Chapter 443 Life and Death Test
After killing the legendary undead and obtaining the legendary soul crystal, Sophia once again made a move to refine the legendary Styx potion. ₆₉ₛₕᵤₓ.cₒₘ
Since Sophia was promoted to the ninth ring, her mental power has increased by four points, and her potion refining level has also improved a bit. Although the legendary Styx potion is difficult to refine, Sophia has successful experience in refining this potion. The refining process was relatively smooth and there was no waste of materials.
After the potion was successfully refined, Richard personally found the Roger Kingdom and used this legendary Styx potion to exchange a large amount of super magic metal and a legendary magic core with the royal family to prepare to build a second large magic ship.
To build a large magic ship in Harland, not counting the investment in the legendary magic core, the materials require about 300,000 gold coins. In addition to the investment in magicians, shipyards, metallurgy departments, etc., not counting the technical costs, the actual cost is about 370,000 to 380,000.
After all, it takes thousands of workers and dozens of magicians to build a large magic ship for more than ten months.
After a large amount of consumption in the past few years, the reserves of super magic metal in Harland are far from enough.
This time, the two parties exchanged. Pansy Grant, the president of the Grant Mage Association, used the legendary Styx potion to increase his mental power to 42 points, and had the opportunity to break through the legendary bottleneck. Harland also got the resources to build a second legendary magic ship, and its military strength became stronger.
Not long after the two sides reached a deal, it was the Goddess's Birthday Festival again. Time passed by like this, and it entered the 3276th year of the Dawn Calendar.
At this moment, it has been thirty years since Richard traveled through time.
After the Goddess's Birthday Festival, Richard took the time to look at the reports submitted by various departments. Last year, the Duke of Harland had a population of more than 10 million. All in all, the cash income was as high as 5.23 million gold coins, which was a little more than the financial income of the Grant royal family.
However, due to the large-scale expansion of magic airships and the Black River Fleet, last year's military expenditure exceeded three million gold coins. After a year, there was basically no fiscal surplus.
The accumulated gold coins in the treasury were roughly 700,000 to 800,000. For the huge Haland Territory, it can only last for two or three months at most.
Because the market scale expanded and the number of coins was insufficient, Haland Territory printed more than 300,000 vouchers at one time to barely fill the gap in the money shortage. After so many years of accumulation, the vouchers in circulation in Haland Territory have exceeded 600,000 gold coins.
These vouchers are basically in the hands of the upper class of society such as the military, bureaucrats, and businessmen, and are relatively rare in the people's livelihood market.
According to the estimates of the territory's economic department, the currency scale in Haland Territory is about 60 million gold coins, and the number of vouchers is only equivalent to one percent of the circulating currency. It may take many years to replace metal currency with paper money.
After the Goddess' Birthday, the education department of Harland Territory began to get busy again. After more than 20 years of development, more than 100,000 students graduated from primary schools, and 10,000 middle school students entered the society, which greatly alleviated the talent shortage in Harland Territory.
Although Harland Territory's literacy rate is still very low and the quality of the population is not high compared to the population of more than 10 million, the number of schools is still increasing rapidly, with more than 30,000 new students each year. Now the total number of students in primary and secondary schools in Harland Territory exceeds 130,000, and the number of middle school students is as high as 20,000, which is almost the same as the number of troops.
At the beginning of this year, the Magic Academy recruited more than 300 new students, and the number of Harland Mage Association increased to 1,600, far exceeding the Grant Mage Association.
Last year, a total of 56 apprentices of the Harland Territory Mage Association were promoted to magicians, and 14 died in the war. Now there are 389 magicians. Although the number of magicians is far less than that of the East Coast United Kingdom, it is more than that of the Grand Duchy of Delon and the Grand Duchy of Stannic.
In terms of magic power, even the Grant royal family is no match for Harland. Today's Harland can no longer be called a magic desert. Although there are fewer magicians, the level of magic civilization is probably higher than that of the Holy Glorious Empire.
Shortly after the freshmen entered school, Philip from the Northern Frontier was about to face his first life-and-death test.
After the Goddess's Birthday, Philip was already fifteen years old. Because of the abundant resources for cultivation, Philip had been successfully promoted to a professional. Compared with Richard and William in their youth, Philip was far ahead.
But in the long run, Philip was actually far less talented than his father and grandfather. The reason why he was ahead of Richard and William when he was young was just because he got more extraordinary resources.
