Chapter 258 Commodity Exhibition

Richard stayed in the recruit camp for three months, watching the recruits complete their training almost every day.

Starting this year, Richard will try to hand over a large part of his daily work to his assistants. He himself grasps the key points of territory management.

Now the Harland territory has an area of ​​nearly 30,000 square kilometers, and the number of troops exceeds 10,000. Managing such a large stall makes daily tasks very complicated, prompting Richard to further delegate power.

He handed over the government affairs to Rogge, who was Sophia's third brother and had served the Harland Territory for ten years.

After Richard was promoted to earl, Rogge was appointed as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Harland Territory, which was equivalent to Richard's cabinet prime minister. He had an overview of the overall situation and was mainly in charge of taxation and financial work.

Now the earldom of Harland has been divided by Richard into one county and eleven cities, forming a three-level management system of county, city and village.

This management system is still relatively simple. In fact, the area of ​​​​the Harland territory is only slightly smaller than the Gedda province. Normally, it should be divided into two or three counties, and management would be slightly better.

It's just that the population of the territory is relatively small now, so a county was established. When the population increases, it will be better to divide it into three counties according to the geographical conditions of the Earl of Harland.

After entering November, heavy snow began to close the mountains, and the demon hunting team that went deep into the Eagle Mountains returned to Fort William to rest.

Sura once again joined the demon hunting team. Unfortunately, they were unlucky this year. They entered the Eagle Mountains for two months and returned with almost no success. On the contrary, the scout cavalry captured three wind wolves and made some profit.

In just three months, Sulla found that Fort William had changed a lot. People were coming and going on the streets, and it still looked very lively even in winter.

All the shops on the roadside have been rented out and basically all are open for business.

Looking at the unfamiliar sight, Sura felt as if he had gone to Black River Castle.

After Sura returned to the Odaye Hotel, he asked doubtfully: "What's happened recently? There are so many people on the street?"

"Earl Richard will hold a commodity fair tomorrow. Many foreign caravans have come to Fort William in recent days. I heard that there are also caravans from the Church of the Goddess of Wealth, who want to sell goods from the territory to other countries."

"Will the coming and going of these people leak out the secrets of the territory's craftsmanship? Why is no one trying to persuade Mr. Richard?"

Sulla had been a squadron leader for many years and had developed some political sensitivities. In order to cultivate the overall capabilities of officers, Richard will show the territory's annual economic report to mid- to high-level officers.

Through these reports, Sulla understood that the monopoly goods produced in the territory made the greatest contribution to taxation.

Most of the soldiers' pay and supplies depended on the income from the trade of brown sugar, liquor, woolen cloth, steel and other commodities.

These trade revenues are heavily dependent on the production process. Once the production process is leaked and the monopoly advantage is lost, the trade revenue will fall seriously.

In the past few years, the liquor distillation process was stolen by Viscount Cisse, which caused the profits from the liquor trade to drop by 70%. It took almost five years to recover the original profits.

This incident had a great impact on the Haaland territory. Many officers in the territory had objections to Richard's policy of relaxing the ban.

Sulla was very satisfied with his current life and had a sense of belonging to the territory. He had doubts in his heart and decided to go to the city lord's mansion to talk to Mr. Richard in person.

It is very easy for mid- to high-level officers like Sulla to meet Richard.

When Sulla came to the city lord's palace, Richard was talking with Rogge, who was responsible for preparing for the product exhibition.

After discussing the work with Rogge and giving some specific instructions, Richard met with Sulla. After listening to Sulla's persuasion, Richard explained a few words to him.

"The fact that you came to me to talk about this matter shows that you have a sense of belonging to the territory and have some overall view of the political situation. Now most of the secret-related units have moved to the swamp basin. Although the larger factories cannot be relocated, there is a lot of intelligence Personnel keep an eye on it and outsiders are not allowed to get close, making it difficult to leak the craftsmanship.

The most critical issue is that brown sugar, steel, and textile trade rely on business scale to make profits. Even if the production process is leaked, it will take a long time to cultivate brown sugar saplings and raise a large number of sheep. When others produce goods, we can sell them at a reduced price, or even sell them at a loss, to seize their market and create a backlog of their goods, making this business unprofitable in the short term. If you want to compete with territorial commodities, the threshold is very high. "

Seeing that Su La could not understand what he meant, Richard poured Su La a cup of tea and asked, "Su La, when you talk about this matter today, is it your own idea or the opinions of many officers and soldiers?"

