Chapter 379: Insect Repellent

The Duke of Guise died in battle, and the people of the Guise family would certainly not let it go. They joined forces with the two great dukes, Duran and Loran, and constantly impeached the Duke of Harland in the Noble Council for not saving the dying.

The three dukes joined forces and had a very high number of votes in the Noble Council. In just seven or eight days, the momentum was particularly great, and the power of the Harland family in the Noble Council could not be suppressed at all.

As a last resort, Richard sent envoys several times to tell the Noble Council about his difficulties and explain why he did not send troops to rescue.

The envoys were questioned several times in the Noble Council, explaining that Harland was not not saving the dying, but that he had fought two consecutive battles with less than 4,000 troops and could not save him at all.

Although Richard had a good excuse, the Duke of Guise was still unyielding and launched motions to impeach the Duke of Harland many times. In order to shut up the Duke of Guise, Richard was forced to agree to give up some of his interests to make up for it.

Finally, after six rounds of negotiations, Richard gave up 600,000 gold coins of the Kingdom of Delong to settle the Guise family.

After using part of the captured spoils to settle the Gis family, Richard returned to Harland with hundreds of thousands of people in late May. At this moment, the spring plowing had already ended.

This spring, the 240,000 indentured slaves rescued from the Losa Basin have served Harland for four years and nine months.

Before the spring plowing, Harland pardoned them three months in advance as usual and allocated land to them. In addition to many freemen who made contributions and were pardoned in advance, the number of freemen in Harland has exceeded 1.09 million.

With a consumer population of 1.09 million, the market size is far larger than that of the Nolan Province.

In fact, the population with consumption capacity in the Grant Kingdom, except for a few nobles, mainly relies on the families of the army.

Now that the army has been transferred to the south, most of the families have followed. On the land directly under the royal family, the consumption capacity of the south is already higher than that of the north.

After all, there are six regular legions in the south, plus the noble armies of Gis, Duran, etc., with a total number of about 250,000. In addition to the families of the soldiers, there are at least more than one million consumers in the south.

Because the army moved south, the current Grizzly Fort and Black River Fort declined very quickly. The commercial institutions in Black River Fort can pay 85% less profit to Harland.

Last year, the North Border Army moved south. Richard took the opportunity to recruit more than 3,000 veterans who were unwilling to leave their hometown. These soldiers are still in training. Richard plans to mix them with the 6,000 new recruits trained this year to form six new battalions.

When the six new battalions are formed this year, Harland will have 39 infantry battalions and the number of regular troops will increase by about 10,000.

This time, when leading troops south, Harland's army seized 300 flame horses. Richard plans to use these 300 flame horses to form the third Warcraft Cavalry Battalion. If the newly formed 300 Warcraft Cavalry are added, the number of Warcraft Cavalry in Harland will increase to 1,900.

With the expansion of the headquarters, the number of regular troops will reach 66,000 by the end of the year, and the number of recruited auxiliary troops will also increase by 8,000. After the reorganization is completed, the number of troops in Harland will exceed 100,000.

The size of the army of 100,000 is even larger than that of the Duke of York.

After bringing back 400,000 people from the south, the population of Harland has reached 2.24 million. Whether it is the territory area or the population size, it is already quite good for a dukedom.

2.24 million people, nearly 1.1 million freemen, although Harland implements a light tax policy, the annual field tax can collect 300,000 gold coins, plus tariffs, business taxes, corporate income taxes, etc., this year's tax revenue is estimated to exceed 400,000 gold coins.

400,000 gold coins are estimated to account for about one-fifth of the fiscal revenue.

During the spring plowing season, Sophia and Rogge migrated a part of the population to the north of Hurricane Castle, with a total of about 40,000 people.

Eighty kilometers to the north of Hurricane Castle is the Samba River. Now the Harland Army has established a navy on the Samba River. Although this navy is relatively small, with only six steam paddle steamers, it can already block more than 100 kilometers of the river.

With the natural defense line of the Samba River, the northern areas of the No. 9 and No. 11 military stations are relatively safe. Most of this area is plains, with only a small amount of mountains, with a total area of ​​about 11,000 square kilometers.

