After returning to the Barony of the Valley with 150,000 pfenni, Art repeatedly summoned several core subordinates of the army and civil affairs to discuss the most important matters in the official room......

In the secret room of the Lord's Mansion of the Wooden Fort of the Valley, Art was arranging strips of cloth on the wooden table, pondering them repeatedly.

Lottie picked up a silver wine glass and handed it to Art, and asked, "Honey, what are you doing with those little rags all these days?" ”

"Lottie, these are the military exploits recorded for Odo Angus in the past few years, and I am now a baron {knighthood is still valid}, and I have the right to canonize my subordinate knights. Due to the obstruction of my opponents, the court only gave me four new knights, and I am thinking about how to distribute them......"

"Oh? In this way? I've never seen this before. ”

Lottie crawled on the table and looked carefully at the cloth strips on the table for a while, and read in his mouth: "Fort Sap was ambushed, personally killed four bandits, and commanded soldiers to kill six bandits~ This is Odo's merit?" ”

"Yes, this is just one of them, this row is considered the merit of Otto!" Art pointed to the widest row of strips of cloth on the wooden table.

"Well, Otto should be canonized."

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

In mid-June, the weather turned hotter.

Art convened the first military council since his promotion to barony, and now the military and civil affairs of Arte's territory have the habit of counciling.

The army is called the Military Council, and the meeting place is in the Beiguan Military Fort; The civil administration is called the council, in the hall of the mansion of the lord of the valley of the wooden fort; The two councils discuss military affairs and civil affairs separately.

The Council of the Soldiers, on the other hand, discussed the important matters that would determine the survival and development of the entire barony, and was convened by Yat himself.

The first joint meeting was held at the Military Academy in Beiguan Military Fort, and all civil affairs officials above the rank of deputy steward and military squad leader and above attended the meeting, and the hall where the officers were literate had been temporarily converted into a meeting hall.

The hall is somewhat like the sanctuary of a church, with four chairs and a long wooden table on the main seat, the middle chair is, of course, the seat of Lord Art, and the other three seats are housed by Cooper, the lieutenant of the army, and Angus, the lieutenant of the army; Opposite the main seat were five or six rows of low stools and slanted tables, which were supposed to be the places where the officers' apprentices could read and write, with army commanders headed by Bass, Ron, and others on the left, and civil officials headed by Salter, Scott, Lawrence, and others on the right.

Nowadays, the military and civil affairs have basically become their own faction, and there is not much intersection between the two waves of people, except for Salter, Lawrence and Spencer, who often travel between the military and the civil administration, and can say a few words on both sides, the rest of the people have no topic, so everyone is also talking to each other in their respective circles.

Seeing that the hall was getting more and more lively, the civil affairs officer Cooper raised his hand and pressed it, and said with a pleasant face: "Everyone, this is not the first time you have participated in such a meeting, and you don't need me to remind you more."

"Now the council will begin, and the lord will be invited to speak." Cooper made a gesture of please.

Everyone in the hall stopped talking to each other, and sat upright, staring at Art on the main seat.

Art cleared his throat, looked around at everyone, and said, "Everyone, we haven't held such a meeting for a long time, looking back on the past few years, I feel a lot, every time such a meeting is held, it is accompanied by a great development of our valley."

"Some of you should remember the first time such a meeting was held. At that time, I was only a civilian patrol officer, and there were only about forty men, women, old and weak in the entire valley, and the food stored in the valley was only enough for two months, and the most worrying thing for us at that time was to try to fill everyone's stomachs by all means. ”

"Then I became a midshipman, and I began to have a title that was not worthy of the name, and by that time the valley had been cleared more than a hundred acres of land, and the population began to increase."

"By the time we had fought with the Swabians in Talmud Fort for months, using the enemy's men to pave the way to Lord Knight and obtained the fiefdom, there were more than one hundred and eighty households in the valley, more than three hundred acres of land had been reclaimed, the number of troops had reached more than sixty, and the weapons and armor were becoming more and more sophisticated......"

"For almost a year, I have focused almost all my energy on the army, often fighting abroad. Until yesterday, the civil magistrate had counted the population of my two fiefdoms and one garrison, and the total number of people in the fort exceeded 1,000, and the number was still increasing. Not only did the number of people increase, but also land, workshops, shops, houses, mills, villages, livestock, grain, etc., all of which were increasing at a rate visible to the naked eye......"

"Thank you for saying this many times, and I am here today to give you an account of your hard work over the years, and to fulfill the promise I made to you for the first time."

As soon as Yat said this, everyone in the hall was excited, but the few people sitting next to Yat were much calmer, after all, Arter had already discussed these things with them in advance.

