through hard work.

After more than ten years of development, the village with a population of only 1,000 people has now naturally multiplied to 2,000.

As the population increases, of course the land must be divided.

Nowadays, there is not much wasteland that can be cultivated near Zhuanyao Village, and children born in the past three years can no longer be allocated farmland.

The law of Harland territory stipulates that the eldest son inherits his parents' lands and real estate.

The second son and daughter who cannot be allocated farmland cannot find a job in the city if they do not want to bear the glare of their brothers and sisters-in-law when they grow up. They can only choose to open up wasteland in border or desolate areas to have a chance to be allocated farmland.

The development of brick kilns in recent years is neither fast nor slow.

Today, there are three brick kilns in the Harland territory. In addition to the Poppy Brick Kiln, there are also the Fort Depot Brick Kiln and the Graveson Brick Kiln.

The territory near Bobi Brick Kiln Factory has been developed and the infrastructure is basically completed.

The main business of Bobi Brick Kiln Factory has been transferred to the civilian side.

It has now been eight years since the first batch of indentured slaves in the Harland Territory became free citizens, and they have accumulated a lot of money. Their children have grown up one after another, and when they reach the age of marriage, the demand for private housing construction is relatively strong.

In the early years, the Bobi Brick Kiln Factory was the focus of Richard's attention. He even had to personally mediate internal disputes in the brick kiln factory. Now the reports of this brick kiln factory do not even appear on Richard's desk. It has become a territory that is not particularly important. A small business.

Richard walked around the village and found that the scale of Zhuanyao Village had expanded a lot, and the new houses were also better built.

He randomly selected several houses, went in and looked around, and finally came to Robinson's home.

Counting this time, Richard has been to Robinson's house three times.

Robinson's yard is still the same, looking slightly older than it did a few years ago.

Robinson's eldest son, Thora, has gotten married, built a new house and moved out of the yard. His second son joined the army this year and has not yet completed recruit training. The younger children have also grown up a lot, and are already half a labor force, and can help out at home.

"How many people do you have in your family now, and how many acres of land do you have?"

"Celia's father-in-law passed away last year. Sola and Lina got married and lived separately. In the past few years, Celia and I have given birth to two more children. Now our family is still nine people and has 35 acres of land. .

"I remember you used to have forty-five acres of land."

"You are right, Mr. Richard. When Sola separated the family, he took away the five acres of land he was assigned. Last year, his grandfather passed away, and the remaining five acres of land was given to Sola for inheritance. Now, Our family only has thirty-five acres of land."

Richard knew in his heart that halfway couples like Robinson and Celia were relatively common in the territory. In such a family, property inheritance is often more complicated.

According to the laws of Harland territory, Sora will inherit the land of his grandparents and mother.

Robinson's property will be inherited by his eldest son. The remaining children can only inherit some of the money left by their parents.

The distribution of fields to indentured servants in the Harland Territory has been going on for eight years. Over the past eight years, some of the old people who were assigned the land have passed away one after another. The fields they were assigned are often inherited by their direct descendants. As newborns continue to be born, the per capita cultivated land area gradually decreases. Now Zhuanyao Village has more people and less land.

"How has your life been in the past few years?"

"Thanks to the blessing of the Goddess of Dawn, there have been no famines in recent years. Except for the one or two years when I built a house for Sola's wedding, my life was a little harder, and I can still live a good life."

Hearing that Robinson was doing well, Richard smiled and said, "Can you tell me how much savings you have now?"

In ordinary territories, the people would not dare to tell the noble lord how much money they have.

Because the noble lords would impose excessive taxes and would like to take all the gold and silver coins in the territory into their own treasury.

Ordinary people would hide a few gold coins tightly in their hands, fearing that others would know about it, and they would report it to the tax collector of the lord's house, which would lead to tax increases or robberies from the noble lords.

However, the Harland territory was different. Not only did it allocate houses and fields to serfs, but it also set relatively low taxes. Apart from one property tax increase, agricultural taxes have barely changed in eight years.

Almost all free people believed that Richard was a benevolent and kind lord.

Richard's question made Luo Bingxun have some doubts. He didn't want people to know how many gold coins he had saved, but he didn't want to deceive Richard. He looked at the village cadres around Richard, with a look of embarrassment on his face.

