"Bell, bell, bell~~~." When the bell rang, Brother Elvet woke up from his sleep, he sat up from the bed and carefully removed the long, white arm that was pressed on his chest, beside him lay a young girl, a maid in Mecklenburg Castle, the monks of this era were not bound by strict precepts, for them sex was very normal, especially for Brother Elvet, who was in charge of the whole of Mecklenburg, it was normal to have a maid by his side.

"Aha~~" Brother Elvet pushed open his window, fresh air poured into his dreary room, he yawned a big way, stretched his waist, and looked at the orderly and busy people outside the window, Arold often maintained correspondence with Brother Elvet even during the military journey, so he knew the progress of the construction of the territory well.

Arold's general idea for the development of the territory is to improve farming, change the collective communal farming method to the homesteaders to keep their own land, and then collect taxes through the local tax collectors, so as to liberate the productivity of the peasants who are bound to the land as much as possible, rather than the Saxon royal family, which binds the peasants to the land around the castle and makes the peasants bear the burden of building and defending the castle, of course, the Saxon royal family's approach has its practical reasons. It was the Norsemen and Magyars who were constantly invading at the time that made military defense a priority.

The homesteaders who took Arold and gave it to individuals were because he had conquered the Slavic lands, after the Slavs fled and died in war. The new Germanic settlers and Arold bought slaves who were free to cultivate the land, and more importantly, Arold was in a time when the Norsemen suspended their raids and the Magyars accepted bribes from the Saxon royal family, so that he suffered minimal military oppression.

"Uh-huh." Just then, Brother Elvet heard a coquettish grunt behind him, and he turned his head to see the naked girl on his bed, which had come out of her mouth.

"Smack." The corners of Brother Elvet's mouth turned up, and he walked over and reached out to the girl's fat buttocks, and slapped it fiercely, making a crisp sound. The girl was awakened. Rubbing her hazy sleepy eyes, when she sat up, the two fat white flowers swayed, making Brother Elvet's heart shake again.

"Lord Earl is back, Lord Count is back." At this time. Cheers rang out from inside and outside the castle. The German mercenary regiment after a week's march. When they finally returned to their hometown, when people saw the black lion flag, they couldn't help but cheer.

"Oh. God how I forgot about this, help me get dressed, I'm going to meet the Earl. "Brother Elvet was a traitor and a thriving man when he was at the Monastery of St. Fonso, but that was because he was dissatisfied with his position, but when he became Arold's court minister, he made a distinction in the construction of Merkellenburg, which shows that he can only be useful if he is used in the right place.

"Ah, it's finally back." Arold raised his head and looked at the tall walls of Melkelenburg, which was his first castle of his own, and the man seemed to be particularly obsessed with the first time, looking at the slightly inferior scale of Mecklenburg compared to Masonburg, which was ignored in Arold's heart.

The streets lined with houses destroyed by the Slavs were rebuilt, and Arold differed from other nobles in that he did not squander all the spoils of war and gave them all to the church like a fanatics, and the pragmatism of the Celestial Empire led him to return his spoils of war to his territory in a steady stream, turning them into resources for building his territory, and now he returned to his territory with more abundant loot.

"Fifteen thousand silver houses, eight hundred slaves, all of which are your harvest this time?" Brother Elvet looked at the list dumbfounded, he didn't think that Arold would be able to double his wealth about twice every time he fought, he really didn't know that others regarded fighting as a loser, but he regarded it as a way to make money.

"Yes, there are commissions from the German mercenary regiment and the defeated materials of the Bohemians, as well as the ransom distributed to us by the duke, and in addition to the salaries paid to the soldiers of the German mercenary regiment, there is probably about 11,000 silver houses left." Arold took off his chain mail and helmet, handed his equipment to his personal attendant, sat comfortably on his long-lost lord's throne, and said to Brother Elvet standing in front of him.

