Soon after the Commodity Fair, the flour manufacturing industry ushered in an explosive development. Especially in areas not far from Haaland, the demand for white flour is unusually strong.

The case of the Malan Nisolan family is not unique. Many nobles not far from Haaland's territory once again placed orders for the Haaland Territory Flour Mill. Whether it is the government-run Greyson Flour Mill or the Salamander Flour Mill founded by Odaye, they have ushered in rapid development.

In order to provide sufficient supply, not only the two major flour mills worked overtime, but also the mechanical processing factories were busy, and several sets of steam flour mills were produced throughout the winter, and four new steam flour mills were built in the territory, half of which were privately owned.

In just over a month, more than 20,000 tons of white flour were exported, bringing Haaland a gross income of 120,000 gold coins, and a net profit of more than 70,000 gold coins. Nearly 30,000 tons of grain were consumed in a month, and in order to avoid a shortage of grain, Richard ordered the merchants in the territory to buy grain from other areas and transport it back to the territory to earn money for processing. This makes less money, but it's safer.

One day in early December, Bellman, deputy commander of the Lothar Basin garrison, personally climbed over the snow-capped mountains and rushed to Fort William to deliver urgent information.

Bellman is Sophia's distant cousin, and like Vito, he comes from the Stowe family, but his military exploits are not accumulated enough, and the family is not as prosperous as Vito, and he is still far from being knighted.

Bellman has also served the Haaland territory for more than ten years, and his talent is not outstanding, and he has only been promoted from a third-order warrior to a fifth-order warrior for more than ten years. Bellman's age is over fifty years old, and he has only accumulated two great merits and six medium merits over the years, even if he can serve the territory for twenty years, it is estimated that this generation will not be knighted.

Bellman, Vito, Soros and others are all from the aristocratic class, and their foundation is much better than that of commoner-born professionals, they have a family heirloom breathing method, they don't need to spend merit to exchange additional money, and their family background is far beyond Jennings and others, and they can buy some additional basic potions from the market, which is normally farther than the commoner class professionals.

The Lothar Basin is a key defense area of the Harland Territory, with a total of seventh, eighth, ninth, twelfth, twenty-first, and twenty-second infantry brigades, in addition to the first reconnaissance cavalry brigade, the sixth and eighth squadrons of magic hot air balloons, and the guard squadron is stationed around the Lothar Basin, plus two thousand auxiliaries and one thousand city defense troops, with a total strength of more than 13,000.

The Lothar Basin garrison was temporarily placed under the command of the Central Corps, with Richard as their direct commander.

The commander of this army, Richard, appointed Graeheim, who was the chief military judge of Haaland's domain. After Morgan retired and returned home to run the territory, he took over Morgan's position as the captain of the cavalry reconnaissance brigade, and after more than ten years of hard training, Graeheim's professional level has been promoted to the sixth rank.

Together with the 6,000 recruits who are about to complete their training this year, Haaland has led a regular army of nearly 50,000.

The more than 50,000 regular troops were reorganized into two and a half corps.

The Eastern Route Army was the Grotta Corps, and the corps commander was Soros, who was responsible for operations in the direction of the Grota River.

The Western Route Army was Richard's Central Army, which was responsible for operations from the Fort William area to the northern part of the Lothar Basin.

The Central Army was the weakest, with only half a corps, and its commander was Jennings, who was responsible for operations in the direction of Fort Nit and Fort Imm.

In addition, nearly 30,000 city defense troops, security forces, and auxiliaries operating trebuchets cooperated with the operation in three directions.

Hearing that Bellman had personally climbed over the snowy mountains, Richard thought to himself: "Could it be that the orcs chose to send troops in winter, this is too stupid." ”

Having doubts in his mind, Richard immediately met with Bellman.

Seeing Richard, Bellman saluted respectfully, solved Richard's doubts, and said directly: "Dear Duke, three days ago, the reconnaissance team reconnoitred in the western part of the salt lake in the basin and found a lot of undead creatures. Commander Graheim did not dare to slack off, and immediately blocked the news, and ordered me to climb over the snowy mountains and inform the Duke. ”

Hearing the news, Richard's face suddenly changed. The Dawn Plane was invaded by the Undead Lord in ancient times, and this invasion caused a lot of trouble for the Dawn Plane.

In order to master the Dawn plane, the undead lords opened up many dimensional passages in the two worlds, and left a lot of relics, which are very troublesome to deal with.

