Chapter 255 Earl Harland

After joining the noble coalition of Black River County, Richard left a thousand soldiers to guard the rear, and took 6,000 main forces and 2,000 auxiliary soldiers to attack the logistics line of the orc army.

There is a mountain road in the north of the military station. Twenty kilometers north, there is an orc logistics base.

Through the magic hot air balloon reconnaissance, there are only three squadrons of sheep-bodied people stationed in this base, and their strength is extremely weak.

There are about 8,000 to 9,000 human slaves in the base.

The reason why Richard wanted to attack this base was to rescue these slaves.

In March this year, Duke Guise sent 16,000 slaves. By April, Viscount Nelson’s 23,000 refugees were swallowed up. Now the population of Harland Territory has exceeded 300,000.

Although the population is growing very fast, the lack of population in the territory has not changed.

With the two rich lands of Graveson and Swamp Basin, the population carrying capacity of Harland Territory exceeds one million.

With a population of 300,000, even Graveson and Swamp Basin cannot fill it. It will take more than ten years to fully develop the Harland Territory.

This year, the Harland Territory Army fought three battles with the 59th Legion of the Orcs, and the casualties of soldiers have exceeded 2,000.

However, the number of soldiers killed is relatively small, about 700 people. After treatment, most of the remaining wounded can return to the team.

The casualties of officers and soldiers are close to one-third, which has a great impact on morale.

Defensive battles can still be fought, but morale is already somewhat low in offensive battles, and it is a bit difficult to fight when casualties are high.

After all, intelligent creatures are afraid of death. Seeing many familiar comrades and brothers die in battle, soldiers are certainly not robots, and they naturally feel fear in their hearts.

War is very cruel and destructive to humanity. In the battle within the territory, soldiers cannot release their fear through atrocities such as killing, looting, and rape. In addition, they will become particularly depressed without the company of their families for a long time. The slightest disturbance will ignite the spark, causing mutiny or even rebellion among the soldiers.

After heavy casualties, how to stabilize the morale of the army is very critical, and it is a test of a general's ability to lead troops.

If you don't have prestige and are not good at comforting the soldiers, even if you can lead the soldiers to victory, the continuous accumulation of casualties will still cause the soldiers to rebel.

Richard is very prestigious in the army of Harland Territory. He has chatted with the soldiers at the grassroots level countless times, issued pensions for more than ten years, and spent a lot of time every year to comfort the disabled soldiers. There is not much airs in the barracks, and he has solved countless troubles for the officers and soldiers. After each battle, as long as there is spare magic power, Richard will also release healing spells and personally treat the wounded.

Although the casualties are not light, the officers and soldiers can still grit their teeth and launch a tough battle.

However, Richard has already felt the low morale, and he personally preached before the battle and made pre-war mobilization.

"Through reconnaissance, we found that there were only three squadrons of sheepmen in the front stronghold. Everyone knows the fighting power of sheepmen, which is not even as good as serf soldiers. This time, it is quite easy for us to attack the orcs' logistics stronghold. With a force ten times that of the orcs, we are still fighting against the weak sheepmen. The casualties are estimated to be in the single digits. Besides, I will let the noble coalition army be the vanguard. Once they break through the camp, we can just follow behind and capture prisoners.

After the war, the veterans will take turns to take a half-month leave, and each will be rewarded with a gold coin, ten kilograms of brown sugar, a jar of white wine, a piece of woolen cloth, and a sheep.

The contract slave soldiers who have made military achievements will be restored to free citizen status in advance, along with their families, and will be immediately allocated land from the official fields."

Richard's promise restored most of the soldiers' morale. Richard has kept his promises for so many years and has a high reputation among the soldiers.

The material rewards plus the half-month vacation immediately made the soldiers of Harland Territory excited.

The attack on the orcs' logistics base was very smooth. The noble coalition forces of Black River County broke through the sheep-body defense line with one charge. There were almost no casualties, and they captured this base and seized a large number of logistics supplies.

This included about 50,000 gold coins of food, cotton cloth, and iron materials. Even the coins of the Grant royal family were seized, 20,000 to 30,000.

The Harland Territory had no shortage of ordinary supplies. In addition to food, Richard distributed them to the noble coalition forces. As for the most valuable population, of course, it was taken by the Harland Territory alone.

After taking down this base, the morale of the officers and soldiers recovered a little because of the large amount of spoils seized.

