Richard presided over the defensive line in the northern part of the Eagle Mountains, and the day-to-day affairs of the realm could only be entrusted to Sophia.

This year, Haaland led the expansion of 90,000 square kilometers of land, adding one county and three counties, and another large-scale expansion of civil servants, which reached 12,000 by the end of the year.

Haaland led the establishment of numerous primary schools, and civil servants were only selected from among literate people.

Civil servants who have graduated from primary school are already able to read and write official documents and have a general understanding of the geography of the territory. Although their quality is not as good as that of the elites cultivated by hereditary aristocratic families, they have become a very important class in Haaland's territory by relying on their huge numbers and faintly grouping together with the same origin.

It's just that this stratum is still relatively loose, and the Dawn plane has extraordinary strength, and personal strength is extremely important, so the bureaucratic stratum can only be placed behind violent organs such as the army, intelligence, and public security, and cannot dominate the front, but can only become a vassal of violent organs.

Although the civil service class has become more and more important in Haaland, compared with the military professionals, Richard does not need to cede power to win them over for the time being.

After Richard went to the front, Sophia basically adopted the strategy of doing nothing, relying on the more than 10,000 bureaucratic management territory, smoothly running the commodity fair, and building a 30-kilometer railway line, she was very successful in her half a year in charge.

After defeating the orcs, it was soon time for the goddess's birthday.

Richard, who had been in the north this winter, saw the goddess's birthday, and although he was homesick, he could not leave the soldiers behind and go home for the festival by himself.

In this year's war, Harland led the regular army to lose more than 1,000 soldiers, and after repelling the orcs, Richard began to draw some soldiers from the city defense army and the security army to supplement the regular army.

The building of the armed forces is a systematic project, and the affairs are complicated and complicated, and it is not easy to manage.

In particular, building a strong army with high morale is often more difficult.

Richard had no military experience in his previous life, and the little knowledge he saw in books, movies and television could only be borrowed in a small amount. But he clearly understood that an army without knowledge must be stupid.

From the time Richard established the Harland Army, the work of eradicating illiteracy has been carried out consistently. In the early days, siblings Richard, Hayden, and Wendy would personally give lectures to the soldiers, participate in literacy work, and teach soldiers to read.

This kind of work has been going on for eighteen years.

Now that Haaland is in charge of the regular army, most of the soldiers can know a lot of words, half of them can recognize thousands of commonly used words, and the officers are basically literate people.

This kind of soldier who can know official documents, understand a little simple mathematics, know all kinds of rules, and have a certain amount of experience is slightly stronger, and can already serve as a first-class officer in the squadron in the Central Army.

The combat effectiveness of the army led by Haaland is also an important reason, and the importance that officers and soldiers attach to knowledge is also an important reason.

Because the quality of the regular army led by Haaland is very high, all the backbone soldiers are drawn from the public security army and the city defense army, and even if more than 1,000 veterans are transferred, the impact on combat effectiveness is very great, and the city defense army and the public security army system have some complaints. In order to ensure the integrity of the main army corps, Richard could only personally come forward to appease the officers of the second-line corps and demand that the officers have a sense of the overall situation and obey the overall situation.

Richard couldn't return to Fort William, and this year's Haaland family Christmas dinner was not going well. After all, the head of the family is not present, and there is a lack of people in charge of the family members' gatherings.

Moreover, last year, Richard gave a question to the family members, asking them to think about who is a friend and who is an enemy.

Haaland led the young man to meditate for a year, and he already had the answer in his heart, ready to be affirmed by the lord at the Christmas dinner.

In the end, Sophia made a decisive decision and let the young members of the Harland family cross the Eagle Mountains, not only to hone their will on the way, but also to bring some supplies to the front line of the northern frontier to work for the army.

Of course, in order to protect the safety of these young people, Sophia and Wendy took a capable team and hid in the shadows.

Now there are more than a dozen young people in the Harland family, the eldest George is twenty-four years old and is already a second-order warrior, and the youngest Margaret is thirteen years old and has been successfully promoted to the official wizard class.

