After the signing of a peace treaty with the Wiegand people, the town of Valuno saw its greatest prosperity since its founding.

Caravans poured into the city, scavenging vast inventories and injecting the spirit of wealth into the streets of the town. Nowhere was this spirit more affected than by the local youth, who found the young people to work as if they were all full of blood, and they were always in a hurry and smiling.

The bankrupt peasants who arrived from the surrounding villages and aristocratic territories quickly smoothed out the loss of the town's population, and even vaguely exceeded it by a lot. Suddenly, the trend of remarriage arose, and many conservative townspeople were mixed with the phenomenon, and the women who had just lost their husbands became brides again, and the streets and alleys were less poignant and less miserable, replaced by a kind of enthusiasm that was gradually fermenting.

Immigrants filled the streets, and it goes without saying that the town could not accommodate so many people in its original size, and many of the foreign residents lived outside the city walls, filling in the ditches outside the city, cutting down the woodland around the town, and erecting simple shacks.

The villages that had been burned down before were selectively forgotten, and after this war, many people had accepted each other, and most of those villages were destroyed, and with the influx of a large number of outsiders, many of the original villagers became natives, and the townspeople were more willing to accept their neighbors than those strangers with different accents.

In response to the fact that the land of those villages was once under the direct jurisdiction of the town of Valuno, Hams and Joyce, after some discussion, decided to tear down part of the town's original walls and connect it with the outside world. This plan has won widespread support from the citizens, and in fact, because of the influence of immigrants, the walls are already somewhat nominal in name.

William quietly ran to the wreckage of a demolished city wall and wrote "I love the Wiegand people" in lacquer imported from other places, but he regretted it a little as soon as he finished it, which was too explicit and unfair to the citizens who had just lost their loved ones.

So William erased the words again, and in order not to arouse suspicion, he added two larger words to the original place where the words "Wiegand man" were written: peace.

After all this, William was still a little weak-hearted, so he quietly left.

However, soon after William left, a few good townspeople quietly gathered around, and they looked at the line, scratched their heads, and finally found a literate merchant, and asked him what the sentence meant.

The merchant had just dumped a shipment of goods, and he had dropped some agricultural supplies such as ploughs and shovels in the market of Valuno, and then bought some goods such as hides and pearls, and was expected to make a fortune and be in a good mood.

"Haha, the consciousness of this sentence is 'I love peace!'. It's really interesting, it should have been written by the people in your town, I love peace too, haha, peace makes me rich. ”

The merchant intrigued the townspeople, and they took out a few preserves from their pockets and savored the meaning of the slogan.

Eventually, they decided that this line of slogans was very meaningful and could be used as a slogan in the town of Valuno, so they simply divided the division of labor, sending one person to report the matter to the mayor, sending one person to the town to tell each other, and finally leaving another person to protect this extraordinary thing.

Several people wanted to be the first to spread the news, but they were not interested in staying. They deliberated and finally decided by throwing stones. The farthest man raised his eyebrows, and ran to find Joyce, and the second farthest man also ran to the bustling street, leaving only the third person sitting on the ground rather depressed, gesturing with his hand a few times, in frustration why he threw it so close.

At this moment, a fat man dressed in gorgeous clothes walked over, and although it was winter, this person was still sweating profusely.

The fat man glanced at the citizens squatting under the base of the city and asked

"Is this Valuno?"

The townspeople only thought he was a rich businessman, so they bowed their heads and answered angrily.

"yes, something?"

The fat man didn't care about his attitude, but instead showed a very curious look.

"I've heard that this was originally just a small town, and it had just been a war, and with this damn winter, it should have been a depression, but why is it so prosperous now?"

The townsman was somewhat ignorant of the high-level term "depressed scene", and he couldn't figure out what the fat man was asking, he knew that the fat man was probably asking about the recent changes in the town. So the man tilted his head, thought about it, and finally remembered something, and he stood up and pointed to the big word behind him.

I love peace.

The fat man looked at this passage with wide eyes, and the citizen's answer made him not very satisfied, but he could not say that he was not satisfied. After some deliberation, the fat man finally failed to understand the meaning of this sentence, so he hung his head again, and handed a silk handkerchief in his pocket to the citizen, which was supposed to be a reward for him.

The citizen almost jumped up with joy, he took the silk handkerchief, stroked the delicate embroidery on it with his rough hand, and then grabbed the fat man's hand without saying anything, and said again and again

"I also love peace, peace!"

The fat man was obviously a little overwhelmed by the situation, but he tried to overcome it as best he could, smiling and nodding his head as he pulled his hand out of the enthusiasm of the citizens.

Only then did the citizens see hundreds of people behind the fat man, who were pulling heavy carriages and wrapped in blankets, which surprised the citizens.

The fat man was a little proud, and he liked the way the countrymen were surprised when they saw a pomp and circumstance they had never seen before.

The citizen blushed and shoved back the handkerchief that the merchant had handed him.

"My lord, since you have this money, why don't you tell your caravan men to live a little better? ”

Te Donald, the messenger of the empire, holding the silk scarf he had just sent out, was stunned at the door of Valuno, unable to say a word for a long time, and he suddenly realized the difference between the north and the south.

In the city of Valuno, a new shop was signed, except that this shop did not sell goods, but only force.

In the previous bloody battles, some citizens fell, but others grew into reliable warriors. Jose and Hams agreed that these people could not be wasted, and that the walls could be torn down, but that didn't mean they could be put down. The last war had taught them the importance of hoarding veterans in the town.

