The battle of the Samba River, although the results were brilliant, the casualties of the Harland Leader were not light at all, counting the attrition of the Wild Lion Legion and the noble coalition, the casualties on the side of the Grant Kingdom exceeded 16,000 people.

After all, the orcs dispatched 300,000 regular troops, with a great advantage in troops, and the losses on all fronts were not light at all, even the No. 10 soldier stood on the main battlefield, in order to defeat the orc thirteenth legion, the elite led by Harland also suffered heavy losses, with more than 4,000 casualties.

Of the 16,000 casualties, it belonged to about 1,200 men of the Wild Lion Legion, more than 3,000 of the noble coalition army, and about 11,600 casualties of Haaland's army.

Of the 11,600 casualties, more than 4,200 have been killed in battle, and more than 2,900 have been disabled and need to retire from active service to receive pensions. About 4,500 people were slightly wounded who were able to return to the unit.

With a one-time loss of more than 7,000 regular troops, the expenditure on pensions will increase significantly this year. However, this year's dragon's nest has been laid, and the finances of Haaland's territory are very loose.

Permanently lost 7,000 troops, of which nearly 6,000 were from the regular army.

This year's recruits have been training for 10 months and will fill the vacancies after a while. Because of the large losses in this year's battle, Haaland has been unable to expand his army this year.

The Eagle Mountains are in the middle of October, and the first heavy snow has fallen.

Despite the heavy snow and the difficult mountain roads, doctors from more than a dozen hospitals in Haaland's territory still crossed the Eagle Mountains in droves with the help of professionals to treat wounded soldiers in front-line hospitals.

After more than ten years of development, Haaland's territory has the leading medical level of the Dawn Plane. The invention of various medical devices, the combination of magic and surgery, has greatly reduced the neonatal mortality rate of Haaland.

According to the statistics of the civil affairs department, the average life expectancy of the residents of more than a dozen castles has reached 62 years. In the Dawn plane, this data is already very staggering.

But the average life expectancy of people living in rural areas is just over 50 years. Because of the lack of medical resources, the average life expectancy of indentured slaves is even lower, just over 40 years old, which is still a very low standard.

Soon after the end of the war, Duke Duran personally led a team to escort 200,000 serfs to Haaland.

Counting the harvest from the Deron Kingdom in the spring, this year Haaland has nearly 600,000 new indentured slaves and 30,000 freemen.

Because of the victory in the Battle of the Samba River, it gave a lot of confidence to the officials and people of Northern Xinjiang, and in recent times, a large number of free people have moved from the three dukedoms of Jonathan, Fox, and Edward.

Most of these people are from professional families, and the remaining part also has crafts, which is considered a high-quality population, and they have accumulated a part of the capital in their hands.

The immigration of these social forces to the Harland Territory will undoubtedly increase the Harland Territory.

Haaland's territory had a population of only 1.8 million last year, and the new population added more than 600,000 in the new year, and the pressure on the territory is very heavy.

Although Richard used various methods, such as robbery and purchase, to get back more than 200,000 tons of grain, which was enough for the new population to eat. But settling down the more than 600,000 new people is still a very troublesome matter.

Fortunately, most of the new population were indentured slaves, and the living requirements were very low, so let the indentured slaves squeeze in, and the able-bodied male slaves lived in tents, and finally let the 200,000 new indentured slaves settle down.

With the use of a large number of steam machinery, coal production continues to surge, this year two new mines put into operation, three coal mines already have seven mines, and the output has also historically exceeded 400,000 tons.

Even though the railway consumes a lot of coal, the Haaland Led Railway has only been built for less than 60 kilometers, and there are only four steam locomotives, and now it consumes more than 1,000 tons of coal a year. There is enough coal to be rich, even if you live in a tent in winter, you can't easily freeze to death.

After settling the new serfs, Richard personally entertained Duke Duran and sold a part of the sensitive arms, including thirty magic hot air balloons, six thousand alchemy bombs, and one thousand scorching ray guns, which deducted about 200,000 gold coins.

This year is the first time that Haaland has sold magic hot air balloons, and with the completion of flying classes such as the Wyvern and the Lion Cavalry, Haaland's air superiority has greatly increased.

The situation changed, and Richard began to sell lower-end flying units.

The core equipment inside the magic hot air balloon is the magic burning furnace and the telescope, both of which require a high threshold, although the difficulty of building the telescope is lower, and it is difficult to make it successfully without a good mirror grinder.

A magic hot air balloon wears a standard telescope, and Richard asks for 3,000 gold coins, which, like alchemy bombs, sells for almost ten times the profit. As long as the magical civilization of the great nobles of the Grant Kingdom does not develop, this business will be monopolized by the Harland Collar for a long time, earning a large amount of money.

