The first stop on Richard's tour was the brick kiln village.

The Brick Kiln Village was the first gathering point established in the Harland Domain, and its history here predates Fort William by two months.

During the development of the territory more than ten years ago, Richard basically lived in the brick kiln village, and at that time, his second uncle Powell was responsible for the construction of Fort William, and Richard was responsible for building the brick kiln, and led the indentured slaves to reclaim the farmland. In a tent set up in a brick kiln village, Richard lived for several months.

At that time, he took the first batch of indentured slaves from a barren land, and established a foundation.

After more than ten years of development, the village with a population of only 1,000 people has now naturally multiplied to 2,000.

As the population increases, of course, the fields must be divided.

Today, there is not much wasteland left in the vicinity of the brick kiln village, and children born in the last three years are no longer able to share the land.

The decree of Haaland's domain stipulates that the eldest son inherits his parents' land and property.

The second son and second daughter who can't get the farmland can't get the land, if they don't want to bear the white eyes of their brother and sister-in-law when they become adults, and they can't find a job in the city, they can only choose to open up the land in the border and barren areas to have the opportunity to divide the land.

In recent years, the development of brick kiln factories has not been fast or slow.

Today, there are three brick kilns in Haaland's territory, in addition to the Bobby brick kiln factory, there are also the Soldier Station Fort brick kiln factory, and the Graveson brick kiln factory.

The territory near the Bobby brick kiln factory has been developed and the infrastructure is largely completed.

The main business of the Bobby brick kiln factory has shifted to the civilian side.

It has been eight years since the first indentured slaves in Haaland's territory became freedmen, and they have accumulated a lot of money. Their children have grown up, and when they reach the age of marriage, the demand for private housing is stronger.

In the early years, the Bobby brick kiln factory was the focus of Richard's attention, and he even had to personally mediate the internal disputes of the brick kiln factory, and now the report of this brick kiln factory does not even appear on Richard's desk, and it has become a small enterprise whose territory is not particularly important.

Richard walked around the village and found that the brick kiln village had grown much larger and the new houses were better built.

He picked a few random homes, went in and looked at them, and finally came to Robinson's house.

Counting this time, Richard had already been to Robinson's house three times.

Robinson's yard is still the same, looking a little older than it was a few years ago.

Robinson's eldest son, Sora, is married, built a new house and moved out of the yard, and the second son joined the army this year and has not yet completed recruit training. The young children have also grown up a lot, and they are already half laborers, and they can help the family.

"How many people do you have in your family now, how many acres of land?"

"Celia's father-in-law passed away last year, Sora and Lina got married and lived separately, and I have had two more children with Celia in the past few years, and now our family is still a family of nine people and 35 acres of land."

"I remember you used to have forty-five acres of land."

"You're right, Lord Richard. When Sola split the family, he took away his share of five acres of land, and last year his grandfather died, leaving five acres of land for Sola to inherit, and now our family only has 35 acres of land. ”

Richard knew in his heart that halfway couples like Robinson and Celia were more common in the territory. In such families, the inheritance of property is often more complicated.

According to the laws of Haaland's domain, Sola would inherit the property of his grandparents, his mother.

Robinson's estate, which was left to his eldest son. The remaining children can only inherit some of the money left by their parents.

Haaland's territory has been divided among indentured slaves for eight years, and in the past eight years, some of the old people who were assigned land have passed away one after another, and the fields they have been allocated are often inherited by their direct descendants. With the continuous birth of newborns, the per capita cultivated land area has gradually decreased, and now the brick kiln village has become a situation of more people and less land.

"How has your life been in the last few years?"

"Thanks to the blessing of the goddess of the dawn, there has been no famine in recent years, except for the year or two when Sora got married and built a house, life was a little harder, and life can go on."

Hearing that Robinson was doing well, Richard smiled and said, "Can you tell me how much money you have now?" ”

In ordinary territories, the lords did not dare to tell the noble lords how much money they had.

Because the noble lords will extort and extort all the gold and silver coins in their territories, they are eager to collect all the gold and silver coins in their own coffers.

Ordinary people have a few gold coins in their hands, and they will hide them tightly, for fear that others will know that they have pink eye and report it to the tax collectors of the lord's mansion, which will attract tax increases or robberies from the noble lords.

However, Haaland's territory was different, not only to give the serfs houses and fields, but also to set a relatively low tax. Aside from one increase in the property tax in the past eight years, the agricultural tax has hardly changed.

