The dwellings of the outer city were now standardized, with simple drainage ditches and aqueducts, but the foreign population living here was not adapted to the many complicated sanitary rules of Nijmegen, and the streets were full of livestock and feces, no different from other aristocratic domains of the era.

In their eyes, the people who can live in the city walls are all high-class people who live in wealth, and the nobles who live in the castle are unimaginably noble beings floating in the clouds, so when our group appeared in the dirty streets of the outer city, the panicked people panicked and grabbed their cats and dogs and children playing with mud, and hid in the wooden board house that they were assigned to and did not dare to come out.

Wangcai and Leonardo were too old to ride with me on horseback, so they sat in a comfortable ox cart and followed slowly.

Seeing that my face changed a little after coming to the outer city, Wangcai hurriedly ordered the attendants to catch up with a few more whips, and caught up and explained: "My lord, there are too many wars this year, and various projects are continuous, and the manpower is really not available, so I can only simply build some wooden houses, and barely move the foreign population in before the winter, but the infrastructure construction is in decline, and we are strictly in accordance with the standard construction......

I smiled and comforted my conscientious old housekeeper: "It's okay, I also understand your difficulties, you can't eat a fat man in one bite, take your time." ”

Wangcai nodded movingly, gasped and sat back in the car, unconsciously we have come to the wheat field outside the city, facing the rolling wheat waves with the wind undulating, the joy of the harvest in sight makes everyone feel refreshed, and in the continuous golden fields, from time to time you can see the farmers who are ready to harvest the whole family.

Although this year's Nijmegen lost a lot of young men in the war, but agricultural production was not delayed, Wangcai widely promoted the new technology I formulated, coupled with the selection of good breeds and a large number of retired war horses put into use, greatly improved the efficiency of food production, now no one doubts the Duke Lord's far-sighted insight and creativity, everyone clearly understands in their minds, as long as they follow the Duke Lord, whether it is to make money or fight, they will not suffer defeat!

This year has been another bumper year for Nijmegen, and it is also the first year that my reform decree has been fully implemented, and remarkable progress has been made in all undertakings.

Although limited to the overall isolation of the Middle Ages, this progress seems to me to be insignificant, but Leonardo and others are clearly excited, because the changes in Nijmegen are obvious to all, and through the expansion of the Nijmegen Chamber of Commerce and word of mouth, more and more people are yearning for this magical land.

Lordless knights and warriors eager to make achievements hope to be used by the Duke of Nijmegen, create the legendary myth of invincibility, and gain glory and fiefdom.

Scholars admired the local respect for knowledge, good remuneration, and a free academic environment.

Businessmen want to be certified by the Nijmegen Chamber of Commerce to gain a higher social status and more business opportunities.

Freedmen and ownerless serfs needed a piece of land to cultivate and live a stable and stable life.

All in all, Nijmegen is changing every day, and the outsiders are constantly strengthening us and filling the population gap caused by the war.

I stood on the balcony of the castle, looking at the endless stream of people on the main road outside the city, and I felt a sense of pride.

On October 18, St. Luke's Day, Nijmegen's most remote territory also handed over this year's harvest to the Duke's treasury, and the feast to celebrate the harvest began.

In and around the city, people who have been tired for a year have a chance to rest for a short time, but soon have to plow the fallow land again and sow winter wheat before the weather turns cold.

The bards and itinerant bands gathered in Nijmegen are all over the city, and everywhere you can see the people around the campfires with wine glasses dancing and singing, this year's harvest is good, the purchase price is high, almost every household has saved a lot of money, the men take it out to the tavern to be dashing, the women have spare money to buy some clothes and jewelry, the children lick the honey and freeze the sweets, chase each other and play, the old man covers his leaky mouth and smiles from ear to ear, A peaceful scene of joy.

The war money allocated to the various nobles had been successively released to their castles, and when they saw the glittering gold coins piled up in front of them, the greedy fat men finally smiled with satisfaction.

The praise of the Duke of Nijmegen has also gone to heaven, and all kinds of excessive, inappropriate and inappropriate praise have popped out of their linguistic heads, and judging from the situation brought back by the messengers, it is considered that these coarse people can not say vulgar scolding words to my mother, and what else do I want to hope for.

Thanks to the strong impetus of the gold coins, the expansion of the Nijmegen Chamber of Commerce was also greatly supported by the nobles, the prices were fairly distributed, and a considerable amount of taxes were drawn from the caravans passing through their own territory every year.

