Ever since Fatty Shi and Yuri had become Norton Family Knights and were about to embark on the journey back north, Leurist suddenly realized that things were out of his control. They were heading further and further in an unknown direction.
First, when Leurist held a family Knight meeting to explain to everyone that he was going to organize a shipment of supplies back to the family, he was ridiculed by Fatty Shi. As a family Knight, Fatty Shi did not give any face to Leurist, who was about to become the new head of the Norton Family. He took the map of the Northern Lands. He felt that on this trip to the Northern Lands, Loriste should be thinking about how to get rid of the Norton Family's chronic illness and let the Norton Family regain its vitality, not sending a batch of resources to prolong the Norton Family's life.
Fatty Shi had said that a prosperous family with potential for development should have the ability to innovate itself and adapt to the changes of the environment to make its own changes, instead of being conservative and stubbornly sticking to the so-called tradition. It was a pity that Laurist's actions of sending resources to the Norton Family seemed to be more for the sake of the Norton Family's survival than for the sake of the Norton Family's continued development.
Leurist blushed a little and felt a little guilty. Fatty Shi had hit the nail on the head. He was indeed going to send a batch of supplies to the Norton Family and then return to Morent City to continue his carefree life. However, he did not dare to say that this was his original plan. Otherwise, Fatty Shi would definitely pounce on him and fight him to the death. My companions abandoned their comfortable lives in Morant City and prepared to jump into the fire pit with me. Who would have thought that I would only take a stroll around the fire pit? What would they think if I let them know … 'What would they think?
Fatty Shi was speaking with fervor. He felt that there was only one real reason why the Norton Family had fallen to such a state: the land was vast and the population was scarce. As long as this problem was solved, nothing could stop the rise of the Norton Family.
For example, the Magical Beast Tide in winter was not a problem. The Norton Family could defend their current safe area. With sufficient manpower, they could expand their safe area. As long as the defensive facilities were complete, the Magical Beast Tide might just be a small harvest for the Norton Family in winter.
As for the Mountain Barbarians, Fatty Shi said that he had asked Sederkamp and discovered that an important piece of information had been overlooked. In the past hundred years, the conflict between the Norton Family and the Mountain Barbarians had intensified. However, most of the time, the Norton Family had been passively defending and had never taken the initiative to attack. It was always the Mountain Barbarians who came down from the mountains to harass the Norton Family, and the Norton Family would then send out their troops to fight back and drive the Mountain Barbarians back. If they could completely annihilate the Mountain Barbarians that came down the mountain once or twice, the family would be able to obtain a long period of peace and not have to constantly be entangled with the Mountain Barbarians. Therefore, to deal with the Mountain Barbarian Tribe, they had to dig out their nests and kill all those who resisted. The rest would be used as labor to build roads, open mines, and seek for desolation. In any case, there were plenty of things for them to do. Fatty Shi was full of killing intent.
The third problem that the Norton family faced was the garrison. Fatty Shi believed that the root cause of this problem was the lack of population in the territory, so that the family and the families of the garrison members were too deeply involved, so it was difficult to make up their minds to clean up the mess. The former Christen Empire had gone through six years of civil war. The people were in dire straits, and bandits were everywhere. This time, when they went to the north, they could use this opportunity to recruit some of the strong men with families to form a family army. They could suppress the bandits and train the soldiers along the way. By the time they reached the north, they would have an elite army in their hands, and it would not be a problem for them to crush the garrison. Moreover, the refugees that they recruited would be able to fill up the gap in population in the territory.
As for the territorial disputes, Fatty Shi did not care at all. He thought that it was just a small matter and not worth mentioning. When we return with our troops, if that viscount knows what's good for him, he will obediently hand over the mines and spit out his illegal gains. Otherwise, we can use this opportunity to start a war with the lords, destroy that idiot's entire family, and occupy his territory. The Norton family did not mind expanding their territory.
The only problem was that Duke Lujins. This duke was greedy by nature, and he always found ways to plunder the assets of the nobles under him. He was like a bug that was crawling on the body of the Norton family, sucking blood. Now that the Norton family was not strong enough, they could only endure the constant pain of blood loss. As for how to deal with this duke, it was up to Lollister to decide. Fatty Shi's suggestion was that if they had a strong army, they should directly slap this duke to death. If they could not face him head-on, they would have to endure for a while longer and feign civility.
Fatty Shi pulled out the latest version of the map of the former Christen Empire and pointed at it. "Everyone, look. The former Christen Empire is now divided into three kingdoms and seven duchies. Among them, the duchy of Lulm, which is next to the Falichiu Plain, has already surrendered to the Ford Commercial Alliance. Next is the Redelis Kingdom of the eldest prince. He occupies seven of the twenty-nine provinces of the former Christen Empire. He has the largest territory and the strongest power. Then there is the Falkner Duchy, Fulondo Duchy, Handa Duchy, and Sabaji Duchy. These four duchies occupy the wealthiest central region of the former Christen Empire. They have also formed an offensive and defensive alliance. Currently, they are in constant conflict with the Redelis Kingdom.