These funds were converted into food, population, livestock, and Warcraft War Horses, which greatly increased the strength of Haaland's leadership. In just three or four years, relying on commercial profits, Haaland led the army to double in size, organized and trained a number of all-professional troops, and now has become the strongest army in the Grant Kingdom.

Duke Duran returned to the southern region with a large amount of arms and 800,000 gold coins in cash. With enough gold, we immediately started recruiting troops to prepare for next year's Operation Grass Valley.

With the Magic Hot Air Balloon, Duke Duran's Scouting Advantage will be greatly increased.

With the arms trade opened, the nobles of the south will work for the Harland Lord.

Hearing that Haaland led the sale of magic hot air balloons, even the royal family was a little tempted. It's just that the royal family has a high level of magical civilization, and it is possible to have a magic burning furnace in the copycat.

The royal family wants to buy a magic hot air balloon, Richard has been hesitating, and the two sides have talked about the issue of technology transfer, but Richard has opened his mouth and wants Geda Province, and Roger's Kingdom has not agreed.

After all, through the transaction with the Haaland family, the royal family also cultivated a lion knight. With the stronger flying class of the Lion Knight, the royal family has a low demand for magic hot air balloons and is unwilling to pay too high a cost, so the two sides have been negotiating a deal for two or three years, and they have not been negotiated.

It was already late October when Duke Duran was sent away, and when the new indentured slaves were settled, the time unconsciously entered November.

In November, the Haaland Territory once again hosted a trade fair.

With years of accumulated reputation, Haaland has become a business card. Every year at this time, the nobles of the Grant Kingdom will flock to the Harland Territory, and the vicinity of Fort William will be very prosperous.

In the past two or three years, even the Grant royal family has sent important members to participate in trade fairs and make friends with Haaland's leaders.

There are even close members of the royal family who have begun to marry important members of the Harland Collars such as Powell, Hayden, Rogge, and Soros.

In fact, the royal family has a huge population, and there are hundreds of members of the close branch within three generations, many of whom do not even have court titles, that is, they are glamorous on the surface, far inferior to the lowest hereditary barons of the fiefdom aristocracy, and their actual status, energy, wealth, and influence on the heavyweight nobles are not as good as those of Hayden, Rogge, Powell and others.

Richard does not object to the marriage of the high-ranking of the territory with the royal family, in recent years, there have been many marriages between the Haaland nobles and the Grant royal family, Powell's most capable son Cohen, Soros's eldest grandson Merlin, Hayden's second son Perron, and Rogge's daughter Freida have all married members of Grant's close branch.

As the next generation grows up, the bloodlines of the two families will inevitably blend, and the Haaland family will also integrate into the aristocratic system of the Grant Kingdom.

Unlike the Jonathan family, Richard believes that the Haaland family has ordinary blood, and the Harland family has no taboo about blood outflow, and is not opposed to marriage with the nobles of the kingdom.

In fact, even if there is no attribute panel, the brothers and sisters Richard and Wendy have mid-to-upper-level magical talents, and their brothers and sisters' mother's bloodline is not ordinary, and it is estimated that they are also people with high magical talents, but they are limited by class and cannot access magic inheritance. Sophia's magical talent is even more superb. The Haaland family, a family with outstanding magical talents, is a little more precious than the knight's bloodline.

At this year's fair, Earl Karen of the Grant family tempted Richard at a banquet to marry King Roger's youngest daughter to Philip.

Karen is the cousin of King Roger, in his forties, his own talent and ability are not bad, he has worked in the Northern Legion for ten years, and is now a Golden Knight, the captain of the Royal Praetorian Guard, and a court earl.

Because he has lived in northern Xinjiang for more than ten years, he has a common language with people like Richard in northern Xinjiang. In recent years, Karen has often come to Haaland to talk to Richard about some sensitive matters.

The former envoy, Maurice Allen, is now based in Fort William, making it easy for Richard to communicate quickly with Roger's Kingdom.

Although Philip is Richard's son, he is far less talented than his sister Margaret, although he has awakened the knightly bloodline by using three bloodline enlightenment potions in a row for three years.

But this kind of knight who piles up resources to awaken the bloodline is actually far less qualified than a naturally awakened person.

Richard and Sophia carefully examined Philip's body and found that he was relatively ordinary. Philip's innate mental power is average, the elemental intimacy is very low, and he has no magical talent. The talent of knights is also inferior, and people with ordinary qualifications, even if they are provided with the best resources and conditions, it is difficult to cultivate to the Silver Knight before the age of sixty.

Moreover, people who are well-born may not be able to endure hardships, have strong perseverance and perseverance, and can not relax for decades, devote themselves to enhancing their strength, and seek career promotion.

A considerable number of nobles, promoted to the profession, after having the right of inheritance, tend to indulge in balls, banquets, and pomegranate skirts of beautiful slave girls.