Due to the existence of supernatural powers, women of the Dawn Plane can also become noble heirs.

After Margaret was promoted to the rank of professional, she was already a duke and heir to two earls' counties. If something goes wrong with her, the blow to Haaland will be extremely heavy.

In addition, Margaret was too talented to avoid Mu Xiu Yulin, Harland did not publicly promote the magician, and after graduating from school, Margaret was restricted in her freedom, and could only follow behind Sophia, under the strict protection of the territory.

This time she went to the front line in the northern Eagle Mountains, and it was Margaret's first time to go far away.

Every winter, the Eagle Mountains region receives a lot of snowfall, usually tens of centimeters thick. The snow is followed by a few days of wind, and the snow in the valleys is often two or three meters deep.

The Eagle Mountains mainly rely on mountain passages, and once the snow falls, ordinary people cannot pass at all.

However, the young people of the Haaland family have basically learned the breathing method, and their physical fitness is far beyond that of ordinary people, they can go over the mountains and mountains directly through rope ladders, flying claws and other tools without walking through the mountain tunnels.

Although Margaret was young and frail, her social status far surpassed that of others, and naturally there were many cousins and cousins along the way.

Moreover, Margaret was wearing a magic cloak made by Richard himself, on which three spells were drawn: feather falling technique, light spirit technique, and flying technique, and there was also a sixth-order magic core in the pocket of the cloak for energy, Margaret only needed one-third of the magic power to use light spirit magic and flying magic beyond the level, and she could save her life at a critical time.

In addition to the magic cloak, Margaret also has magic armor, space bags, magic staffs, spell daggers and other magic props, and there are also high-level magic scrolls in the space bag, which can release the spells in the scroll to escape when encountering danger.

For example, the most classic escape spells, teleportation, and dimensional doors are all stored in Margaret's space bag.

Although the Harland Mage Association had alchemists, pharmacists, and even trained array mages, there were no magic scroll makers, and Richard paid a huge sum of 20,000 gold coins to buy a few fleeing scrolls. The equipment on Margaret's body is worth more than 100,000 gold coins, large and small.

Encountering this kind of white Fumei magician armed with gold coins, even a mid-level professional will feel a headache.

After nearly 20 years of development, counting illegitimate children, there are more than 50 members of the Haaland family, and Richard's brothers and sisters and cousins are more than 30.

Father William, second uncle Powell, and third uncle Bernie are still working hard to expand the Haaland family. In Margaret's generation, the number of brothers and sisters and cousins also exceeded twenty.

It's just that some young brothers and sisters, cousins, and Richard, the duke and patriarch, are difficult to talk to, and they don't have any feelings.

More than fifty family members are already a large family in ordinary people, but for the aristocratic class, such a population size is far from enough.

Normally, a hereditary baron with a population of about one or two hundred thousand, there should be more than a hundred members of the close branch of the family, more than a thousand servants serving the baron, and one or two thousand freedmen near the castle, some of whom are members of the distant branch, with noble blood, and more than 10,000 serfs outside the castle.

A hereditary baronial aristocratic army often has more than ten aristocratic officers, more than twenty servant officers who have served the barons for generations, plus more than a dozen professional class officers, and there are three or four hundred cannon fodder serf soldiers left.

Such a demographic structure is stable for a hereditary aristocratic domain.

But it will take at least fifty or sixty years, two or three generations, to form such a stable population structure.

The rise of the Harland family is too short, and the speed of development is too fast, relying on bloodline and family members to effectively rule the territory, let alone stop the orc army.

Therefore, Richard vigorously emancipated the serfs and supported the freemen and the professional class. With the support of the vast number of freemen and military professionals who have changed their lives and achieved a class jump, he can sit in a stable position.

As the younger generation of Haaland grows up, Richard has to let them know who is a friend and who is an enemy. As the ruling class of the territory, this must be seen.

Walking on the steep ridge, George grabbed Margaret's arm tightly with his left hand and trekking poles in his right hand, taking every step with great care. He pricked up his ears and swept behind him, paying attention to the little ancestor behind him all the time.