The Harland Territory had 7,000 regular troops. Before the war, it also swallowed up 600 soldiers of Viscount Nelson. The total force was close to 8,000, and now there were less than 6,000 soldiers left.

More than a quarter of the casualties were already considered serious blood loss. The most important thing now is to rest for a while.

The soldiers of the Harland Territory were not the kind of serf soldiers, so it was difficult to expand.

After returning to the military station, Richard immediately ordered to recruit 4,000 new soldiers from the territory to expand the territory's military strength to 11,000.

Of course, the new soldiers have little combat effectiveness, and they need to undergo a year of training before they can be incorporated into the main force.

However, as the wounded gradually recovered, the combat effectiveness of the Haland territory army finally recovered a lot.

According to the financial capacity of the Haland territory last year, it was enough to support 11,000 regular troops.

With more than 10,000 regular troops, they can be reorganized into a smaller legion.

The military merits established in this battle are enough for Richard to be promoted to earl. If the territory does not have a legion, it will not have the status of a great noble.

After the war, Richard sent someone to send the orc deputy legion leader Raquel to the capital of Nolan.

Raquel is an eighth-level professional, and normally her head is worth five great merits.

A living orc high-ranking officer is certainly more valuable than a dead one. Although Raquel was captured by Sofia and Wendy, in order to make Richard a great noble as soon as possible, the two gave up this credit, and the merit was counted under Richard's name.

King Roger issued an edict to capture Raquel alive and reward Richard with a great merit.

In this year's orc invasion war, Harland Territory alone blocked the orc army. Richard even severely damaged this army in several battles and stabilized the northern defense line of Geda Province.

Richard and the soldiers of Harland Territory can be said to have made great contributions and played a very important role. Richard was also rewarded with a great merit.

In addition, Harland Territory killed hundreds of orc professionals, a large part of which was counted under Richard's name, adding up to eight great merits.

Counting some of the merits accumulated by Richard and Sofia before, Richard can be awarded a viscount territory after the war. Richard has three viscount territories under his name, and he can merge the territories and be promoted to earl after the war.

Now the northern border of the Kingdom of Grant has a real need, and it needs new nobles to stabilize the situation.

Richard's political channels for promotion to nobles have been fully opened. In the current situation in the northern border, the Royal Capital Noble Council will only support the Harland family and will not stop it.

With Richard's accumulated merits and the strength of the Harland family, it is a foregone conclusion that the Harland family will become a noble after the war.

After struggling for more than ten years, Richard is about to achieve a class leap again.

After defeating the 59th Legion of the Orcs, the Harland territory returned to peace. When reporting the war exploits, Richard deliberately reported more casualties.

The above also took into account the strength of the Harland territory. It was already very difficult to defeat and severely damage an orc legion, and did not put a heavier burden on him.

In the end, it was Duke Jonathan who broke the deadlock, defeated the orc front army, and freed up his hands to change the situation in the Rah Province.

In the war on the Grant Kingdom side this year, although the casualties of the Orc Empire army were not small, they broke through the defense line of the Rach Province, severely damaged the Grizzly Legion, conquered six noble territories, and robbed more than 100,000 people from the Rach Province.

The orcs on the western front also achieved great results, severely damaged the Duke Edward's army, robbed 50,000 people, and the Duke of Fox's territory was also captured by the orcs, with two baronies and a loss of 30,000 people.

Compared with the propaganda of annihilating 80,000 orcs, it is obvious that the Grant Kingdom suffered a little loss.

A race like the dog-headed man only needs three years to become an adult. It takes six years for wild boars and snakes to become adults, and ten years for werewolves, lions, and eagles.

It takes at least twenty years to train a human warrior.

The Orc Empire invades once every three years, in fact, to consume excess population, avoid internal population explosion, and civil strife due to insufficient resources.

After Duke Jonathan defeated the orc army, this year's orc invasion war was roughly over.

The orcs slowly retreated to the northern part of the Eagle Mountains, and the Grant Kingdom took advantage of the situation to recover the lost territory.

After August, the capital began a new round of rewards and punishments, and King Roger also conferred titles on new nobles.

The Harland family made great contributions in this battle this year, and Richard was successfully promoted to earl.

The uncle Soros family has also accumulated enough military merits and is about to obtain fiefdoms and be promoted to hereditary barons.

In order to obtain better fiefdoms, William went to Nolan after the war and communicated with the chairman of the noble parliament, Marquis Allen, to express the demands of the Harland family.

