To Laurist, the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the three provinces of the Falk Duchy weren't a big problem. Instead, they were a huge gift. Just like what Fatty Shi and Baron Camorra had suggested to him, it wasn't just the Winderbry Royal City, but the northern lands also needed a large number of immigrants to fill up the manpower shortage of the territory's development.
Why did the Norton Family's armed forces have a different retirement rule compared to the private armed forces of other territories? It was to better convert the captives into loyal citizens of the family's territory. Basically, the Norton Family's armed forces weren't recruited from the territory. Instead, they recruited the captives who had gone through three years of labor into the family's armed forces. After another five years of service, they would develop a sense of belonging to the Norton Family and willingly become a member of the Norton Family's territory.
Three years of labor could erase the hostility in the hearts of these captives, and then let them enter the family's armed forces. After the hard days of labor, the captives would obediently accept the arrangement. However, the generous treatment and strict discipline would make these captives develop a sense of belonging and loyalty to the Norton Family. After five years of retirement, they would be given land and houses, reunited with their families, or arranged for the single retired soldiers to build a new family. Then, everyone would become loyal citizens of the Norton Family.
This was Laurist's conversion strategy. That was why the Norton Family's armed forces could reach hundreds of thousands of people. If he didn't adopt this method, and let these once hostile young men scatter into the family's territory, they would become the most unstable factor in the territory. Thanks to the huge amount of loot and funds obtained from destroying the Haneabada Slave Kingdom, Laurist had the ability to persist with this strategy.
However, this strategy required time. After all, it would take at least five years for the soldiers to retire. Thus, another way to quickly expand the family's population was to force immigration. To Laurist, after destroying the Madras Duchy and the Iberian Kingdom, the only force he could oppose in the northern lands was the Fisablon Family who occupied the three provinces of the northeast plains. However, the three provinces of the Northeastern Plains were more desolate than the Northern Lands, and the lack of population was Grand Duke Fisablun's biggest headache. Even if Loriste wanted to go and plunder, he wouldn't be able to capture many people.
This was also the result of the Sabaji Principality being occupied by everyone. In the twenty years since the civil war between the three kings of the Crimson Empire broke out, almost all the nobles in the territory knew that the size of the territory's population was related to the family's strength. Other than plundering, young and strong labor had also become a scarce resource.
Leurist had promised the Second Prince that he was willing to send troops to the four central duchies in order to attract a large number of immigrants. Currently, the population of the Northern Lands was only 1.67 million, and it was unknown how many years it would take to reach the goal of having three million citizens. According to Fatty Shi's calculations, three million people were the minimum manpower requirement for the development of the Northern Land. If they relied on childbirth, it would take too long. A person needed more than ten years to grow from an infant to an adult, and there were many risks in the process of growth. On the other hand, large-scale immigration from the four central duchies was much faster.
Although the four central duchies were known to be rich, Loriste knew very well that the four duchies' financial income was not abundant due to the continuous war in the past ten years. Especially three years ago, they had lost sixty to seventy thousand elite infantrymen in the southern province in order to support the Fisablun family in the battle against the four northern families. This was a very unprofitable transaction for the four central duchies. They had only just recovered in the past three years, and now they were faced with the Second Prince's invasion. Therefore, it was impossible for them to plunder a large amount of money and property from the four central duchies. The only idea they could come up with was a forced large-scale immigration.
Unfortunately, after conquering the Sabaji Principality, other than the one hundred thousand residents of the Meishan Castle and the one hundred and fifty to sixty thousand refugees whose homes had been destroyed, the rest of the refugees were almost completely divided up by the Fisablun family, the Filim family, the Shahin family, and some knowledgeable nobles. Among the three provinces of the Sabaji Principality, Limad Province was monopolized by the Norton family. Meishan Province was divided with the Shahin family and the allied nobles, and Chikseth Province was the domain of the Fisablun family and the Filim family. After the Second Prince's order to forbid all nobles from forcibly migrating their subjects was passed down, there were less than three hundred thousand citizens of the Sabaji Principality left.
To the Second Prince, he had to forbid such forced migration. Otherwise, after conquering the four central duchies, how was he going to recover his territory's strength and economy? That was because he was going to face the colossus Forde Commercial Alliance next. Fortunately, Loriste and the rest also knew that they had gone a little overboard. Looking at the current state of the Sabaji Principality, they knew that if the Second Prince did not forbid it, there would be no one left in the three provinces.
Therefore, after conquering the Forde Principality, the Second Prince was especially strict with military discipline and forbade the nobles from entering the Falkor Principality. Anyway, Grand Duke Falkor had already fled to the Handa Principality, and the towns there were waiting for the Second Prince to take over. Why would he bother these selfish and ill-intentioned nobles to move out with their private forces?
