Most of the magnates in Mochizuki City, led by Baron Hurd, were slave owners who ran plantations, and the quality of the plantation's crops directly determined their profits. These slave owners, who called themselves "agriculturists," actually knew nothing about farming techniques, and their crops were basically dependent on the weather.

The output of crops depends mainly on factors such as land, laborers, and farming techniques. Baron Hurd's party occupied most of the fertile land in southern Xinjiang, and it was difficult to make more profits by enlarging the area of cultivated land and squeezing the laborers, and their greed naturally turned their attention to the element of agricultural production technology.

The slave owners themselves did not know agronomic techniques such as improving the soil, cultivating good seeds, and preparing fertilizers and pesticides, but they knew that the Green Druids of Sweetwater were experts in this industry, not to mention that the druids were also proficient in many magic techniques that served agricultural production, and that just a 3-ring "plant growth" could increase the yield of crops by one-third compared to normal years, and how good it would be if they were willing to cast spells on their cotton and grain plantations!

For the above purposes, Baron Hurd's party has spent a lot of effort to win over Sand Rose over the years, but all the means of threats and temptations have been tried, but none of them worked! Sand Rose is a "stupid woman who doesn't know what to do" in the eyes of Baron Hurd's party, and Sand Rose is even more contemptuous of Hurd's gang of unearned slave owners, and it is not surprising that both sides cannot tolerate each other's ways of doing things, and it is not surprising that bloodshed eventually broke out.

Baron Hurd still has illusions about Sand Rose, and instead of sending his own private troops to attack Sweetwater, he hired the "Blade Regiment" sand bandits to attack, trying to intimidate Sand Rose for his own use, but people are not as good as heaven, Lyudmila and Tonya arrived in Sweetwater in time to resolve the crisis, and at the same time made the situation in the border area more complicated.

Lyudmila had a hunch that the magnates in Mochizuki City would not just let Sweetwater Town go, and Baron Hurd couldn't swallow this breath, and sooner or later he would launch a larger-scale military operation against Sweetwater Town. An airship isn't enough to defend Sweetwater, and that's why she writes to Roland asking for help.

The eve of a storm is always quiet, and Sweetwater shows no signs of impending catastrophe. The census process has been enthusiastically cooperated by local residents and has progressed more smoothly than expected.

While organizing the survey, Lyudmila also noticed that the townspeople's clothing, food, housing and transportation were distinctly local, and in terms of women's most interesting clothing, the locals generally wore blue printed and dyed cotton robes. Loose, breathable robes are a traditional garment of desert dwellers, adapted to the region's hot and dry climate, while the blue dye used to decorate the fabric is also a local specialty.

There is a mine near Sweetwater that produces lapis lazuli that can be used to make blue dye. Lapis lazuli is a rare mineral in the densely populated cities of the interior of the empire, often used to make jewelry, beautiful and expensive, but in the Gobi Territory, this ore is not rare, it is just an ordinary raw material for printing and dyeing.

Lapis lazuli, the only mineral resource with commercial value in the local area, was mostly occupied by Baron Hurd and other magnates of Mochizuki City, and whenever a rich mine was discovered, the army was immediately dispatched to strictly block it and prohibit local residents from mining, causing a lot of complaints in Sweetwater Town.

Lyudmila arranges the work of the census team, goes back to Tonya, and finds that she is still talking to Sand Rose about the cotton plantation, so she joins in and asks a question that has arisen during her visit to the town.

"Ms. Sand Rose, I heard that the Crescent Valley is the largest cotton-growing area in the Far East, but this time we took an airship to the Frontier and looked down from a high altitude, and we didn't see the vast cotton fields as expected, except for the relatively large cotton fields around Sweetwater Town, and then there are some large and small cotton plantations at the foot of Mochizuki Mountain, and the cultivated land in other places is large and abandoned, overgrown with weeds, obviously no one has taken care of it for many years, and it looks really a little desolate." Lyudmila said regretfully.

"Actually, just a decade ago, there were still many cotton farms in the region, but since thirteen years ago. The cotton lord Hurd received the title of imperial family and became the only aristocratic lord in the region, and the local cotton plantation industry was in trouble, and the smaller plantations were all used by Hurd to make it impossible to operate, and had to go bankrupt, including but not limited to intimidating farmers, kidnapping cotton workers, and even instigating his lackeys to set fire to rivals' cotton fields, colluding with sand bandits to enter and plunder. "To this day, Hurd and his comrades have almost monopolized the cotton industry in the Frontier, and the only thing that can compete with them is our collective farm in Sweetwater, and it is precisely because of this that Baron Hurd regards me as a thorn in his side, and does not hesitate to spend a lot of money to hire bandits like 'Blade' Tails to trouble me." ”

Tonya frowned slightly: "Senior sister, that nouveau riche who started by growing cotton is really a baron?" ”

It would have been nice if Wilhelm von Hurd had come from an imperial family, but like most of the inhabitants of the Frontier, he was a native of the Far East, and his ancestors were exiled heretics.

Sand Rose smiled faintly: "In fact, the imperial title is not as noble as people think, it can also be traded with money, after Hurd made a fortune, he first bought indulgences, washed away his heresy charges, joined the Church of Pero, reported the thigh of Archbishop Philip, and later spent a lot of money to dredge up the relationship, it can be said that his title was smashed out of gold, and Archbishop Philip and his friends who held important positions in the court of the Holy City did not make less money on this lord." ”

After a slight hesitation, Sand Rose lowered her voice and continued: "I have an old friend in Mochizuki City, named Joseph Davidovich, this person is very well-informed, and I recently learned from him a secret story about Baron Hurd's fortune, whether it is true or not, I am not sure, you should listen to the story. ”

Lyudmila and Tonya were all in good spirits and pricked up their ears to listen to her story.

"In fact, Baron Hurd has a very deep secret......"

"What's the secret?" Lyudmila couldn't wait to ask.

"You can't afford to buy an imperial title just by growing cotton, and the business that really makes Baron Hurd rich is ......," Sand Rose smiled mysteriously and whispered, "Mining gold." ”