Chapter 40 Ransom

William's question immediately hit Qiaosen's soft spot, making Qiaosen very angry.

But now he had to bow his head under the eaves. Although he hated William to death, he dared not show it. He could only pretend to be weak and hope that William would let him go.

If William felt his malice and perceived the threat, and did not give him the treatment he deserved as a noble, not only for money but also for his life, that would be really bad.

Because Qiaosen was a bastard, he was very good at disguising himself. He immediately knelt down and begged for mercy, and squeaked and whimpered, "I am the bastard of old Baron Langton."

"Baron Langton is a vassal of the Duke of Guise?"

In the Kingdom of Grant, there are only more than 300 nobles above the hereditary baron.

William memorized the names and emblems of every hereditary noble in the kingdom. After becoming a noble, William worked hard.

As soon as Qiaosen reported his name, William had figured out his origin.

Richard pointed at Mackey's body and said, "This man has knight blood. Do you know his origin?"

"Mckey, like me, is also the illegitimate son of a baron. He comes from the Joseph family. I have noble blood in my body. I hope to be treated preferentially. I am willing to pay the ransom."

William chuckled and said, "If you attack and murder a hereditary baron, I will hand you over to the noble council. Will it bring shame to the Langton family?"

"Baron Harland, that will not only make the Langton family lose its reputation, but it will also do no good to you or me.

The first rule of aristocratic survival is that interests come first. You have no loss. I will write to my father and pay a suitable amount. The ransom will end here, and our two families will not become enemies. "

"How much ransom are you willing to pay?"

"How about 1,000 gold coins?"

William shook his head and said, "You can't let me let you go with just a thousand gold coins. You need at least 3,000 gold coins."

"That's too much. I can't afford such a high ransom."

"Then change the payment method. Use slaves worth 3,000 gold coins to cover the account. Others can also do the same. As long as they pay the ransom, they can get freedom. If they can't pay the appropriate ransom, they can only be slaves to the Harland family. "

Richard smiled slightly and commanded the slaves in the camp to tie up the captives.

These slave traders were defeated and left a lot of weapons and equipment.

Richard asked people to count and found thirteen pieces of iron armor, more than one hundred pieces of leather armor, more than twenty crossbows, more than thirty bows and arrows, and more than three hundred spears and heavy swords, enough to equip two squadrons of soldiers.

In addition, this group of slave traders also carried more than eighty war horses, which added up to a value of more than 2,000 gold coins.

Of course, half of these spoils should be divided with the Soros family.

After dealing with a lot of chores overnight, Richard returned to his tent in the middle of the night.

He opened the attribute panel. Although he was busy treating sick slaves in the past month, Richard still did not stop practicing.

He practiced breathing and meditation every day without fail, and tried to take time to take care of various skills.

In the past forty days, the experience of various skills has increased a little.

After this battle at night, the experience accumulated was 9,500 points, enough for Richard to improve his skills.

The highland meditation method has the highest priority, and Richard added 3,000 experience points to upgrade the highland meditation method to the fourth level.

In an instant, Richard felt a strong spiritual power coming from his mind, and the spiritual power on the attribute panel increased by 3 points. Richard successfully upgraded to a first-ring magician, although he had not yet learned the first-ring spell.

Richard closed the attribute panel. He thought that with the end of the orc invasion, it would be difficult to get killing experience.

Richard's soul is a modern person with normal values. Although his personality has changed a lot, he is not cruel enough to hunt innocent people and gain killing experience.

Entering the Eagle Mountains to hunt monsters is not only very dangerous, but also takes a long time to track and find monsters.

Richard is not a monster hunter, and he does not understand the habits of monsters. It is difficult to gain killing experience by hunting monsters.

Besides, he is also responsible for the management of the territory, and he does not have so much free time.

Unexpectedly, the slave trader came to the door and became Richard's experience baby, which accelerated his advancement.

Without the attack of the slave trader, it would probably take more than a year for Richard to be promoted to a formal magician.

After the attack, Richard decided to arm the slaves, distribute the seized weapons, and arm two squadrons of slave troops.

Among the slaves, there are some captured soldiers of the Kingdom of Delong.

Richard used these people as the backbone and selected strong slaves as the basis. Cooperating with the disabled officers under William, he organized while marching.

When he returned to Black River Fort, the framework of the two slave squadrons had been completed.

It was mid-March, the snow in the mountains had melted, and the slaves who had arrived earlier had begun to work.

They built simple huts, some slaves cultivated farmland, and some slaves collected stones to build a castle.

The construction of the castle would probably take a long time.

It would take about five to ten years to build a complete baronial castle, and it would cost a lot of gold coins. The biggest expense was the purchase of bricks for building the castle.

The world's blockade of technology was very serious. Many low-level nobles in the Grant Kingdom did not even have a brick kiln in their territory.

In order to save money, building brick kilns has become the most urgent task of the territory.

While Richard was busy with the territory, the family of the slave trader received a letter from their relatives and began to pay the ransom.

Baron Rand's slave transport team arrived the fastest, arriving at Black River Castle in early April and delivering more than 500 slaves.

The other three slave traders and professional captives also paid ransoms and brought more than 300 slaves.

This time when we went to the capital, we unexpectedly got about 3,000 slaves, including the ransom paid by the captives.

In addition to the first batch of more than 1,000 slaves purchased, although the Harland family had just obtained the fiefdom, there were already more than 4,000 people working.

In a short period of time, the territory had no output.

In order to feed these 4,000 slaves, the Harland family could only increase the intensity of debt. A large amount of food was purchased from Black River Castle and Light Castle to feed the serfs.

As the number of slaves increased, Richard could only increase the intensity of land reclamation.

Before June, more than 3,000 slaves participated in the reclamation operation and reclaimed about 400 hectares of farmland.

In order to speed up the reclamation, Richard also used the powerful iron-horned horse as a draft animal.

The iron-horned horse has great strength, far exceeding the oxen.

Using the Ironhorn Horse to cultivate the land, ten hectares of land can be cultivated every day.

However, the Ironhorn Horse has a bad temper, so only professionals can participate in the labor to control the monster.