Chapter 411: Rewarding Merits

After Richard completed the transaction with Duke Edward, he immediately negotiated with the Duke Fox family.

The Fox family suffered relatively light losses in this year's orc invasion. Now the territory of the Northern Frontier is about 90,000 square kilometers, not counting the families of soldiers and bureaucrats, and more than 900,000 serfs and freemen.

Richard also wanted to take over this territory, and finally exchanged 60,000 square kilometers of land in the south with roughly the same population.

Compared with the serfs in the Kingdom of Delong, Richard still prefers the people of the Northern Frontier.

The people of the Northern Frontier grew up in a difficult environment, and their personalities are often more simple and resistant to war, and they are more tolerant of suffering, more resilient, and more adaptable to the environment of the Northern Frontier. Exchanging population can save a lot of expenses, which is a win-win situation for both parties.

Two wars broke out this year, and the situation in the Kingdom of Grant changed. Among the Duke-level nobles, the Edward family, which used to rank in the middle, suffered heavy losses. Now its strength has reached the bottom, ranking last among the Duke families.

The Duke of Guise was slightly stronger than the Edward family. In last year's war, the Duke of Guise also suffered heavy losses. Not only did the old duke, the ninth-level epic knight, die in battle, but he also lost 15,000 elite soldiers. The only thing that was better for the Duke of Guise than the Edward family was that the war took place in the Kingdom of Delon. The Duke of Guise did not suffer much economic and population loss, and maintained its basic base. The economic and population data far exceeded that of the Duke of Edward.

The third from the bottom was the Duke of Loran. The Duke of Loran was a dog guarding the house and did not have much ambition for expansion. This year, the Kingdom of Grant launched a southern expedition with all its resources, but the Duke of Loran did not invest much resources. Without ambition, the territory naturally did not develop much. Although the Duke of Loran's strength ranking is not at the bottom, the area of ​​his territory is smaller than that of the two dukes of Guise and Edward. The small area of ​​the territory naturally has little potential for development. In the long run, the potential of the Loran family is not as good as that of the two dukes of Edward and Guise.

The fourth from the bottom was the Duke of Fox. Before the invasion of the orcs this year, the two dukes of Edward and Fox were relatively high in strength ranking. The two dukes of the Northern Frontier are second only to Grant, Harland, and York. They are stronger than the Dukedom of Jonathan, who focuses on Stannick.

Unfortunately, the war of the orc invasion changed the power comparison of the Grant Kingdom. The Edward family fell to the bottom, and the Fox family also suffered heavy losses, falling from fourth to sixth. With the decline of strength, the right to speak naturally decreased. The Fox family, like the Edward family, gave up the Northern Frontier territory and completely completed a gorgeous turn.

This year, the Grant Kingdom has changed. The Dukedom of Jonathan has not declined or developed, but its ranking has risen by one place compared to last year.

The Jonathan family was originally the second giant in the Grant Kingdom. Twenty years ago, the pillar of the Northern Frontier defense line was similar to the current Dukedom of Harland. When Richard served in the Mad Lion Legion, the Dukedom of Jonathan could contain six orc legions. The influence in the Northern Frontier is greater than that of the Grant royal family with three elite legions. Until now, the reputation of Grand Duke Jonathan is still circulating in the Northern Frontier region.

However, after regaining the Grand Duchy of Stanik, the Jonathan family focused their energy on the west. They successively transferred 60,000 elite soldiers to the Grand Duchy of Stanik, and their influence in the Kingdom of Grant became smaller and smaller, and their ranking gradually fell behind. In recent years, they can only be stable at fifth or sixth place.

Ranked fourth is the Dukedom of York. As the blood descendant of Duke Brena, the York family ranked second in the Kingdom of Grant in the early years, and the location of the territory was better than several dukedoms on the northern frontier.

However, with the rise of the Jonathan family, Duke Brena aged, and his ranking gradually dropped to third. In recent decades, the Duke of York has been ranked very stable in the Kingdom of Grant, and has always been the third.

However, the two wars this year have changed the situation. First, the orcs invaded and severely damaged the Duke of York's army. Then the Kingdom of Grant marched south, and the dukes who participated in the war were full of fat, and the Dukedom of York did not seize the opportunity. At this moment, the population, area, and number of soldiers of the Dukedom of Duran have all exceeded the Duke of York.

The three dukes in the southwest were originally weaker and could not match the Duke of the Northern Frontier, but Duke Duran seized the opportunity and robbed hundreds of thousands of serfs last year, exchanging them for millions of gold coins with the Haland Territory. This year, the territory expanded greatly, and Duke Duran led his troops to participate in the war again, expanding the land of 40,000 square kilometers and swallowing up millions of people in the Kingdom of Delong.

Duke Duran was originally a great noble of the Kingdom of Delong. It was easy to digest and absorb the land of the Kingdom of Delong, and to recruit and surrender. Now their land, population, and military strength are ranked third in the Kingdom of Grant, surpassing the Duke of York.