Richard had participated in the battle to block the passage of the Necronomicon plane more than ten years ago, and was almost robbed of his body by the lich, and he still didn't want to remember all this.

But after receiving information about the activities of the undead, Richard could not ignore it. The undead have been found in the realm, and it is his duty as a lord to rid him of this scourge.

When Richard received the news, he immediately went to the Dawn Cathedral south of Fort William and informed the Archbishop Homela Yana, who was in charge of the diocese of Haraland.

Homela Yana is a high-ranking clergyman who entered Haaland's territory last year, she is over 90 years old, and the priest rank is already 9th order, which is a relatively rare female archbishop.

The priest of the ninth order, placed in the headquarters of the Dawn Church, is also considered a high-level clergyman, which is rare. Seeing the gray-haired, wrinkled archbishop, Richard seemed to see a sense of holiness in her face.

Since Richard's promotion to the rank of Grand Noble, the Church of Dawn has continued to strengthen its power in Haraland's territory.

Although the clergy of the Church did not participate in the battles of the secular aristocracy, they now rarely go to the front. However, their magical powers can be used to save the wounded in large quantities.

In general, a ducal diocese has roughly one high priest and two or three hundred clergy.

It's just that most of these clergy are warriors, knights, priests, and magicians with a total of only more than 30 people, and there are only about 60 people including apprentices.

These clergy, scattered across six counties, a dozen counties, were required to run nine churches. Normally, there are only two or three legal clergy in the Dawn Church in a county. In some border counties, even the Dawn Church has not been built.

After meeting with Archbishop Woomela, Richard asked Bellman to recount the information he had detected. Hearing the news of the appearance of the undead creatures, Archbishop Homela also attached great importance to it, and personally wrote a letter to the Archbishop Senna of the Diocese of the Kingdom of Grant to explain the situation, and then began to transfer personnel from the Diocese of Harland.

The current climate has long since been closed by heavy snowfall, and if you want to go to the western part of the Lothar salt lake, you need to go into the mountains in winter.

It is far more dangerous to enter the mountains in winter than in summer, and ordinary soldiers are physically weak and cannot enter the mountains in winter, so this operation can only be carried out by sending elite soldiers and strong generals, and finally it was decided to send the first squadron and sixty iron wildebeest horses into the mountains together. The Haaland Territory Mage Association also has to send a backbone to participate in the war.

The Lion Cavalry drew a squad and fought with the main force. The Wyvern squad was unable to participate in this operation due to the need for hibernation.

The vassals of Haaland's territory also have to draw elites to participate in the war, and high-level professionals such as Viscount Bolton, Baron Vito, Baron Grumman, Baron Vader, and Baron Sharp cannot stay out of the matter and have to participate in the action.

Richard prepared for three days, and when it was the eighth day of December, he led his team to start climbing over the snowy mountains.

Because of the Starlight Bottle and the Legendary Space Bag, the team carried a large amount of supplies, and more than thirty tons of coal alone. There is sufficient logistical support, even if the climate is very cold, the team has not been attritional.

After crossing the Eagle Mountains, a large number of brick houses began to appear.

Haaland has been controlling the Lothar Basin for two and a half years, because the Lothar Basin is rich in resources, not only a large amount of farmland, but also silver mines, magic crystal mines, and the strategic location is also very important, which is the focus of the territory's financial investment.

In two and a half years, a large number of new industries were built in the Lothar Basin, and Rogge transferred a large number of people from the Fort William area to build brick kilns, white ash kilns, and glass kilns in the Lothar Basin. And set up a simple rolling mill, steam engine maintenance station, two and a half years have been a lot of construction, because the Lotsa Basin is densely populated, built a large number of brick houses, the simple thatched huts used to live, the nests have been eliminated and replaced, even the wooden houses are pitiful.

Last spring, the Harland Territory Mineral Exploration Department made a new discovery, the discovery of a second coal mine in the eastern region of the Lothar Basin, which began to be put into production in small quantities last autumn, and this year because of the use of steam engines, the production of the pit has been considerable, and the annual coal production has exceeded 20,000 tons.

Construction of a second shaft will begin this year, which will be commissioned in October, and next year the mine will produce more than 50,000 tons of coal. With the gradual commissioning of Shaft 3 and 4, the mine will be able to produce 150,000 tons in three years, just less than the coal mines near Fort William.