The higher the extraordinary person rises, the greater the role of his own talent, character, and perseverance, and the role of external resource accumulation will be smaller. Although there are enough extraordinary resources, Philip may not be able to be promoted to a high level like Richard and William at the age of forty.
It has been almost three years since Philip was sent down to train.
In the past three years, Philip has worked in a factory, worked as a serf, and stayed away from his family. He has been in the Northern Frontier military camp for two years.
After three years of hard training, Philip gradually grew up and his character began to mature.
After the goddess' birthday, Richard planned to transfer him back to Fort William to serve as a grassroots civil servant for two or three years. Unexpectedly, before the transfer order was issued, Philip experienced the first difficult battle in his life.
After entering the Third Legion, under the care of elders such as Jennings and Morgan, Philip has also experienced several battles in the past two years. However, in the previous few battles, the legion leaders secretly protected him, so there was no risk. However, the previous few battles also trained Philip's courage. Soldiers who have seen blood are better than recruits after all.
And this battle was completely due to an accident. Jennings took the guard squadron to leave the Prilan Castle and patrol the front-line strongholds in the east of Prilan. He happened to meet the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Squadron that was out for reconnaissance.
Although the orc army evacuated the Prilan area and the Eastern Front Army of the Prairie Governor's District basically retreated to the east of the Silver Wolf Mountains, the orcs still left a diversionary team in the Prilan area.
Although the orcs responsible for diverting Harland's army were not many in number, they were all full-professional troops such as Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry, Half-Orc Archers, and Harpy Scouts, which were actually very difficult to deal with.
In the past two years, humans and orcs in the Prilan area have actually fought a lot of battles. Because of the superiority of air power, the orcs suffered some hardships and gradually dared not show their heads in the Prilan area.
I didn't expect that after the beginning of spring this year, the orcs would take such a risk, and the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Unit would dare to go deep behind the enemy.
The Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Unit among the orcs is an army of all professionals, and ordinary human elites are no match at all. Generally speaking, the combat capability of this unit is superior to that of the Warcraft Cavalry Battalion with the same number.
Although the Third Legion Guard Squadron under Jennings has good quality, it can't stand up to the orcs Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry in the wild. If it weren't for the fact that there were several powerful masters in the legion, they would not be the opponents of the orcs.
Last winter, Jennings' professional level went up and became a ninth-level warrior. At the age of less than 40, he was promoted to the ninth ring, which shows Jennings' talent.
It was relying on several masters such as Jennings, plus the alchemical bombs equipped, that the guard squadron blocked the offensive of the orcs Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry.
Seeing Jennings so fierce, wearing gorgeous enchanted armor, and the combat effectiveness of the guards around him was also very good, the captain of the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry knew that this battle must have captured a big shot from the Duke of Harland.
The fourth-level werewolf captain, with a bloodthirsty and excited look, asked the guards around him enthusiastically: "Carefully identify whether this person is a big shot in the Duke of Harland's territory?"
The orc guard took out an atlas, flipped through it carefully, and said hesitantly: "It looks like it should be Jennings, the commander of the Third Legion."
"What is the relationship between this person and the Duke of Harland?"
"Jennings is the cousin-in-law of the Duke of Harland, and the right-hand man of the Duke of Harland. He is considered a top-ranked heavyweight officer in the Harland territory and a real big shot."
The captain of the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry suppressed the joy in his heart and said: "Notify Ralph immediately and let him quickly meet up with us. We must kill Jennings before the enemy reinforcements arrive, so that the Duke of Harland can also taste the pain of losing his relatives."
Although the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry is more powerful, the Jennings Guard Squadron is equipped with a large number of alchemical bombs. The Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry tried to launch a charge, but did not defeat the guard squadron line. Instead, more than ten soldiers were killed. Four of the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry died at the hands of Jennings.
Although Jennings' individual combat power is very strong, it is far inferior to Sylph.
If it were Sylph, she could easily break the enemy's encirclement and defeat the opponent when she encountered the Orc Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Squadron. Although Jennings was promoted to the ninth-level warrior, he was still no match for the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Squadron when fighting against the full-professional army. If it were not for the protection of the guard squadron, he would probably have died at the hands of the enemy.
In fact, even a legendary warrior may not be an opponent to a full-professional army of more than a hundred fully armed soldiers. Only a legendary knight who has mastered the power of spells can easily defeat more than a hundred full-professional armies.