The second place is naturally the Duke of Haland. Although the Haland family has a shallow foundation and has only been promoted to the duke for six years, Richard has implemented a different set of economic policies, and industry and agriculture are developing rapidly. Magic civilization continues to advance, new weapons are constantly invented, and the strength has been promoted to the second place in the Kingdom of Grant three years ago.

After two battles this year, the area of ​​Haland Territory has reached nearly 500,000 square kilometers, and the population controlled is nearly 8 million. Such a huge strength is enough to compete with the entire country of Stanik.

There are four great dukes, two great earls and other great nobles in Stannic who share power. The vassal power under Richard is much weaker and cannot interfere with Richard's decision at all.

Now the power held by the Harland family is stronger than that of the Jonathan family.

The Jonathan family is a grand duke and a duke, and controls twelve earldoms. The Harland family holds four dukes and two earls, with a total of fourteen earldoms. They can be merged into a grand duke, a duke, and two earldoms, but if Richard wants to take the grand duke's crown and leave the Grant royal family, he must participate in a race and plane war and get the approval of the Holy Glorious Empire.

The Grant royal family still ranks first, although the military power controlled by the royal family may be worse than that of the Harland family. However, the royal family has conquered more than 200,000 square kilometers of land in the south and directly controls a population of nearly 16 million, almost twice that of the Harland territory.

In addition, the royal family's influence far exceeds that of the Harland family. Earl Steven and the Duke of York are both members of the Grant family. The four marquises in the east are relatives of the royal family for generations, which is equivalent to a part of the central ruling group.

The influence of the Grant royal family far exceeds that of the Harland family. According to Richard's estimation, if you want to truly compete with the royal family, you need to develop at least five to ten years and increase your strength by 50% to 60%.

Seeing that both Edward and Fox had completed the exchange of territory with Richard, King Roger also sent Earl Karen as a special envoy to explore Richard's opinion on exchanging the northern border territory.

In April this year, Richard's eldest son Philip was engaged to Vivian, the youngest daughter of Roger's kingdom.

After the nobles got engaged, there was basically no practice of regretting the marriage. On the contrary, if the two families had grievances, it was more common for the marriage to be accompanied by murder.

In the marriage between nobles, happiness and misfortune after marriage were probably half and half. If the two nobles in the marriage did not have a major conflict of interest, the life after marriage would be happier.

After Vivian and Philip got engaged, they planned to live in Fort William for a few years. Now they live in Earl Karen's mansion and often play and meet with Philip. When Philip graduated from high school, Richard discussed with King Roger and let him live in Nolan for a few years to keep the young Vivian company. When the two were about the same age, they would return to Fort William when they reached the age of marriage, and take on some government affairs on behalf of Richard and inherit the family business.

Earl Karen proposed the idea of ​​exchanging territories, and Richard certainly would not refuse.

Richard has always had the ambition to swallow up the three provinces in the northern border and own the Black River system. Moreover, there is a plane channel in the Dragon Canyon. Richard has long wanted to control it legally. King Roger also does not want to waste energy in the northern border area and wants to develop in the south.

The two sides' ideas almost hit it off, but the three provinces in the northern border have a total area of ​​80,000 square kilometers, which is of course much less valuable than the 100,000 square kilometers of land in the south of the Harland family.

Although the three provinces in the northern border are maturely developed areas with a population of about three million at their peak, the three central legions went south, and their families and urban freemen migrated with them as many as 500,000 to 600,000. With the exchange of territories, the Mad Lion Legion will also go south, and the population will further lose.

In addition, there are dozens of nobles of all sizes in the three provinces, and these nobles control nearly half of the fiefdoms, and the population also exceeds one million. The land directly controlled by the royal family is only about 40,000 square kilometers, and the population is only 1.2 million.

Although Richard's fiefdom in the south has been traded a lot, it still has 100,000 square kilometers and a population of more than three million. The considerations of both parties were seriously unequal. Richard directly asked for the addition of the province of Sodamia before he was willing to exchange.

However, they were somewhat reluctant to ask King Roger to cede the land of the three provinces of Sodamia, Gabrielia and Froda.

After all, the southern part of the three provinces of Sodamia is the administrative district of the capital Nolan. If these three provinces are given up, the border of Harland Territory is not far from Nolan, and the capital will be threatened by the Harland people at that time.

Since the core territory cannot be given up, the Kingdom of Roger exchanged the coastal territory of more than 200,000 square kilometers in the east of Duke Jonathan's Territory to Richard.

Although this part of the land nominally belongs to the Kingdom of Grant, unfortunately, like the Eagle Mountain Range area before, it has not been developed at all and is still uninhabited.

It is rumored that in this territory, not only the legendary red dragon activities, but also the elf tribes that have drifted to the east of the Central Continent have appeared.

This land has basically no short-term value. If it is developed in the long run, its value is more valuable than tens of thousands of square kilometers of land in the south.