"Why, can't you say it? Don't be afraid. If someone increases taxes or apportionments more, you can go to Fort William to complain to me, and I will come to Zhuanyao Village to see you."

As Richard spoke, he wrote a letter and gave it to Robinson. He warned: "With this letter from me, you can come to Fort William to find me at any time. Neither the city defense army nor anyone else dares to stop you."

"I dare not say it, Mr. Richard! My family has now saved twenty-six gold coins and sixteen silver coins. This is a huge amount of property.

Hearing this, Richard laughed heartily and said: "It seems that you have been living a good life in recent years. You have saved a sum of money. What are your plans for this money."

"My child Danon is already thirteen years old. I plan to use the money to build a house for him and marry a wife to inherit the family business. The rest will be divided among several younger children and let them go elsewhere. , and you can live a more decent life.”

"Robinson, haven't you sent your children to school? The tuition fee has been reduced to three silver coins a year. It should be affordable based on your income."

"Master Richard, although the tuition fees have been reduced, it is still very expensive for the children to live in Fort William. I know a little carpentry, and the children can learn carpentry from me, farm, stack bricks, and fire kilns without spending any money."

Seeing Robinson's thoughts, Richard sighed. Ordinary free people are indeed short-sighted.

Richard took the initiative to shake hands with Robinson, left his yard, and went to look at other homes. After eight years of accumulation, Zhuanyao Village has generally developed very well, and most of the hard-working freedmen families have saved a lot of money.

After coming out of Brick Kiln Village, Richard entered the Poppy Brick Kiln Factory with his entourage. He went directly to the factory director's office and said to Poppy, Layton and others, take out the accounts of the brick kiln factory last year and let me take a look. .

Layton hurriedly moved the account books out, and several young followers stood up from behind Richard and began to examine the account books carefully.

These young followers are students who graduated from He'an Primary School and are also the first batch of auditors in the territory.

These people have considerable authority, and in recent days some corrupt personnel have been identified.

After reading all the accounts, Richard frowned and said seriously: "The management has spent too much on welfare benefits. Compared with last year, the profit rate has dropped a bit. If these cannot be changed next year, you will Go home and hold your baby.

I am here to solemnly urge you not to be greedy. Your salary and benefits are already very good, and your status is completely different from that of ten years ago. You should cherish the good days you have now. I don’t want your names to be written on the execution list in the future. "

The laws in Harland Territory are strict, and Richard does not need to compromise with the bureaucrats. As long as he embezzles more than ten gold coins, he will be sentenced to death immediately. His immediate family members cannot join the army, go to school, or serve as officials within three generations.

But there is always greed in people's hearts. Even though bureaucrats are well treated and have strict laws, they still cannot stop the greed of bureaucrats.

In the early Ming Dynasty, even peeling off the skin and making the grass work could not prevent official corruption, and Richard could not do the same. No system can stop human greed unless artificial intelligence is realized and humans voluntarily give up power and let desireless robots govern everything.

Now that the territory has a small population and a small area, Richard is more diligent in patrolling and can suppress corruption.

In a few years, the territory expanded and the population exceeded one million. It is estimated that the Harland Territory, like other areas of the Grant Kingdom, is full of corrupt officials.

This year, Richard plans to set up a disciplinary inspection department, train personnel in advance, and appoint Hayden as the chief inspector of the territory to take on a job similar to inspector censor, which will relieve some of Richard's work pressure.

The intelligence service was prepared to appoint William's aide-de-camp Noel to manage it.

Hayden has been in charge of the territorial intelligence department for more than ten years. This kind of job is not suitable for one person to manage for a long time. If the intelligence management work takes too long and forms a closed mountain, it will be a big or small trouble for the lord.

Hayden is Richard's brother from the same mother. If Richard wants to attack and purge the intelligence department in the future, it will be more troublesome to deal with it with Hayden standing in the way.

The intelligence department has great authority and has mastered the secrets of many territories. Richard is not very comfortable leaving it to an outsider. The person who can replace Hayden can only be a member of the Harland family.

Richard is preparing to train Mrs. Ola's eldest son, George. George has been serving as Hayden's adjutant for a year, but putting him in charge of territorial intelligence work is difficult for him with his current ability and experience.