Last year, the Harland Territory decided to develop this area first. This year, the Snow Mountain County was established, and Powell, the deputy governor of the Harland Territory, was appointed as the county governor.

The core area of ​​the Snow Mountain County is the Snow Crystal Lake, but the county city is not built in the Snow Crystal Lake area, but in the northwest of the Snow Crystal Lake. This new castle was named the Brilliant Castle by Richard to commemorate the glorious victory last year.

After the establishment of Snow Mountain County, in order to provide a foundation for the development of this county, Richard included Hurricane Castle and Snow Mountain Castle into Snow Mountain County. Together with the population settled near the two castles, the total population of Snow Mountain County has been around 56,000 people since its establishment.

In order to speed up the development of Snow Mountain County, Richard will move 100,000 indentured servants into Snow Mountain County this year.

Although the spring plowing was delayed this year, indentured servants can also reclaim wasteland, build houses, clear roads, and build reservoirs. Anyway, with more than 100,000 tons of food brought back from the Kingdom of Delong, it should be enough to support 400,000 new people in one year.

In addition to Snow Mountain County, the focus of the development of Harland Territory this year is the southeast of Snow Mountain Castle. This part of the land has been incorporated into Harland Territory for many years and has not been developed.

From Sofia Castle to the northwest, it borders Martins County and basically has not too many people.

In recent years, some settlements have been established sporadically, and the main purpose is also for logging.

Now Martins County has been incorporated into Harland Territory. Although this land is mountainous, it is also the hinterland of Harland Territory. The front line extends to the 12th and 13th military stations in the north of the Eagle Mountains. The Harland Territory army completely controls the Kelaniya Valley. The time for the development of this land has long been ripe.

In the center of this territory, Richard decided to build a new castle and named it Forest City. On this land of more than 20,000 square kilometers, Richard plans to settle 40,000 indentured slaves.

When this land is developed and mature, Richard will establish a new county. With this foundation, he can continue to extend northward and develop the northern part of the Eagle Mountains.

In addition, the population of the East and West Grota Counties is relatively sparse, and Richard plans to migrate 60,000 indentured slaves.

The northern area of ​​Nitburg is the area with the highest density of troops on the northern defense line. Last winter, the orcs were repelled in this area. Although it was the front line, Richard still decided to invest heavily in developing this area for nearby supplies and decided to move in 100,000 people.

In order to strengthen the garrison, Richard assigned the 8,000 auxiliary soldiers who went south to expand here together with their families.

Although the auxiliary soldiers who went south to expand were not strong enough, after more than a year of military training, they had fought several battles and had certain war experience, which could be used for defense.

After being incorporated into the Harland territory, many soldiers who were born as serfs learned breathing methods, and their physical fitness was gradually improving, making up for the lack of personal ability.

The remaining 100,000 new populations were all left in the core area of ​​William Castle and Losa Basin to serve as reserve population for industrial development.

After Richard led his troops back to the territory, he still inspected the newly developed areas such as Snow Mountain County and Forest City every day, and was extremely busy every day.

It is very hard to do field work in summer. You have to face mosquito bites every day, especially when working in forests and swamps. Mosquitoes are the biggest killer threatening humans.

The number of people who died from mosquito bites may be more than the number of people killed in war.

Soldiers who practice breathing techniques are strong and resistant to diseases, and the overall loss ratio is very small, but ordinary contract slaves cannot resist diseases such as malaria.

A large number of contract slaves died in the development of the swamp forest in Harland Territory. The prosperity of this territory depends on the piles of bones.

More than a decade ago, the hospital in Harland Territory began to study malaria, encephalitis, and yellow fever. After Richard's guidance, they soon discovered that mosquitoes were the biggest killers of these diseases.

But facing this killer, doctors have no way. Although magicians can treat the wounded through spell power, releasing healing spells for several consecutive days can treat a contract slave, but there are not enough magicians in Harland Territory. There is not even one magician in a slave work camp, and the healing power is almost a drop in the bucket, far from enough.

Even now, Harland Territory has more than 160 formal magicians, but there are hundreds of thousands of contract slaves working in the wild.

