The next day, before it was quite dawn, Evan got up and washed up and began his daily training routine, first warming up, then running five laps around the lord's house, then doing thirty push-ups and thirty sit-ups, and finally ten pull-ups.

Don't look at the lot, but this is already the level that Evan has tried his best to achieve.

This made him miss the time when he ate meat all of his life, and now even his family can only eat meat once a month at most, and it is not a large piece of meat, just a sliced piece of meat the size of a palm.

Every year, there are several major festivals or when guests come to the family, and the family will slaughter livestock for celebrations or banquets.

Shaking his head, Evan shook this unrealistic idea out of his head, at this time, if he wanted to eat meat every day, he was afraid that only the Kingdom of Italy and the Eastern Roman Empire and some primitive religious regions could do it, and other places would be thankful that they could eat enough.

After breakfast, Evan and his father Ellus stepped on their horses and led a dozen guards along the forest path towards the first destination.

In the past, Evan would feel so majestic every time he came back from a tour, and everywhere he followed his father was the scene of the people cheering loudly.

But now, Ai Wen only feels heavy pressure and responsibility. Even after years, he still remembers a time when he followed his father on a tour of the territory.

Passing by a house, I was about to come to the door to ask the head of the house if it was convenient for them to enter the house and rest for a while, but when they entered the door, they found that there was only a bed and a table in the house, and there was not even a wooden stool, and the air was filled with the smell of sour and dust.

Not far from the bed lay a pale woman who looked very weak. Seeing someone come to the door, the woman's face was flustered, and she hurriedly begged that there was really nothing worth grabbing at home.

But when she saw that it was Erruth, the woman tried to get up and kneel in spite of her weakness, thanking her father for lending money to their family, and for giving her young son a job, even if he was poorly paid, but barely enough for the family.

This experience shocked him greatly, not only made him deeply aware of the real life of civilians, but also had the most intuitive feeling of his father's usual governance.

It was also this experience that made Evan begin to recall the policies and policies of later generations after he returned, and record them, hoping to find a way to make the people in his father's territory live better.

"What were you thinking, you didn't say anything all the way." Elruth glanced at Aven beside him, who looked absent-minded.

If it weren't for years of horseback training, he even suspected that Evan might have fallen off his horse. Hearing his father's question, Evan immediately came back to his senses and knew that he had lost his temper.

"Father, I just remembered the scene when I went to inspect the territory with you before, especially the family where the mother and son depended on each other, I don't know how the situation is going." Evan replied honestly.

To his surprise, his father, Ellus, let out a long sigh after hearing this, and then said quietly, "After that, within a few days, his mother was summoned by the Lord. As for his son, he was later killed in a battle. I sent for them both to be buried together, hoping that our lord would reunite them and not suffer any more."

Evan closed his eyes and silently prayed for the mother and son in his heart for a while.

"We, the Barony of Hull, are located in the northernmost part of the Counts of Middlesex. Unlike in the south, where there are many flat grasslands that can be cultivated, Hull is surrounded by rolling hills, where there are few and barren places to grow, and the grain production is not high, so I can only make the people make ends meet, so I mostly acquiesce to the people going into the hills to hunt animals, but even so, the people are still not as good as those barons in the south."

Erlus said this, his tone was also full of helplessness, and there was a hint of jealousy, "There are at least two or three manors in other baronies, four or five villages, and there are almost more than a thousand people. In my more than ten years in Hull, I have developed only one manor and two or three villages, with a population of less than a thousand, which is far inferior to others in terms of quantity and quality."

"If the people can't survive, no amount of people will be a burden, father." Ai Wen's expression was serious, and he said all the words that had been held in his heart for a long time.

"In addition to keeping people fed and clothed, maybe it can make them rich and provide them with different opportunities. If only the lord is rich in a territory, is it really rich? Maybe one day the lord moves away, and the land will be left with poverty and despair, and if the people in the realm can be rich, then how can the lord be poor with taxes?"

"How can a lord who has the people in his heart rebel or flee? They will also keep their lords in their hearts, and they will be happy to serve them. If he loses the support of the people, is the lord still a lord, or is he just a loner? Lords are prominent because of the support of the people, and they will fall because of the opposition of the people."

Elruth looked at Evan with some surprise, he had the impression that his son had been very smart since he was a child, and no matter what happened, he could tell all kinds of coping strategies in a calm or even somewhat indifferent tone, and he was rarely as emotional as he was now.

Elrus couldn't help but think of the conversation he had with Morse, the old butler, when Evan was seven years old.

The young Ellus asked Morse, who was still middle-aged, what he thought of his young son, who had been rumored in the realm to be the son of Satan, so he seemed so different that he should be tied to a firewood and burned to death.

