That night, the Norman army was extremely tired, and the sky was already dark, which was not suitable for pursuit, so Randy reluctantly ordered the pursuing troops to return to the camp.

Although nearly 20,000 enemies were killed in this battle, only about 15,000 or 6,000 were captured, which means that nearly half of the enemies escaped from under Randy's nose.

For the prisoners of war, Randy did not take the method of slaughtering or burying them alive, because Sweden was about to become Randy's territory, and these Swedes were obviously classified as Germanic northern languages, Vikings or Norman ethnicity.

So the Swedes still have a high level of approval of Randy, and Randy feels the need to win them over, so he promises to acquit them, and at the same time asks them to return to the country, and declares with their relatives, friends, and neighbors, as well as those Swedish deserters:

The land already belongs to the Normans, and you are already the Norman kings, lords of the strongest kingdoms in the north, and the undisputed strongest in the ice: the subjects of Randy von Hoffmann, remember to pay your taxes on time.

After Gustav's defeat and death, the big picture is decided!

The whole of Sweden trembled under the Norman Iron Horse, and when the Swedes and their wise choice succumbed to the skull, which Gustav had already brushed with lime but still looked a little shriveled underneath, appeared under the mutilated city of Stockholm.

Large swaths of Swedish territory were acquired by Randy, and the whole of Northern Europe was one step closer to unification.

The next step was to reorganize the internal affairs, replenish the army, repair Stockholm, calm the people, and continue the campaign......

As for the other two Eastern European countries, Moscow and Novgorod, Randy didn't want to let them go easily.

Novgorod, in particular, with its weak military strength, vast territory, developed commerce, and unification of the Baltic coast, declared the last step of the Norman Emperor, and Randy would not let him go in any way.

Over the next period of time, Randy selects officials in Stockholm through a spot recommended by the Royal House of Ministers.

After the establishment of a centralized government, Randy no longer had to rely on the exchange of points for officials as before, but could recommend people through the royal court of the central government and elect more capable city managers for free, so as to establish a local bureaucratic system.

This is similar to the probation system of the Han Dynasty, but Randy also knows that this is not good, and the bureaucratic selection system needs to be further improved, but before that, Randy needs more people who can read and write, which means that he needs to improve the quality of the entire empire's population and establish a complete system for selecting officials.

Again, this is a very troublesome task, and I have not yet popularized the Germanic lingua franca, which is now called Norman.

These long-term things aside, Randy's most urgent task at the moment is to stabilize the situation in Sweden, Gustav's head is really useful, if any disobedient nobleman wants to resist, as long as he shows his head, the people in the noble castle will immediately panic, and immediately a traitor will appear to cut off the lord's head, and the city will surrender.

Because Gustav is second only to the Father and the Son in the territory of Sweden, since even he will be killed, the strength of the enemy can be imagined, and no one in this world is not afraid of death, especially when death is undoubted.

Using Gustav's head, Randy easily and quickly stabilized the situation in Sweden, rebuilding Stockholm and enacting decrees in full sync with the rest of the Norman kingdom, after which a 500-strong garrison patrol was stationed in Stockholm to maintain law and order.

For a total of 13 days, Randy occupied all of Sweden and took control of it all.

As is customary, Scandinavia is redivided, dividing the whole of Scandinavia into two administrative districts according to latitude, rather than the previous international between Sweden and Norway.

The capital district includes the capital Gothenburg and Oslo in the south, as well as the central Nordic administrative region including the three cities of New Nijmegen, Bergen and Stockholm, and the Arctic region that does not include a single city at all.

After these things were done, it was almost July, Scandinavia entered the warmest season of the year, and normal people did not need to wear down jackets even in Finland, the highest latitude, so the opportunity was fleeting, so Randy thought about it for a while, and gave the order to continue the attack, intending to take Finland under his control.

At the same time, an order was issued to the Navy, which had completed the task of transporting reinforcements to Normandy, to withdraw all the remaining navies to the Baltic Sea region and harass the coast of Novgorod, except for the maintenance of the necessary logistical transport fleet.

