Chapter 350 Royal Capital Envoy

After the golem was successfully refined, Richard began to test the power of the golem. He personally fought the Iron Golem with the ability of a sixth-level warrior without using magic. As a result, the melee ability was easily crushed by the golem. Even the seventh-level Roman, Jennings, and Driffin were not the opponents of the Iron Golem.

Only silver knights like Wilde, who use the power of spells, can have a chance of winning against the Iron Golem.

Through various scientific tests, Richard found that the standard Iron Golem has a strength of about 28 points. If the ninth-level magic core is used as the core, the strength will be increased to 32 points.

An ordinary seventh-level warrior has a strength of roughly between 22 and 24 points.

The ninth-level warrior has a strength of more than 30 points and has awakened the second physical attribute talent. His strength should be stronger than that of the Iron Golem.

The strength of the Iron Golem is almost the same as that of the ninth-level warrior, and its defense is even more outstanding. Its ability to attack and close combat can be compared with that of the ninth-level warrior.

However, the Iron Golem also has several weaknesses. The first is that it moves slowly. According to Richard's test, its agility is only about 2.3 points. Even a fourth-level warrior is faster than the Iron Golem.

The second is that it is not flexible enough, because when the magician controls the golem, he needs to use a special magic possession technique to separate a part of his mental power to attach to the golem. With two minds divided, all kinds of movements are naturally a beat slower, and the flexibility in battle is naturally a little worse.

The third weakness is that it is afraid of mental attack spells. The Iron Golem is very resistant to elemental magic, but it is afraid of charm and mental attack spells. Therefore, when controlling the golem, there must be a magician nearby to protect it.

Generally speaking, only when the strength of the own magician group is stronger than the opponent, the golem troops can exert all their strength and crush the opponent.

In fact, any army has weaknesses. On the battlefield, it is necessary to integrate the strengths of various arms, play to their own advantages, reduce the advantages of the opponent, and then find opportunities to defeat the opponent.

Although the weakness of the golem army is obvious, it is very suitable for Harland Territory, because in the nearby area, the Harland Territory Mage Corps has almost no rivals.

Although the Grant Royal Mage Corps is stronger than the Harland Territory Mage Corps, Richard is confident of defeating the opponent because of the Star Necklace in hand.

Moreover, the Grant Kingdom Mage Corps is still a friendly army. The main enemy of Harland Territory is the orcs. Their spell power is not outstanding, and close combat is the advantage of the orc army.

The golem weighs 18 tons and is very difficult to move. The first-ring possession spell can only last for six minutes. Even if it runs at full speed, it can only move about one or two kilometers.

A first-ring magician can only release four first-ring spells a day, and can control the golem to move seven or eight kilometers at most. However, using the steel golem in this way will cause the golem itself to wear out extremely seriously, and it can not be used for too long normally.

Generally speaking, the golem troops need to be transported to the battlefield in advance and need to be hidden in the dark to play an unexpected effect.

The weight of the Iron Golem exceeds 18 tons. Even a strong man like a ninth-level warrior needs four people to lift it.

Harland does not have a ninth-level warrior yet, and there is only one eighth-level warrior, Soros. Although there are many seventh-level warriors, they are all important figures in the territory, and it is impossible to transfer them all to undertake the transportation task.

Moreover, to transport the Iron Golem, a special carriage needs to be made, which can only be pulled by sixteen iron-horned horses. In order to allow such a heavy carriage to pass, tens of thousands of contract servants need to be mobilized to rebuild the road.

Harland Territory has no plan to build roads this year. If you want to build roads, you need to draw a large amount of materials. It is already September, and the mountains will be closed by heavy snow in early November. Even if you wait until the orcs invade next year, it may not be possible to build the road to the front line.

In fact, the only reliable way is to use large-scale space equipment for transportation.

The internal space of the Starlight Bottle is five meters high and has a volume of 450 cubic meters. It can hold 100 Iron Golems at a time. The legendary first-level space bag in Wendy's hand also has an internal space of 120 cubic meters, which can also hold more than a dozen Iron Golems.

With two large space equipment in hand, the Harland Territory does not have to worry about the transportation task.

After the first golem was made, the golem manufacturing team got help. Although the level of the alchemists trained by Richard was not high, there were two mid-level alchemists among the elves, and their level was enough to help Wendy.

With two more helpers and more experience, it only took nine days to make the second steel golem.