Now the intelligence department of Haaland Territory is very large, with a total of more than 3,000 operations, intelligence, logistics, administrative and other personnel.

Intelligence work has its own complexities and particularities, and it is best to transfer officials from within the system.

Noel was a member of a distant branch of the Haaland family and was William's adjutant, responsible for managing part of the military intelligence work.

The most important thing is that part of the intelligence power controlled by Mrs. Olla and Butler Gibson has been handed over to Noel. He has managed it very well in the past one or two years without any mistakes.

The intelligence power of the Harland family has always been divided into two aspects. The first is the territorial intelligence system, which has always been under Hayden's management.

Another system was developed from the commercial system in the hands of Lady Ola. After more than ten years of operation by William and Mrs. Ola, the strength of this intelligence system is also very impressive.

Through commercial penetration, this system has penetrated into every aspect of Black River Fort.

Some noble families in Geda Province have intelligence personnel of this system. They were chefs, winemakers, gardeners, gold and silversmiths, maids, attendants, accountants, etc., and were placed in noble mansions through various channels.

The two intelligence systems do not interfere with each other and have little cooperation.

The reason why Richard wrote to William and transferred Noel to the territory's chief intelligence officer was obviously his intention to merge the two systems.

William agreed to Richard's request and obviously agreed with Richard's idea.

The intelligence work in the Haaland territory is divided into three aspects: military intelligence, internal intelligence, and external intelligence. Ruiz was responsible for military intelligence, Luciano was responsible for internal intelligence, and Vitas was appointed director of external intelligence.

Noel is now transferred to the chief intelligence officer of the Harland Territory, and George still serves as Noel's adjutant.

Nowadays, Richard has many assistants at work around him, and most of the front-line work is now left to his assistants. Richard is only responsible for overseeing the overall situation, inspecting the territory, and severely punishing corrupt officials.

Of course, after this year's battle, the most important task for Richard is actually the training of new recruits.

After May, the Harland Territory began to recruit 4,000 new soldiers and began training for new soldiers.

The training cycle for recruits in Haaland Territory is one year.

The first three months are preparatory training on discipline and obedience, internal affairs regulations, recruit literacy, etc.

Three months later, the recruits adapted to life in the military camp, began to learn breathing techniques, trained in the use of equipment, and started training in archery, marksmanship, swordsmanship, horseback riding, bombing, combat and other subjects.

Of course, formation training is the most important. From the day they first enter the military camp to the day they retire from active service, they almost have to practice fighting in formation.

The most important task of a soldier is to remember his position in the array.

Whether it is normal training or during a battle, you must never forget this.

If you lose your position on the battlefield, according to military law, you can enforce battlefield discipline and be executed directly.

Only when you are familiar with your position and have accumulated conditioned reflex memory through accumulated training, can you form a tight formation without panic when encountering a war.

In the face of various sudden situations, it is possible to change formations, randomly select and combine teams, and deal with battles in different directions.

In military training, formation is the most important subject, second only to formation is archery.

The training of new recruits, formation and archery training are almost daily.

One year later, soldiers who have completed recruit training must at least be able to form formations and shoot arrows. Only by mastering these two most important skills can they integrate into the army and cooperate with veterans in combat.

The food for the army in Harland Territory is very good, and the standard logistics supply for each soldier is three gold coins per year.

Weapons and armor are provided by the territory, and additional funding will be calculated.

Two single clothes and one cotton coat a year cost six silver coins, and the remaining two gold coins and six silver coins were used to feed the soldiers.

Each soldier received three kilograms of rations per day, half a kilogram of meat, and two kilograms of brown sugar a month. Only with good material support can high-intensity training be carried out.

If they don't have enough food, clothing, or warmth, and don't have adequate material support, and they train intensively for a few days, soldiers will urinate blood.

The recruits have been training for several months now.

After several months of training, the new recruits have gradually acquired some of the temperament of veterans, and they look much stronger. However, soldiers who have never seen blood will always be new recruits, useless. Only by integrating new recruits into veterans and letting the veterans see blood and fight several battles can the transformation of identity be completed.

Richard pays close attention to the training of new recruits. He often comes down to inspect, talk to the new recruits, and complete the training together.

Therefore, logistics officials do not dare to mess with this aspect. Material support has always been sufficient and there has never been a shortage.