Because he was already at war with Novgorod and Moscow, Randy decided to impose punitive tariffs on merchants from the two countries in transit, which was initially expected to increase by 1500%, and if he couldn't pay it, he would use the goods to pay off the debt, and if the goods couldn't be offset, he would be arrested as serfs or miners until the merchant's family took the money to ransom them, or wait for the truce between the two countries, and then provide Randy with huge war reparations and cede territory.

Speaking of Norman merchants, Randy is not afraid, even if there are two trade partners in Novgorod and Moscow for the time being, there is still a lot of business to do on the European continent, in fact, the biggest trade object of Norman merchants is not the two barren countries of Eastern Europe, but the Italian city-states in the south, Eastern Rome, and even the pagans of Ottoman Turkey and Egypt.

Pagan gold is also gold, a popular phrase in the small circle of Norman merchants, from the fact that one inferior fur can be exchanged for two Persian carpets, and a profiteer of some hapless Turkish merchant is brutally pitted!

When Norman merchants traded with Novgorod and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the main trade material was grain.

Randy relied on the powerful role of Enides, implemented the rotation system, refined sorting agricultural tools, and used green manure to plough heavily, and other measures, the agricultural level of the Norman kingdom was the highest among the European continents, not only to meet its own needs, to provide enough supplies for the army, but also to export a large number of foreign exchange.

Before that, Randy's management of food was still relatively large.

Not only did it establish a mechanism for emergency grain reserves in various places, but it also listed grain as one of the military supplies and prohibited private trading, but after obtaining the two regions of Prussia and Livonia, after the identification of Enides, these two areas are extremely fertile land, and can achieve the effect of three crops in two years, which is why Landicon took the lead in spending a lot of money to invest and build this land.

After acquiring the agricultural resources of these two lands, Randy gradually slowed down the restrictions on grain exports, so that in bitter cold places like the Grand Duchy of Moscow and Novgorod, where there was not enough food all year round, it was natural to trade with the Norman kingdom, which could provide a large amount of grain, and exchange locally produced furs and precious metals for the grain of the Norman kingdom.

If this continues, the two countries with enough food may be strengthened in a few decades due to the increase in population, and if Muscovy can annex Novgorod, it will also be among the great powers of the European continent, but these two countries are now completely destroyed by this war and have to continue to endure hunger, and the ice and snow of Eastern Europe are not so good.

In addition, Randy also issued an order to impose sanctions on Lithuania that was watching the fire from across the coast in this war, and also imposed a punitive 50% tariff to prohibit the export of grain to Lithuania, and Randy also calculated to give some funding to several hostile tribes in the steppes of Eastern Europe, as well as Lithuanian nobles who did not deal with Vytautas in Lithuania, promised, incited, and further weakened Lithuania's strength in a non-war way, after all, Randy needed to change his focus and start a war with France in recent times.

——————————

On the other hand, after saying goodbye to her lover, Artoria fell into extreme excitement.

Although the time with Randy was also very interesting, it could even be said that this time was the most fulfilling, meaningful, and happiest time she lived.

Whether it's war, massacre, or being buried alive, it's all so fresh and interesting.

Her lover seemed to have countless exciting ideas in his head, like how to torture the nobles, how many whips to steal a sheep, all kinds of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, but too much honey would make her feel tired.

Artoria has already begun to prepare for a rainy day, maybe the two sides will not see each other for a while, and the relationship will increase.

But soon Artoria realized that she was wrong, and after just a short period of time, the expected battlefield and the joy of commanding tens of thousands of troops against the enemy army were gone.

It was only then that Artoria suddenly realized that she was inseparable from Randy so far.

But if you order the battleship to go back like this, you will definitely be laughed to death by him, right? Artoria thought to herself, but she was determined to keep going.

Artoria's mood became extremely bad, especially when she was holding back on General Carter's fleet.

Although the improved ballista battleship, already 20 meters long and with a displacement of more than 800 tons, was a rare warship at the time, the Celtic queen, who was accustomed to galloping on the vast land, such a place was too cramped and as depressing as a prison cell.