Morse, the old butler, turned to look at Aven, who was meditating by the window, and told Ayrus that he thought that Aven had not met King Arthur's Merlin. If he can meet King Arthur, then Merlin will have the ability to disgrace everyone.

At that time, Ayrus was skeptical, but later, as some things developed, Aven did show amazing talent, which also made Aerus admire the old butler Morse's vision even more.

"But the problem now is that people are living in great difficulty, and I don't have much power to help them change." After losing his mind slightly, Ayrus decided to continue testing his son's abilities.

"Hull is surrounded by hills and very small cultivated areas, most of which are concentrated in the flat areas on both sides of the river valley, and in previous years, if there was too much rainfall, the fields would be washed away by the rushing river, which was not conducive to agriculture, so you can start in two directions."

"The first direction is to increase the area of cultivation, if I remember correctly, there are quite a few trees on the hilly slopes near Hull that have been cut down by the people, and only the stumps are left there, and maybe we can dig these places out by excavation, backfilling, and leveling to sort out some suitable places for farming. The second direction is to build a series of dikes and canals around the river to reduce the impact of the river on the surrounding embankments when the river is high."

Evan carefully considered his vocabulary and told his father some of the experiences of the later life as commonly as possible.

"I've heard an older farmer say that if you dig up the soil from the river and cover the fields with weeds, fallen leaves and dead branches from the previous year, and then plant wheat the next year, the yield will increase. In addition, the construction of new ridge canals around the wheat fields to send excess rainfall out of the fields in time can also increase yields."

"But these measures are just to feed the people. If you want to be rich, you have to deal with it from the perspective of trade." Evan looked at his father beside him, "I remember my father just said that people were allowed to hunt in the nearby hills to get food while farming. I thought my father might as well buy the skins and meat from the hunters at a reasonable price, and ship them to the city of London with the goods around the territory to sell, and at the same time buy the goods from the city of London back to the territory, so as to make more money. If all goes well, repeating this process will accumulate a certain amount of money. However, I am worried that there will be hunters who will go into the hills to hunt uncontrollably, so my father should strengthen his management and control the time and frequency of hunting."

"Finally, I remember when I went around the territory with my father, I noticed that almost every household had some chickens, sheep and other livestock. My suggestion is to gather all these animals together and divide them into one or two villages, and hire experienced people in the territory to take care of them. Finally, at the right time, some suitable livestock will be slaughtered and sold, and a portion of the money will be distributed to the people."

Seeing that Ellus looked a little confused, Aven patiently explained, hoping that his father would understand.

"The reason why people need to take out their livestock and manage and sell them in a unified way is because a single family cannot afford to lose money. In the simplest example, if a family has only three sheep and one dies of disease, it is not a huge loss."

"If there are three hundred sheep in the house, and one dies of sickness. Is that acceptable? Unified management and unified sales are not about taking advantage of the situation, but about reducing the risks that people may encounter in the future, and at the same time increasing their income."

Elrus listened to his son's explanation and nodded, but soon, he asked, "If this is the case, all the people in the territory will run to work as herdsmen or hunters, won't there be no one to farm, and everyone will starve to death by then."

Evan shook his head, saying that he wasn't worried about this at all.

"Father is too worried. Both hunters and herders are dangerous, and not everyone is willing to take on such dangers. Second, as long as appropriate laws are enacted, the people will still rely on farming as their main business, and herders and hunters as auxiliaries. Moreover, the foundation of commerce is agriculture, and without agriculture there will naturally be no commerce, and without commerce, agriculture has no future for development."

"Well, that sounds good, what else would you like to add." Elruth's heart grew happier, but his face remained expressionless.

"Yes. If the above scenario is to be realized, we need a strong army all the time. We can't guarantee that the other nobles have thoughts about us, so the army is very necessary. Of course, the army I speak of is not a rabble of improvised conscripts, but a well-trained elite."

"But there's no need to rush it, you can let the people do basic training in the winter first, Hull himself has a strong folk style, as long as a little training can have a good effect. When I have enough money and food, I will be able to raise an army that is strong enough, and then war will be the best chance for my father to be promoted."

Evan shook his fist, as if he saw that moment coming.

"Hahahaha, worthy of my son." Elruth laughed and patted Aven on the shoulder, and said in a deep voice, "Then all this will be left to you, I will stand behind you and be your backing, if there is any difficulty, tell me, I will help you find a way."

Ai Wen was stunned for a moment, but then nodded in agreement, and his heart was full of yearning for the future.

"Lord Baron, Lord Baron...... The Earl has an order, the Earl has an order!" A shout interrupted the conversation between father and son......