Almost all freedmen thought that Richard was a benevolent lord.

Richard's question made Luo Bingxun have some doubts in his heart, he didn't want people to know how many gold coins he had saved, but he didn't want to deceive Richard. He looked at the village cadres around Richard, and his face showed a little embarrassment.

"Why, can't you say? Don't be afraid, if someone raises taxes and levies more, you can go to Fort William to complain to me, and I will come to see you in the brick kiln village. ”

Richard said as he wrote a letter and handed it to Robinson. "With this letter from me, you can come to Fort William to find me at any time, and neither the city guards nor anyone else will dare to stop you." ”

"It's a little hard to say, Lord Richard! I have now saved twenty-six gold coins and sixteen silver coins in my family, which is a great fortune. ”

Hearing this, Richard laughed heartily and said, "It seems that in recent years, your life has been good. A sum of money has been saved, this money, what are you going to do. ”

"My child Danon is thirteen years old, and I plan to use the money to build him a house and marry a wife to inherit the family business. The rest will be distributed to a few young children, so that they can go to other places and live a decent life. ”

"Robinson, didn't you send the kids to school? Now the tuition fee has been reduced to three silver coins a year, and according to your income, you should be able to afford it. ”

"Master Richard, although the tuition fees have been reduced, it is very expensive for the children to live in Fort William. I can do a little carpentry work, and the children follow me to learn carpentering, farming, stacking bricks, and firing kilns without spending money. ”

Seeing that Robinson was thinking like this, Richard sighed, ordinary freedmen, are indeed very short-sighted.

Richard took the initiative to shake Robinson's hand, left his yard, and went to look at other people's homes. After eight years of accumulation, the brick kiln village has generally developed very well, and most of the hard-working free people have saved a sum of money.

Coming out of the brick kiln village, Richard and his entourage entered the Bobbi brick kiln factory, he came directly to the factory director's office, and said to Bobbi, Leiden and others, take out the accounts of the brick kiln factory last year and let me take a look.

Layton hurriedly moved the ledger out, and a few young attendants stood behind Richard and began to examine the ledger carefully.

These young entourage, who graduated from Riverbank Primary School, were also the first auditors of the territory.

The authority of these people is not small, and in recent days a number of corrupt people have been screened.

After reading all the account books, Richard frowned and said seriously: "The management has spent too much on benefits, and the profit margin has decreased a little compared to last year, if these still can't be changed next year, you can go home and hold the children."

I am here to tell you in all seriousness, I hope you will not be greedy. Your salary package is already very good, and it is a world of difference from your status ten years ago. You have to cherish the good days you have now, and I don't want your names to be written on the list of executions in the future. ”

The laws of Haaland's territory were strict, and Richard did not need to compromise with the bureaucracy, as long as he embezzled more than ten gold coins, he would be sentenced to death immediately, and his immediate family members could not join the army, go to school, or become an official within three generations.

But there is always greed in the hearts of people, and despite the good treatment of the bureaucracy and the strict laws and regulations, it still cannot stop the greed of the bureaucracy.

Peeling the skin and grass at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty did not stop officials from embezzling, and Richard could not do this either. No system can stop human greed, unless artificial intelligence is realized, and humans take the initiative to cede power and let robots without desire govern everything.

Now that the population of the territory is still small and the area is small, Richard is more diligent in patrolling and can suppress corruption.

In the following years, the territory expanded, with a population of more than one million, and it is estimated that the territory of Haaland, like the rest of the kingdom of Grant, is full of corrupt officials.

This year, Richard plans to set up a discipline inspection department, train personnel in advance, and appoint Hayden as the chief inspector of the territory, taking on a job similar to that of Inspector Yushi, so as to reduce some of Richard's work pressure.

The intelligence service was ready to appoint William's aide-de-camp Knoll to manage.

Hayden had been in charge of the territory's intelligence department for more than a decade, and this kind of work was not suitable for a single person to manage for a long time. If the management intelligence work is too long, forming a closed mountain, it is not too big or too small for the lord to be a trouble.

Hayden is the elder brother of Richard's mother, and if Richard wants to attack and purge the intelligence department in the future, with Hayden in the front, it will be more troublesome to deal with.

The intelligence department has a lot of authority and has many secrets of the territory, and it is not very safe to hand it over to outsiders Richard, and the only person who can replace Hayden is a member of the Haaland family.

Richard was preparing to train Lady Ola's eldest son, George, who had been Hayden's lieutenant for a year, but let him be in charge of territorial intelligence, which was difficult for him to afford with his current ability and experience.