However, Art did not rush to announce the most important things, he hung everyone's appetite, "Before fulfilling my promise, I would like to ask the civil magistrate Cooper, the army adjutant Odo, and the army adjutant Angus to give us a brief overview of the barony of the valley, the situation of the army, and the situation outside the valley. ”

Art glanced sideways at Civic Officer Cooper, and nodded to signal that he could begin.

Cooper gently lifted a piece of parchment and said, "Sir, commanders and civil stewards. Let me give you a brief introduction to the Barony of the Valley......"

"The Barony of the Valley, with three hundred and twenty-five households and one thousand one hundred and twenty people, is stationed in three villages: the border outpost, the valley wooden fort, and the southern valley. Among them, the largest number of people are in the village of Kutim and the newly built village, with 208 households and 780 people, both of which are peasant households. The rest of the places are mainly peasant households, and there are military families, craftsmen, doctors, clerks, and handicraftsmen......"

"The Barony of the Valley, where the existing arable land is mainly concentrated in the vicinity of the three villages in the southern valleys, has been reclaimed four thousand five hundred acres of land, of which three thousand two hundred acres are fertile arable land, which may not be left to rest for a few years because of the good fertility; The remaining 1,300 acres are far from the riverbank, and the land is relatively barren, so it is necessary to adopt two or even three gardens for rotation......"

The total amount of land is too small, resulting in less than four acres of arable land per farmer in the whole valley, which may not even be able to solve the problem of food and clothing in other places, but the land between the valleys is formed by the alluvium of rivers for thousands of years, not to mention the fertility, coupled with the unique water source irrigation convenience and the implementation of "mud fertilization", the grain yield ratio of the land in the valley has reached the average value of planting one harvest and six harvests, and Yate is still constantly recalling the only remaining agricultural knowledge in his mind to improve the agricultural technology of the valley.

"The Barony of the Valley, at present there are four workshops, namely, the weapons workshop {and blacksmith's shop}, the carpentry workshop, the weaving workshop and the mill, and the four workshops have a total of three craftsmen, fifteen craftsmen, thirty-two apprentices, and seventeen laborers. At present, the valley is recruiting craftsmen, craftsmen and craftsmen through caravans, and at the same time purchasing the tools and equipment necessary for the workshops, according to the arrangement of the lord, the southern caravans are buying equipment at low prices from the bankrupt workshops in Provence, and some areas along the river have been carved out along the valley to prepare for the construction of various workshops, but at present our treasury reserves are not enough, and we can only build some small workshops. In addition, the tavern and general store are also expanding......"

"The Barony of the Valley, there are three main sources of income, one is the army's previous capture of war booty, which is the main source of income, so far it has handed over a total of 250,000 fennig for the civil administration of the valley; The second is the trade surplus of the caravan and the shops, so far, the caravan has recovered all the inputs, the trade surplus is 90,000 pfennig, the monthly profit of the two caravans is about 20,000 pfennig, plus the profit of the three southern goods shops, the monthly trade income is more than 30,000 pfennig; The third is the revenue from the tax on transit merchants at border posts. In the whole of last year, the border outposts collected a total of 64,000 pfennigs of transit commercial taxes, but because the construction of the outposts requires a large amount of capital investment, the current surplus is less than 20,000 pfennigs, but after the completion of the outpost market town, the commercial tax income will definitely surge. ”

"Finally, I would like to tell you about the security situation in the territory this year. Now that our land is wide and our people are increasing, there will always be a few moths around us. This year, the Valley Garrison Corps punished a total of six criminals, one of whom was beheaded by the garrison for fighting to death in a newly built village, and the remaining five were punished as slaves for theft, picking quarrels and provoking trouble, and defecting in groups. Last month, two temporarily appointed officials in the new village of the territory, greedy for grain belonging to the wooden fort, have been imprisoned pending the final conviction of the master. ”

"The above is a matter of civil affairs." Cooper gave a brief overview of the many general affairs of the Valley Territory.

After listening to the simple arrangement, Art arranged a few points, "The valley needs to continue to develop, and the matter of recruiting the people can be slowed down a little, and there are two main things to do at present, one is to continue to reclaim the land, increase the output of grain and collect taxes." The second is to focus on the establishment of various workshops. To feed one's belly depends on the land, and to fill one's purse bag depends on industry and commerce, i.e., workshops, shops, and caravans. In addition, the civil stewards should also begin to negotiate a workable set of territorial laws, and we need to establish a good office. ”

"Otto, give you a brief report on the affairs of the army." Art then handed over the voice to the army adjutant Odo.