Generally speaking, the combat power of a legendary knight is often equivalent to three to five legendary warriors. Some legendary warriors with weaker combat power may not be opponents of the ninth-level knight.
If Philip was not around, Jennings could still fight the orcs freely, but with Philip by his side, Jennings could only try to avoid fighting with the orcs in an unfavorable situation. Once Philip had an accident, the consequences might not be borne by the Harland Territory.
The two armies fought on and off in the wild for more than three days, and fought four or five small-scale battles.
After three days of hard fighting, Jennings's guard squadron lost more than half of its soldiers, with more than 60 people killed, and the orc silver moon wolf cavalry also lost more than 40 soldiers, about one-third of its soldiers. In the end, it was Harland's army that had the advantage of the inside line and rushed to reinforce before the orcs, driving away this difficult opponent.
In this battle, although Bella and Harrison, two mid-level magicians, protected Philip, he was also wearing precious enchanted armor, and Bella and the others also carried precious magic scrolls, but the battlefield was blind, and Philip was still injured. The enchanted armor on his chest was broken by the orcs, and his thigh was cut with a knife, and the wound was deep enough to see the bone.
After experiencing this battle and feeling the threat of death personally, Philip first understood the cruelty of the war in the northern border.
After Philip was injured, Richard immediately transferred him back to Fort William.
Philip's injury was not particularly serious. After being treated by magic, he could walk with crutches soon. After he walked out of the hospital, Richard transferred Philip to the civil service team.
If Philip wants to manage the territory, he must be both civil and military. He not only needs to be trained in the northern border and experience the life of a soldier, but also needs to be proficient in local management rules and learn to master the civil service team.
Harland Territory has a special physique. Military generals can easily transform into civil officials, but civil officials are basically unable to lead troops in battle.
Because of the extraordinary power, the individual combat effectiveness of the Dawn Plane is very outstanding. To a certain extent, high-level professionals can decide the outcome of a battle.
This social status is impossible to establish a so-called civil government. High-level officers are simply impossible to accept the command of laymen, and the overall will of the army is impossible to accept a weak lord.
From the perspective of social status, the status of military generals is far higher than that of civil officials. Especially high-level officers, many of whom are hereditary nobles.
Hereditary nobles and ordinary people are almost two different creatures in terms of law and political status.
This social situation has led to fierce competition among the nobles. Every succession to the title is usually accompanied by conspiracy and killing.
After two years of accumulation, the defense line of the Prilan region has gradually stabilized. There are now nine baron nobles on this line of defense. In addition to seven mercenary leaders, the remaining Odaye and Immorton are both capitalists in Harland. They seized the opportunity and made further progress in social status.
Because Harland was established not long ago and the accumulation time is not enough, it is very rare for a tycoon with assets exceeding 100,000 gold coins. In the entire territory, only Odaye and Immorton can take out a large amount of property. Through the power of gold coins, enough soul crystals are obtained to be promoted to hereditary nobles.
In fact, in other territories, merchants with assets exceeding 100,000 are also very rare.
In the major kingdoms of the Dawn Plane, merchants do not have a high status. Big merchants are all smart people. When they develop to a certain extent, they will control the scale of business, and then marry hereditary nobles to infiltrate the aristocratic class.
Basically, wealthy merchants will not let their capital exceed 100,000 gold coins and become fat meat on the lips of nobles.
After Harland Territory formulated a decree to encourage the development of commerce, a large number of wealthy merchants from the Kingdom of Grant entered Harland Territory, including merchants from Nolan, and many of them shifted their business focus to Harland Territory. Together, these people brought millions of gold coins to Harland Territory, greatly alleviating the money shortage in Harland Territory.
Even if the merchants in the Kingdom of Grant are added together, their asset scale exceeds that of Odaye and Immorton, which is very rare.
After all, Odaye and Immorton are factory owners, factory owners after the Industrial Revolution, and their industrial scale is far superior to that of traditional merchants. Their one-year development can be equivalent to the accumulation of traditional merchants in ten or a hundred years. Merchants whose asset scale can be comparable to that of Odaye and Immorton are basically white gloves of the great nobles, and they cannot operate independently.
After Odaye and Immorton were promoted to hereditary nobles, they also opened a new path for later generations. Hayden and Rogge of Harland Territory are both ready to be promoted to hereditary nobles in this way.
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