Her Majesty was so depressed that the rest of the ship was out of luck.

But if Her Majesty catches any trick, he will be made worse than dead, and he will be imprisoned in a small black room and treated as a slave oarsman.

Her Majesty vented his frustration by making the whole ship restless, and Carter, as the commander of the fleet, felt that he was going crazy, and almost couldn't resist drawing his sword and fighting the queen underground several times.

In the end, Carter held back, not because of how much respect he had for Queen Celtic, but because Randy had commanded him before leaving.

"If there are three longs and two shorts in the future, you don't have to live, there will be a sea burial."

Carter was extremely obedient to the king's orders.

But this is not the way to go......

By the time the ship sailed through the Öresund waterway, General Carter's flagship had been thrown into disarray by the energetic and extremely hot-tempered Artoria.

There were no two hundred or so people on the boat, from Carter himself to the slaves who were paddling, who had not been tortured by Her Majesty, and it was not uncommon for them to even cause death.

There were several slaves before, because Her Majesty wanted to see how fast the boat could be, and they were forced to paddle and tread the water wheel desperately, and finally died of exhaustion.

Although such things often happened in formal battles, but now on the march, it is a complete waste of losing the combat power in vain, although the lives of slaves are very worthless, but on such a sea, there is no place to replenish slaves, and the queen is so fond of playing, maybe after arriving in England, her fleet will have to be reduced by more than half.

After thinking about it for a while, General Carter decided to wait until he had traveled for a while and landed and plundered on the shore, not only to replenish his fleet with some slaves, but also to let the queen see the combat effectiveness of his navy, so that the guy would be afraid and no longer play too out of line.

After sailing through the Öresund waterway, we passed through a small territory belonging to von IV, Elector of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire, the territory of the Duchy of Burgundy, the destination of General Catathen.

Today's Duchy of Burgundy is getting stronger and stronger under the manipulation of Charles the Daring.

At the same time, he has the two concepts of the French vassal and the HRE emperor's vassal, which also makes him between the two great powers of the European continent, after the recent annexation of the southern Count of Burgundy and Switzerland, the strength of the Duchy of Burgundy has increased significantly, the fertile land in the hinterland of southern France, and the fierce military resources of the Swiss people, after these two territories are in hand, they also make the bold Charles more daring.

In short, it is the idea of establishing a kingdom and claiming the title of king.

This is different from Randy, who had already occupied the whole of Norway at that time, and declared that the Grand Duke of Norway was already an ironclad thing, even if he claimed the king of Norway, it was only a promotion.

But Charles is different, he owns territories partly from the Kingdom of France, partly from the Holy Roman Empire, and Switzerland is also a territory with extreme independence tendencies, so in such a complicated situation, it is difficult to integrate his territories and establish a new country.

If that is the case, it is equivalent to dividing the territories of France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the two great powers at the same time, which is bound to be unanimously opposed by the two powers!

Charlie struggled with this, but eventually he came up with something to do.

Internally, Charles maintained a high military budget to maintain his most elite Knights of the Golden Fleece, as well as a standing army of more than 20,000 people, and at the same time did his best to dilute the French culture in the country, and gradually established monasteries to replace the position of the French Supreme Court, and at the same time tried his best to win over the Swiss mountain people, hire Swiss mercenaries at high prices, and minimize the number of possible Swiss rebellions.

Externally, Charles also once peeked into the title of emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

However, it wasn't until he was beaten by Feng IV that he cried and called his mother, he gave up this idea, and turned around to try his best to curry favor with Feng IV, hoping to win over the Holy Roman Empire and support his own independent kingdom, Charles even promised that as long as Feng IV agreed to his conditions, the kingdom he formed was still considered the territory of the Holy Roman Empire, and he was also a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, but the new kingdom after the formation completely severed relations with France!

While currying favor with the Holy Roman Empire, Charles took extremely tough measures against the weak French king, always looking for opportunities to suppress the prestige of the French king, and connecting other princes in France, hoping to gain their support.

(End of chapter)