Warlord: King of All Clans

(Volume 9: The Lord of the Courtyard. Ugh!)

The first snow in Isenbol came earlier than usual.

Of course, strictly speaking, this is not the first snow of the year. After all, in the cold north, it has been snowing throughout the beginning of the year.

Even after spring sowing, a sudden frost may fall.

This is why the area north of the Anzeno River is not suitable for farming. In many plains, the plants that grow strong seedlings in April and May are frozen into ice sculptures overnight.

As for Isenpol, located at the source of the Anzeno River, the polar cold current that reaches here is already at the end of its strength because it is filtered by the Wolf-Driving Plains Mountains to the north, and rarely freezes the crops to death.

This is the grain base for the entire Earldom of Fruilov. There have been no natural disasters or man-made disasters in recent years, and there have been bumper harvests almost every year.

Especially in the past two years, the lords of Isenpol no longer need to hand over large amounts of grain to the main city of Frovald to pay taxes. They only need to hand over the portion collected by the Isenpol Lord's Mansion, so everyone has a large amount of new grain.

In this era, food is the basis of everything. With the surplus of food, Isenbol's handicrafts, commerce and service industries also prospered unprecedentedly.

After the autumn harvest and before winter, Isembol's small caravans flocked to the United Knights to trade.

The western region of Isenpol has been poorer and more backward than the eastern region since ancient times. The villages led by those small knights have no purchasing power at all, the road conditions are poor, and the people are unruly. In previous years, Isenpol's caravans simply didn't want to come.

But this year is different. In addition to the 20,000 indigenous people who originally lived here, tens of thousands of refugees have poured in, and the population of almost every village has doubled.

After the planning of the River Bay Lord's Mansion, dozens of refugee villages were added to the undeveloped plains and wastelands.

Almost every village has a road that can accommodate horse-drawn carriages.

In the past, refugees were the group that caravans were most reluctant to face. They had no money, no supplies to exchange, and they were eyeing the caravans covetously, ready to rob them at any time.

The refugees here are different. Most of them are incorporated into the military settlements designated by the Hewan Lord's Mansion and live a life of collective reclamation.

In addition to working hard, these people also arrange regular military training, and appear to be more disciplined than ordinary villagers.

After all, if villagers from other places organize a robbery privately, as long as they don’t offend the nobles, even if the caravan leader finds the local lord, the other party will just perfunctorily deal with the matter and it will end up in nothing.

But here, if the refugees from the military settlement went to rob outsiders, they would be easily tracked down by the ogre scouts, and then the entire military settlement village would be punished.

The most severe incident was due to an extremely cruel massacre of a merchant caravan. At least thirty well-trained young and strong refugees were publicly executed, and a military village of 300 people was collectively expelled from the country.

Moreover, this kind of matter was not over once it was dealt with. Thousands of copies of the relevant official bulletins were made, posted everywhere in the entire Hewan control area, and preached every day.

Let other villages that are planning to make some extra money during the slack season know the seriousness of the matter.

These refugees migrating from the north to the south were not honest farmers. Half of the income of many fishing and hunting villages and nomadic villages came from looting. Their successful migration did not rely solely on their own food supplies.

When they arrived at the United Knights' Territory, although the lord's mansion provided food and accommodation, it was still unable to control the nature of some people who were keen on looting.

The rules of Hewan are very strict, but the rewards are also generous. Refugees who abide by the rules not only get enough food and clothing, but also have some spare money.

Isenbol's caravan, like a shark smelling blood, rushed into the United Knights' Territory and began to extort the local coins with cheap goods.

The same cannot be said for the neighboring Hewan Territory. Except for a few competitive caravans, most of the goods produced in Hewan are of higher quality and cheaper, and it is difficult for small foreign caravans to sell their goods.

At the northernmost end of the United Knights' Territory is Village No. 7, which is close to the Gravel Hills. Even caravans rarely come here, and most of the supplies need to be purchased by the villagers in Linhai Town.

However, the population of Village No. 7 has grown from 52 people at the beginning to more than 300 people, and the village head, Old Sam, got the opportunity to take the assessment this month.

If he passes the exam, he can become a regular staff member of the lord's mansion and have an official status from then on.

In a natural village like theirs that has no knight lord, if the village chief is given an official identity, he will be no different from a lord.

For talents with sufficient business management capabilities, the Lord's Mansion's assessment is very lenient, especially the cultural assessment, where all you need to do is write your own name!

So during this period, every week when his youngest son came home from school, he would take the opportunity to teach him how to read and write his full name.

Old Sam's full name is Samuel Vlokitas Friaratvelos.

This kind of name with northern dialect sounds simple to the ears of northerners, but it is a torture to write it in Imperial language!

Old Sam was very glad that he had gone against the crowd and named his daughter Bessie and his youngest son Becky, instead of following the advice of the village witch and giving them authentic Northern names.

Otherwise, my youngest son Becky would curse him in his heart every time he wrote his name when he went to school.

After instructing his subordinates on their work today, Old Sam stood at the entrance of the village, waiting for the patrol cavalry from the lord's mansion to bring back his little son Becky who was studying in Linhai Town.

Linhai Town is more than 20 miles away from Village No. 7, and the roads are all mountainous. Although there are farmlands and people in many places, wild beasts from the wolf prairie still occasionally rush out.

After going to Linhai Town when he was in his teens, Becky usually lived with his sister in the lord's mansion. Only when the patrol cavalry team of little Noyes was on routine patrol would he be taken back to Village No. 7 by them.

As he was waiting, a voice suddenly came from Old Sam's mind.

"System alert: A troll hunting team is approaching Village No. 7. There are 15 of them, carrying a large amount of fur and meat. Threat index: low. Please be prepared to respond."

Old Sam nodded immediately, "Thank you for the system prompt."

The troll tribes outside the Gravel Hills, under the rule of the Aesir, have now divided their territories with humans and no longer invade each other.

Those small troll tribes also began to trade with nearby human villages.

The infrastructure of Village No. 7 has been basically completed, transportation here is more convenient, and the market has taken shape. Villages around here will choose to hold market events here.

Troll hunting teams would also sell materials such as animal skins, meat, and claws here in exchange for human earthenware, pottery, cloth and other daily necessities.

But they are a foreign race after all, and they are powerful trolls at that. A sudden attack by a small team of troll hunters can cause huge casualties and even wipe out an entire village.

So every time they showed up, Old Sam would summon the village militia, wear their stockpiled equipment, and prevent the troll hunting teams that came to trade from breaking the rules.

Since the system prompts came into being, Old Sam's work has become much easier. He can get a prompt when the aliens are within ten miles of the village, and he has very little time to organize the militia.

Not only that, when the village needs to make important decisions, the system will also give some prompts to help him grasp the direction and make the right decision.

Old Sam only regretted that he was born thirty years earlier. If he had activated the system when he was young, his achievements would be far from that of a village headman striving for a civil service examination.