The speed of making the third golem was even faster, and it took only seven days to make it successfully.

When the third golem was made, it was already late September, and the territory began to harvest in autumn.

As the lord of the Duke of Harland, Richard did not like complicated government affairs, and he did not like to be hypocritical with others and waste time on socializing and entertainment. It was impossible for him to spend all his time on making golems all day long.

After the territory began to harvest in autumn, Richard came out of the magic tower, entrusted the task of making golems to Wendy, and then began to inspect the territory to welcome the autumn harvest.

Undine can earn 3,000 points of magic academic contribution for refining a golem. According to the rules of the Harland Mage Association, learning new knowledge requires academic contribution.

The various new magic knowledge in Harland is extremely complicated. Learning a lot of precious magic knowledge requires a lot of contribution. For example, the ancient wizard text mastered by Richard requires 80,000 contributions to learn. The language of the ancient O'Farland region also requires 9,000 contributions before Richard will teach it personally.

In the entire Mage Association, only Richard and three others have mastered the ancient wizard text, and the contributions of other magicians are far from enough.

To learn these new knowledge, you must sign a non-disclosure contract and cannot teach privately.

In order to learn new knowledge, even if the process of refining steel golems is very boring, Undine has always been very interested.

The Harland Territory encountered a large-scale rainstorm after the fall of this year, and the low-lying areas suffered relatively serious floods. According to a rough sampling statistics, the yield per mu of autumn harvest decreased by 16% compared with last year.

Fortunately, the summer harvest yield is good, which is a bumper year. Even if a large number of new fields are reclaimed, the yield per mu decreases by only 5%.

According to comprehensive sampling statistics, the grain yield per mu has decreased by 9%. However, this year, two million mu of arable land has been added, and the total grain output is much higher than last year. When the statistics are completed in mid-October, this year's grain output has increased to about 910,000 tons.

Of the 910,000 tons of grain, 390,000 tons belong to free people, and about 520,000 tons can actually enter the territory's grain depot.

There was no war this year, so it was impossible to plunder the population from outside. The only way was to attract free people from the northern border to move in. However, the fertility rate in Harland Territory was high, and the population growth rate of free people was close to 5%. The conditions of contract slaves were worse, and the population growth rate was about 2.3%.

As of October, according to the data from the territory's statistics department, the number of newborns in the territory this year was roughly 46,000, and more than 42,000 people were newly registered in the household registration department.

Including the newly added free people, the population this year is estimated to increase by about 60,000.

Last year, a war increased the population of Harland Territory by 400,000. Sure enough, relying on war, the territory can accelerate its development.

After the autumn harvest, before the heavy snow closed the mountains, Richard came to the Imu River area again and met his acquaintance Gulov.

Compared with when he came in June, Gulov's living conditions have improved a lot. He has moved out of the dugout and lived in a large wooden house.

With the continuous inflow of materials from the territory, the prices in the Imu River Basin have dropped a lot, especially building materials such as bricks and cement, which have dropped to the average price.

Because the cement plant was put into production in August, with the change of supply and demand, it is estimated that there will be a considerable price reduction.

Richard walked around the village and found that there were still a small number of free people living in the dugouts.

The dugouts were not easy to heat, and it was very uncomfortable in winter. And these free people living in the dugouts were almost all old, weak, sick and disabled, and vulnerable populations.

After Richard returned from Imburg, he immediately issued an imperial decree, ordering each village to gather the old, weak, sick and disabled families and transfer them to the village office with better conditions for centralized heating, which should be able to save a group of people.

After returning from the Im River, it was already mid-October.

In nearly a month, Undine refined the steel golem four times, but unfortunately only succeeded three times. The only failure was also due to the mistake of the auxiliary alchemist.

Seeing that winter was about to come, there was nothing big to do except the commodity fair. Richard was just about to enter the golem production team when he suddenly received news that the king's envoy was about to enter Harland.

After receiving this news, Richard had to stop and deal with the king's envoy first.

Although the political influence of Harland Territory in Nolan is not very large, it has a lot of commercial income. Since the time when Hayden was in charge of the intelligence department, the territory has placed people in charge of intelligence in the Chamber of Commerce.

Now, Harland Territory has more than 100 people in the intelligence network in Nolan, and can access a lot of public intelligence.

Before the special envoy entered Harland Territory, the news had already reached Fort William.

