Chapter 418: Elves in the East Coast Province

Although Clement's professional rank is not high and he cannot stand out in the army, he always keeps his word, has a magnanimous personality, is very enthusiastic at work, and speaks in a down-to-earth manner and has great prestige.

Among the three core cadres of the railway department, Richard actually values ​​Clement the most.

Richard and Clement casually walked around a few tents and found that the tents were leaking seriously. Richard turned to Clement and said, "This won't work. We must provide workers with a place to shelter from the wind and rain. Being exposed to the rain for a long time will cause serious damage to the body. Every indentured servant is an important property of the territory.

Especially with collective life, indentured servants who have worked on large projects are worth a few points more than serfs who farm. After experiencing this kind of collective life training, it is easier to adapt to the factory."

"The railway line is advancing every day, and the workers can be said to have no fixed place to live. If a settlement is built every ten kilometers, it will undoubtedly increase a lot of costs. Limited by construction funds, we can only live in tents. In fact, not only indentured servants live in tents, but also supervisors and engineering technicians."

Seeing that Clement's face was a little embarrassed, Richard turned to ask Green. "How much flexible funds do I have in my account?"

As the government operation becomes more and more formalized, Richard's personal expenses are gradually separated from the government expenses of Harland.

Now the finances of Harland are all managed by the government cabinet, but an annual pension of 200,000 gold coins is paid to the lord's court every year. In addition, Richard's Duke's Office has 300,000 flexible funds a year, and the Duke's Bank will also take out a part of the gold coins to Richard as dividends every year. Add to that the income of some private farms, and Richard can mobilize funds of about 600,000 gold coins.

Richard's personal wealth now exceeds that of an earldom.

Green is Richard's adjutant, and his responsibilities are very heavy. He now has more than a dozen office staff under his command, responsible for connecting with the army and various government departments. As the head of the adjutant's office, Green controls all of Richard's flexible funds.

"The Duke's mobile funds have invested 60,000 gold coins in the technology research and development department this year, and now there are 240,000 gold coins available for free use."

"Give Clement 20,000 gold coins and let them build two settlements along the railway line for the indentured servants to live in." Before Green finished speaking, Richard immediately issued an order.

Seeing Clement's smile, Richard was afraid that he would make a mistake, so he deliberately woke him up and said, "The railway department will be established soon. I plan to appoint you as the Minister of Railways. My only requirement for you is fairness and integrity. I hope you can live up to my promotion and use, instead of being sent to the gallows like many corrupt officials in the past.

The reason why I revealed this news to you in advance today is that I hope you can withstand the test.

Don't let me down, Clement."

"Duke, please rest assured that I will reflect on myself frequently, suppress greed, and be a loyal and honest person."

Richard waved his hand and said, "I hope you can do this. I don't want to hear your determination."

After returning from Graveson, Richard received letters from Driffin, Sutton and others.

After being assigned to the East Coast Province last winter, Richard specially selected a team to explore the coastal areas.

Although the team is small, the members are carefully selected. Sutton is the captain of the expedition team and Driffin is the deputy captain. The expedition team has more than 60 members, each of whom is a professional with rich experience in wild survival.

There are three wyvern knights, four high elves, and Sutton, the ninth-level knight, among the team members. There are as many as eight high-level combat forces. As long as the legend does not intervene, they can dominate most areas.

The East Coast Province is very large and has hardly been developed. There are no human settlements on this land, and there may be a small number of wild people living.

The expedition team led by Sutton and Driffin may be the first time that the human kingdom has penetrated into the East Coast Province.

Sutton and others set out in January and moved along the Black River.

The upper reaches of the Black River are very dangerous from August to October every year because of the snow crystal fish returning to spawn. Hundreds of millions of snow crystal fish will swim upstream from the Black River. Even legendary magicians dare not act rashly in the face of such a large population of snow crystal fish.

In fact, when the snow crystal fish spawns, the 200-kilometer river section near the Black River estuary is not suitable for human activities at all.

The Black River is still frozen in January. During this period, the monsters living in the Black River basically migrate to the deep sea. Sutton and others walk on the frozen Black River, which is very easy.

It only took more than ten days to arrive near the Black River estuary. For the next period of time, Sutton and Driffin mainly investigated the terrain near the Black River estuary.

In the middle of last month, Sutton discovered a young elf during a patrol.

Because Sutton has half elf blood and very obvious elf characteristics, the two sides had a brief communication. Soon after, Sutton took the initiative to bring the high elves and quietly entered the camp of this elf tribe.