However, he did not expect Grand Duke Falkel to leave such a mess for the second prince. The second prince had no choice but to be caught in a dilemma. At this time, even though he knew that Loriste had his eyes on the hundreds of thousands of refugees, he still had to do as he was told. After all, looking at the current situation, Loriste's idea of migration was the best solution. Otherwise, they could only watch these refugees freeze and starve to death. Moreover, the price of moving these hundreds of thousands of refugees to the Royal City of Windbry would basically be borne by the Norton family. This was also the prerequisite for the Second Prince to agree to let Loriste and Count Filim go to the three provinces of the Falkor Principality to migrate the refugees.
Haha, the Second Prince must not know that a general can't always obey the orders of the monarch. Moreover, the relationship between the lords of Galinthea Continent was not the kind of autocratic feudal system. As the Grand Duke of the Northern Lands, Loriste actually had the right to reject the Second Prince's unreasonable orders that would harm the Norton family's interests. After getting the Second Prince's approval, Loriste was truly a free bird in the sky, a fish in the open sea …
Currently, there were refugees in the three provinces of the Falkor Principality, Samora, Fabsia, and Crimea. However, the highest concentration of refugees was still in Fabsia. This was because Grand Duke Falkor had burned down the city of Falemosch, creating almost a hundred thousand homeless refugees. As for the refugees in the other two provinces, Grand Duke Falkor had ordered to burn all the food reserves in the towns of the two provinces. This caused the residents to have no food or clothing, but at least they had a house to stay in.
The population of the three provinces of the Falkor Principality was close to a million. How could a mere hundred thousand refugees satisfy Loriste's appetite? On the way to Crimea, Loriste reached an agreement with Count Phelim. The Norton family would take the majority, and the Phelim family would also get to enjoy some of the meat and soup. After all, even if the Phelim family migrated a lot of refugees, they would still need the support of the Norton family's food and supplies. The southern province that had yet to develop would not be able to support them.
However, no matter what, the Second Prince was still the king of the Andinac Kingdom. They still had to give him face. After discussing with Count Phelim, Loriste could not let the three provinces of the Falkor Principality become as miserable as the Sabagi Principality. At least, they had to save face.
Therefore, Loriste did not plan to touch the towns and the farmers who had citizenship records. These could be easily found on the citizenship records. However, the manors and territories of the nobles who followed Grand Duke Falkor to the Handa Principality became the targets of Loriste and Count Phelim. Anyway, to the Second Prince, these nobles were all traitors. He would still have to clean them up after he occupied the three provinces of the Falkor Principality. So, he might as well let Loriste clean them up early. The resources he seized could be used to help the refugees.
This was a very strange loophole. The three provinces of the Falkor Principality had fallen into the hands of the second prince. However, what was given to the Second Prince was only the citizenship records of the territories and the citizens of the towns that were directly under Grand Duke Falkor's jurisdiction. However, the citizens under the jurisdiction of Grand Duke Falkor's nobles were not included in the citizenship records. For example, the population of the Norton family in the north had reached 1.67 million. Only these 1.67 million people were considered the citizens of the Norton family. On the other hand, although the Delemke and Winston provinces were under the Norton family's jurisdiction and had a population of about 600,000 to 700,000 people, these were the citizens of the territories and nobles who were enfeoffed in these two provinces. The population numbers could not be counted under the Norton family's name.
Just like the citizens of the capital of Wenderbri, they were counted as part of the Andinac Kingdom. Although Loriste was the governor and had the same rights to deal with the citizens of the capital like the citizens in his family's territories, he still could not treat these citizens as his own. This was because the governor could be appointed and removed for a certain period of time. Even if Loriste was the governor for life, he could not pass the position to his descendants. However, the family's territories could be inherited. This was also one of the reasons why the Second Prince agreed to Loriste move the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Falkor Principality to the capital of Wenderbri. After all, the meat would be rotted in the big pot of the Andinac Kingdom.
The population of the three provinces of the Falkor Principality was close to a million, but only half of the citizens truly belonged to the Falkor family. Now, due to the heartless Grand Duke Falkor's violence, more than a hundred thousand of them had become refugees. Soon, with the arrival of Loriste and Count Filim, these refugees would be moved to the southern province and the capital of Wenderbri with the help of the Flying Tiger Corps and Pegasus Corps. It might not seem to be of much use to the north, but Loriste wanted this excuse to save and move the refugees. He had his eyes on the citizens under the jurisdiction of the Falkor Principality's nobles. He was confident that he could turn these citizens into refugees and move them to the north as well.
Hmm, to save some face for the second prince, 300,000 of the nearly 500,000 nobles' citizens would be relocated to the North. This way, the conquest of Lollister, one of the four central duchies, would increase the number of citizens in the North by more than 500,000, and this did not include the 100,000 refugees who were relocated to the capital of Winderbri. It could be said that the Norton Family benefited the most from this war against the four central duchies.