"The third prince's Andinac Kingdom is the smallest, with only three provinces. However, the former imperial capital is under his control, and he's also the successor of the old emperor of the empire. He's highly respected among the nobles and subjects of the empire. If it weren't for the commerce alliance instigating the eldest prince and the second prince to rebel, he would've been the new emperor of the empire. Due to the suppression of the Trade Alliance, he was now the weakest, even weaker than the Duchy. Even if the Norton family wanted to be loyal to someone, they should be loyal to him. After all, he represented the royal family of the Christen Empire. “
"Finally, let's take a look at the second prince's Iberian Kingdom, where the Norton family's territory is located. Let's talk about the second prince first. His reputation among the nobles of the Empire had never been good. He was harsh and merciless, bullied the weak and feared the strong, greedy and lustful, and liked to scheme in secret. His performance in governing the country and military was mediocre. To put it bluntly, the nobles of the Iberian Kingdom were in a state of disunity. They were only subordinates to the second prince in name, and there were endless cases of disobeying orders. Moreover, there were frequent territorial wars and internal strife. If it wasn't for the support of the Second Prince's father-in-law, the Grand Duke of the Northeastern Prairie, Duke Fisablon, the Second Prince wouldn't even have been able to establish the kingdom. "
"The Iberian Kingdom occupies the northeast region of the Christen Empire. There are a total of five provinces, including the northern highlands. There was also the Madras Principality, which was nominally part of the kingdom. The enemy of the Iberian Kingdom's current campaign was the Principality of Merlein, because it was loyal to the third prince and blocked the Second Prince's covetous heart towards the original imperial capital. If the Second Prince wanted to capture the original imperial capital, he had to flatten the Principality of Merlein first. The Grand Duke of Merlein was the original military commander of the Empire, and his subordinates were the elites of the original Empire's defense army, so the Second Prince went to the Principality of Merlein for two years in a row without success and suffered heavy losses. "
"The Second Prince had a total of two dukes, seven marquises, nineteen earls, more than forty viscounts, and more than a hundred barons. More than ninety of these titles were newly conferred by the Second Prince. The reason why so many nobles were conferred was because the Second Prince wantonly conferred titles and sold titles in order to establish the country. There was even a joke that the newly conferred marquis' fief wasn't as big as the neighboring barons' fief. One of the two dukes was his father-in-law, Grand Duke Fisablon. This duke was originally the commander of the Empire's border corps and was responsible for dealing with the barbarians of the Northeastern Prairie. He supported his son-in-law in the battle for the throne of the three kings. He was the strongest, and the establishment of the Iberian Kingdom could be said to be single-handedly managed by this duke. "
"The second duke was the Grand Duke of the Northern Lands, Lord Luckins. Everyone look at the map. The Northern Highlands occupied half of the Iberian Kingdom's area, but although it was large, it was small. Looking at the Norton Family's territory, it occupied one-third of the Northern Highlands' area, and it was all undeveloped wilderness. Grand Duke Luckins' territory was the most prosperous southern side of the Northern Highlands, after crossing the Mitobro River. In fact, this Duke Luckins had always been ambitious. He wanted the entire Northern Highlands to become the Luckins Principality. It was just that his military strength was too weak, and he had always been coerced by Duke Fisablon's army, so he had no choice but to agree to become a part of the Iberian Kingdom. And he was currently busy trying to establish a Northern Army to compete with Duke Fisablon's army, and become the military force that he planned to establish the Luckins Principality relied on. "
"This time, in order to obtain Duke Luckins' support for the establishment of the Iberian Kingdom, the second prince promised to give all the nobles on the Northern Highlands to him. This was the reason why the second prince transferred the Norton Family's ruling relationship to Duke Luckins. But the second prince also played a trick. He conferred more than 90 nobles in one go, and more than 40 of them were conferred to the vast and sparsely populated Northern Highlands. The viscount that bordered the Norton Family's territory was one of them. "
"The second prince glorified the conferment of so many new nobles in the Northern Highlands to speed up the development of the Northern Highlands, but in fact, it was to cause trouble for Duke Luckins. After the conferment, countless conflicts broke out between the old and new nobles in the Northern Highlands, and there were several territorial wars. There were already three new nobles and one old territorial noble who died. And Duke Luckins also changed his original strategy of stopping the conflict between the old and new nobles in the Northern Highlands. He even secretly added fuel to the fire, supporting territorial conflicts and territorial wars to consume the strength of the northern nobles, forcing them to rely on him. So now the Northern Highlands are in chaos, and the flames of war are incessant. All the territorial nobles are gathering together to protect themselves. "
"This is the current situation outside the Northern Family territory, and it is a good opportunity to fish in troubled waters. As long as we are strong enough, we may be able to unify the Northern Highlands. This is also why I think it is not advisable for Lord Locke to prepare to transport a batch of supplies to the Northern Highlands. Transporting a batch of supplies, a large transport convoy will only make us the target of others. Whether it is a lord or a bandit, they will all want to take a bite out of us. Any domain lord would be worried that they would be our target if we gathered a group of refugees. As for the bandits, they would be targets for our family's army to train and exterminate. We would have to kill as few people as possible, and the strongest among them would become members of the suicide squad, the vanguard of our attack on the city. Even if they are not the backbone, they will become our labor force and follow us to the Northern Highlands to open up wastelands. "Fatty Shi finished his northward strategy.
