Chapter 876: City of Silver Light

It seems that he has to work harder, Roland shrugged secretly, it is not an honor to be thrown behind by his subordinates.

Fortunately, Chishui City has basically recovered its stability. Seventy percent of the nobles who passed the screening decided to continue to operate the original business, and the rest hoped to try their luck at the city hall—even though the basic requirement for applying for the administrative examination was "literacy". It's nothing to them, but Roland thinks that the chances of these people passing the final trial and becoming official officials are not high.

After all, the habits of the nobles are not so easy to change.

Of course, even being a clerk is better than losing your head.

There were even three nobles who wanted to join the First Army—they were all knights, and under Nightingale's observation, they had no intention of hiding evil intentions, but he still upheld the decision made at the beginning of the army's founding and rejected the three of them. Apply.

After solving the problem of reclaiming and enfeoffing rights, the efficiency of Chishui City and its surrounding areas has become much more efficient. In just over a week, more than 20,000 people have boarded the boat to Neverwinter City, and more people They are still converging towards Chishui—the practice of abandoning small towns and villages seems to have reduced the controllable territory on the surface, but in fact it has greatly improved the control ability of the city hall.

In this era when even roads are scarce, it is tantamount to wishful thinking to implement government orders and go to the countryside. It is barely feasible to assemble a leadership team in a year, but it is difficult for grassroots cadres to blossom everywhere. Barov also asked him more than once why he insisted on transporting the population back to Neverwinter instead of letting everything go on as usual after unifying the kingdom, but he never gave a comprehensive and systematic answer.

Because the head of the city hall can neither imagine how many people a coal-iron composite industry can absorb, nor can it understand how much energy and time it takes to build such an industry.

And the most important point is that those remote territories can't really operate freely. From the perspective of resources, keeping them is a waste.

Therefore, it is more suitable for the current situation of Graycastle to concentrate the population in a few major cities with convenient water transportation.

From the moment of the land reform, Roland truly possessed the jurisdiction of the Chishui area.

And his next target is naturally Silver City.

Compared with the behemoth Chishui City, cleaning up this satellite city of the old royal capital is much easier—it was originally an ordinary fiefdom, no different from the dozens of surrounding fiefdoms surrounding the royal capital, until the first open-air silver The discovery of the mine made its existence special. As more and more precious metal vein holes were excavated, this place became more and more lively, and finally changed into what it is today.

Considering that the output of Silver City is of great significance to the minting of Graycastle, the next few lords were not only served by the "good old man" Earl William who was loyal to Wimbledon, but his power was also restricted. After coming down, almost no other nobles were entrusted.

In other words, as long as the city lord expresses his opinion, Silver Light City is in his pocket.

With the blood of Wimbledon III and the status of the highest existing heir, Roland believed that it would not be difficult to "convince" the other party.

But what made him a little concerned was that this city built on a mine vein was also the hometown of Nightingale.

Even though every time he asked the other party, the answer he got was "I have already disassociated myself from the Glenn family, so you don't have to worry about my thoughts", but he always felt that Nightingale seemed to be avoiding something. It's just that the busy government affairs prevented Roland from spending too much time on guessing, so he had to temporarily suppress this matter.

On the fourth day after receiving the secret letter from Iron Axe, the Eastern Front Army of the First Army marched into the territory of Silver Light City along the artificial canal.

...

It was almost the same as the itinerary of entering Chishui City. Earl William led a team out of the city to welcome them. After the warm greetings, they were invited to the dinner. The difference is that the welcome team in Chishui City are all enfeoffed nobles, while the old city lord's team has many more businessmen, even the old acquaintance Hogg.

In the evening, the earl's opening remarks set the tone for the banquet—willing to hand over the enfeoffment rights and fully support His Majesty Roland's New Deal. There was a burst of warm applause at the venue, which made the latter swallow all the speeches he had prepared.

And Hogg's needlework turned the welcome banquet into a business meeting.

"Don't you always ask me how the machine in the mine works?" He said triumphantly in front of a group of businessmen, "Now its real inventor is standing in front of you—it is this Roland Your Majesty! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you can get the answer directly in Silver City without going to the Western Region!"

The merchants rushed over immediately.

"Your Majesty, can you tell us why it is so powerful?"

"I don't know if you are willing to sell more track systems. The Diamond Chamber of Commerce will look forward to cooperating with Neverwinter."

"Your Majesty, do you still remember the Clipper Club? Two years ago, we provided you with several sailboats to transport refugees from the eastern border—in terms of trade strength, we are definitely the best chamber of commerce in the central region. If possible, the Clipper Club I hope to buy a complete set of steam engine manufacturing equipment. Of course, the price is absolutely favorable!"

Thinking of the "good news" that the businesswoman Margaery had revealed to him, Roland couldn't help but feel a little bit dumbfounded - "Hogg will lead a large number of businessmen to the West", but he didn't expect that he would be ahead.

If other places in Graycastle were like Silver City, how wonderful the world would be.

After finally satisfying the curiosity of the merchants, he finally found a chance to be alone with the old city lord.

The two walked through the hall and onto the terrace where the evening breeze was blowing, temporarily isolating the noise of the banquet behind them.

Holding the wine glass, Roland overlooked the city under the night sky for a long time before he said, "Don't you feel any regret at all about handing over the enfeoffment right?"

"I didn't really own it before, so why regret it..." Earl William smiled, "Your father, and your father's father, although they didn't say it clearly, will never allow Silver Light City to own a batch of It belongs to me, and the family motto of the William family is never to be divided, so it is not as important to me as you think." He paused for a while, "Besides, I don't need this power."

"No need?" Roland couldn't help asking curiously.

"The original purpose of enfeoffment is to strengthen and consolidate one's own power to prevent others from prying eyes, but Silver City has no such risk—anyone who makes plans for this city is tantamount to openly provoking the authority of the Wimbledon royal family. Therefore, as long as the family is loyal, they don’t have to worry about being harmed.” The earl took a sip of his wine, “Conversely, enfeoffment, in a sense, is also a kind of weakening of itself—it divides resources that originally belonged to it to Others in exchange for the effectiveness of the latter. Rather than placing these resources in the hands of others, I would rather be able to run it myself. Do you know how much the output of Silver Light City has increased in the past twenty years?"

Roland shook his head.

"Sixteen times, I put most of my energy into it..." the old city lord said happily, "In the beginning, it was just an open-pit silver mine, and now there are more than ten kinds of ore veins; also, only the royal family dispatched the collectors at first. At present, there are not only various ore and jewelry merchants here, but also many auxiliary industries developed through mining, such as oil lamps, mining shovel manufacturing, etc. Your steam engine can also be counted as one of them, am I right? ?”

"Indeed," Roland smiled.

"This feeling is like raising a child and watching it grow up. How can I be willing to cut it up and seal it to others? So I don't need such power." The count said here He took a long breath, "Your Majesty, are you willing to let me continue to manage this shining silver city for you?"

"Of course, if you want," he raised his glass to each other, the two smiled at each other, and then the glasses lightly touched together, making a crisp sound.

"By the way," Roland drank the wine and changed the subject, "Do you know about the Glenn family?"

"Glenn?" Earl William raised his eyebrows after thinking for a while, "I have a little impression, but I don't remember very clearly—after all, Silver City hasn't had a new nobleman for a long time, and these families were from before the discovery of the silver mine. It exists here. If I remember correctly, the last Gulen should have changed his surname two years ago, and now the land belongs to the Somei family."

When the other party said these words, Roland felt that Nightingale grasped his arm instantly.