Chapter 258, Rest and Recuperate

The hot wind in summer raged in the Barony of Jean, and the scorching sun shone on the land. The serfs were sweating in the farmland. Big drops of sweat dripped on the soil, and the sweat carried the serfs' expectations for a good harvest. It also represents their hard work, carrying the livelihood of the family, serfs farming, paying taxes, and offerings, and knights collecting taxes, fighting, and guarding, which almost constitute their entire life.

The only way for serfs to advance is to go to war, accept conscripts, join the army, conquer the enemy, and then hope that they can be seen by the nobles, be promoted to sergeants or even rangers, and change their fate.

The serfs started working at five o'clock in the morning, and around ten o'clock in the morning, they stopped working because the weather was too hot.

Two serfs were sitting under the thatched hut to enjoy the shade, and there was water in the crudely made earthenware pots, and they just used bowls to drink water from the earthen pots, and you took a sip from each other.

"Wow, I'm exhausted."

"Why are you so tired?"

"Yeah, I'm really tired today."

"I don't want to do anything like farming"

"Yeah, I'm about the same."

The two serfs complained that they always felt that farming was very hard, but in fact today's farm work ended here, and the rest of the day was their rest time.

The serfs were actually not as diligent and hard-working as imagined. Many serfs often did not have enough to eat, but many times they would rather go hungry than work hard. The reason is very simple, the tithe tax will squeeze the serfs almost The result of all the efforts and all the efforts of the country to raise knights is that the country's resources are concentrated on knights, regardless of serfs.

"This situation has pros and cons, do you know? My baron, in the empire, 30% of our people are homeless." In the distance, Ryan, Olivier, Lopes and Katzenberg were Sitting on the second floor of a tavern on the edge of town, they were also enjoying the shade.

Olivier performed well in this war, and several of him solved several grave guards and bloodthirsty ghosts.

In this war, the more than 200 elites who followed François lost about 50 people, and more than 20 wounded soldiers could return to the team after recuperation, and the rest were dead or disabled.

Disabled soldiers will be included in the usual security patrols, or receive a pension.

"The vagabond, without any property, no one would take them in, they were landless peasants, homeless exiles,

Defeated deserters, and bankrupt nobles. Ryan's water condensed into ice cubes and threw it into the red wine: "Unlike Brittania, every serf has a noble to which he belongs. The nobles must not only accept them unconditionally, but also protect them when needed. What nobles hate most are these homeless people who can't generate income. They are driven out everywhere and rely on odd jobs for a living. The corruption of chaos spreads in their hearts. "

"Yes, I had a deep understanding when I was in Brunswick, the capital of the empire." Hux, a knight-errant knight, nodded, and he said: "Brunswick is a very huge city, very huge, also known as the heart of the empire , But in fact, that city is a city built on slums and muddy ponds, tens of thousands of people are silted up in each dock area of ​​the city, chaos, corruption, and corruption spread everywhere."

"It's very similar to Marienburg. After the population of a city breaks through a critical point, this is an inevitable result. There are too many people, and it faces severe tests from hygiene to public security. The agglomeration effect of the city is not as simple as 11." Butler Card Senberg followed suit.

"Now it seems that the enthusiasm of the people is not bad, not passive sabotage." Olivier is not interested in talking about these things, what he wants to talk about is war: "Baron, I think we need to reorganize the army now, and at the same time Let’s take advantage of the Midsummer’s conscription event to recruit excellent soldiers.”

Ryan has no opinion on the new recruitment source: "This time we plan to recruit fifty to one hundred people, Hux, I leave it to you to recruit the army."

"Understood." Hux nodded in agreement.

"My baron, several brand new windmills have been put into use. We only collect a small part of the windmill tax, but we stipulate that if the windmills in their area are damaged, the serfs need to bear the obligation to repair the windmills." Katzenberg said Looking at the form, he continued: "It is also worth noting that the wood elves have recently tried to spread the belief of Isa and Kunos among the serfs, but I stopped them."