In Richard's mind, he preferred to leave the domain to Margaret to inherit.

The Dawn Plane does not discriminate against women, only the weak.

Margaret has outstanding magical talents, as well as the legendary fourth-order meditation method practice, with Richard and Sophia on it, the conditions for learning magic are far beyond their parents, and it was almost a smooth ride before she was promoted to legend, according to the meditation progress she is showing now, far more than Sophia and Richard when they were young, and it is a high probability to be promoted to the nine-ring magician at the age of thirty.

After a few more years, the rights to the territory will be slowly transferred to Margaret, and the rights to Haaland's territory will be smoothly inherited.

If there is no problem in the second generation, the Duchess of Haaland will be able to maintain stability.

Richard was ready to let Margaret inherit the territory, of course, he would not let her marry, although Margaret was young, but the autonomy of marriage was firmly in his hands.

As for the youngest son Philip, he is generally talented, and Richard is ready to make him a marriage toolman. Richard happily agreed to Earl Karen's temptation.

Although Philip will only be twelve years old next year, he will be engaged to the eight-year-old Princess Vivien next year.

"Philip is the only son of Duke Richard, and the Duke agreed to let him marry the royal family, and it is estimated that he has no intention of leaving the Kingdom of Grant in a short time. But the Haaland clan is becoming more and more prosperous and powerful, which will eventually challenge the royal family, and it is a good thing for both parties to let the Haaland family break away. ”

When Earl Karen returned to his apartment, he was caught up in a long period of thought.

In fact, after receiving the defeat of the Orcs in the Northern Frontier by the Harland Lord, the Roger Kingdom had many secret talks with the nobles of Nolan, and finally decided to let the Harland Leader break away from the Grant Kingdom, but the good relationship between the two sides should be maintained to avoid falling into conflict.

The vast majority of Haaland's territory of 280,000 square kilometers was expanded by himself, and the territory given to Richard by the royal family was mainly the two countdoms of Roger and Martins.

The two major counties, Roger and Martins, are newly expanded land in the past two decades, and the royal family has not invested too many resources in development, and the losses are not serious.

If the territory of Haaland becomes independent, it can immediately become a natural shield for the Grant Kingdom and help the Grant Kingdom resist the orcs.

Once the Duke of Haaland became independent, the Grant royal family would be able to impose high tariffs on the goods of the Harland Collar, which would not only increase the cost of the goods of the Haaland Collar but also earn a good tax.

King Roger saw this very clearly.

Although the royal family can get some political and economic benefits from the Harland Lord, the Harland Territory can also take advantage of the huge market of the Grant Kingdom to make profits.

King Roger analyzed all kinds of information and weighed it carefully, and finally made a decision to promote the independence of Haaland as soon as possible.

In addition to economic factors, there is a very important political reason for this.

Although the Grant family has a long history, it started as a rebel after all. Their situation back then was very similar to what they are now.

After overthrowing the rule of the Venus family, in order to be recognized by the Divine Radiance Empire, Grant's first king, Wood, who was already a legendary fourth-order knight, participated in the battle to purify the undead, and finally died in the tide of the undead.

After giving his life and making meritorious deeds, the Grant family was canonized by the Church of the Seven Gods and recognized by the Divine Radiance Empire.

In neighboring Starnick, the Linus family relied on supporting puppets and marrying members of the Jonathan family to control the government, and then stabilized the situation by bribing domestic nobles and ceding a large number of interests. In the end, in order to be recognized by the Divine Radiance Empire, he handed over the legendary weapon of Nikolai Jonathan, the ancestor of the Jonathan family, and gave Nikolai's wife, the dragon crystal of the legendary third-order red dragon.

By buying it with treasures, it was the Divine Radiance Empire's acquiescence.

Because of the improper establishment of the state, the rule of the Linus family was not stable, and it only took more than a hundred years to lose the crown.

Various cases tell the kingdom of Roger that if there are two powerful families in a kingdom, internal strife will inevitably break out. Independence of Haaland before the internal struggle breaks out would be good for both sides.

But wanting Haaland to become independent from the Grant royal family is actually a troublesome thing. First of all, the Harland Leader must have the will to be independent, secondly, the Church of the Seven Gods must be canonized, and finally, he must make meritorious deeds and be recognized by the Holy Radiance Empire.

Now most of the land of the dead is purified, and most of the land of the dead is in the orc empire.

The Terran forces of the Dawn Plane have long been dominant, and there are almost no racial merits.

In addition, the last few years have been a critical moment for the Grant Kingdom to expand its territory in the south, and King Roger also wants to use Richard to defeat the main force of the Delong Kingdom, so that Harland can lead the army to the final word. The operation of letting Haaland lead independence cannot be implemented for the time being.

(End of chapter)