After withdrawing from the orc savannah, Richard hoarded his army on the edge of the northern prairie.

At the time of the retreat, Richard considered taking Priland and expanding the border of Harland to the north of the Priland region. But after careful consideration, this plan was abandoned.

The power of the Orc Royal Court is very large, and the orcs in the Priland region have suffered heavy losses, and they can get direct support from the Steppe Front and even the Orc Royal Court.

Although the Duke of Harland is developing rapidly, it is a strong ant compared to the huge Orc Empire, and the Orc Empire only needs to focus a little on this area and send three or five legends to lead a few elite legions to break through the defense line of the Duke of Haaland.

Having occupied the Priland region, the Steppe Governorate will certainly not give up and will definitely mobilize elite troops to fight against Harland in the future. At that time, it will be difficult for Richard to get reinforcements from the Kingdom of Grant, the Divine Radiance Empire.

Although the conditions in the Priland area are very good, tens of millions of acres of cultivated land have been developed, and a system of ditches and reservoirs has been built, occupying this area is equivalent to having the foundation of the king, Richard still decisively gave up this poisonous foundation.

A very important reason why Haaland's territory can develop so far is that Richard is not greedy.

Abandoning the Priland region, Harland's territory continued to expand hundreds of kilometers to the north, pushing the border to the northern border of the Eagle Mountains and the northern steppes.

At the level of the Duke of the Frontier, the territory has been expanded mainly on its own. Although nominally, the territory won in this battle nominally belonged to the royal family, and the Haaland family could get a maximum of one-third to one-half.

But in order for the royal family to truly control this tens of thousands of square kilometers of land, it must station a large army on it in order to develop the land, collect taxes, and have control.

The royal family's garrison in this territory is equivalent to shouldering the pressure of defending against the orcs, as long as Roger's kingdom is not a fool, of course it is unwilling to do so.

In recent years, with the rise of the Haaland family, the royal family has continued to transfer the Central Army to the south, bent on developing in the south, and naturally does not want to invest more forces in the north.

The border extends more than 100 kilometers to the north, which is equivalent to the expansion of more than 50,000 square kilometers of Haaland's territory, which stretches from the northern foothills of the Eagle Mountains to the northern steppes.

In the north of several mountain roads, there are more than a dozen grain and military stations.

Controlling these stations is equivalent to reducing the amount of work to build fortifications, and will undoubtedly greatly reduce the consumption of Haaland's logistical resources.

After Richard withdrew, he stationed 40,000 regular troops and 20,000 auxiliaries in more than a dozen military stations in the northern part of the Eagle Mountains. With more than a dozen military stations as the core, a new line of defense was arranged.

Defending the military stations along the line is equivalent to holding the natural defense line of the Eagle Mountain Range.

Among the fourteen military stations, Richard arranged for all elite soldiers to be stationed, and Soros, Jennings, Roman, Wilde, Lostster and others were all responsible for a section of the defense line.

In this battle of the orc invasion, Sutton's detachment made outstanding achievements, and its combat exploits ranked first among the generals, and the detachment leader Sutton became famous, and the elves of the department once again made ten great achievements, and were awarded a barony, and the territory was expanded.

Sutton's officers, such as Wilde, the leader of the Witcher squadron, Levine, the leader of the first squadron of the first brigade, and Langton, the leader of the special squadron, have all made great achievements and have become famous in the army. Richard could also justifiably promote Wilde to an important position, commanding five infantry battalions and guarding the eleventh and twelfth military stations.

The feats of Levin and Martin are enough to be knighted.

In addition to Martin, the captain of the second brigade, Lost, was very lucky, and successfully killed a wounded eighth-order orc deputy legion, made a major feat, and was knighted together with Martin.

The two baronies of Martin and Llustester are located in the north of the Double Star Castle, the Barony of Martin is in the east of the Barony of Vito, and the Barony of Lloester is located in the north of the Barony of Martin, which is connected to the elven territory of Viscountate Bolton.

Martin and Lossster are all poor people, and they have less capital to start their territory than William.

They don't have a wife who is good at running a business, and they have only saved a small amount of money in recent years, and their family lives completely on military salaries, and they are not good at saving money for many years.

Although as officers above the rank of captain of the group, they had a lot of legal income every year, and they had less than a thousand gold coins in their hands over the years.

One thousand gold coins can only buy two hundred serfs, which also includes half of the old and young, with such a foundation, it is impossible to develop the territory without thirty years of operation.

Fortunately, the external situation is very good now, and their territories are all in the south of the defense line of the military station, which is relatively safe.

For these old subordinates, Richard personally borrowed 500 gold coins, and the Duke's Bank also issued a low-interest loan of 1,000 gold coins, but it was still a drop in the bucket to run a barony with two or three thousand gold coins.

