With the rapid development of Fort William, the great nobles bought land near Fort William and built residential estates as temporary or permanent residence sites for family members.

The foreign aristocracy, large and small, who were based at Fort William, counted their family members and now numbered in the thousands. These people basically lived on the mountainside outside Fort William West, forming several villa complexes.

After 20 years of development, the living area of Fort William has expanded considerably, and as Haaland has developed more and more, the vacant land near Fort William has been filled. If you want to continue to develop, you can only go deep into the mountains.

Due to land supply constraints, Fort William was no longer suitable as the capital of Haaland. The most suitable area right now is actually the Lothar Basin region.

The Losa Basin covers an area of more than 3,600 square kilometers, and the mountains on the east and west sides are relatively gentle, with very large room for expansion. To fill this basin, I am afraid that it will take hundreds or tens of millions of people.

But if you want to move the capital, it is a very troublesome thing.

Many scientific research institutes, precision factories, mage towers, and hospitals and schools were established near Fort William. The relocation of so many institutions to the Lothar Basin would require a huge amount of relocation funding.

Moreover, there is a crater called the princess's mausoleum in the Losa Basin, and the conditions for moving the capital are not yet ripe if this problem is not solved. However, Richard has already begun to relocate some important factories.

Considering the great success of the fair, Haaland is ready to adjust the schedule of the fair this year.

Extend the trade fair for three days, and hold a large auction on the last three days, where any item that passes the appraisal can be auctioned at the auction. Haaland takes only 3% of the auction price, providing a security guarantee for the auction transaction.

The Haaland Territory has obtained a large number of Dragon's Blood Fruits this year, refining a large number of different grades of Styx Elixir, which will be the finale of the first auction.

The Styx Elixir can directly increase mana, even if it is a third-order low-grade Styx Elixir, it is a precious commodity worth thousands of gold coins.

The price of a medium Styx potion can even be auctioned for seventy or eighty thousand gold coins, and the price can be comparable to that of a high-grade enchanted armor.

In the market of transcendent items, the price of the things used by magicians has always been very expensive, and the potions that can increase mental power are even more valuable, and they are very scarce in the transcendent item market.

Especially in countries like the Kingdom of Grant, it is particularly rare.

In this auction, Haaland also auctioned a variety of extraordinary items, reducing the time to find and buy.

After the fair, Richard led some of the professionals over the snowy mountains and returned to Fort William.

Haaland led the first railway last year, and the steam train was put into service for the first time.

Although this railway can only be regarded as a special line for transporting coal, the annual profit is very low, and it will take about forty or fifty years to pay for itself. But the advent of steam locomotives, which increased the efficiency of transportation on the road, allowed Fort William to extend his power to remote grassroots.

For this new thing, the top management of Fort Wilhelm was very enthusiastic.

According to Archon Rogge's plan, this year only 30 kilometers of railway were planned to be built, extending from Fort William to Fort Soldierstation, but because of the laying of the dragon's nest, Haaland's income skyrocketed. The budget was very loose, and Rogge consulted with Richard and decided to strengthen the construction of the railway, extending it from Fort William to Castle Marte.

Because of the temporary adjustment of the plan, even in winter, the railway construction army is still in a hurry.

Rail transport has shown great superiority, and in order to train the personnel to build and manage the railway, the Haaland Territory established a railway school in March this year.

Because it has just been established, the railway school is still relatively small, and only 60 students have been recruited this year. However, the source of students from the railway school is very good, and they are rare middle school students in Haaland.

According to the statistics of the education department, there are already 24 primary schools in the territory, six middle schools are in use, and thousands of primary school students graduate each year.

With the expansion of secondary school enrollment, more than 500 middle school students can graduate every year from this year, the scale of middle school students has expanded, and the higher education in the territory has also been put on the agenda, ushering in a rapid development.

In March, Haaland led the establishment of the Railway Academy.

After laying the dragon's nest, Haaland led the financial income to increase significantly, and in September, steel, accounting, teacher, machinery, politics and law, textiles, and agricultural colleges began to prepare, and other full enrollment will be completed in the spring of next year.

Because of the first year of higher education, the scale of the eight colleges and universities is not large, and the number of students enrolled is as high as 50 or 60, and as little as 20 or 30. Based on the size of the graduating secondary school students this year, only half of the graduates can be enrolled.

