Warlord: King of All Clans

After lingering in the river bend for two days, Arina Mishe said goodbye and left.

Leo rode on a dragon-scale horse and sent Arina Mishe all the way to the dog-headed workshop area. "Arina, see you later."

After two days of getting along, Arina Mishe was finally called Arina by Leo, but she struggled several times but to no avail and could only accept this name.

"See you later."

The tone of the peace talks has been set, the main deal has been done, and the remaining details can be slowly communicated by the subordinates.

As a gift, Hewan agreed to unconditionally release officers and prisoners of war such as Yuegechar and Ainisangji.

Arina Mishe promised to allocate a piece of grassland outside Buck Fortress, which is close to the magnificent barrier mountain road, to the herders of Buck Fortress as pasture.

Buck Fort is entirely covered with mountains and forests, lacking places for herders to graze their livestock, and yet there are still thousands of herders stranded in Buck Fort.

When winter comes, the surrounding small nomadic tribes in the western border will migrate to Buck Fortress to avoid the cold winter.

But when it comes to the ownership of Buck Fortress, Arina Mishe refuses to admit that it belongs to Hewan.

This is how peace talks work. Unless the country is completely defeated and frightened, they will definitely not acknowledge the cession in writing but will only temporarily acquiesce in the fact.

When she returned to Buck Fortress and led her convoy out of the city under the watchful eyes of the Solovyvian Knights, Arina Mishe could not help but look back.

The young prairie wolf girl knew clearly that she would probably never be able to return to the ancestral land where the Talhan family made their fortune.

However, the current main city of the Talhan family is 500 miles southwest of Buck Fortress, and their eyes have always been on the fertile grasslands further south.

This fortress was just their border, and she had only been here three times in her life, so she didn't think it was too regretful.

Next to her was Yue Gechar, the fifteen-year-old youngest son of Talhanbek.

While imprisoned in Buck Fortress, this noble son of the Western Territory was not tortured but treated quite well.

After the truce, he was even allowed to operate in Buck's Fortress.

Yue Gechar waved goodbye to his group of new dog-headed friends before mounting his warhorse and signaling his sister with his eyes to speed up and leave.

Behind the convoy, seven or eight dog-headed musketeers raised their paws and said goodbye to Yue Gechar, and some of them even whimpered.

This human friend from the West was so kind to them that he shared half of his food with them every time he ate. Later, he even sold his valuable jewelry just to buy delicious food for them.

These days, I took them to catch mice, crawl through dog holes, and play everywhere, and we had a short period of happy time.

Only after the convoy completely disappeared into the depths of the grassland did the ogre musketeers return to the city in dejection.

A kobold musketeer suddenly discovered something and pointed at his companion and laughed, "Your musket is lost! Hahaha! Woof woof woof! You're going to get beaten!"

The mocked Kobold Musketeer touched his shoulder strap and found that the musket he had been carrying was missing. He burst into tears in panic, then looked at his companion who had spoken first, gloating over his misfortune, "Yours is missing too! You're going to get beaten up, too! Hahaha!"

After hearing this, everyone realized that all their muskets were missing.

"Hahaha! Woof woof woof! Everyone's going to get beaten! No one is laughing at anyone else!"

As for Arina Mishe, when they were far away, Yue Gechaer immediately urged her sister in a low voice, "Hurry up! Hurry up!"

"What are you afraid of?" Arina Mishe couldn't help but glare at her useless brother. "Don't worry, the people from the North won't hunt you down."

"Not necessarily." Yue Gechaer nervously took out a kobold musket from the truck next to him.

Arina Mishe suddenly opened her eyes wide, pulled the horse's buttocks, and shouted loudly: "Everyone speed up!"

She had waited in Buck Fortress for so many days and could only watch the guns of River Bend from afar. When she arrived at River Bend Territory, she felt familiar with the place and shamelessly asked for a musket, but was ruthlessly rejected.

The ogre musket that Yue Gechar stole was obviously of inferior quality than the muskets of the River Bay musketeers, but it was also a killing weapon on the battlefield!

