Chapter 257: Army Expansion

Richard chose Zhuanyao Village as the first stop on his inspection tour.

Brick Kiln Village was the first gathering point established in the Harland Territory, and its history preceded Fort William by two months.

During the development of the territory more than ten years ago, Richard basically lived in Brick Kiln Village. At that time, his second uncle Powell was responsible for building Fort William, and Richard was responsible for building the brick kiln and leading the indentured slaves to cultivate farmland. Richard lived in a tent set up in Zhuanyao Village for several months.

Back then, with his limited hands and feet, he took the first batch of indentured slaves from a deserted land and established a foundation through hard work.

After more than ten years of development, the village with a population of only 1,000 people has now naturally multiplied to 2,000.

As the population increases, of course the land must be divided.

Nowadays, there is not much wasteland that can be cultivated near Zhuanyao Village, and children born in the past three years can no longer be allocated farmland.

The law of Harland territory stipulates that the eldest son inherits his parents' lands and real estate.

The second son and daughter who cannot be allocated farmland cannot find a job in the city if they do not want to bear the glare of their brothers and sisters-in-law when they grow up. They can only choose to open up wasteland in border or desolate areas to have a chance to be allocated farmland.

The development of brick kilns in recent years is neither fast nor slow.

Today, there are three brick kilns in the Harland territory. In addition to the Poppy Brick Kiln, there are also the Fort Depot Brick Kiln and the Graveson Brick Kiln.

The territory near Bobi Brick Kiln Factory has been developed and the infrastructure is basically completed.

The main business of Bobi Brick Kiln Factory has been transferred to the civilian side.

It has now been eight years since the first batch of indentured slaves in the Harland Territory became free citizens, and they have accumulated a lot of money. Their children have grown up one after another, and when they reach the age of marriage, the demand for private housing construction is relatively strong.

In the early years, the Bobi Brick Kiln Factory was the focus of Richard's attention. He even had to personally mediate internal disputes in the brick kiln factory. Now the reports of this brick kiln factory do not even appear on Richard's desk. It has become a territory that is not particularly important. A small business.

Richard walked around the village and found that the scale of Zhuanyao Village had expanded a lot, and the new houses were also better built.

He randomly selected a few houses, went in and looked around, and finally came to Robinson's house.

Counting this time, Richard has been to Robinson's house three times.

Robinson's yard is still the same, looking slightly older than it did a few years ago.

Robinson's eldest son, Thora, has gotten married, built a new house and moved out of the yard. His second son joined the army this year and has not completed recruit training. The younger children have also grown up a lot, and are already half a labor force, and can help out at home.

"How many people do you have in your family now, and how many acres of land do you have?"

"Celia's father-in-law passed away last year. Sola and Lina got married and lived separately. In the past few years, Celia and I have given birth to two more children. Now our family is still nine people and has 35 acres of land. .

"I remember you used to have forty-five acres of land."

"You are right, Mr. Richard. When Sola separated the family, he took away the five acres of land he was assigned. Last year, his grandfather passed away, and the remaining five acres of land was given to Sola for inheritance. Now, Our family only has thirty-five acres of land."

Richard knew in his heart that halfway couples like Robinson and Celia were relatively common in the territory. In such a family, property inheritance is often more complicated.

According to the laws of Harland territory, Sora will inherit the land of his grandparents and mother.

Robinson's property will be inherited by his eldest son. The remaining children can only inherit some of the money left by their parents.

The distribution of fields to indentured servants in the Harland Territory has been going on for eight years. Over the past eight years, some of the old people who were assigned the land have passed away one after another. The fields they were assigned are often inherited by their direct descendants. As newborns continue to be born, the per capita cultivated land area gradually decreases. Now Zhuanyao Village has more people and less land.

"How has your life been in the past few years?"

"Thanks to the blessing of the Goddess of Dawn, there have been no famines in recent years. Except for the one or two years when I built a house for Sola's wedding, my life was a little harder, and I can still live a good life."

Hearing that Robinson was doing well, Richard smiled and said, "Can you tell me how much savings you have now?"

In an ordinary territory, the people would not dare to tell the noble lord how much money they had.

Because the noble lords would impose excessive taxes and would like to take all the gold and silver coins in the territory into their own treasury.

Ordinary people would hide a few gold coins tightly in their hands, fearing that others would know about it, and they would report it to the tax collector of the lord's house, which would lead to tax increases or robberies from the noble lords.

