Far away in the northern fortress, Duke did not know that His Majesty the Emperor of the Imperial Capital had set his mind on this land several generations ago.

It's not clear why I'm being targeted by them for no reason.

Now his heart was filled with nothing but great joy and satisfaction.

Because after receiving the Barony of Connaughton in the past few days, Joseph began to count and transport the wealth that originally belonged to the Baron of the Rhine to the northern fortress, plus the harvest from the previous sale of crystal nuclei.

The Duke's treasury of the North began to fill up day by day, and there were many other materials and treasures that were needed in other ways.

The gold coins alone, now Duke has more than 30,000 gold coins lying quietly in the chest of the vault, and the days when you can feel the pain of pulling out a single gold coin are gone.

What's more, he completed the task of expanding the Duke's vault with the amount of gold coins far exceeded the mission requirement.

Gain 3,000 Exchange Points and a Strange Scale.

And the system didn't give a follow-up task, except for a few dings when the task was completed, there was no sound so far.

But Duke didn't pay much attention to it, because he didn't have a place to rely on the system at the moment, and he still had a system task to expand his armament to complete.

So he didn't worry, and instead devoted himself to his own scientific research - burning cement in the back garden.

The first batch of nearly 500 slaves purchased by Joseph had arrived at the Northern Fortress two days earlier, and as the first alien population of the Northern Duchy, they were temporarily living outside the fort's woods.

Since it is not yet winter, and an item such as cement, which can be used to build a house quickly, has not been developed in advance.

These slaves had to cut down trees on their own to build improvised settlements.

After Duke showed up and promised that the cabin they were now building belonged to them, their work money was visibly mobilized.

After all, it is your own property, and you should always be more serious about doing things for yourself.

As to why these people were not freed from slavery and were still in the suburbs, and not settled as freemen in the fortress.

It's because Duke doesn't want them to get the status of freedmen so easily, it's too frivolous and weightless, they can't be cherished, and it may also cause dissatisfaction among the original people.

So he discussed with Vlavich last night about the arrangements for the assessment and division of labor, and prepared to use healthy competition to make them become legal citizens of the Dukedom of the North through their own efforts.

"Greetings, sir. ”

The voices of three subordinates came from behind him, making Duke feel happy.

He brought them here today because he had finally taken a big step on the road to firing cement.

After experimenting with almost all the stone samples near the fortresses of the North, he was finally able to use a common stone block from a place close to the Dark Mountains to make lime to his satisfaction.

When sand and water are mixed in a certain proportion, they can solidify quickly and have a relatively high strength.

"I'll show you this!"

Duke smiled at them, revealing a rectangular gray pillar behind him.

These were the first concrete pillars he had ever made, replacing the steel bars with a common bibliography similar to bamboo, but they were not much weaker, and he did not inflict any injuries with a single fireball technique.

Three of his subordinates also gathered around with some curiosity, observing the pillar of unknown material in amazement.

Lenia also tapped its surface with the scabbard.

"Try attacking it, Lenya. Duke motioned for Lenia to use her Upper Fighting Qi to attack the pillar and test its strength.

Lenia didn't say much, and drew her sword to unleash a powerful slash.

With a ding, her saber flicked off, only to snort a small piece of the pillar.

Lenia asked, somewhat surprised, "What kind of material is this pillar made of, which is harder than some stones?" ”

Duke smiled with satisfaction: "That's what I've been busy with lately, I call it 'cement'. ”

"You're saying you've been baking stones lately to make something like this? It's not at all!" said Joseph, in amazement.

Duke's penchant for baking stones in the back garden is a well-known thing in the Dukes of the North, but no one knows what he's doing it for.

Now everyone was a little surprised to hear that the stone pillars with excellent hardness in front of them were baked from baked stones.

"Hahaha, of course, it's not just about baking stones, but it's also about ten. ”

Duke laughed and showed them around the scraps and lime heaps he had been burning.

"This is an excellent weapon of war, and the cost is so low, how did you come up with it!" Vlavich exclaimed as he practiced on the side, and then said with some excitement: "Are you planning to strengthen the wall we want to fortify to prevent the next invasion of the beast tide?"

Duke was slightly stunned, his original intention was only to solve the requirement of building new and more habitable houses, and now after Vlavic's reminder, he also realized that this thing was excellent war material, and that it also had an immeasurable role in many other ways.

"No, no, it's just a minimal aspect. Duke thought for a moment, waved his hand and rejected Vlavic's proposal.

Then he said with a somewhat playful face: "If we want to get rich, we must first build roads, and we must first use cement to lay a wide road connecting the northern fortress and the Connaughton area, and solve the problem that the two places are not connected enough." ”

Although the distance between the northern fort and the Connaughton area is not too far, the road conditions are not very satisfactory.

If you take a carriage like last time, it will take you more than half a day to walk back and forth.

Even on a fast horse, it takes two hours to get from one place to another.

This undoubtedly makes it more difficult to transmit information and decrees, and makes the communication between the two places different.

Duke, a lord who lived in the Northern Fort for a long time, was unable to establish his reputation in Connaughton for a short time.

"Building roads? Isn't that a waste of material. ”

Joseph said with some pain, and he felt that it was a bit of a tragedy to scatter these excellent war materials on a road that anyone could use.

"It's not hard to find the materials to make them, and we can expand our capacity to build roads and build them together. ”

After saying that, Duke turned around and walked towards the castle, and said, "This is another purpose for me to come to you today. ”