"It's right to stop it." Ryan said impatiently: "The wood elves didn't really want to spread the faith at all, they just wanted to lure those children to be their servants, warn me that if they just need labor and help Forget it, it’s a normal employment after all, if they plan to use children for ceremonies or sacrifices, I’ll flatten their observation post!”

"My baron, you have an outstanding reputation and unrivaled prestige. In fact, after I negotiated with the wood elves, they have expressed their apologies and promised not to do such a thing in the future." Katzenberg added road.

"That's good." The news that Ryan killed the Blood Red Duke has spread throughout the kingdom. His reputation in the Knight Kingdom is now so high that even the people of the empire and the southern countries are familiar with his name and deeds. Under such circumstances, the wood elves would naturally not conflict with him, and he was the only trading partner of the wood elves.

Ryan began to think about his territory.

At present, his territory is very prosperous, and various construction projects are proceeding in an orderly manner. The trade with the wood elves brought him a lot of wealth and a hospital, and taking in the dwarves brought him three workshops. Far from enough.

After this war, Ryan realized how to fight against evil without a strong army? He can't always do that in an elite team of several people who have narrowly escaped death in order to burn a few siege engines.

Speaking of it, vampires really like to change houses. One time is not enough, so I came for the second time. Thinking of this, Ryan smiled wryly and shook his head. Now, Mu Xilong's vampires need to be quiet for at least many years. For the vampire army, Corpses and skeletons can be seen everywhere, but the loss of the blood knight, bloodthirsty sky ghost, and bloodthirsty bat wolf is enough to make Mu Xilong's vampire heartache.

change house? good thing

A blood knight needs hundreds of years of training, and must go through life and death trials with a very high elimination rate to be considered a qualified blood knight. This time, the battle of Turis Castle included the war in Sharon Forest, and the loss of vampires Losing dozens of blood knights, this is a truly terrible loss for Mu Xilong, and it may take many years to make up for it.

The same is true for bloodthirsty sky ghosts and bloodthirsty bat wolves, these creatures must be cultivated from childhood.

"Baron, the blacksmiths in the town have complaints. The quality of the dwarves' products is too good and the price is fair. They have no food to eat, so there are some conflicts." Katzenberg then reported the situation in the territory.

"Then let them learn technology from the dwarves. They all rely on craftsmanship to make a living. If they are inferior to humans, they will naturally be eliminated. The dwarves have not prohibited the recruitment of human apprentices." Ryan gave a light comment: "If you don't want to learn the craft, you can get out."

"Yes, my baron. Also, Craftsman Deron said that another group of dwarves learned about the treatment here and tried to settle here. He wants to ask if you are willing to accept it?" Katzenberg took out a piece of parchment, Then he said.

"how many people?"

"About four hundred or so."

Ryan thought that this amount was okay, not too much, but he didn't want to make a hasty decision: "Let's go to the dwarf's new home first, Deron seems to be resting today."

"Then please let me lead the way for you, my baron." Katzenberg stood up, and the four of them hurried on their way under the sun.

After riding for about half an hour, the dwarf community arrived.

This is an independent community. The dwarves built their residence under a hill, yes, it is under the hill. When Ryan came to the dwarf community along the stone road, he found that the dwarf had hollowed out the bottom of the hill. , they made deep basement groups for living, only a small number of dwarves are willing to build houses outside. A statue of the main dwarf god was built.

Two dwarves were standing guard in the watchtower with long fire guns. When they saw Ryan appearing, they saluted happily: "Hi, Your Excellency Ryan, may your beard be long and beautiful,"

"Pfft..." The two ranger knights couldn't help laughing. Ryan didn't grow a beard at all. He did have a little stubble when he came back from the battle, but he shaved it off quickly. Ryan is 28 years old this year, and he hasn't grown a beard yet. age.

Ryan didn't say anything in particular, he just smiled: "Thank you, is Mr. Delong here?"