In the end, Richard gave them the idea to contribute their children and borrow money from a wealthy businessman.

After more than ten years of development, there are many rich people and first-generation capitalists in Haaland's territory, although these people are rich and have a relatively low political status, they have always had the intention to expand their contacts to the upper class.

However, although the Duke of Haaland is politically enlightened, it is a feudal royal system like the Kingdom of Grant, and it has no military merits or titles, so it cannot enter the upper echelons of the territory at all. can marry with the first generation of military nobles, and the rich and capitalists will also feel a little safe.

Fortunately, Martin and Lossster had many children, and they could marry different capitalists and rich men, and each in-law borrowed a few hundred gold coins, plus the low-interest loans provided by the Duke Bank, and finally bought seven or eight hundred people from the slave market and started a business with difficulty.

Because of the poor family foundation, Martin and Loster stayed in Haaland's army to fight for Richard in order to make money, and the management of the territory was temporarily handed over to his wife and children.

In addition to Martin and Loster, Jennings is also not far from being knighted.

In this battle, Jenning first commanded half of the legionnaires, defended the castle of Nit, and then commanded the Marcus department, annihilated the four brigades of the orcs, accumulated two great merits, six medium merits, and more than nine merits, not far from being knighted.

After this year, the Duke of Haaland already knelt down with thirteen vassals, including one viscount and twelve barons.

Compared with the royal family and the Grand Duke of Starnik, the aristocratic coalition army commanded by Richard is still far behind.

After the army returned, the freed slaves were registered and distributed to different regions. This time he entered the north to fight, and rescued 260,000 slaves, including about 20,000 artisan slaves who had mastered certain skills.

Of course, the artisan slave Richard would have been detained in advance and kept in the territory. Most of the craftsmen of this group were very average in skill, most of them were carpenters, stonemasons, masons, blacksmiths, and masons who were not worth much in the slave market, but were only a little more expensive than male slaves in the prime of life.

The more precious is the veterinarian, there are a lot of livestock in the northern steppe, and the veterinarian is a precious resource of the orc tribe. The territory of Haaland was only in the battle station, and the orc tribe was completely annihilated, and only a few were captured.

After deducting 20,000 slaves, 30,000 of the population was to be distributed to the other hereditary barons.

It includes not only the vassals of Haaland's domain, but also the nobles of the province of Geda, such as Baron Sharp, Viscount Rohman, and so on. Although 30,000 people are a lot, each family can only be divided into a few hundred or 1,000.

The total amount of gold coins captured in the Orc Empire exceeded hundreds of thousands, and in addition to the rewards given to the soldiers, these gold coins were distributed to the nobles.

It is not easy to fight against the Orc Empire, to stabilize the defense line and prevent the Orcs from harming the territory, and it is generally very difficult to make meritorious deeds and obtain material supplements.

Only by entering the hinterland of the Orc Empire can you make more or less of it.

Entering May, the kingdom of Grant had won a complete victory in this war, but the southern territories were in trouble.

Soon after the orc invasion, the Kingdom of Delong and the United Kingdom of the East Coast took the opportunity to launch an offensive war together.

Fortunately, the Kingdom of Grant has five central legions in the three southern provinces, as well as the two major dukes of Guise and Duran to help in the war, hoarding 150,000 heavy troops, plus the southern aristocratic coalition led by Count Steven, the total strength is as high as 180,000.

Although King Roger did not appoint the commander-in-chief of the southern garrison, William was an old subordinate of Zachary and was willing to obey the old commander. The three Central Guards regiments are self-contained, and many of the officers within them are members of the Grant family, and they can also cooperate well in combat.

After the outbreak of the war, Zachary concentrated the Iron Lion and Grizzly Bear armies, and let William lead the cavalry to fight outside, which greatly dealt a blow to the logistics line of the army of the Delon Kingdom.

However, Delong and the East Coast dispatched 500,000 troops this time, and after two years of training, the combat effectiveness of the Delong Kingdom has also improved, and the battle situation has become very difficult.

The Delong Kingdom and the East Coast United Kingdom originally planned to use the power of the orcs to contain more than 200,000 elite soldiers in the northern frontier of the Grant Kingdom.

Unexpectedly, this war orc collapsed, and in just twenty days, he lost four and a half legions.

It had just entered May, and the war in the north had ended, and King Roger issued an order for the two armies of Feiyan and the north to go south to join the war.

After the battle of the orc invasion, it was time to reward the merits, and now that Richard was already a high-ranking lord, at this time, he needed to pay a certain amount of resources, whether it was land or gold coins, he had to take out some.

This year, Richard conferred two hereditary barons, rewarded more than 30 for great merit, and rewarded more than 800,000 gold coins, most of which were awarded to the Noble Alliance of Geda Province and the Knight Academy Cadet Corps.