Richard's requirements were not high, and he did not propose the conditions for dividing the southern territory.

The great nobles in the northern border would try to develop to the south after making military merits, and divide the territory among their descendants to spread the risk.

Although the Grant royal family was reluctant, sometimes they could not stop this trend. Every few years, a piece of fat meat will be given to the great nobles in the northern border who have made military achievements. Edward, Fox and even Duke Jonathan have been operating in the hinterland of the Grant Kingdom for several generations, spreading their branches and leaves, and have developed more than a dozen barons.

A few years ago, three earls of the three parties rebelled, and the territory was swallowed up by the Grant royal family. Such a behavior of eating alone made the great nobles in the northern border very dissatisfied. The two dukes Edward and Fox took the lead and repeatedly stirred up trouble in the noble council, initiating proposals to require the royal family to strengthen the northern military and assume greater responsibilities.

King Roger couldn't stand the pressure and agreed to add a second-line legion.

This second-line central legion was temporarily reorganized by the Redeemer Legion commanded by Zakli.

This time, after repelling the orc invasion, the two dukes strongly demanded that the new fiefdom be placed in the south, and Duke Jonathan had the same intention.

The royal family needs to divide three baron territories in the south to meet the requirements of the three dukes.

The southern territories are different from the northern territories. The climate is mild and the land is fertile. There is basically no threat of war. Giving up three baron territories has made King Roger feel painful.

On the contrary, King Roger wanted to throw all the burdens of the unowned land in the north to the great nobles in the north to strengthen the strength of the nobles in the north.

With the Harland family in the north of Geda Province, a legion of orcs was tied down, which greatly reduced the pressure on Geda Province and improved the strategic situation of the royal territory.

In recent years, Geda Province no longer needs to worry about troubles in the north.

So the Harland family wanted to choose the territory in the north, and both the Noble Parliament and King Roger opened the door for them.

More than 7,000 square kilometers of land in the northeast of the Flower Castle were allocated to Richard, and the salt lake that Richard had been thinking about was also included in the new territory.

Now the territory of the Harland family has expanded to the north of the Rah Province and the northwest of Viscount Nelson.

Richard is going to develop the salt lake, refine salt and soda ash, and mine potash in the salt lake. He will definitely build a castle and station troops in this area.

With the Harland Territory in the northwest, Viscount Nelson only needs to defend the northeast, and the pressure will be much relieved. Otherwise, Viscount Nelson's territory will be severely damaged and he will not have the strength to operate the territory. He can only give up part of the land and move the border line south.

In addition to expanding to the northeast and taking over the salt lake area. The Harland Territory also developed to the southwest, swallowing up the Baron Harden Territory, and the area between Gascoigne Province and Gedda Province was also granted to the Harland family.

The territory expanded in the southwest, adding up to more than 3,200 square kilometers.

After William completed the communication with the Noble Parliament, Richard personally went to the capital, took the newly promoted nobles to participate in the regent, took the lead in swearing allegiance to King Roger, and became the hereditary earl of the Kingdom of Grant.

At the level of hereditary earls, they can already influence the policies of the Kingdom of Grant to a certain extent, and the fate of the territory is mostly in their own hands. They are considered the ruling class of a kingdom.

After being promoted to earl, Harland Territory has the right to mint copper coins, the deflation in the territory can be improved a lot, and it is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Geda Province, and the degree of freedom is greater.

In the noble meeting, there are also more voting rights.

However, in the political map of the Grant Kingdom, the Earl's family can only be regarded as a local overlord, and has no overall influence. In addition to the royal family, only a few powerful dukes can really stand firm. The duke's family is considered a partner of the Grant royal family, and the earl and marquis are still subordinates of the royal family.

From the perspective of the etiquette of ennobling, the earl still has to swear allegiance to the king, while the duke does not need to do so. In terms of strength, the earl and marquis are not much different in strength, and the duke's family is much stronger, with at least tens of thousands of regular troops under his command.

After the demarcation of the territory, the area of ​​Harland Earldom is 29,000 square kilometers, and by the end of the year, the total population is 320,000.

Although the population is slightly smaller than that of the southern earl, after the army is expanded, the military strength exceeds that of the remaining four earls in the south.

The economic forces have their own advantages. Although the southern earl's territory is smaller, it has more arable land and grows many cash crops. The agricultural output value is almost two or three times that of the Haaland territory. However, the Haaland territory also has some basic industries, and its income has gradually surpassed that of the southern earl.