"My lord, I have built three large thatched huts with the war slaves and laborers, and all the people who moved from the valley have lived in the grass huts, and now the weather is still very hot, so you don't have to worry about freezing, and when the farmers settle down, I will take everyone to continue to cut timber and build a number of farmhouses one after another, so that everyone can live in their own grass huts and wooden houses before the cold winter comes." In the newly built village in the southern valley plain of the Valley Knights, Lawrence, the construction steward, and Scott, the steward of the cantonment, are accompanying Art and his party on their rounds.

Art pushed open the wooden door of the grass hut, because the farmers were sent out to reclaim the wasteland, so the inside of the house was empty, but the stench of feces and urine came to his face.

Covering his nose, Art asked Scott with some annoyance, "Scott, didn't you tell the new farmers about the rules of the valley?" It's only been a long time since I moved in to make it like this! ”

Scott hurriedly stepped forward to explain, "My lord, we have already told you the rules of not defecating anywhere, but there is no pit for dumping and collecting feces here, so~"

"How much time will it take you to dig a hole? I don't think you took what I said to heart. ”

Scott was scolded so much that he didn't dare to speak out.

Art realized that his tone was a little serious, and he withdrew from the grass hut and took a breath, and said slowly: "I know it's a bit difficult for you to do this, but this is not only to stop everyone from living in the poop pile and urine pit like pigs, dogs and livestock, but more importantly, we need to collect more human and animal manure to make manure." You have all seen how abundant the grain we grow with manure at the border posts, and in the future our land will be used for manure and animal manure, and if you don't collect it in advance, what will you use to fertilize it when the winter wheat is planted? ”

"My lord, are we really going to spill filthy manure into the cultivated fields?" Lynn, the deputy steward of the tun, still didn't fully accept the weird thing of using manure for fertilization.

Art turned his head to look at Lynn and patiently explained, "Lynn, as I said, what is applied to the fields is manure that has been made, and those are holy things that have been blessed by God, and they will make our wheat grow more luxuriant than thatch."

"Yes, Father Hamish has already said that this is God's reward for us, and we cannot refuse God's mercy. ”

Art nodded at old Cooper, and instructed, "Cooper, you will personally inquire about the construction of manure collection pits, and I don't want the people to dump human and animal manure everywhere when I come back next time." The collection of manure is one of my assessment tasks for the performance of the duties of the cantonment steward. ”

The men who followed Art nodded with difficulty.

Seeing that the attitude of several people was not very decisive, Art knew that it was difficult to change their deep-rooted thoughts for a while, maybe everyone could reluctantly accept it after the "manure pilot" cultivated land on the side of Mubao was highly productive, "The matter of manure is my order, you just carry it out, if there is anything in the future, I will take it myself." ”

"Master, we'll just do what you say." Scott replied.

Art glanced approvingly at the capable steward.

"Several of you have been involved in the construction of the valley land, and you are all familiar with the construction of new villages and the reclamation of wasteland. The land and grain are the foundation of our valley, and with these two things we can have real peace of mind. ”

"Lawrence, now that the outer wall of the Beiguan Military Fort has been built and the army has been stationed in it, the construction of the inner city can be done slowly, and you must continue to leave some craftsmen and war slaves to build houses here, so that everyone can have a warm house to live in before the cold winter comes."

Lawrence nodded yes.

"Scott, Lynn, you have been in charge of the cantonment, and the cantonment of the valley is doing a good job, and you will continue to reclaim the land near Kutim Village to grow food."

Scott and Lynn also responded.

"Cooper, you are the civil officer, all the civil affairs of the territory are under your control, now the grain and materials and farm tools and livestock in the wooden fort are also sufficient, you must allocate the food and materials needed in various places, if there is something missing in the wooden fort, if the craftsman workshop cannot make it own, you can tell the caravan to go out to buy, don't be afraid to spend money, every copper coin we use today will be harvested back ten times and a hundred times."

Old Cooper touched the goatee on his chin, "Don't worry, sir, I will lead you to make your territory more and more prosperous." ”

"Well, by the way, you also have to explain the territorial decree I issued last month to all the people, so that everyone is familiar with our rules, my decree is not harsh, but you can't take it lightly when it comes to the stability of the territory. Now that there are more and more of us, it is not enough to be restrained by the stewards, but we must make all the people feel awe. ”

"Master, we have already read your decree to all the people, and there are prisons and execution grounds built on the side of the wooden fort, if anyone dares to violate your decree, I will never let it go easily."

Yat nodded repeatedly, looked up at the little black shadows in the wasteland outside the village, and said, "Let's go, let's go and see the farmers who are cultivating the wasteland~" After that, he led a group of people out of the fence of the new village and walked towards the farmers who were plowing the land in the surrounding wasteland.........

.............

In August, while Ate was busy inspecting the construction of the territory and concentrating on the development of agriculture, the Count of Burgundy was issuing an edict to the entire border calling on powerful merchants to buy grain from the north and sell it south, so as to support the war of Provence against Lombardy, in order to encourage the merchants to take active action, the courts of Provence and Burgundy ordered at the same time that all grain sold from the north to Provence would be exempt from all commercial and entry taxes.