Besides, these stinky merchants in the name of the Duke of Nijmegen are no different from the runners who are scurrying around to collect some local products, and they can't be a big deal, but they are newcomers, and they have to change their habit of robbing every business and pick up some soft persimmons.

But what they don't know is that the members of the Nijmegen caravan, in addition to the identity of the superficial buyers, are also skilled underground workers, skilled mappers, and articulate negotiators, and every time they go to the chamber of commerce camp they set up, they will become the local intelligence center in Nijmegen, and they will extend their tentacles to all aspects regardless of size, spreading a large intelligence network, from the ability of the territory of the territory to produce soldiers, to the small things that the lord eats for three meals and excretes several times a day, all of which will be summarized into a short text. Detailed information that will be on my desk in a few days.

During the harvest period, the swordfish Ebry took his men to visit Nijmegen, which was more like a year-end debriefing in a sense, this was the first time we met after we broke up, and I didn't see the former's complexion improved significantly in just over a month, presumably the plundering life at sea made him live a very nourishing life.

After taking refuge in Nijmegen, his center of activity gradually moved south from the Danish-frequented Kattegat Strait to the English Channel, where there were fewer competitors, and he became a formidable force in the region.

Sven, the king of the eight characters who ruled Denmark, is the son of the famous Bluetooth Harald, and his father who had eaten too many blueberries and dyed his teeth, the conflict between the father and son intensified and finally dueled, the failed Bluetooth fled into the forest, was shot by his son's adoptive father with a secret arrow, and Sven became the king of Denmark.

Of course, the so-called king was only the head of a larger pirate castle, and he was accompanied by a number of kings who were in constant contact with their Norwegian and Swedish relatives across the Kattegat Strait, and often organized pirate expeditions together to plunder the entire coast from Friesland to Normandy, and were collectively called Vikings by the frightened Western Europeans.

But the reason why Bluetooth stood out in the Vikings was that he invited many missionaries from England against all odds, and may not have ruled out curiosity at first, and those old-fashioned nerds with funny St. Peter's hairstyles became the target of pirates' ridicule and ridicule, but Bluetooth, who took the lead in receiving the baptism, stood out from the many barbarian pirates with the help of the advanced culture brought in by the missionaries, and began to establish the rudiments of the state, and finally nominally unified Jutland, and built a castle in Eumus, monopolizing the trade here.

Sven first set out to deal with domestic problems, he vigorously killed the old team that once followed Bluetooth, replaced all the kingdom with his henchmen, and longed for the warlike pirates who lived in raiding the world, and finally found the leader of the satisfactory situation, after the reorganization of the army, Sven joined forces and united the pirate kingdom entrenched on large and small islands like a storm, recovered the rich port of Hyderby, and fulfilled the long-cherished wish of the family to establish the Kingdom of Denmark for several generations.

Sven, who had a certain foundation, turned his attention to the north, determined to defeat the king of Norway, Olaf Trigwisson, who was competing with him for Scandinavian supremacy, thus relaxing his attention to the direction of England, in fact, he did not have to worry too much, in the Viking invasion that lasted for a hundred years, the Danes had already established bases in Ireland and Scotland, known as the Danish District, which did not include the Norwegians and Swedes who occupied the Isle of Man and the northwest of England, and the cowardly England was simply powerless, The Saxon nobles hid in their walled cities, waiting to be harvested by the Vikings.

The swordfish that took advantage of this loophole was naturally happy to sit back and enjoy it, beckoning his subordinates to set fire to and rob them happily, basically extinct cross-strait trade, and even the authentic Danes had to look at his face when they went to sea.

"I suspect it's been a long time since you've eaten, and the dignified Pirate King can't even eat enough, won't it ruin your prestige if you say it?" I put my hand on my chin and tilted my head to joke.

"You're a full man, you don't know how hungry a man is hungry, my lord."

The swordfish stuffed the delicately baked mutton into his mouth, choked and stared, hurriedly picked up the wine glass in front of him and poured it desperately, and it took a long time to recover and continue: "I am drifting on the sea, I am about to grow scales when I eat fish, how can I live comfortably in your castle." ”

I smiled, leaned back in my comfortable chair and said, "Why don't you say hello before you come, I can tell the kitchen to prepare a few delicious meals, you did a good job on this trip to Poland, ensuring the suddenness of the sneak attack, and finally living up to my ardent expectations." ”

(End of chapter)