The eastern coastal plateau is covered with forests, and the human density is pitifully low. But Richard knew that the coastal areas were much more valuable than the inland areas after they were developed. Ocean trade alone could bring countless profits and opportunities to Harland.

Now that Harland has developed steam engines and magic crystal cannons, it is easy to manufacture ironclad ships. By making some modifications to the ironclad ships, magic ships can be manufactured.

Once the magic ships are manufactured and enough naval forces are trained, they can go deep into the ocean, hunt deep-sea monsters, and obtain more extraordinary resources. They can even cross the East China Sea and enter the East Continent to trade with the elf tribes, and even occupy colonies in the East Continent, allowing Harland to achieve greater development.

After the land exchange was completed, Richard proposed an additional condition, hoping to migrate 500,000 serfs from the south to the northern border. Because of the serious inequality in population transactions, King Roger readily agreed to Richard's conditions. However, the Kingdom of Roger also made a request that the nobles of the three provinces in the northern border voluntarily choose to stay in the northern border or go to the new territory in the south to develop.

The nobles from the northern border went to the south with their military forces, which could bring considerable support to the Kingdom of Grant. The royal family was also willing to give part of the southern territory to the nobles who went south to help them stabilize the situation.

After exchanging territories, the nominal territory owned by the Dukedom of Harland has reached 780,000 square kilometers. However, the territory that has been developed to a certain extent is only about 540,000 square kilometers.

The two major duchies of Edward and Fox, and the three provinces in the northern border of the Kingdom of Grant were all swallowed up by the Harland family at the end of the year 3272 of the Dawn Calendar. According to the rough estimate of the civil affairs department of the territory, the population that the executive government can directly control is about 6 million, and the population controlled by the feudal nobles is about 500,000 to 600,000.

Because they agreed to King Roger's conditions and let the nobles of the three provinces choose freely, most of the hereditary nobles will give up the northern border territory and follow King Roger to develop to the south. After all, the enemies in the south are much weaker than the Orc Empire, and relatively safer.

However, the nobles and free people can migrate to the south, and most of the ordinary serfs and grain will stay in the north. Richard and the Kingdom of Roger will take out some resources and exchange them for money. Anyway, Harland has some excess production capacity for the time being, and this excess production capacity is just right to exchange for population resources.

Richard's estimate is very accurate. Most of the nobles in the three provinces are willing to move south. Especially in the two provinces of Gascoigne and Lach, 90% of the nobles chose to move south. Nearly half of the nobles in the province of Gedda also left.

The only ones who were willing to stay were the nobles of the two counties of Black River and Roman. The nobles of these two counties fought side by side with Richard many times and felt that staying in the Dukedom of Harland would give the family a better development.

Richard led his troops south in September and won a decisive victory in late October. He returned to Harland in mid-December.

Many people made outstanding contributions in this southern expedition, first of all, Sylph, because she fought many times and killed the enemy, more than 300 professionals died in her hands. In the battle of killing Mark Dean, Sylph played a very critical role. In this battle, he was awarded a viscount.

The Sutton family already has two viscounts. With the viscount that Sylph was awarded this time, if they choose to merge, they will be promoted to great nobles and become the first earl among Richard's vassals.

Richard is still developing within the system of the Grant Kingdom, and there cannot be earls among his vassals. Unless it breaks away from the Grant royal family and establishes itself as a Grand Duchy, it will naturally gain full autonomy at that time. Not only can it be conferred the title of Earl, but also the title of Duke.

But in this way, it will not be recognized by mainstream countries, just like a clown.

After Richard and Sylph discussed, they decided not to merge the titles first, but the territories would be conferred together, and they would make plans after Richard was promoted to Grand Duke and wore the crown.

In addition to Sylph's direct title of Viscount, the two young men Levin and Sox also accumulated enough merits with the support of their parents and were conferred hereditary barons.

In addition, Soros and Jennings, two senior officers, killed enemies on the battlefield and led troops in battle, and were also successfully conferred a baron territory. Soros has fought in Harland Territory for 20 years, and this is the fourth time he has been conferred the title. It's just that he has conferred the territory to different children and has not yet worn the crown of Viscount.

Jennings' second fiefdom is located in the western part of Harland Territory, not far from Martins Castle. This territory is 560 kilometers away from the first territory in a straight line. The two territories are so far apart that it is naturally inconvenient to manage.

Richard did not deliberately make things difficult for Jennings, but the northern territory of the Twin Star Castle has been sealed off. If he continues to be granted land in this area, the No. 2 military station will be included in the fiefdom.

The No. 2 military station is a garrison fortress on the northern frontier defense line. It is impossible to seal it out and cause trouble for himself.

Therefore, the new fiefdom can only be chosen in the west. Whether it is Jennings, Soros, Levin, or Sox, the four baronies are not far from Martins Castle.

Wilde, Roman, and Sutton did not make any military achievements because they stayed in the northern frontier. They missed this opportunity and could only wait for the next war.

After the complicated matters of exchanging territories and migrating populations were completed, it was already February 3273 in the Dawn Calendar.