The magicians in Harland have combat missions, research missions, and some must stay in the magic tower to guard. Only a dozen people can be transferred to the hospital system. A dozen people are responsible for the treatment of hundreds of thousands of people. Basically, they can only focus on treating some high-value contract slaves.

In order to fight against diseases, the medical department of Harland has been researching new drugs.

Since many years ago, the medical department has started from two aspects.

The first is to develop drugs to control malaria, yellow fever and other diseases. After more than ten years of research, doctors have found that an alkaloid extracted from the leaves of cockscomb trees can treat malaria with milder symptoms to a certain extent.

With this discovery, Harland Territory has developed drugs to treat malaria two years ago. By this year, the production of this drug has increased a lot and can be sold on the market on a large scale.

In addition to researching drugs to treat diseases, doctors also start from repelling mosquitoes.

The Dawn Plane is a super-magic plane, and mage apprentices can release a zero-ring spell called mosquito repellent.

By studying the principle of this spell, Harland Territory created an apprentice-level magic item, the insect repellent sachet, but the cost was as high as a dozen gold coins. When used, it not only consumed magic crystals, but also required magic apprentices to provide magic power.

Because the threshold was too high, the insect repellent sachet was of little use in solving this problem.

In the following years, Richard developed the runes for the conversion of fighting spirit and magic power, which could spread the power of magic to knights and warriors, and improved the insect repellent sachet, allowing this magic item to be used by knights and warriors.

When knights and warriors led the team, carrying this sachet would be of great help in reducing mosquito bites.

However, the insect repellent sachet was very expensive and had to consume magic crystals, so it could not serve the lower-level contract slaves.

In order to find a low-cost way to repel insects, doctors in Harland Territory began arduous research.

Many years ago, they discovered that burning mugwort and atractylodes could repel mosquitoes. Using mugwort, atractylodes and pine wood as raw materials, they made mosquito coils, which solved part of the problem.

But in field work, mosquito coils are basically useless.

Three years ago, researchers in the Harland Territory discovered a new magical plant, Aconitum carmichaelii. This magical plant contains very little magic power, but it is helpful for knights and warriors to temper their bodies.

Poisonous Aconitum is a new magic plant discovered by Harland magician. The magic power contained in this magic plant is relatively low, between ordinary plants and first-level magic plants. Perhaps because of the low magic power, it has not attracted targeted research by magicians.

After discovering the poisonous Aconitum, the magician of Harland Territory wrote a paper and added the poisonous Aconitum to the magic plant catalog.

After discovering a new magic plant, it is natural to study it clearly.

By studying the medicinal properties of poisonous Aconitum, Sofia and other pharmacists created the Aconitum potion, which is of great help to improve the physical fitness of soldiers who have just practiced breathing methods.

However, after the strength is increased to three points, the physical strength is increased to two points, and the agility is increased to 1.6, the effect of the Aconitum potion will be seriously attenuated. After using ten sticks, it is basically ineffective.

The Aconitum potion studied is mainly suitable for apprentices of knights and warriors.

The magical plant of poisonous Aconitum contains a small amount of toxicity. The smoke released after burning can kill nearby mosquitoes. After discovering this, Harland Territory used poisonous aconite as raw material and alcohol and herbs as auxiliary materials to create a mosquito repellent.

This mosquito repellent comes with a strong irritating temperature. Once released, it can last for half a month, and mosquitoes will be poisoned instantly after smelling it.

After using the poisonous aconite mosquito repellent, the killing range of mosquitoes is very large. With the point of use as the center, within a radius of 150 meters, all mosquitoes will either be poisoned to death or flee.

If the aconite essential oil is poured into a stagnant pool, it can also kill mosquitoes and insects, and it can often last for about 20 to 30 days.

The only obstacle to the popularization of the aconite mosquito repellent is that the number of poisonous aconite is far from enough.

Poisonous aconite is a magical plant that needs to grow in an environment containing magic.

Although Harland Territory has three wizard towers, and magic plant plantations have been built inside the wizard towers, these plantations are full, mainly planted with raw materials for Tenghui potions, and it is impossible to waste magic plantation space to plant poisonous aconite.

After all, compared to professional officers, the status of contract slaves is much lower, and they cannot compete with the army for resources. The small amount of poisonous aconite planted is also used for magic research.