"If something happens to Margaret, even if she has her father's protection, under the anger of Richard and Sophia, she will lose her life.

Taking care of this little ancestor, even if she says casually, revealing something from the fourth brother's hand can play a very big role for herself. ”

In recent years, George has been involved in the Southern Territories.

Because of the support of the Duchy of Haaland, even though it has been less than three years since he went to the new territory, this southern barony is already very prosperous.

In just three years, relying on a batch of arms and materials provided by Richard, George has expanded the baronial army of 600 people, cooperating with the Duke of Harland for smuggling, and can also bring George more than 10,000 gold coins every year.

For Richard, the fourth brother, although George does not have too deep feelings, he is still very grateful and respectful in his heart.

Compared to George's complicated mind, Margaret was very happy when she came out of Fort William, everything outside made her feel novel, although she was very intelligent, she was also precocious than her peers, after all, she was still a thirteen-year-old child, and she had a particularly strong curiosity.

By December, the climate in northern Xinjiang is already very cold, and the temperature in the mountains can even reach minus 40 degrees Celsius at night.

Climbing mountains and camping in the open in the open in this kind of weather is still a painful thing despite all the preparations.

The new generation of the Haaland family, basically without suffering, they are pampered, they have been surrounded by slaves since they were young, and they suddenly enter this difficult environment, most people can not support it immediately, and they can't bear it on the evening of the first day.

Although they were not stupid and knew that they could not offend the Duchess, the bitter cold wind blew their nerves, so that they couldn't help but complain, and said some resentful words, some of which were not deep, and even deliberately ridiculed Margaret, and even quietly cursed Margaret's mother.

Margaret herself had a great gift for hearing, and her ears were so sensitive that she heard these whispers in her ears. Originally, Margaret also complained about her mother in her heart, but when she heard the rumors from her companions, and some even cursed her mother, she suddenly understood her mother's decision.

Of the dozen or so young people of the Haaland family, except for Margaret and George, only Ron's eldest son Simon and Powell's fifth son Cohen were able to endure the cold and withstand the test, and did not say anything to complain. Instead, they helped their brothers and relatives build bonfires and set up tents.

Although George is also very hard, he has a relatively tough character, and the conditions are very average when he was a child, he has endured the hardships of life, and he has been tempered at work. He is very aware of the contrast between his social status and strength with Sophia, and he knows the truth that trouble comes from his mouth, and he will not offend people easily.

Although Simon is William's eldest grandson, he was born out of wedlock and has no inheritance rights, and because the Haaland family is not large, he needs to use part of his own family, although Simon is an illegitimate child, Richard and Sophia still regard him as their own family, and when he becomes an adult, he will be invited to every family Christmas dinner.

Because of the white eyes he suffered since he was a child, Simon has trained out of the city, and he has great respect for Sophia, so he has no resentment.

Cohen's situation is different from George and Simon, he is the deputy squadron leader of the third squadron of the Harland reconnaissance group, although he is only twenty-one years old, he has already experienced many wars.

People who have been tempered by war are ordinary to climb ice and snow, and it is naturally impossible to complain about their sister-in-law.

After all, they were only on a winter march in the mountains in a safe area, and Cousin Richard and the others had to fight the orcs in the snow and ice.

"After only a simple march, many uncles, aunts, cousins, and cousins began to resent their mothers. They can have today's scenery, not because of the desperate efforts of their fathers, mothers and orcs? As a result, I couldn't bear it anymore after a little hardship, and I didn't hide it in the face of me, and some people even cursed their mothers, and they were only afraid that they would die immediately.

When I become a lord, if a decision is made that will damage their interests a little, they will not be able to care about blood and kinship, but they will only want to find me desperately.

Didn't my father tell me directly who my friends were and who were my enemies? I'm afraid I also want to use this incident to let me understand that even if it is a blood relative of the Haaland family, it may not be a friend, but an enemy.

As the heir of the lord, I am afraid that there are no friends, only enemies. Could it be that a lord can only be a lonely person? ”

(End of chapter)