The remaining half of the middle school students either become staff officers or civil servants, and a small number go to factories and research institutes. In the future, researchers will be slowly selected from universities.

Haaland leads middle school students, as long as they are admitted to the eight major colleges and universities, there is no tuition fee at all, and there is also a subsidy of two silver coins per month. Students receive a stipend for 10 months a year, which is already half of the average income of adult males.

This money will not only allow college students to live without worry, but also provide a part of it to subsidize their families. He was admitted to eight colleges and universities, which is equivalent to the average in the ancient earth.

According to Richard's requirements, the admissions rules of the eight colleges and universities are quite transparent, and they are determined entirely by the results of secondary school students in each subject.

Some of the teachers in the five major colleges and universities are filled by middle school students who graduated a few years early, some are transferred to the backbone of scientific research institutes, and a small number of foreign scholars are hired by Richard at high prices.

Although Richard knew in his heart that some teachers were indiscriminate, and their own level of knowledge was not as good as that of Kazakhstan middle school graduates, there was a lack of higher education teachers, and Haaland could only stumble forward.

It may take five or six years for the top students to graduate and teach, and then the situation can be alleviated when they have teaching experience.

In late November, a 100-kilometer railway from Marte Castle to Fort Gundo will be opened.

Richard entered the railway construction site early in the morning to inspect and found that the indentured slaves were wearing thin clothes, their hands and feet were a little red from the cold, and dozens of people were carrying heavy steel rails and moving with difficulty, looking very pitiful.

Richard looked through the roster of indentured slaves who had built railroads and found that the mortality rate was relatively high. Indentured slaves are an important property of Haaland's collar, and the property loss is not small, and Richard suddenly lowered his face.

It was very hard to inspect in the morning of winter, and many civil officials in the rear could not bear it, even Rogge did not accompany him. After all, Haaland does not have the habit of sitting in a sedan chair, and riding a horse in winter is very sinful, and the pampered middle and high-ranking civil officials are not used to this kind of hard life.

Compared with the territorial bureaucracy, Richard's life in the last two years has been more difficult.

For two years, Richard spent most of his time directing operations at Station 10, and although he was the commander-in-chief, Station 10 was, after all, the front line, and the conditions were far inferior to those in the rear.

Most of the days, Richard, like ordinary soldiers, had irregular meal times and needed to lie down on ice and drink snow.

Two years of wind and frost have made Richard look a little older. It takes ten years of mental energy to fight a year's war, and war not only tortures soldiers' bodies, but also their hearts.

Especially the commander of the whole army like Richard, the pressure in his heart is even greater, and every time he makes a decision, he must carefully weigh the pros and cons.

Dreaming back countless late nights, sweating profusely, and working hard for a long time, Richard, although only thirty-five years old, looked a little older than his brother Hayden. Now his appearance is closer to that of William at the age of forty, with wrinkles on his forehead, but he is more majestic.

"Has the labor insurance funds been issued?" Seeing the lack of labor security for indentured slaves, Richard's face suddenly became a little gloomy.

Finding that Richard was in a bad mood, Adjutant Green said cautiously: "I don't know about this matter yet, Your Excellency the Duke waits, I'll go and ask first." ”

After a short time, Green hurriedly trotted over and whispered: "According to the on-site management personnel, no labor insurance items have been issued. ”

"I'm right here, you send someone to inform Hayden, Rogge, be sure to find out about this matter at noon today, and give an explanation to the railroad construction personnel."

Under Richard's direct attention, the corruption case was quickly uncovered.

According to the investigation, 13 officials on this line embezzled labor insurance funds and resold labor insurance items, and the gold coins embezzled by these people ranged from dozens to thousands, which was enough for them to be sentenced to death.

Richard would not tolerate any corruption, and these people were beheaded on the spot, and their heads were hung on wooden stakes to deter others. The shops that cooperated with them in selling labor insurance items were also implicated, the merchants were executed along with the corrupt officials, and the goods in the shops were seized.

Their families were also reduced to slavery, and their descendants could not be pardoned for a hundred years, let alone study and join the army.

It can be said that under this policy, it is enough to ensure that their descendants cannot turn over. Becoming a slave permanently, according to the social situation of Haaland's territory, is a high probability of the end. Even indentured slaves could not be willing to marry the offspring of criminals. Indentured slaves have far more human rights than sin slaves.

