Gervais didn't pay any attention to Benny, and was the first to walk into the door of the inner fort, and when Gervais stepped into the inner castle, he was gently supported by a gust of cool breeze, and felt that all the heat on his body was blown away by the cool breeze of Xixi.

He walked around the inner castle at will, especially the third floor where he lived, and all the interior was still intact and had not been damaged in the orc invasion that year, and he was very satisfied with the internal situation.

Later, Gervais withdrew from the inner fort. Because there are no people living in it yet, I need to find someone to clean it again.

The matter was assigned to Thomas, who, accompanied by Benny, went to the town, recruited 20 serfs, and began to clean inside and outside the castle.

As a noble lord, Gervais is much more leisurely, he is standing on the wall of the castle at the moment, overlooking the mountain, the small hill where the castle is located is already the only commanding height nearby, although it is only a few tens of meters, but standing on the castle overlooking the earth.

Gervais really has a feeling of seeing the mountains at a glance, especially in this world, which is so sparsely populated that it has very little damage to the natural world. The sky is blue and clear, and it doesn't feel hazy when you see it from a distance like on Earth.

The town is already small, and when viewed from the city walls, it looks like a lonely boat in the green sea compared to the boundless green vegetation.

While overlooking the land, Gervais kept thinking about how he should build and develop his own territory, his territory is indeed not small, comparable to the viscount's territory, but the population is too scarce, only more than 2,000 people.

Moreover, there were 2,000 impoverished serfs, and Gervais believed that if the heavens were a little less beautiful, and the crops would be lost in one quarter, ninety-nine percent of the serfs in the territory would starve to death!

The two thousand serfs survived entirely on the most primitive cultivated crops, which meant that even if these people could have a good harvest every year, Gervais's taxes would always be fixed. Unless the population cornerstone expands, as Gandalf said, to expand the population and clear the wasteland, he will get more tax revenues.

However, there is a dead knot in this that cannot be separated, the reason why there are so few people in this territory is because of the invasion of the orc army in the winter season, and the main food crops here can only be cultivated once a year, and the harvest is halved.

If you cultivate the second crop, the crops will only mature in the winter season, but by then the orc invasion has come, and even if the crops are ripe, they will only be rations for the orcs. The second is that the invasion of the orcs has made people feel that the territory has become unsafe, and people feel that their lives are threatened, so they have to leave here.

If this problem is not solved, Gervais will never be able to recruit a large number of serfs. Where is not farming, why should you come to such a dangerous place to become a serf.

In this world, serfs are roughly divided into two sources, one of which is that they were looted and sold in war. The second is that freedmen voluntarily renounced their status to join the serf trade.

Incredibly, the second way was the main source of serfs recruited by the lords.

The first is easy to understand, population is also a resource in this world, and there are often many surrendered soldiers in the war, as well as the people of the enemy country affected by the war, after they are captured, they will be plundered, or sold as slaves, or become serfs.

As for the second type, there are actually many freemen who are not much better off than serfs, although serfs have always belonged to the group exploited by the nobles, but in times of danger, they will be protected by their own lords, because they are the private property of the lords.

But the freedmen are different, they have nothing to do with the lords, and when they are in danger, if they want to find the help of the lords, they have to pay a high fee, otherwise they don't have to talk.

For example, if the crops fail and the serfs are about to starve to death, the lord will definitely find a way to rescue the serfs as soon as possible. But if you are a freeman, unless you give up your identity and become a serf of the lords, you can only wait to starve to death.

Freedmen living in big cities are better, if they live in the countryside, unless they have a large piece of land, otherwise life will only become more and more difficult, because everything in the territory, even a small grass, belongs to the lords, and becoming a serf seems to have abandoned freedom, but as long as you work hard, you can make a living. Therefore, there are still many free people who can no longer live, and they become serfs under the temptation of the land.

After becoming serfs, in addition to farming, they could also dig wild vegetables, pick wild fruits, and hunt in their territory at will, which was generally not forbidden by the lords. As long as the required taxes can be paid every year, the lords are still very 'friendly' to their serfs.

Gervais's territory is now the equivalent of a dilapidated company on the verge of collapse, and it is impossible to find a large number of employees to work for him if there is nothing special. After all, your treatment is the same as other companies, but there is a risk of bankruptcy, as long as there is no pit in the head, he will definitely not be selected, and you can get the same benefits in other stable places, and no one will be stupid.

The more he thought about it, the more headache he felt, Gervais fortunately got off the city wall, not thinking, now he has just come to the territory, and his ass has not yet sat on the hot breath, so he can think about it in the long run.