In this war, most of the noble coalition forces in Geda Province participated in the war under Richard's command, the noble coalition army of Heihe County was on the front line of Snow Mountain Castle, and the nobles of Rohmon and Brenner counties guarded the southwest for Harland's territory.

There were more than 30 nobles in total, and each Richard rewarded a lot of gold coins, adding up to a total of 500,000.

The remaining more than 300,000 gold coins were rewarded to the soldiers of Haaland's territory, the soldiers of the main legion, each received an average of five gold coins, and the second-line legion participated in fewer battles, and there was also a gold coin allowance.

A large amount of gold coins were distributed, not only did the orcs capture and consume it, but the treasury of Haaland's territory was also upside down with 320,000.

Fortunately, a large amount of gold coins had been saved in the past few years, and 690,000 gold coins had been accumulated in the vault, even if Richard gave a large amount of money, there were still 370,000 gold coins in the treasury.

After the war, in order to reward his merits, Richard made a lot of blood.

The Grant royal family, too, has to pay resources.

Because of Richard's military exploits, Haraland's territory annihilated three and a half legions of orcs, and the Grant royal family once again rewarded the Harland family with an earldom.

Now under Richard's name, there is already a duke and two counts. In the system of the Kingdom of Grant, it has voting rights second only to the royal family and Archduke Jonathan.

The dukedom given to Richard happened to be the county of Martins. This county has a total area of less than 30,000 square kilometers because the Martins family abandoned the territory on the west bank of the Kelania River.

The strength of the Haaland family far surpassed that of the Martins family, and after Richard got this territory, he immediately sent people to cross the river and develop westward.

The Monster Cavalry Brigade and the Witcher Squadron act as the vanguard and enter the Kelania River to fight the Ogre.

The number of ogres is scarce, and once the casualties continue to appear, of course, they will not be able to consume Haaland's territory, and they can only give up a part of the buffer zone.

After a period of entanglement, in the end, Haaland's territory controlled two-thirds of the territory of the former Earl of Martins, and the ogre controlled one-third.

Because he knew the difficulty of Haraland's territory, the ogre also tried not to enter Haaland's territory to plunder.

It expanded its territory by 40,000 square kilometers from the former Earldom of Martins to the north of the Eagle Mountains and the southern part of the Northern Prairie.

In this year's battle, Haaland's territory has increased by 90,000 square kilometers, while the three baronies have only added up to 4,000 square kilometers, which is very profitable in terms of territory.

The Duke of Haaland originally had 128,000 square kilometers of land, but this year it has increased by 90,000 square kilometers, and if the northern military station defense line is held, the total area of the territory will reach 218,000 square kilometers, second only to the Grant royal family, the Grand Duke of Starnick, and ahead of the Duke of York.

In all respects, the strength of the Haaland family is already ranked third in the Grant Kingdom.

After obtaining the county of Martins, Richard of course had to defend the line of defense in the Kailania Valley. Taking advantage of the defeat of the orcs on all fronts, Richard led his troops to recover Martins Castle and took control of the orc station north of Martins Castle.

In honor of the Earl of Donnie Martins, Richard did not change the name of the place in the county. This territory has passed through the scourge of orcs, and only seven or eight thousand people have escaped from the population. Fortunately, the farmland and houses were not seriously damaged, and the 230,000 indentured slaves rescued from the Orc Empire this year were prepared by Richard to develop and reproduce in this territory.

The former county of Martins was named Martins County by Richard to commemorate the contribution of this predecessor to the development of northern Xinjiang.

Stations 13 and 14 in northern Martinshire were handed over by Richard to Roman to take over.

Now under Roman's command, there are only two infantry brigades, the 25th and 26th, and the strength is very short. For the time being, only a part of the vassal nobles can be gathered to help Roman defend the defensive line.

In this year's battle, 900 regular soldiers were killed in Haaland's territory, and the total number of minor and serious wounded was about 2,030. There were also some casualties among the city defense army and auxiliaries, adding up to less than 2,000, and the total casualties of the army in Haaland's territory had exceeded 5,000, but the permanent losses were not large, and only more than 2,000 people retired from active service.

After two months of recuperation in April and May, the lightly wounded had already returned to the team, and only five or six hundred seriously wounded who could not recover.

The regular army was permanently attritional, about 1,200 people. Judging by the number of 50,000 regular troops in Haaland's territory, the casualties were not terrible.

Although fighting this year, recruits from Haaland's territory are still training.

According to the plan of the territorial staff, a total of six thousand recruits will be trained this year. Because the territory has been nearly doubled, the depth of the north is 100 kilometers, and next year it will need to be expanded by 8,000, and the year after that it will increase by 10,000.

If the orcs still invade in three years' time, the regular army in Haaland's territory will increase to 73,000, enough to be reorganized into three and a half legions.

(End of chapter)