Arriving at the elf tribe, Sutton thought to himself: "It seems that the rumors are true. There are indeed a small number of elves in the forests along the eastern coast. Our expedition team has not been in the East Coast Province for a long time, but we have discovered an elf tribe. However, this elf tribe is too small, with a total of only more than ten people, half of whom are underage elves."

"Please forgive us for being a little presumptuous. Let me introduce myself first. My name is Sutton. My father is a legendary mercenary and my mother is an elf from the Morning Tribe."

Sutton had just introduced himself. Signis, a seventh-level high elf, continued: "Silver, Sutton's mother, is a great legendary elf and the queen of our Morning Glory tribe. Which one are you from?" Elf tribe?”

The elven tribes of the Eastern Continent have always had a tradition of discriminating against half-elves. But for the Morning Glory tribe, Sutton and Silver were life-saving to the Morning Glory elves and created a safe habitat for them. Although the elves needed to contribute to Richard and participate in wars they did not like, This is already the best living environment that the Chenhui tribe has obtained in these years.

In order to prevent the strange elf from saying anything nice, Signis intervened first and pointed out Sutton's background.

Although the elves in the Eastern Continent discriminate against half-elves and do not regard half-elves as their own kind, they still have the tradition of respecting the strong. High-level professionals from the elves are not uncommon, and there are many high-level professionals from the larger elven tribes. However, it is also extremely difficult to advance to the legendary elves.

A large elf tribe with more than a thousand people, with over a hundred high-level elves, and only one or two elves who can be promoted to legend. Small and medium-sized elven tribes rarely have legendary elves in charge.

Originally, the leader of the elf camp secretly held some contempt for Sutton, but when he heard that his mother was a legendary elf, he was suddenly shocked.

Hearing Signis' question, the elf leader in the camp was slightly startled and said, "I am Atem, the elf of the Twilight Tribe."

"I have heard about the Twilight tribe. I heard that your tribe is very large, with more than two thousand elves. There is a tree of life growing where the tribe is located. There are two legendary elves in the tribe, Night Ranger and Sun Archer. You are so powerful. , how could we end up in this predicament?" When she heard about Twilight's tribe, Signis was suddenly surprised, with a hint of doubt on her face.

"What you are talking about is all in the past. Fourteen years ago, the Twilight Tribe was invaded by the Elf King's Court. We suffered heavy losses and lost our territory. Even the Tree of Life fell into the hands of the Elf King's Court. Shortly thereafter, the Twilight Tribe was invaded by the Elf King's Court. When the slave-catching group attacked, most of our remaining warriors were killed or wounded, and more than sixty elves fell into the hands of the slave-catching group.

When the slave-catching group returned, the magic ship was attacked by a giant beast in the deep sea. In the end, the magic ship was damaged and drifted into this sea area. We were rescued by a nearby elf tribe, and they attacked the slave-catching group inside and outside. At this time, Twilight There are only about forty elves left in the tribe. What's going on with your Chenhui tribe? "

Signis recounted the situation of the Morning Glory Tribe. After hearing that there were only twenty-seven elves left in the Morning Glory Tribe including Sylph, Atem seemed to recall some tragic memories, with a painful expression on his face. .

"The camp is full of elves from the Twilight Tribe?" Sutton glanced around and found that there was actually a half-elf in the camp. The tree houses built were also different, so he took the liberty to ask.

Atemu shook his head and said: "No, the Twilight tribe has become a thing of the past. There are sixteen members in my tribe, coming from three different elf tribes. Now we all call ourselves coastal highland elves."

"Why are there still half-elves in your territory?" Sutton finally couldn't hold back his curiosity and asked.

"Some captured elves were insulted by the slave group and became pregnant and gave birth to half-elves." Atem reluctantly explained a few words, and Sutton and Signis immediately showed expressions of realization.

Because of their belief in the God of Nature and Life, elves have a custom that prohibits abortion. Although some female elves do not like or even hate these children because of this unbearable experience, they still follow the custom and raise half-elves.

Hearing the meaning in Atem's voice, Signis asked doubtfully: "From what you mean in your voice, there are many elven tribes in the eastern coastal forest. I don't know why they don't gather together, but choose to spread out their activities. "

"It's not that we don't want to concentrate, but there are slave-catching groups in the nearby waters. The slave-catching groups have domesticated some griffons and even wyverns. Once we establish a larger settlement, we will face attacks from the slave-catching groups. In order to avoid the slave-catching group, we can only disperse the tribe, reduce the time for making fires, and try our best to satisfy our hunger with fruits and vegetables.