When they got to the clearing, Jimmy was roasting two chickens, the same two chickens that Benny had caught.

Benny tells Thomas that both chickens were bought with money in the country and now wants to honor Lord Gervais. Thomas was worried that his baron's lunch had not been found, and of course he took two chickens without thinking about it.

When Gervais found out, he didn't believe Benny's words, whether others believed them or not, but he took the chicken, because he had eaten dry food for two days, and he missed the hot food very much.

The situation in the town, it is estimated that even if you have money, you will not be able to get good ingredients for a while, eat these two chickens first, and then send Thomas to the town in the afternoon to see if there are any good things to buy, as for Benny's affairs, tomorrow still needs to be understood.

He had already planned that he would need to interrogate all ten guards separately tomorrow, especially the seven, and Gervais felt that the information he could get from them would definitely be more accurate than that of Benny and his doglegs.

Only by ensuring that the people around him are reliable, can he develop his territory with peace of mind and his personal safety can be guaranteed.

Thomas and Jimmy were sent to him by Alice, so they should be trusted, even if the two could be Alice's spies, Gervais doesn't care, because the only thing he needs to keep secret from others at the moment is Goldfinger.

Goldfinger Panel Gervais tested it when he was at Baron Gandalf's Fort when he opened the panel in front of the servant, but found that the servant was unaware of the existence of the panel, so he only had to hide it when using the reward, so he did not risk exposing Goldfinger.

And the three guards who came with him were his father's most trusted subordinates, and he didn't have to worry about loyalty. Now he only needs to clear the Viscount Castle, the unscrupulous among the ten guards.

……

Twenty serfs worked very hard, although some places have not been cleaned yet, but the areas belonging to Gervais's bedroom, study and other aristocratic lords' activities have basically been cleaned and cleaned.

There are only a few things that have not been cleaned, that is, those areas that are not currently used, and it is not too late to clean them tomorrow, such as guest rooms for guests, and some storage rooms.

What Gervais didn't know was that it was for this reason that Benny escaped for the time being.

When it was getting dark, Thomas dismissed eighteen of the serfs, gave each of them three coppers, as Gervais had ordered, and sent them back to the town of the Marina amid the incessant praise of the Baron.

Originally, according to Thomas's own ideas, there was no need to give so much money, because these serfs belonged to Gervais, and occasionally did some work for their noble lords, and they had to collect so much money, which was definitely to be hung on the town square as a flag for everyone to see, to warn those serfs whose ideological consciousness was not high enough.

Eighteen serfs took the copper and left happily, while the other two young serfs were temporarily left behind by Thomas after consulting Gervais.

They will continue to clean the rest of the uncleaned areas, and even after they do, they can temporarily serve as servants in the castle.

When Gervais came, he didn't bring any extra people except for the five of them. If you recruit male and female servants, you will not be able to do it until the day after tomorrow. Therefore, the two serfs were favored by Thomas, and during these few days, they temporarily served as servants in the castle.

……

Dinner can already be eaten in the Inner Fort restaurant, after the castle was breached by the orcs, the orcs just killed everyone in the castle, took all the gold and food, and were not interested in furniture or those works of art, so they kept a lot.

The valuable works of art have been taken away by the Count, and these remaining tables, chairs and benches, which the Count does not look down on, are still left in the castle.

The furniture used by the viscount was, of course, made of fine wood, and although the earl was not eye-catching, it was not ordinary, and it had been placed for decades, scrubbed, and still remained as it had been, and had not decayed over time, or had been eaten by insects and ants.

The remnants of the castle were a small leak for Gervais, and even if a third of the furniture was damaged back then, the two-thirds of the furniture that was preserved was worth a lot of money.

Just like the long table in the dining room, not only is the material very good, but also the workmanship is very fine, and there are many patterns of knights carved on each leg. Compared to such a table, the table in Gandalf's dining room is literally a civilian version of the table.

The food at night is no longer just barbecue, and the chef Jimmy is certainly not only barbecue, but the first two days are limited by the ingredients, so he can only eat it on the grill.

This afternoon, Gervais gave Thomas a gold coin and put him in charge of going to the town to buy much-needed supplies. Food was paramount, and they set out from Gandalf's castle and traveled lightly, bringing only enough dry food and a few sets of change of clothes, and nothing else.

Gervais's money was still given to him by Gandalf before leaving, in addition to the supplies that would be sent over in a while, Gandalf also gave Gervais twenty gold coins, which was not a small amount for Gandalf, who had just been hollowed out of his old bottom because of the purchase of the royal blue elf worm.

With these twenty gold coins, Gervais's current predicament has been greatly alleviated.