"Gentlemen, everyone. The army is currently mainly divided into four parts, the main force is the war corps, which currently has five infantry squadrons, a sentry cavalry team, a gōng nǔ squad, a baggage team, plus the guards, a total of one hundred and three people; followed by the garrison of the border post and the garrison of the patrol team of Boulder Town, with a total of thirty-two people in the two places; Finally, there is the valley garrison corps, which currently has 23 standing peasant soldiers, most of whom are wounded and retired soldiers of the army and selected young and strong leaders. According to the arrangement of the adults, the recruit team has already belonged to the garrison corps, so with the addition of forty-five recruits waiting for training, a total of sixty-eight people. The Military Academy also has fifteen instructors and apprentices belonging to the army {as distinguished from the officers in training}. ”

"After more than a year of fighting, the army has captured weapons, armor and ordnance materials are very abundant, and it is initially estimated that the armament in the warehouse can be equipped with two hundred ordinary soldiers, the soldier corps has already replaced its armament once, and the weapons and armor cut by the soldiers have been allocated to the border outposts, Boulder Town, and the military academy, and those damaged or unusable weapons and materials have been repaired or recast by the weapon workshop and allocated to the peasant recruits of the garrison corps."

"The merits of this year's battles are being verified, and after rough estimates, the per capita military reward for the soldiers is more than 200 pfennigs, and the per capita military rewards for the garrisons at the outpost and Boulder Town are also more than 50 pfennigs, and the military rewards alone are estimated to be more than 30,000 pfennigs."

"Finally, there is the approximate military consumption. At present, the per capita monthly salary of our war corps is 75 pfennig, plus the per capita monthly consumption of food, drink, housing and clothing is nearly 100 pfennig. The rest of the border garrisons, patrol soldiers, standing peasants, and recruits consume about fifty pfennigs a month. The monthly military expenditure of the entire army is close to fifteen thousand pfennigs. ”

"Fifteen thousand fennigs are just daily consumption, and if you take into account the damage and replacement of weapons and armor, it is impossible to estimate. Fortunately, a lot of weapons have been captured in the past year, and there is no additional cost. ”

"According to the plan of the adults, we will expand the army to more than 500 people by the beginning of spring next year, and the cost will be even greater at that time."

After Otto finished speaking, everyone in the hall really realized the huge investment in raising soldiers.

Seeing that everyone was a little unstable, Art said loudly: "Everyone, I asked Otto to explain to you the huge consumption of the army, so that everyone can have a bottom in their hearts. However, you can rest assured that although there is not much surplus in the valley treasury, it is enough to maintain the support of the civil administration this year, and I will soon start to reform the laws and regulations of the territory, especially the land tax issue, and then the valley will continue to produce silver coins. ”

"As for the expansion of the army, I will not embezzle the treasury of the valley civil administration unless absolutely necessary, and I will reserve enough money for the development of the valley. As for military spending, you don't need to discuss it, I will try to do it. ”

"Good! Sergeant Major, tell me about the situation outside the valley. ”

"Ladies and gentlemen, the storm has begun to rise outside the valley now......"

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

After everyone introduced the situation inside and outside the valley one by one, it finally fell to Art's heavy scene.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will discuss trivial matters later, and today, I announce the nomination of the Knight Lord and the Cadet Knight Commodore under the command of the Baron of the Frontier of the Court."

Art was about to announce such an important matter, and everyone in the hall suddenly straightened their chests and backs, sat up straight, and concentrated.

"Nominate Army Adjutant Otto? Fernando was a knight under the command of the Baron of the Frontier of the court. ”

"Nominate Army Adjutant Angus? Doyle was a knight under the command of the Baron of the Frontier of the Court. ”

"Nominate Bass, the commander of the garrison, as a cadet knight."

"Nominate Captain of the Guard, Ron, as a Cadet Knight."

"Nominate Kazak, commander of the Legion of Wars, as a cadet knight."

"Nominate Lusignan, commander of the Legion of Wars, as a knight-in-acumen."

"Nominate Commander Tuba as a Cadet Knight."

"The rest of the current army squad leaders {including border outposts and border patrol teams} and above officers have been promoted to knight attendants, in addition to having the status of knights."

The above is the list of army commanders who have been promoted.

"Specially nominated Cooper, Civil Governor of the Barony of the Valley? Alfred was an honorary knight under the command of the Baron of the Frontier of the Court. ”

The words were one, and everyone was shocked. "Knights" are military nobles, who have always been awarded to the commanders of the army and warriors who have achieved outstanding military merits, and it is the first time they have seen a civilian officer canonized as a knight, even if it is only an "honorary knight", which is Art's high recognition of Cooper, and it is also the importance of the civil system.

"All the civil stewards shall be promoted to official positions. There shall be a commercial officer, a cantonment officer, a construction officer, an industrial officer, and a sheriff under the jurisdiction of the civil affairs officer, who shall be promoted from the original stewards, and the rest of the stewards shall be promoted......"