Sulla was a cadre who came from the army. He was tolerant of Richard, a cadre who came from the army, and valued their opinions very much. Especially the ideological trends of military cadres, Richard must have a rough grasp of them. He will adjust his policies at any time and cannot deviate too far from the mainstream ideology of officers and soldiers.

After all, the army officers and soldiers were working with Harland's territory with their heads up, and their interests could not be ignored in the slightest. If any ruler ignores the interests of violent institutions, he will naturally be overthrown by violent institutions.

"This is just my own idea, because the army's military salary and logistics mainly rely on trade income. If the production process is leaked and we lose our monopoly position, our trade income will drop sharply. By then, our military salary will be reduced. Without adequate material support, the officers' combat effectiveness will be severely reduced."

"You are right to think so. Commodity trade income is indeed very important now. But if we want to develop in the future, we can't always suppress commercial flows, prohibit the migration of people, and refuse to communicate with the outside world. Closing the border will limit our vitality, which is not conducive to the economic development of the territory in the long run."

Richard was very satisfied that the officers below could think actively and give him some suggestions. However, counter-espionage work should not be relaxed. After sending Sulla away, he summoned officials from the intelligence system such as Noel, George, and Vitas.

"During the commodity fair, what measures do you have to prevent spies from infiltrating and leaking commodity production processes?"

Noel was a new official, and this was the first fire he encountered. If things are not handled satisfactorily and the process is really leaked, his life will have no future, and he may even lose his life for dereliction of duty.

Hearing Richard's question, Noel stepped forward and said: "During the Expo, all factory employees are not allowed to leave the factory and stay in the factory for a few days. Our people will work with the city defense army to take the responsibility of blocking the factory to prevent employees in the factory from meeting outsiders.

In addition, we will arrange special personnel to keep an eye on the caravans sent by several nobles, and let some intelligence personnel with special talents come out in person.

Finally, we will strengthen border inspections as the last line of defense."

Richard knew that only the first one would be effective. Since it was decided to lift the ban, there would inevitably be a risk of leaks. How to choose is just a matter of weighing the pros and cons.

There is no perfect thing in the world. It is unknown how the secret intelligence transmission work will appear. This world has magical power, and some means are almost impossible to prevent.

Now we can only do our best to delay the time of technology leakage for a few years.

The Harland territory is still developing at a high speed. Every year of delay will make the territory stronger.

The process leak was delayed for ten years. According to the development speed of Harland Territory, it is enough to fight against the Dukedom of Grant Kingdom.

"The work of preventing espionage must be closely coordinated with the territory mages, and the mages must be involved in intelligence work. I will issue an order to the Harland Mage Association to assign some mages to the intelligence department to prevent the enemy from using magic to transmit intelligence."

After sending away the officials of the intelligence system, the first commodity fair was held the next day.

The commodity fair in November was very successful. During the fair, Harland Territory reached a foreign trade order of 60,000 gold coins.

The fastest growing foreign trade channel is the Goddess of Wealth Church. In just a few years, the trade volume between the two sides has exceeded 80,000. Among them, 30,000 are imported and 50,000 are exported.

The imports are mainly some magic materials and potions. The magic materials are mainly super magic metals such as mountain copper and mithril. Some are used to make magic equipment, and some are used for research and magic experiments. Magic potions are mainly Tenghui potions plus a small amount of meditation potions.

Nowadays, the gap of Tenghui potion in Harland Territory is not small. In addition to the two channels of Grant Royal Family and Northern Border Nobles, the channel of Wealth Church is also added, and the annual import volume reaches 800.

This year, the soldiers who have advanced to professional positions add up to more than 100 soldiers. Now, the number of professionals in Harland Territory has exceeded 500, almost catching up with the Northern Border Legion.

After the Expo, it was December in a blink of an eye.

In December, Harland Territory began to compile various reports and make the annual year-end summary.

Today, the largest output value of Harland Territory is still agriculture.

The territory has reclaimed 1.9 million mu of farmland, of which about 500,000 mu are private land of free people and 1.4 million mu are official land.