The treatment of sin slaves is the same as that of orc slaves, whose lives are like goods, and have no human rights. Sin slaves and orc slaves are not counted by the household registration department, and their status in Haaland is worse than that of sheep people.

Although today's inspection revealed a corruption case, Richard was not happy at all.

The railway department is the department that attracts the most attention from the top of Haaland's collar, and even this kind of department is extremely corrupt, and there are other places that cannot be seen, I am afraid that there are many rats. When you see a mouse on the street, there are actually countless rats hiding in the shadows.

As the territory grew larger, more populous, and more complicated, Richard became more and more unable to manage the territory as meticulously as before.

In his previous life, Richard was just an ordinary person, although he had undergone severe training in this life, and his ability was fundamentally different from that in his previous life, but relying on him and a small number of assistants, he could not change the stubborn disease of bureaucracy at all.

Even if Richard established an inspection system and promoted a large number of inspectors, he also let his brother Hayden manage the inspectorate. But the Inspectorate is also a member of the bureaucracy. With this kind of system, corrupt officials cannot be controlled at all.

Corrupt officials were discovered, and under Richard's personal attention, the seized goods were confiscated, and cotton shoes, cotton gloves, and winter clothes were distributed to the indentured slaves who built the railway.

Seeing that the indentured slaves had regained some morale, Richard also built public cemeteries on both sides of the railway, moved the slaves who died due to the construction of the railroad into the public cemetery, and carved stone tablets and wrote articles to mourn.

Although the cemetery was not completed, Richard still returned to Fort William with a heavy heart.

Labor protection measures were increased, public cemeteries were built, indentured slaves were grateful to Richard from the bottom of their hearts, labor became more motivated, and the construction of the railroad was much faster, and it was finally completed by the third day of December.

After the opening of the Mt. Mart to Fort Gundo railway, there are now two railway lines in the Haaland Territory, one is the coal mine line, which is about 30 kilometers long, stretching from the Tulum coal mine in the northwest of Fort William to the east of Fort William.

One stretches along the Haaland Valley, from the plain area of Malt Castle to the Fort of the Garrison, a distance of 97 kilometers, and the construction of this section of the railway has greatly increased the supply capacity of the Haaland Command Beishan Defense Line, and the supply line has been greatly shortened. Now the garrison has become a base for advancing and a base for stockpiling supplies.

Richard participated in the celebration of the opening of the railway, then wrote letters to Sutton, Sylph and others, and also transferred back Soros, Wilde and others from the front line, preparing to enter the depths of Snow Crystal Lake, find the remains of the Starlight Alliance, and find the key to open the dimensional passage.

This matter has been delayed for so long, and now it is finally free, and the snow crystal fish has finished spawning and returned to the sea.

With the snow crystal fish gone, the danger under the lake has become much less dangerous, and the time is ripe for exploration. In order to deal with the secret crisis, this time Haaland led almost all the high-level professionals to dispatch. Although the number of expedition teams entering Snow Crystal Lake is small, they are all strong soldiers of Haaland's territory.

There are only a dozen people in this expedition team, Richard and Sophia are equivalent to trumpet legendary mages, Sutton and Sylph are already ninth-order elves, Wendini is an eight-ring magician, and Eve and Wendy are also promoted to six-ring mages.

Although Eve and Wendy are not yet high-level professionals, according to the experience of the Dawn Plane, the combat power of the six-ring magician is already a few points stronger than that of the golden knight of the eight-ring.

In the face of a complex environment and all kinds of dangerous magic traps, the six-ring magician is even stronger than the ninth-order epic knight's survivability, and in case of danger, the magician can open the dimensional space for refuge. And if you want to break the dimensional space, in addition to using magical means, brute force cracking must use legendary power.

Wilde has been promoted to the eighth-order Golden Knight, and Soros has the weakest combat power, also an eighth-order warrior, and a skilled archery. The last two members of the team were Drifen and Jora, an Rank 8 High Elf.

Although the number of people in this team is not large, there are five magicians, four knights, and two warriors, but because of the relationship between Richard and Sophia, plus the Starlight Necklace, the combat effectiveness is a few points stronger than that of the legendary second-order magicians.

Legendary second-order mages and priests are very rare in the Dawn Plane.

(End of chapter)