"Great, with this money, you let me build the port." Brother Elvet said happily that with the port, there will be merchants from more distant places to trade by boat, and sell the specialties of Melkelenburg County to other more distant territories, and the lord can extract taxes from the port, Brother Elvet roughly calculated that if a ship docks every time it docks, it will be able to collect twenty to thirty silver houses a month, and hundreds of silver houses a year, which is self-evident for the prosperity of the territory, but Arold poured cold water on him.

"It's a pity that the construction of the port has to be stopped, we have more important things to do at the moment, and I may reuse that money." Arold said to Brother Elvet.

"Why? Our port is half built, and although the Baltic Sea is not a very prosperous sea, there are always merchants willing to trade from the sea with few checkpoints. Brother Elvet said puzzled.

"It's a pity, I got accurate information that the Vikings from Northern Europe are coming, and they are likely to attack in the direction of us, so I must use this money to strengthen the defense of the territory." Arold stood up and walked to the window of his tower, looking at the thriving town outside the castle, since Arold abolished the toll tax and lowered the tax on merchants, merchants from all over Europa were willing to use Mecklenburg as their place to stay, as a result, the merchants' guild houses were built four, and the dazzling array of goods in the bazaar was dizzying, Arold knew that imposing a little ridiculous toll tax was actually tantamount to killing chickens and eggs, and the prosperity and circulation of the economy was the last word. Unfortunately, the other lords except Mecklenburg did not understand this, and they saw that the merchants always passed their domains to Melkelenburg, and the short-sighted nobles increased the toll tax on their own domains.

In order to make up for the loss of the merchants, Arold had to lower the taxes on the merchants, but this was not a way for a long time, so he wanted to build his own port and prosper his territory by sea, but unfortunately the Vikings of Northern Europe were coming, and if these pirates could not be solved, then no merchants would be willing to take the risk of taking the sea route.

"Vikings?" Brother Elvet's face changed drastically, and the list of possessions in his hands fell under his feet in a state of astonishment, and he did have reason to be afraid, those terrible and fierce Norsemen had no faith to speak of, and their hordes raided the unsuspecting monasteries, killing the monks inside and plundering the treasures inside, it was a nightmare for monks like him.

"Yes, I can't let these junks get even the slightest benefit from my territory." Of course, Arold also knew the stories of the Vikings, but he had only known about them from movies and books, but when he was there, he realized that the people of this era were deeply afraid of the Vikings, but Arold would never let the people of his realm suffer such a fate.

"What are your plans?" Brother Elvet found a glimmer of security in Arold's calm words, it was strange, it was almost magical, it seemed that the young earl always had a way to deal with any challenge.

"Get Master Orn and them from the smelting base." Arold knows that he has little time left, the Vikings will come from the north at any time, but even the Vikings cannot be assembled in a month or two, they need to recruit soldiers and ships, Gu Arold knows from the history of later generations, not everyone can have the dragon head ship of the Vikings, and only the big nobles among the Vikings can have that kind of light and fast ship, that is to say, there is still a period of time from the collection to the battle, and Arold must fight a time difference.

Orn and Newman watched the temperature of the fire in the furnace with crystal glasses, the blast furnace in front of them was burning, and the apprentice on the side threw a shovel of black muck into the burning furnace, as the black muck entered the flame became more ferocious, watching the pieces of iron ore turn into liquid red iron juice, and the iron liquid flowed into the cube mold and turned into iron blocks, the two masters nodded to each other with satisfaction.

"How did the Earl know that this black muck could burn?" Newman took off his crystal eyes, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said to Master Orn beside him.

"I don't know which earl always has unexpected ingenuity, I heard that it was entrusted to the local chamber of commerce in Mecklenburg, and it was robbed by thieves when they bought these things, but when they saw that the carriage was a worthless muck, they angrily scolded the earl, haha."

"How did they know that this thing was priceless to us?" Master Newman laughed too, and it was at this moment that the sound of horses' hooves sounded from outside the smelting base, causing them to stop talking. (To be continued......)