Hams invested, Jose contributed, and the two joined forces to run a mercenary association that Jose had been thinking about for a long time. The townspeople admired José's knight's fame, and some young men who liked to shed blood rather than sweat spontaneously signed up for the organization.

Don't think that after peace with the Wigand people, the Northland is completely safe. The harsh climate of the Northland meant that this was not a place to live, and the Weygan peace treaty could have constrained a large-scale invasion, but if it was only a sporadic infiltration, it was not certain, and in addition, many of the Great Prus themselves chose to fall into the grass.

In Northland, there is a saying that is a good explanation.

"After the blizzard, bandits were infested. ”

When the farm is busy, it is a farmer, and when the farm is not a bandit, this is a unique ecological model in the Northland, that is, the long-term existence of this ecological model, so that the mercenary team before the Jose Knight has been quickly trained.

Hams also planned to organize a group of men to be permanent guards in the town, not in the form of caravan mercenaries. With two forces, in the blizzard of the Northlands, this town that has been reborn from the ashes after the war and has exploded with strong development potential can be called safe.

According to Hams's budget, if Valuno's business is as hot as it is at the moment, he will be able to easily support these two troops with only a small amount of tax on a transaction.

Hams was more optimistic than anyone else about the future of the city, and in his mind, the city had expanded three times larger than it is now, and near the banks of the green river that flowed through the city, rows of mills and lumberyards would be built, which would eat up a lot of manpower and develop the land near the riverbank.

After all this, a port can be built there, and it doesn't have to be very large, but it can be connected to the sea.

As a young man, Hams used to go there, and although the river was not deep and flowed quite slowly, freezing for six months a year, it was still worth exploiting. Going back to the source, the river flows through most of the Northlands, bordering the Wiegand people's territory, and eventually one country to another, and once that dock is built, Valuno will surely become the brightest jewel of the entire Northland Coast, nay, the entire North Sea region.

Despite this, Hams still has some vague concerns in his mind, and many developments cannot be solved by having soldiers and good navigation conditions. For example, the development of the city is bound to attract the covetousness of a group of people, if there is a fat and stupid lord on the city...... Hams simply couldn't go on thinking about it here.

Just when Hams was still worried about the future of the town, a very mellow man squeezed into Hams's eyes. The colorful ball walked straight at him, and then very reluctantly stretched out a hand to Hams

"Sir, you can call me easy to find. I've heard that you're the current mayor of Valuno?"

Hams rubbed his eyes, he was sure that he didn't know such a man, his size was indescribable, and if Hams knew him, he would have made an impression of him.

Out of politeness, Hams handed his hand over

"Hams, the merchant of the Empire, the acting mayor of Valuno. ”

When the fat man heard this, he retracted his hand a few points more reservedly, and a formal handshake cleverly turned into point-to-point contact. He grumbled

"Don't you Valuno, a true nobleman?"

Hearing this, the José knight, who had been standing silent just now, raised his eyebrows. The fat man's tone felt familiar to him from the moment he opened his mouth just now, but it wasn't until just now that he was sure that this fat man was the person he thought in his heart.

"Former Forbidden Sergeant, Knight of the Imperial Fiefdom, José. I don't know if I'm the 'nobleman' you call it, Art. ”

The fat man turned his face and was surprised to see this Jose who had a relationship with Abbasquia back then. More than ten years ago, the fat man was the attendant of the horse for the José knight when he entered the city gate, and at that time, although the two were of the same age, their identities were far from each other.

And now, not only is he a little embarrassed, even if Sergeant Jose, who was born as a civilian, has made such a great contribution and become a hero, in the end he is just a knight in a fiefdom, and although the armor on his body is still clean and tidy, it is obviously the set given by His Majesty the Emperor back then. And with the support of his family, he easily became the affairs officer of the empire.

Although the identities of the two have changed slightly, they did not dare to snub the former heroes of the Empire, he warmly shook the hand of the Jose Knight, and even rubbed the Jose Knight's round body.

"It's a rare thing, you're still the same. ”

"It's so hard that you can be fat like this. ”

The two laughed, and the José knight asked Te if he wanted to take a sip of the Northland's unique wine, and Te quickly nodded.

Knowing that the two of them were shoulder-to-shoulder, when they walked to the door of the tavern, Tecai suddenly remembered his own identity, he was no longer the squire of the year, not only did he no longer need to lead the knight's horse, but more importantly, he had other priorities.

"That man... Yes, Mr. Muse, I am an Imperial messenger to deliver the decree of His Majesty the Emperor, but as you can see, I am ...... I have another important matter now, so I will trouble you to talk to my merchant about it, his name is Yubon, and he is a very good man, and I hope you will like him. ”

Hams turned his head and was confronted by a man who was just as crying and laughing as Hams.

"Hello, my lord, Yubang, I am glad to meet you. ”

"Hello, Hams, good luck. ”

The two merchants shook hands with each other, and the merchants would compete with each other like two warriors when they met each other, although they would not do it directly, but they also had their own rules. And the bigger the businessman, the more he understands some of them.

"Mr. Hams, where do you make your fortune?"

"Nothing, do some timber business in the Northland. What about you?"

"Haha, then I don't have anything more, just buy and sell. ”

The two let go of their clasped hands, and after a battle, no one could find out anyone's details. The two couldn't help but feel a little like they had met each other, and even the eyes that looked at each other turned into the kind of heroes who cherished each other.