Now the intelligence department of Haaland's territory is already very large, with more than 3,000 operational, intelligence, logistics, administrative and other personnel.

Intelligence work has its complexity, peculiarities, and it is better to transfer officers from within the system.

Knoll is a distant member of the Haaland family and is William's aide-de-camp, overseeing part of the military intelligence work.

The most important thing is that part of the intelligence force in the hands of Lady Ola and Gibson's butler has been handed over to Noll, and he has managed it very well in the last year or two, and there have been no mistakes.

The intelligence force of the Haaland family has always been divided into two aspects, the first is the territorial intelligence system, which has always been under the management of Hayden.

The other system was developed from the commercial system in the hands of the Olas. After more than ten years of operation by William and Mrs. Ola, the strength of this intelligence system is also very considerable.

Through commercial infiltration, this system has penetrated into all aspects of Heihe Fort.

Some nobles in Geda Province have intelligence officers of this system. They were cooks, winemakers, florists, goldsmiths, maids, attendants, accountants, etc., and they were placed in the noble mansions through various channels.

The two intelligence systems do not interfere with each other and cooperate with little to no cooperation.

The reason why Richard wrote to William to transfer Knorr to the position of general intelligence officer of the territory was obviously an intention to merge the two systems.

William agreed to Richard's request, apparently agreeing with Richard's idea.

The intelligence work of the Haaland territory is divided into three aspects: military intelligence, internal intelligence, and foreign intelligence. Ruiz was in charge of military intelligence, Luciano was in charge of internal intelligence, and Virtus was appointed as a director of external intelligence.

Now Knorr has been transferred to the position of General Intelligence Officer of the Harland Territory, and George remains Knorr's adjutant.

Now Richard has many assistants at work, and the front-line work is basically handed over to the assistants now. Richard was only responsible for the overall situation, inspecting the territory and severely punishing corrupt officials.

Of course, after the end of the battle this year, Richard's most important job is actually the training of new recruits.

After May, Haaland's territory began to recruit 4,000 recruits and began training recruits.

The recruit training cycle in Haaland's territory is one year.

The first three months are pre-training for discipline obedience, internal regulations, and literacy for recruits.

After three months, the recruits adapted to the life of the barracks, began to learn breathing, trained in the use of equipment, and began training in archery, marksmanship, swordsmanship, horseback riding, bomb throwing, fighting and other subjects.

Of course, the training of the queue is the most important, from the day when you just enter the barracks to the day you retire from active service, you almost have to practice fighting in formation.

The most important task of a soldier is to remember his position in the array.

Whether it's in normal training or fighting, we must never forget this at all times.

If you lose your position on the battlefield, according to military law, you can enforce battlefield discipline and be directly beheaded.

Only when you are familiar with your position and accumulate training over time have formed a general memory of conditioned reflexes, and when you encounter war, you can form a tight formation and not panic.

In the face of all kinds of sudden situations, you can change the formation, draw teams and join teams at will, and deal with battles in different directions.

In the training of the army, the formation is the most important subject, and the second most important subject is the formation.

Recruits' training, formation and archery are trained almost every day.

After a year, the soldiers who have completed the recruit training must at least be able to form formations and shoot arrows, and only by mastering these two most important skills can they integrate into the army and fight with veterans.

The army in Haaland's territory is well fed, and the logistics supply standard for each soldier is three gold coins per year.

Weapons and armor are provided by the province and are calculated with additional allocations.

Two single clothes and one cotton coat cost six silver coins a year, and the remaining two gold coins and six silver coins were used to feed the soldiers.

Each soldier received three catties of rations a day, half a catty of meat, and two catties of brown sugar a month. Only with good material support can high-intensity training be carried out.

If there is not enough food and clothing, and there is no adequate material support, the soldiers will have to urinate blood for several days of high-intensity training.

Now the recruits have been training for months.

After a few months of training, the recruits gradually have the temperament of some veterans and look much stronger, but soldiers who have never seen blood are always recruits, and they are useless. Only by integrating the recruits into the veterans, allowing the veterans to see blood a few times and fight a few battles, can the transformation of identity be completed.

Richard paid close attention to the training of recruits, and would often come down to inspect and talk to the recruits to complete the training together.

Therefore, the logistics officials do not dare to make a fool of themselves in this regard, and the material support has always been very sufficient, and there will never be a shortage.

(End of chapter)