On January 6, 4357 in the Bright Calendar, Duke officially received an edict from the Emperor Fran from the imperial capital, agreeing to the request of the Storm Army to go to the northern border, and under the command of Duke Otto, they immediately went to the northern border after the beginning of spring.

When he got this edict, Duke smiled slightly, as he expected, there was no need for Henry VII to stop his actions, and it would not hurt him anyway.

Since it is about to leave after the beginning of spring, the issue of the Storm Army's armor equipment has become the most urgent matter at present, after all, with Duke leading a part of the Storm Army and the Logistics Army to leave, the defense of the Storm Fort will inevitably be empty for a period of time, so the importance of equipment is self-evident.

So on January 10th, Duke announced that the New Year's holiday would end on this day, and all construction work on Storm Forts would be fully restarted. Storm soldiers also came outside the city to remove the snow and clear the road between the hydro factory and the storm fortress and the mine to ensure smooth traffic in the future.

In fact, these roads have been hardened by Duke with cement, so without the mud after the snow melts, it will hardly have a serious impact on future transportation.

In addition to the full start of construction at Storm Castle, the construction of the stronghold in the Monster Valley has also accelerated. Duke gave a death order on this point, at least to ensure that the fertile land on both sides of the Seine River must be firmly under the control of Stormcastle before the spring ploughing next year, so as to increase the development potential of Stormcastle exponentially.

According to the estimation of the agricultural officer Adra, the riverbank land in this section of Fort Storm, if managed, plus the alluvial plain at the mouth of the sea, can reclaim at least 20,000 hectares of cultivated land, that is, 300,000 acres of cultivated land.

You must know that when Storm Castle first had 50,000 people, the cultivated area was only 10,000 hectares, and later with the Milan War and the addition of the dwarves, the cultivated area finally reached more than 20,000 hectares. 300,000 acres of cultivated land, dealing with the scale of 100,000 people in Storm Fort, according to the average yield of 200 catties per mu of Storm Fort, it is also the appearance of just achieving a balance between supply and demand.

After all, the animal husbandry in Storm Castle is also very underdeveloped, the people do not have enough oil and water, and the current Storm Castle is mostly some manual work, so the demand for food is even greater. Later, with the continuous recruitment of people from Storm Castle and the addition of the Wave Tribe, the total number of people in Storm Castle has reached the scale of 300,000 people, and the food gap is huge.

If it weren't for the dwarves, they carved out some land in the mountains and planted crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn, which are not very demanding on the soil and have unusually high yields. Coupled with the fact that Duke received a large amount of money from the Sea Clan and urgently purchased some food from other territories at a high price, Storm Fortress may have to go hungry this winter.

Therefore, the 300,000 acres of arable land on both sides of the Seine River in the future are almost impossible to give up for the current Storm Castle. Coupled with advances in farming technology and an understanding of fertilizers, Duke believes that Stormcastle's average yield of 300 catties per mu in the coming year should be no problem. If Nicole's magic seed succeeds, as long as the fertilizer is enough, the yield per mu of four hundred catties is not unexpected, which is equivalent to doubling the yield directly.

At the same time, Duke also sent some men to work with the dwarves to cultivate the mountains, planting root crops such as sweet potatoes, and striving to expand the land by another 10,000 hectares, bringing the arable land area of the entire Storm Castle to 50,000 hectares.

In this way, even if Storm Castle adds hundreds of thousands of people in the future, it will basically not worry about the food problem. At least for a long time to come, Stormcastle solves the problem of food self-sufficiency.

In addition to protecting the cultivated land on both sides of the river, the watchtower in the Monster Valley also has a very important role, that is, hunting the demonic beasts in the Monster Valley. It's just that seriously speaking, the Storm Army is only on the edge of the Monster Valley, and there is still a layer of ice demon defense line between it and the monster, so in the past two months of construction, there is still no way to successfully capture the monster except for seeing the trace of the monster.

However, with the formation of dozens of watchtowers, the dwarven war sheep cavalry has formed a special hunting team, intending to go deep into the interior of the monster valley to capture some magical beasts suitable for domestication into mounts. It's really not possible, but you also have to find a magical beast that is close to Marco and can mate with an improved bloodline. In this way, the future cavalry troops of Storm Fortress will be upgraded to a higher level.

During this time, Duke focused on the mines, because for the foreseeable future, the demand for magic crystals in Storm Castle will be very high. In addition to the Saint-Michel Mountains, there are also magic crystals stored in the Monster Valley, but Duke has no plans to dig them now.

First, because the Monster Valley is not captured after all, although the Ice Demon has suffered very serious losses, it has not yet reached the point where there is no room for fighting back. They were just licking their wounds, gathering strength and waiting for the day when they would fight Stormcastle, and Duke knew that.

Another point is that mining will greatly damage the ecological environment, the mines of Mont Saint-Michel are all stones, so it doesn't matter, but the woodland in the Valley of Monsters is pristine. In fact, Duke has no idea about destruction, in the face of survival and development, destroying the environment is nothing at all, and the Middle Ages did not have such a high consciousness of protecting the environment.

Mainly because of the Warcraft, Duke also fantasizes about defeating the Ice Demon one day, monopolizing the Monster Valley, the origin of the Warcraft, and cultivating the Storm Army's own super Warcraft mount. Therefore, the ecological balance of the Monster Valley, Duke doesn't want to break it too soon.

The Saint-Michel mine is where Duke and some officials from the city hall come here to inspect and investigate to see if they can find a way to increase the production of magic crystals and other minerals. The miners were simply overjoyed by Duke's arrival, because of this kind of "dirty" place, the previous lords did not bother to come to this kind of place, but Duke came, and seriously this is not the first time Duke has come to a place like a mine, which is the lord's respect and care for the miners at the bottom.

Duke first cordially greeted the miners, and there was no sense of distance at all. However, this time Duke found an unexpected person in the mine, that is, Watt was also in the miners' team at some time and was greeting him.

You must know that Watt is an important scientist in Stormcastle, concentrating on the development and improvement of the steam engine, how can he be here, can it be said that he has a soft spot for manual work?