Of course, the European trading houses, which were members of the Northland Trade Guild of Burgundy, also received this call. Salter, the steward of the Continental Merchant House, seized the opportunity with a keen grasp, and after selling the southern goods carried by the caravan, he began to organize a large number of men to buy grain in the Northland, and hoard it in the warehouse rented by Lucesinn.

"Steward Salter, isn't it too risky for us to hoard so much grain, now that there are many wars in the south, if there are not too many merchants willing to buy grain and go south, this grain will be bad in our hands." Kenneim, Lucesen's shop steward, followed Salter to count the grain in storage, looking at the grain bags piled up in the warehouse, he was a little worried that Salter's move was too risky.

From Kenneim's point of view, his worries were not superfluous, the reason why the court called on merchants to carry grain south to trade with them on the condition of exempting all taxes was because merchants knew that the south was not easy to go, and merchants were willing to risk money but did not want to lose their lives for money. Now that Salter had hoarded more grain than his caravan could carry, it would be difficult to expect to rely on the north or valley to consume the grain by himself if other merchants did not dare to buy grain and go south, and there was no shortage of grain in the north.

"Kenneim, you don't know what's going on in the South, and you don't know what's going on in our lords' minds. My lord told me that he was going to find a way to lead the caravan south to open up the trade routes of the Southern Continent, and now was the perfect opportunity. With an army by his side and an acquaintance with a nobleman in Provence, the other caravans may not dare to go south, but they are not. "Salter is confident.

Seeing that Kenneim was still a little worried, Salter said safely: "Don't worry, even if we don't go south to Provence, we can still transport these grains to the border one after another to hoard, and the adults have a territory and military fort on the border, where you can hoard a large amount of food and materials." If we can transport grain to the border, we can save a lot of distance for the merchants, and even if we earn some freight, we will at least not lose money. ”

Kenneim was a little more relieved.

"Kenneim, you are familiar with the surroundings of Lucesen, and taking advantage of the fact that this year's grain harvest is not long enough and the price is low, you will bring people to the surrounding area to buy a batch of grain and store it in the warehouse after settling down the shop. Tomorrow I will hire a convoy to deliver the first batch of grain for us to stock up at the border. ”

"Steward Salter, do you still hire a convoy? Didn't the guilds only allow us to have fifteen carriages? "What happened before made Kenneim feel uneasy, and he didn't dare to get anyone who would be guilty of the crime again.

"Don't worry, the guild only limited the amount of goods we can carry in the south, and it didn't say that we wouldn't hire a convoy to transport grain, and now that the palace has called on merchants to go south to sell grain, the guild people won't say anything."

"Well, then you can lie down and go south and bring back the account books of the shop and the profits of the last three months, and the lord said that the profits of the shop in Lucesin will be directly managed by Madame Lottie."

"Yes, I'll send someone to pick it up from the shop."

Seeing that there was no one around, Salter whispered in Kenneim's ear: "In addition, the Lord also asked me to give you a secret mission, I heard that the Marquis has been in poor health recently, and the palace has been undercurrentd, and the Lord asked you to find a way to inquire more about the news in the palace, Besançon's "Eagle Eye" can only collect some rumors, and the Lord needs more real news." ”

"Well, I'll go to Besançon myself when I'm done buying food, and I'll get some useful information from them."

…………

In the official room on the second floor of the Lord's Mansion in the Wooden Castle of the Valley, Lottie was settling Art's income and expenditure for the last half a year, writing and calculating, Lottie put down the parchment account book and looked at Arte and said: "Dear Lord Art, your treasury is depleted too quickly, now you have to pay nearly 10,000 pfennig every month only for military salaries and military expenses, and the salaries required by civil affairs and commercial banks are also huge, some time ago, after you bought weapons and armor and added funds from the trading bank, there are less than 100,000 pfennig left in the treasury, according to your current consumption, The money in these gold stocks barely lasted for a year. ”

Lottie put down the account book and stood up, walked around behind Art, rubbed his shoulder, and said, "I used to complain that my father was obsessed with business and did not specialize in military affairs, but now I finally understand that aside from the factors of not wanting to attract attention, the huge cost of just supporting an army is enough for my father's headache."

Art raised his hand and grabbed Lottie's hand and rubbed it for a while, and replied: "Yes, the army is the gold-swallowing monster, I am still too weak, I dare not expand the army too large at once, when the time comes, I will not pay the military salary and military expenses without silver coins, my army will definitely not be as strong as it is now."

"My dear, is it true that your army can only rely on silver coins to sustain its combat strength?"

Atmo's hands paused for a moment, then he slowly covered his hands and sighed, and replied for a long time: "At present, it is true that only silver coins can maintain the combat strength of my army, if my army does not have high salaries, abundant military expenses, and excellent treatment, who can accept my daily training like an animal?" Who can fight for me without sparing their lives? ”

"Angus once laughed and said that I could recruit eight hundred peasants with the money I spent on a hundred soldiers, but I believe that a hundred of my soldiers can defeat a thousand of them."

Lottie walked around to Art, "So in order to earn more silver, you plan to continue to enter Provence with the caravan?" ”

Art's eyes stared at the call for "selling grain from the south" issued by the palace that Salter brought back on the table, and said firmly: "Yes! The most chaotic thing is that the time is coming, and I want to sharpen my sword so that I can fight a red dawn in the darkness! ”

…………