As for how they were going to move, Loriste was not worried. The Norton Family's armed forces were very experienced in helping them move to the north. Count Filim, who was in charge of cooperating with them, was not a newbie either. He was very familiar with this kind of forced migration method. After the Flying Tiger Corps and Pegasus Corps arrived at the Falkor Principality's Cribia Province, the Pegasus Corps left a division to assist the Flying Tiger Corps in collecting and looking after the refugees. The other three divisions continued on to Fabsia Province and Samora Province. They were light cavalry, so they could move fast and rescue the refugees and maintain order first.
Meanwhile, the Flying Tiger Corps, led by Ross the Ferocious Tiger, followed Loriste's orders to clean up the territories of the nobles who followed Grand Duke Falkor to the Handa Principality in the Cribia Province. The order was simple. All the valuables and rations in these nobles' territories were to be collected to help the refugees migrate. As for the nobles' citizens who had lost all their resources, they had no choice but to embark on the journey north with the refugees so that they would not die an untimely death this winter …
This was also why Loriste had the confidence to guarantee the smooth migration of the refugees to the capital of Wenderi with only 15 days' worth of rations from the second prince. Grand Duke Falkor only burned the rations stored in the towns under his direct jurisdiction. He did not do the same for the nobles' territories under his command. The weather had been good for the past few years, so the Falkor nobles' warehouses were all stuffed full of rations. To Loriste, the spies from the Volibel Intelligence and Investigation Bureau, who were lurking in the Falkor Principality, had already investigated the nobles' information thoroughly. They were so detailed that they even marked out the amount of rations they had stored.
With this information and even the guidance of the guides, the Flying Tiger Corps had a bountiful harvest. Other than a dozen nobles who did not follow Grand Duke Falkor and paid a huge protection fee to Ross the Ferocious Tiger, a total of 34 nobles' territories were wiped out by the Flying Tiger Corps. Unlike Grand Duke Falkor's burning of Falemose City to the ground, the Flying Tiger Corps' cleansing was much more reasonable. They took away all the valuable or usable resources. This was not a difficult task for them, who had rich experience in robbing. Thus, the Cribia Province was immediately filled with more than 100,000 refugees.
For other families or armies, winter was a very dangerous season. Other than spending the entire winter in their dormitories doing nothing, no one was willing to carry out missions in the cold and snowy winter. However, the Norton Family's armed forces were different. Even in winter, they still had to carry out missions and train outside. They had solid winter protection and long distance travel experience. The heavier the snowstorm, the more helpful it was to them. As long as there was a thick layer of snow on the road, skis and sleds could be put to use.
With sleds, they could easily and quickly move the refugees to their next destination during winter. Through the messenger hawk, Laurist had already instructed Fatty Shi and Baron Camorra to set up a complete transportation route. They had also set up camps in Meishan Castle, the southern province, and the capital of Winderbree for the refugees to rest and resupply along the way. This made it convenient for the refugees to get off the sleds and move their limbs after the long distance transportation until they arrived at their assigned settlement.
When the third blizzard stopped, the well-prepared soldiers of the Flying Tiger Corps stuffed the refugees onto the sleds one by one and began the long journey to the North. For the Norton Family's armed forces, the biggest advantage of using the winter to carry out the migration was that they did not have to send many people to strictly watch over the refugees. This was because no refugees with brains would escape from the sleds or defy orders during the migration. In such a cold winter, leaving the sleds that were warm and protected against the wind and cold meant death.
Currently, more than 400,000 refugees had been gathered in Fabsia Province, and the Flying Tiger Corps had already finished clearing this province. They were preparing to head to Samora Province to complete the final clearing mission. Laurist's order to Ross the Ferocious Tiger was to take 80,000 refugees. As a province that had just been under the Falk Duchy for less than seven or eight years, it might be a little difficult to fulfill this quota. However, Ross the Ferocious Tiger expressed that he would find a way no matter how difficult it was.
He had already cleared out the territories of the nobles in the Crimea and Fabsia provinces. Most of the loot was food and supplies. The rest of the loot was only about three to four hundred thousand Gold Fords. Most of the loot was exquisite luxury goods and the various collections of the nobles. The total value of these items was about a million Gold Fords. After Laurist and Count Phelim discussed it, the cash went to Count Phelim, while the rest of the valuables were kindly accepted by Laurist.
On the 32nd day of the first month of the new year, the migration of the refugees had been going on for close to 50 days. The refugees in Fabsia Province had already been transported, and only the last 30,000 to 40,000 people were left in Samora Province. Laurist estimated that all the refugees would be transported on the sleds before the snow melted on the 15th of February. After resting for a month during the rainy season, they would be able to contribute to the development of the Norton Family's territory.
Just then, Bodefinger, who had received a secret order to secretly lead the three divisions of the Monolith Army to Fabsia Province, walked into the big tent in the igloo and saluted Laurist. "Your Highness, we are ready. Can we begin?"
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