However, the Harland territory was different. Not only did it allocate houses and fields to serfs, but it also set relatively low taxes. Apart from one property tax increase, agricultural taxes have barely changed in the past eight years.

Almost all free people believed that Richard was a benevolent and kind lord.

Richard's question made Luo Bingxun have some doubts. He didn't want people to know how many gold coins he had saved, but he didn't want to deceive Richard. He looked at the village cadres around Richard, with a look of embarrassment on his face.

"What, can't you say it? Don't be afraid. If someone increases taxes or apportionments more, you can go to Fort William to complain to me, and I will come to Brick Yao Village to see you."

As Richard spoke, he wrote a letter and gave it to Robinson. He warned: "With this letter from me, you can come to Fort William to find me at any time. Neither the city defense army nor anyone else dares to stop you."

"I'm a little afraid to say it, Master Richard! My family has saved up 26 gold coins and 16 silver coins now, which is a huge fortune.

Hearing this, Richard laughed heartily and said, "It seems that you have lived a good life in recent years. I have saved up a sum of money. What are your plans for this money?"

"My child Danon is already thirteen years old. I plan to use this money to build a house for him and marry a wife to inherit the family business. The rest will be divided among several younger children so that they can live a decent life in other places."

"Robinson, didn't you send the children to school? The tuition fee has now been reduced to three silver coins a year, which should be affordable according to your income."

"Master Richard, although the tuition fee has been reduced, it is still very expensive for the children to live in Fort William. I know a little carpentry work, and the children can learn carpentry from me, and they don't need to spend money on farming, bricklaying, and kiln firing. "

Seeing Robinson's idea, Richard sighed. Ordinary freemen are indeed short-sighted.

Richard took the initiative to shake hands with Robinson, left his yard, and went to other people's homes. After eight years of accumulation, the brick kiln village has generally developed very well, and most of the hardworking freemen families have saved a sum of money.

Coming out of the brick kiln village, Richard led his entourage into the Bobby Brick Kiln Factory. He went directly to the factory director's office and said to Bobby, Leighton and others, "Bring out last year's accounts of the brick kiln factory for me to have a look."

Leighton hurriedly brought out the account book, and several young followers stood up behind Richard and began to carefully check the account book.

These young followers are students who graduated from Riverbank Primary School and are also the first batch of auditors in the territory.

These people have considerable authority, and some corrupt personnel have been investigated in recent days.

After reading all the account books, Richard frowned and said seriously: "The management's welfare benefits are too much. Compared with last year, the profit margin has dropped a little. If these still cannot be changed next year, you can go home and hug your children.

I am here to warn you seriously, I hope you will not be greedy. Your salary is already very good, compared to ten years ago, your status is already a world of difference. You should cherish the good life now, I don't want your name to be written on the list of executions in the future. "

The laws of the Harland Territory are strict, Richard does not need to compromise with the bureaucrats, as long as the corruption exceeds ten gold coins, he will be sentenced to death immediately, and the direct relatives within three generations cannot join the army, go to school, or become officials.

But people always have greed in their hearts. Although the bureaucrats are well treated and there are strict laws, they still cannot stop the greed of the bureaucrats.

In the early Ming Dynasty, peeling skins and stuffing grass could not stop officials from corruption, and Richard could not do this either. No system can stop people's greed, unless artificial intelligence is realized, humans take the initiative to give up power, and let robots without desires govern everything.

Now the territory is still small in population and small in area. Richard is more diligent in patrolling and can suppress corruption.

In a few years, the territory will expand and the population will exceed one million. It is estimated that the Harland Territory will be different from other places in the Grant Kingdom. Like the district, there are corrupt officials everywhere.

This year, Richard is going to set up a discipline inspection department, train personnel in advance, and appoint Hayden as the chief inspector of the territory to perform a job similar to the inspector censor, which will relieve some of Richard's work pressure.

The intelligence department is going to appoint William's adjutant Noel to manage it.

Hayden has been in charge of the territory intelligence department for more than ten years. This kind of work is not suitable for one person to manage for a long time. If the intelligence work is managed for too long, it will form a closed mountain, which is a big trouble for the lord.

Hayden is Richard's brother. If Richard wants to crack down on and clean up the intelligence department in the future, it will be more troublesome to deal with it with Hayden standing in the way.

The intelligence department has great authority and holds many secrets of the territory. Richard is not very confident in handing it over to outsiders. He will replace Hayden. The only ones who can be appointed are members of the Harland family.