"Oh! My old friend, Lord Ryan." The dwarf rune craftsman Deron Feinson came out of the community: "Welcome"

Several people entered the community. Olivier looked around as if he had discovered a new world. There was nothing unusual about dwarves, but it was the first time he had seen a dwarf community. Hux and Katzenberg tried their best to keep calm , but they also feel good about the dwarven community.

Many dwarves despise the good looks of humans, thinking how rare these stupid students are.

Yes, although most dwarves have a good relationship with humans, they think that humans are their stupid students. Since the empire and dwarves formed a "holy alliance", human weapons manufacturing technology is taught by dwarves. Human siege weapons The technology is generously shared by the dwarves, and the gunpowder technology and steam weapons are selflessly given by the dwarves.

Therefore, in the eyes of the dwarves, human beings are their friends, and at the same time they are not very talented and stupid students. Whenever humans make major breakthroughs in technology, the dwarves always feel embarrassed, and the Dwarf Engineers Association will immediately come up with new research results. Suppress human technology and show off its power at the same time.

Deron noticed that Ryan kept looking around, so he took the initiative to say, "My baron, what's the matter?"

"Nothing, I noticed that your houses are very thick, and you still use huge stones to cover them. Is there any reason?" Ryan looked at the stone houses of the dwarves. Even though the materials were monotonous, the dwarves still repaired their houses very neatly Beautiful, without gorgeous decoration, but with a sense of seriousness unique to dwarves.

"Building a house is a skill, my baron." Deron pointed to his stone house: "If the walls are too narrow, the house will be very hot; if the walls are too thick, the house will be very cold."

The dwarf's words sounded irrelevant, and Ryan didn't care. Deron opened the door of his room. His house was the largest and most luxurious in the entire community. It was nearly three meters high. For the dwarf, "Come in, Ryan." Your Excellency, gentlemen."

Ryan and the others bent down into the room, came to the living room and sat down, Deron took out several glasses of malt wine and put them on the table, and at the same time brought out some bacon and grilled bacon: "Please take it slow, I'm sorry, Your Excellency Ryan should treat you with Bagman beer when you come, but I don’t have it now, but it should be available soon, I asked someone to buy a few barrels at Breeze Castle.”

"It seems that Mr. Delong is doing well now!" Ryan said with a smile. The dwarf's beer tastes very strong and the meat tastes very salty, so it can only be said to be barely palatable.

"It's okay, as you can see, many compatriots are still not used to living under the sky, so they opened up basement groups within the hills." Delong stroked his white beard: "When I first started Not too used to it, my baron, don't you think that when you look up at the sky, you are afraid that you will fall into it, into the infinite starry sky?"

"I never feel, on the contrary, whenever I look up at the starry sky, I always feel that I am insignificant." Ryan shook his head lightly, and Delong didn't care, he continued: "Your Excellency Ryan, you are here this time It must be because of Sven, right?"

"Yes, it's not that I don't welcome your people, I just want to find out where they came from and what else they need from me." Ryan said calmly.

"Should be, should be." Deron nodded again and again: "He is my friend, named Sven, Swinnovigrin, a powerful dwarf patriarch and blacksmith, a young dwarf who is eighty-seven years old He can live at least four hundred years. His city was destroyed by night goblins, and most of his people died in the war. After more than ten years of desperate struggle, Sven finally realized that the remaining four hundred people It's not enough to take back the citadel of their ancestors, they need a place to recuperate, so I suggest they come here."

"There are not many remaining members of the Novigrin clan, but they are all excellent fighters. They are willing to exchange their own hands for the necessities of survival they want. This can be work or killing, as long as you provide them A place to live and work in peace, and enough ale." Deron was not good at words, he could only use such dry words to try to gain Ryan's trust.

"Is it recuperating?" Ryan thought for a while, and finally nodded: "Okay, let them come, I approve."

His territory also needs to recuperate.

At this time, a knight servant came from afar on horseback, and he told Ryan a news.

The king's envoy has arrived. 14