A cavalryman would cost 70 Kinnar a year, including at least 10 Kinnar to maintain the horses, at least 10 Kinnar for weapons and armor, and the salary of the soldiers. In the Kingdom of Florence, a cavalryman's monthly salary was one Kinnar, which was 12 Kinnar a year. In addition, a cavalryman had to be accompanied by at least two auxiliary soldiers. Although the cost of these auxiliary soldiers was not as high as the cavalrymen, it was not a small amount in a year.
This did not include the value of the horses and the loss rate of the horses. A qualified warhorse would cost at least 30 Kinnar. The horses of the cavalrymen would often be damaged, which was another large expense.
In addition, as a pioneering territory, the early materials had to be transported from the country, which caused the cost of a cavalryman to be far more than 70 Kinnar. Sometimes, it would even double. Therefore, the basic cost of maintaining a thousand-man cavalryman in the pioneering territory would cost 100,000 Kinnar.
This was only the cost of the army. The cost of building the territory, recruiting orders, and purchasing slaves would not be lower than this. Therefore, although pioneering territory seemed to be a very glorious thing, when it was done, one would find that without a strong financial support, it was simply impossible to do so.
The annual income of a count's territory plus other income was about 100,000 Kinnar. How many pioneering nobles could come up with this amount of money? Even if they could come up with so much money, the investment would have to be reaped. How much could they reap from the pioneering territory? The biggest gain would be land. If it was just farming, the investment would not be recovered for at least 20 years.
Of course, there were some pioneering territories that did not cost too much, but most of those territories were close to human cities. There were not many surrounding wilderness tribes, and they were weak. They only needed to maintain a small army to protect the territory, and the transportation of various materials was also close.
The amount of Kinnar spent was not much, but these places had long been occupied. These pioneering territories could not be taken by just anyone. For example, Suhlen's pioneering order clearly stated that he had to be 300 miles away from Blackstone City to establish his territory. Otherwise, the Kingdom of Florence had the right to take back the territory.
As for the nearest expansion orders, they only needed to be 50 miles away from Blackrock City. Of course, there was a limit to this expansion order. The territory could only be within a radius of 10 miles.
Although there were many benefits to developing a territory close to the city, the territory was very small. More importantly, there were very few mineral resources. After all, all the valuable minerals had been discovered close to the city.
Although Suhlen's territory was far away, there was no requirement for the size of the territory. In theory, as long as you were strong enough, you could always expand outwards. However, in reality, it was very difficult for most people to defend their territory. Expanding outwards was even more impossible.
Then, did anyone succeed? This was for sure. Some lucky bastards discovered gold, silver, and other precious minerals when they were developing their territory. Immediately, a large number of nobles and merchants would come to support them. They would help them develop their territory and provide them with resources, all for the right to mine gold and other precious minerals.
There were also some protagonists who discovered Mithril in silver mines and received support from a large number of wizards. Mithril was a very important magic metal. It was very rare. In the second age of the elves, it was a very precious metal. Many powerful magic equipment made by the elves used Mithril.
The distribution of Mithril was completely irregular, and the reserves of Mithril that had been discovered so far were very small. Most of the Mithril ores were associated with silver ores. If there was an ounce of Mithril produced every year, then the mine could be called a rich mine. However, this kind of mine was very rare.
Many mines that produced Mithril only produced three to five ounces a year.
If Mithril was found in Suhlen's territory, then within three days, a group of wizards would come to support him in developing his territory. If he wanted resources, he would have resources. If he wanted Kinnar, he would have Kinnar. The wizards would even help him in person.
However, Mithril was something that could only be obtained by luck. Suhlen didn't think he was that lucky.
At this point, his territory had to find a profitable place as soon as possible. Whether it was gold, silver, or even copper, iron, or other resources in his territory, he could use these resources to attract merchants to trade. With merchants, Suhlen could obtain all kinds of resources, collect taxes, and then use these resources to slowly develop his territory.
After solving the external problems, Suhlen brought a few barbarian warriors to look for minerals in his territory. His goal was an iron mine. When he was fighting with the gnolls, goblins, kobolds, and trolls, Suhlen found that these tribes had a small amount of iron.
The iron was crudely made, the quality was poor, and there was even slag that had not been taken out. Even a blacksmith's apprentice's craftsmanship was better than this, but they were still iron. Not long ago, Suhlen had interrogated the captives and obtained the approximate location of this iron mine. Then he brought a few barbarian warriors to look for minerals.
Speaking of which, Suhlen's barbarian guards had all evolved into Barbarian Warriors, and a small half of them had even become Barbarian Axe Warriors. Any one of them could easily defeat a knight.
According to the information given by the gnolls, the iron mine was located in the northeast of the territory, about 50 miles away from the camp. Suhlen and the others were very fast. After two hours, they were close to the target area.
To Su Lun's surprise, the location of the iron mine was easy to find. They only patrolled a few times here and found the iron mine. The iron mine was located on a hill, bare and sparsely vegetated. Looking from a distance, there was nothing else. After approaching, they found many traces of excavation on the other side of the hillside.
When they arrived, they also found some kobolds gathered here. They found a mine and even gave away miners. This was a good thing for Suhlen.
Suhlen casually picked up a stone from the ground. It was slightly heavy and had a reddish-brown appearance. If he was not wrong, it was an iron ore. From the looks of it, this iron ore was of good quality.
"I didn't expect this to be an open-air mine!" Looking at the mine in front of him, Suhlen was very excited. One had to know that there was a big difference between an open-air mine. Although some minerals were rich in reserves, they were very difficult to mine. Some were even impossible to mine. Some were buried in the mountains or underground and needed to be excavated.
The simplest open-air mine was the one in front of him. There was no need to excavate; they could just mine directly.
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