Richard is preparing to train George, the eldest son of Mrs. Ola. George has been the adjutant of Hayden for a year, but it is difficult for him to be responsible for the territory intelligence work with his current ability and experience.

The scale of the intelligence department of the Harland territory is now very large, with more than 3,000 personnel in operations, intelligence, logistics, administration, etc.

Intelligence work has its complexity and particularity, and it is best to transfer officials from within the system.

Noel is a distant member of the Harland family and is William's adjutant, responsible for managing part of the military intelligence work.

The most important thing is that part of the intelligence power controlled by Mrs. Ola and Butler Gibson has been handed over to Noel. He has managed it very well in the past one or two years without any mistakes.

The intelligence power of the Harland family , has always been divided into two aspects. The first is the territory intelligence system, which has always been under the management of Hayden.

The other system was developed from the business system in the hands of Mrs. Ola. After more than ten years of operation by William and Mrs. Ola, the power of this intelligence system is also very considerable.

Through commercial infiltration, this system has penetrated into all aspects of Black River Fort.

Some noble families in Geda Province have intelligence personnel of this system. They are chefs, winemakers, gardeners, goldsmiths, maids, servants, accountants, etc., and they are placed in the noble mansions through various channels.

The two intelligence systems do not interfere with each other, and there is almost no cooperation.

The reason why Richard wrote to William and transferred Noel to the chief intelligence officer of the territory was obviously to merge the two systems.

William agreed to Richard's request, and obviously agreed with Richard's idea.

The intelligence work of Harland Territory is divided into three aspects: military intelligence, internal intelligence, and external intelligence. Ruiz is in charge of military intelligence, Luciano is in charge of internal intelligence, and Vitas is appointed as the director of external intelligence.

Now Noel has been transferred to the chief intelligence officer of Harland Territory, and George still serves as Noel's adjutant.

Now Richard has many assistants at work, and the front-line work is basically handed over to the assistants. Richard is only responsible for the overall situation, inspecting the territory, and severely punishing corrupt officials.

Of course, after the battle this year, Richard's most important work is actually the training of new recruits.

After May, Harland Territory began to recruit 4,000 new recruits and started the training of new recruits.

The training cycle of new recruits in Harland Territory is one year.

The first three months are preliminary training such as discipline obedience, internal regulations, and new recruits' literacy.

After three months, the recruits adapted to the life in the military camp, began to learn breathing techniques, trained to use equipment, and started training in subjects such as archery, gunmanship, swordsmanship, horse riding, bomb throwing, and fighting.

Of course, the training of the formation is the most important. From the first day of entering the military camp to the day of retirement, they almost have to practice fighting in formation.

The most important task of a soldier is to remember his position in the formation.

Whether it is normal training or fighting, you must not forget this at all times.

If you lose your position on the battlefield, according to military law, you can enforce battlefield discipline and behead directly.

Only by being familiar with your position and training day after day to form a conditioned reflex memory, you can form a tight formation when encountering war and will not panic.

In the face of various sudden situations, you can change the formation, randomly draw and merge teams, and deal with battles in different directions.

In the training of the army, formation is the most important subject, and archery is second only to formation.

In the training of recruits, formation and archery are trained almost every day.

After one year, the soldiers who have completed the training of new recruits must at least be able to form a battle array and shoot arrows. Only by mastering these two most important skills can they integrate into the army and cooperate with veterans in combat.

The food of the army in Harland Territory is very good, and the logistics supply standard for each soldier is three gold coins per year.

Weapons and armor are provided by the territory, and additional funding will be calculated.

Two sets of single clothes and one set of cotton clothes cost six silver coins a year, and the remaining two gold coins and six silver coins are used to feed the soldiers.

Each soldier has three catties of rations per day, half a catty of meat, and two catties of brown sugar per month. Only with good material support can high-intensity training be carried out.

If you don’t eat enough and wear warm clothes, and there is no sufficient material support, the soldiers will urinate blood after a few days of high-intensity training.

Now the recruits have been training for several months.

After several months of training, the recruits have gradually acquired some of the temperament of veterans and look much stronger, but soldiers who have never seen blood will always be recruits, and they are good-looking but useless. Only by incorporating new soldiers into the ranks of veterans and letting veterans see blood and fight a few battles can the transformation of their identities be completed.

Richard was very strict with the training of new soldiers. He often came down to inspect and talk with the new soldiers to complete the training together.

Therefore, the logistics officials did not dare to play tricks in this regard. The material support was always sufficient and there was never a shortage.