This year, there are about 200,000 mu of official land fallow. The scale of economic crop planting in the territory is not large. In addition to 30,000 mu of cotton, the official land planted with grain is about 1.2 million mu.

The grain harvested from 1.2 million mu of official land adds up to about 105,000 tons. The average yield of dry fields and paddy fields is 175 kilograms per mu, which is slightly lower than the 200 kilograms in the bumper year. With 105,000 tons of new grain and part of the old grain left over from last year, the grain accumulated in the official grain storage this year exceeds 120,000 tons.

In addition, there is also a lot of tax grain this year, about 10,000 tons.

The accounts of tax grain and official grain are calculated separately, and tax grain will be counted in tax revenue. The grain harvested from official fields is equivalent to the profits handed over by state-owned enterprises, which is calculated in another account book.

There are already 90,000 freemen in the territory. The next two years will be the two years when a large number of contract slaves will become freemen. By then, the number of freemen in the territory will exceed 200,000.

As of this autumn, there are still 230,000 contract slaves in the Harland territory, among which there are 40,000 children under the age of 14 and 30,000 elderly people over the age of 40.

According to the sampling statistics of the Harland Territory Hospital, the average life expectancy of serfs in the Dawn Continent is only 35 years old. The reason why the average life expectancy is so low is that in addition to poor living conditions, the high infant mortality rate is the key.

After so many years of development, some diseases in the Haaland territory can be treated. According to this year's sample survey, the average life expectancy has increased to 48 years old.

According to this standard, people over 40 years old in the territory are considered old.

As for the noble class, because they are all professionals, they have strong bodies and better medical care, and their life expectancy far exceeds that of ordinary people. For example, Duke Brena lived for more than 160 years.

The average life expectancy of ordinary nobles is also more than 80 years old, which is better than that of developed countries in the previous life.

There are only about 160,000 young and strong contract slaves in the Harland territory, and the rest are old people and children.

Contract slaves do not have complete freedom of life. The old and children have to do the work within their ability, such as picking up manure, collecting firewood, making bricks, raising chickens and ducks, mowing grass and herding sheep, cleaning wool, and keeping night watch. Basically, it is the old and children who do it.

230,000 contract slaves need Richard to provide them with food and clothing every day, and 50,000 tons of food rations need to be left. In addition, 12,000 tons of seed grain need to be left. The wine market has expanded a lot, and 5,000 tons of grain will need to be left for brewing next year.

In order to prevent accidents, Richard plans to leave 25,000 tons of reserve grain this year.

This year, the army will be expanded by 4,000. The soldiers and horses are all big-bellied. People eat and horses chew for a year, and the military rations will also consume 8,000 tons.

The grain that can be sold outside, plus tax grain, is only 30,000 tons.

30,000 tons of grain put into the Black River Fort grain market will cause the grain price to fall.

However, the Harland Territory sells grain, and has a stable major customer, the Northern Frontier Army. The Northern Frontier Army consumes more than 16,000 tons of military rations every year. Through William's relationship, the Harland Territory can occupy a large share and sell 10,000 tons of military rations.

Richard also opened up the channel of the Fortune Church, and sold 5,000 tons through the Fortune Church channel this year.

Richard will not sell the remaining 15,000 tons of grain in the Black River Fort grain market, but will exchange slaves with the Duke of Guise.

Fifteen thousand tons of grain can be exchanged for 6,000 slaves. These 6,000 slaves are all slaves with complete families. There are only 2,000 young and middle-aged slaves, of which only 1,000 are male and middle-aged slaves.

According to the agreement between the two parties, the caravan of the Duke of Guise began to escort slaves to the Northern Frontier in February and returned to the south with grain in March.

The scale of the annual transaction needs to be negotiated in the winter of the previous year. In order to trade with the Harland family, the Duke of Guise established a large-scale business station in Black River Fort.

In addition to selling slaves, the business station also sells some southern specialties.

In the war with the orcs this year, the army of Harland Territory suffered heavy casualties, with 700 officers and soldiers killed and 400 officers and soldiers disabled and unable to continue fighting.

As long as the disabled officers and soldiers were in good physical condition, Richard arranged them in factories and villages as grassroots cadres and received disability subsidies.

Including the soldiers who died this year, the pension paid by Harland Territory is about 5,000 gold coins per year.

Time can heal the pain of war, and in the blink of an eye it has entered December.