Fearing that the defenders would come after them to reclaim their possessions, Arina Mishe and Yue Gechar each carried a few muskets, rode their horses and left the convoy, heading straight for the main city of Tarhanbek.

"After returning home, I will study the musket seriously and strive to equip the army with it next year."

"After learning the musket, you also need to learn the artillery, gunpowder, steam, etc. Don't miss out on anything."

"Within ten years, I will unify the Western Territory, and within fifty years, I will catch up with the Southern Territory and surpass the Northern Territory!"

At Buck's Fortress, Strong whipped the dogs that threw the muskets, threw them back to the dog head workshop to work, and never asked about them again.

It's just throwing a few muskets, nothing special. The kobold gunner would even secretly move the centurion cannon to the river mouth town to exchange for candy without the werewolf captain's knowledge.

A few days later, a group of River Bay craftsmen also set out from Buck Fortress, and under the joint escort of River Bay Cavalry and Talhan Steppe Cavalry, they went deep into Talhan Bak Territory and headed for their firestone mine.

In order to hire such a group of advanced craftsmen, Arina Mishe paid one hundred carts of fire stones as a reward.

Moreover, they only need to carry out infrastructure planning such as laying mine tracks, reinforcing mine tunnels, and manufacturing some simple mining equipment, without providing river bend blasting technology and steam technology.

Arina Mishe did not have the delusion that she could get the most advanced mining technology in Hewan at the first time. Although she was envious, she would only be laughed at if she brought it up.

Her requirements were simple. As long as the production capacity of the fuel stone mine could be doubled in the first phase to meet Hewan's first batch of orders, her requirements would be met.

In the River Bend House, Leo also held a small meeting with several technicians.

Chief craftsman Valeri, Mage Morse, and Fesha were all present, and between them was a box of burning stones sent by Arina Mishe.

The learned wizard Morse was not a peasant from the river bend. He recognized what it was at a glance. After hearing Leo's explanation, he frowned and said, "This ore is also found in the North. It is called coal and was once used to burn fires for heating. Unfortunately, it is not a good fuel for iron smelting."

"The smelted pig iron is extremely fragile. Not to mention forging guns and cannons, even forging farm tools is a problem."

Seeing that everyone was frowning, Master Morse consoled them, "Of course, the firestones are not without other uses. There are so many workshops in the river bay. Winemaking, glass calcination, lime roasting, and dye production all require high-temperature fuel. The firestones are just right."

"Especially for steam engines, if they can only burn charcoal, their prospects are really not great."

Leo grabbed a handful of firestones and said with a smile, "So I asked for 3,000 carts at a time to replace the fuel of other workshops in the river bend with firestones first."

"As for iron smelting, we have to make coke first. My first request is to turn this coal into coke."

There is no word for coke in the Imperial language. The word coke was made up by Leo, so everyone was confused when they heard it.

Leo briefly explained the principles of coking, but he couldn't guarantee that the coke in this world could be used to make good iron. Everything could only be verified through practice.

"We will first study the coking technology. If it proves to be useful, we will wait until the burning rocks from the west enter the river bay in large quantities and start replacing charcoal to make iron."

"In addition, starting next year, the normal temperature blast furnace will be replaced by a thermal blast furnace, the hydraulic blast will be replaced by a steam blast, and the charcoal blast furnace will be replaced by a coke blast furnace."

The charcoal blast furnace in Hewan has reached its production capacity limit.

Due to the limitation of steel production capacity, iron ore sources can only rank second, and the biggest limitation is actually the supply of fuel.

The production of charcoal also requires a lot of manpower costs and forest resources. An iron smelting workshop in Hewan requires three charcoal workshops to support it.

Behind every one hundred tons of pig iron is ten square kilometers of deforested forest.

Without coke to replace charcoal, we will never be able to enter the industrial age even if we work hard for another thousand years.

"My requirements are not high. The steel production capacity of Hewan will be increased tenfold within three years. Within ten years, it will catch up with the South Territory and surpass the North Territory."