At the same time, we cannot move in one area for a long time and need to move frequently. When a slave-catching group comes ashore, we have to dig holes and move to caves.

I heard from some elves who fled to this area in the early years that there were more than 300 elves in this area more than fifty years ago, forming a medium-sized tribe. This tribe was renamed the Blood Moon Elves. They were planning to develop to the west of the coastal highlands, looking for A natural magic well. As a result, before the Blood Moon Elves could take action, they were discovered by a large slave-catching group. The Blood Moon Elves fought a failed war. The slave-catching group captured more than a hundred female elves, and almost all adult male elves were They were all slaughtered, only a few elves escaped the disaster, and the Blood Moon Elf tribe also disappeared in the long river of time.

Today, among the elven tribes in the coastal highlands, there are some people from the Blood Moon Tribe. After this disaster, the elves in this area could only choose to disperse their activities. "

Through Atem's narration, Sutton's mind became somewhat clearer about the surrounding situation. "How many slave-catching groups are there in the nearby waters and how big is their scale? Which human kingdoms are they mainly from? Do you have any information on this?"

"In the past ten years, we have also captured some members of slave-hunting groups and tortured them for intelligence. In recent years, there are more than a dozen slave-hunting groups operating in the nearby sea area. These slave-hunting groups vary in size, with larger ones having more than a few thousand people and smaller ones having two or three hundred people.

Generally speaking, large slave-hunting groups are very expensive and will not stay in this desolate sea area for too long. Smaller slave-hunting groups may continue to conduct reconnaissance activities in this sea area for three to five months.

Slave-hunting groups come from all countries, but most of them come from the Holy Glorious Empire, a small number come from the Kingdom of Parame, and occasionally you can see the activities of the Grand Duchy of Caroline. I heard that in recent years, nobles from the Kingdom of Sith have also built magic ships and involved in slave-hunting activities."

Sutton knew that the so-called slave-hunting groups were basically private armies of great nobles, and a few slave-hunting groups were backed by legendary professionals. Even the Elf King's Court could only protect itself and could not interfere with the private slave-hunting activities of human nobles.

At today's market price, a captured elven girl can be sold for more than 10,000 gold coins at a large auction, of which the profit belonging to the slave-hunting group is as high as 70% to 80%, and the rest of the profit is shared by multinational chambers of commerce and local nobles.

With such high profits, even though capturing elves is very risky, countless coastal nobles have entered this industry one after another. The number of slave-hunting groups of all sizes is almost incalculable, and the total number is estimated to be more than 100,000.

The slave-hunting group is composed of professionals, and their combat effectiveness is quite strong. If the human kingdoms can gather more than 100,000 professionals, it will be enough to severely damage the orc army of a governor's district.

After finding out the situation of the elves in the East Coast Province, Sutton immediately wanted to recruit them.

The Morning Tribe where Sylph is now only female elves, which is not a long-term solution. If the coastal highland elves can be brought under their command, the elves of the Morning Tribe can quickly recover.

If the elf tribe becomes stronger, it will also be a good thing for the Sutton family's development in Harland Territory. The stronger their own power, the higher the value of united front.

Sutton has nearly a hundred years of experience, and he sees this very clearly.

Although he wants to annex the coastal highland elves, the two sides are not familiar with each other, and I am afraid that the coastal highland elves are also wary of Sutton. If you want to bring the elves under your command, you need a special opportunity. It is best to wait until the highland elves are in a critical situation.

After establishing a relationship with the coastal highland elves, Sutton immediately wrote a letter to Richard, asking him to establish a base near the mouth of the Black River, and hoped that his mother Sylph would come forward to make friends with the highland coastal elves in advance.

After all, Sylph is a legendary elf, and her cards in dealing with the eastern coastal elves are far better than Sutton. The Sutton family is now Richard's in-laws, and the development and growth of the elf tribe is also beneficial to the development of the Harland territory.

After receiving Sutton's letter, Richard selected 100 professionals from the demon hunter squadron, and then selected 200 professional veterans from Harland's army, and then let Sylph lead the team to form an advance detachment to establish a base at the mouth of the Black River, integrate forces, and prepare to seize the opportunity to recruit elves in the coastal areas.

In order to strengthen the supply, Undine lent her legendary space bag to her mother.

Undine's legendary space bag has a space of 120 cubic meters, which is full of food, enough for the advance team to eat for four months. With this part of the baggage as a guarantee, plus fishing and hunting, it is enough for Sylph to lead people to gain a foothold at the mouth of the Black River.