In the afternoon after receiving the intelligence, Richard summoned Noel, Vitas and other officials in charge of intelligence to the City Lord's Mansion.

In today's Harland Territory, Noel is the Minister of Intelligence, the highest official in charge of intelligence in the territory.

Although Noel is also a member of the Harland Territory branch, his relationship with Richard is already quite distant.

The most important thing in managing the intelligence department is to gain Richard's trust. Compared with George, Richard naturally trusts George more.

But George went to the south to run the territory, and Richard didn't want Hayden to get his hands dirty, so he could only let Noel continue to do it.

Today, the intelligence work of Rand 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 in charge of external intelligence.

Among the backbones of these three intelligence departments, Vitas is relatively the most capable.

"Have you investigated the background of the envoy?"

Hearing Richard's question, Vitas replied: "Dear Duke, the envoy this time is Count Lawrence. Count Lawrence is the half-brother of King Roger. He is said to be of average ability. In the capital, he is a court earl in charge of sacrifices, rituals, and celebrations."

"Which family is Count Lawrence's mother from?"

"Count Lawrence's mother is the aunt of Marquis Allen, but she is not a legitimate daughter, but the daughter of Marquis Allen's court lady. But their branch has frequent contacts with Count Allen."

In the Grant Kingdom's noble system, no one can be granted a title without merit.

Even though he was the son of the previous generation of the kingdom, Lawrence was only a court earl. If the next generation could not make military achievements and could not gain a foothold in the court, Lawrence's descendants would become professionals, and their treatment might be worse than that of the descendants of hereditary barons.

Lawrence also has a court title, and Richard's brother Hayden, because of his insufficient merits, is also unable to be knighted. Perhaps in a few years, Lord Harland will also establish a court title and reward top civil servants such as Roger and Hayden.

Richard opened the window to let in some of the cold wind outside, and suddenly asked: "What is the secret behind Lawrence's mission?"

Lord Harland's intelligence network in Nolan mainly collects public intelligence, especially commercial intelligence. Their tentacles are still far from exploring secret political intelligence.

Moreover, Richard had issued a strict order before, prohibiting infiltration into the Grant court. His question immediately made Noel and others look embarrassed.

Seeing that Noel and others were timid and could not say any useful information, Richard knew in his heart that he was also forcing others. After all, if he did not infiltrate the royal court, it would be impossible to know the secret information, so he did not blame.

Five days later, Lawrence rushed to Fort William.

Although Lawrence's status was far from Richard's, after all, he was the king's envoy, so Richard still gave him face and went out of the city to greet him in person.

After more than ten years of development, the population near Fort William has exceeded 100,000. This castle built between the mountains has long become very prosperous, and the city construction is better than that of Black River Fort.

In particular, the city streets are very regular and look extremely tidy, unlike the chaos of Black River Fort.

Gas lamps are also erected on both sides of the streets in the west of the castle. When the gas lamps are lit at night, the lights are bright and warm in an instant. Now the gas lamps in Fort William have become a business card of Harland. Many nobles from the northern border come to Harland to travel and will visit the west of Fort William.

Looking at the castle, Lawrence suddenly had a strange feeling. "In just over a decade, the northern border region has built such a wonder."

Richard met Lawrence, said a few polite words, and then invited Lawrence to the city lord's mansion, and asked directly: "What does the Roger Kingdom have to say about the special envoy's visit to Harland this time?"

Seeing that Richard asked very directly, Lawrence was very surprised. Such direct social interaction made the nobles from the capital very uncomfortable.

As a high-ranking noble who grew up in Nolan, Lawrence has long been accustomed to feigning, testing left and right, and accustomed to various political and interest exchanges at dances and dinners.

After arriving at William Castle, Richard didn't even finish a cup of tea, and he went straight to the point and touched the key points directly, like a barbarian.

Such behavior made Lawrence very contemptuous, but the status of the two sides was very different, and Lawrence didn't dare to directly ridicule Richard.

After all, Richard is a duke of a fiefdom, with 50,000 soldiers under his command. If he offends such a person and makes Lawrence disappear on the road, King Roger may not be willing to pursue it and cause trouble for himself.

Although he has the blood of the Marquis Allen family and has a close relationship with King Roger, Lawrence knows that King Roger actually has a very ordinary impression of him. On the contrary, the previous King Charles values ​​him more.