With the successful development of the eastern coal mine in the Lothar Basin, the territory's coal production will be close to 400,000 tons. The income from coal mining will also become more and more considerable.

Richard led his party westward, through the frozen salt lake, to the spot where the undead had been found.

Richard sent scouts to reconnoiter for most of the day, but found nothing.

"What about the scouts who found the undead?" Richard turned his head and asked Graeheim.

"I sent three groups of scouts, except for the first group of scouts who successfully returned, the next two groups of people were all missing. Because the information was not clear, I did not continue to send manpower. ”

Archbishop Holmela brushed aside the guards on both sides and walked to the front, only to see her point with both hands, releasing a powerful magic to detect negative energy. In an instant, a holy white light suddenly appeared, and the white light sprinkled on the ground in a large area, and a gray smoke came out in an instant.

The smoke drifted slowly into the distance, gradually gathering at a spot five kilometers away.

Archbishop Holmela is old and frail, she needs to be carried on a horse all the way, she wears a thick leather coat to keep warm, she looks like a candle in her old age, but the magic in her body is very powerful, although it is a ring of magic, the power of detecting negative energy in her hands is extraordinary.

"The negative energy is gathered in this area, and it is buffered and resolved by special methods, and a high-level magic array must be arranged a few hundred meters nearby, everyone must look carefully and dig carefully."

Under the careful advice of Archbishop Homera, everyone took the negative energy gathering core as the center, carefully searched within a radius of 500 meters, and soon made a big discovery.

With the negative energy converging core as the center, he found six giant stones dug up within a few hundred meters nearby, these stones are about seven or eight meters high, and they have already been buried in the ground, and it is basically difficult to find them if it is not for the energy detection magic.

The boulder is black all over, and the material is very hard, which is a common second-order transcendent material obsidian on the market.

The price of obsidian is not high, only a few gold coins per kilogram, which is slightly more expensive than oralex.

But the six giant obsidian pillars add up to more than a few hundred tons, and the value is probably more than a million. However, such a large amount of obsidian on the market will greatly affect the selling price, and I am afraid that in the short term, obsidian will also become worthless in the area near the Grant Kingdom.

In general, obsidian is usually used to make magic mirrors, which can be used as mirrors and can also attach a two-ring positive energy spell to the mirror. I heard that at the headquarters of the Church of the God of Light, a large amount of obsidian is used as floor tiles.

With the discovery of such a huge amount of obsidian, the Haaland Mage Association will not lack this material for hundreds of years, and the second-order magic mirror Haaland Mage Guild can handle everyone.

The six obsidian stone pillars are just hexagonal, and it is estimated that there are special energy pipes connected to the bottom of the stone pillars, forming a special magic array that traps the undead in a special environment.

There were more than 200 soldiers under Richard's command, all of whom were powerful professionals, and they had been busy for two or three days, and most of the ruins had been dug up.

This area is a battlefield in ancient times, where the Lord of the Dead used a powerful forbidden spell to transform the dead into a large army of kings, forming a large cemetery.

After the end of the Great War of the Ancients, the surviving human mages organized a magic circle to seal off the large cemetery.

As time passed, the magic array gradually became damaged, and it was no longer possible to seal all the undead, and a small number of undead began to infiltrate the outside.

Just as everyone continued to dig, suddenly several powerful explosions echoed around the area.

A large amount of earth was lifted, and a huge cavern appeared in the ruins.

Haaland led the 1st Squadron, which was an all-professional elite infantryman, and immediately gave up the excavation work at hand after hearing the explosion, and quickly assembled to protect the magician behind.

Richard squinted his eyes and found a large number of undead in the underground cavern, which was seventeen or eighteen meters wide in diameter, like a highway tunnel that Richard had seen in his previous life. At the entrance to the cave is a large white crystal coffin, which emits a curtain of light that blocks the army of the undead inside the cave.

More than a dozen lichs and vampires unleashed a barrage of negative energy spells that slammed into the magical bans in the ruins area. It seems that the lockdown ban has been a bit shaky and cannot be stopped for too long.

Holmela looked at the sky and saw that the sun had set in the west, not far from getting dark.

Richard stared at the undead behind the light curtain and thought secretly.

"Once it gets dark, the negative energy becomes more active, the power of the undead becomes stronger, and the power of the forbidden becomes weaker. I'm afraid these undead will be able to break through the barrier of the ban. ”

(End of chapter)