Everyone applauded enthusiastically, and Laurist was no exception. Fatty Shi had always looked at the big picture. This could be seen from the adventure team he had formed with him and his companions in the past. He would never accept any mission that was beyond the team's ability. Over the years, his team had been injured, but no one had died. This proved that his ability to avoid danger was unparalleled.
Unfortunately, Fatty Shi did not know that Laurist only wanted to transport a batch of supplies to the family, and that he wanted to stay out of it. This time, Fatty Shi had been provoked by his father. He gritted his teeth and prepared to take root in the Northern Highlands to fight for a hereditary title for himself, so he considered the long term.
Laurist objected weakly. He thought that Fatty Shi's strategy was good, but the price of gathering refugees was too high. If ten thousand refugees arrived at the family's territory in the North, it would bring more trouble to the family. There was no more arable land to cultivate in the territory, and the Northern Highlands were desolate. They would not be able to afford the food needed by so many refugees, and so on …
Fatty Shi scoffed at Laurist's words. He thought that Laurist was contradicting himself. If that was the case, why did Laurist still want to transport so much food that was enough to feed the entire family for five to six years? Why did he want the family to stay in the castle like turtles and not go out? He might as well use this batch of food to gather the refugees and buy supplies along the way. He believed that there would be enough food stored in the family's territory. As long as there was a year or two of food, the territory would be able to develop greatly. Yuri asked, "What if there are more refugees on the way, and the nobles are not willing to sell us food?" "What do we do? Are our swords just for show? If they don't want to sell, we will force them to sell! We are just a group of refugees, and we are not attacking their territory. We just need to leave their territory. These nobles will not even gather their armies to fight with us. Even if they win, they will use up a lot of their strength and give other lords an opportunity. So their best strategy is to send us food to get us to leave their territory as soon as possible. "Fatty Shi said.
When the refugees arrived at the territory, there would be no arable land? That was not a problem. Fatty Shi said to let the refugees open mines, build roads, build castles, and hunt magic beasts. As long as the safety of the family's territory was expanded, there would be no need to worry about uncultivated land. Fatty Shi said that many resources could be removed from the list, such as the ten carts of iron ingots that Laurist had listed. These things were heavy and inconvenient to transport. It would be better to find a professional who could mine and smelt iron. Fatty Shi pointed at the map of the family's territory and said, "I don't believe that there are no ores we need in such a large area."
Fatty Shi asked how many gold fords Laurist was prepared to pay. Laurist hardened his heart and said ten thousand gold fords. Fatty Shi said, "Why are you still keeping twenty thousand? You are preparing to have children! " "We are going to the north with the determination of not returning. How can we not be fully prepared?" Fatty Shi said. He handed over all the money and was in charge of purchasing resources for the trip north.
"Damn, this damn fatty really knows how to calculate my money." Just like that, the share that El had given him two days ago and his previous savings went into Fatty Shi's hands. Laurist found that he did not have much left and couldn't help but sigh. How could he return to Morent City in this state?
Fatty Shi took control of the finances and was excitedly discussing with everyone what to prepare. There were three main types of resources to buy: weapons and equipment, food and clothing, and transport vehicles. These were not urgent. The most important thing was to have a reliable armed force. Fatty Shi didn't think it was reliable to hire all of them. He knew the problems of the hired mercenaries. They could fight with the wind, but they would all run away if there were any casualties.
"Here." Bodefinger pointed at a black dot on the map. Laurist looked at it and saw that it was a port city with the words Nubit Port written on it.
Bodefinger said, "This is the Kingdom of Haneabada, an archipelago country. This country does not forbid the slave trade. That's why Nubit Port is the largest slave trading port in Galinthea. We can go there to buy a batch of slaves and form a family's armed force. "
Fatty Shi said, "I know this place, but I've never been there and don't know the market. I only heard that this place is lawless and extremely chaotic."
Bodefinger said, "My last mercenary mission was to pick up a batch of slaves here. I've been there once, and it is indeed very chaotic. However, I met a few acquaintances. They were all comrades in the army. Now they are bodyguards in this port. I want to contact them and ask about the market. But it's best to wait a few days. I'm about to advance to gold-rank. It will be better for me to go there when I become a gold-rank swordsman. “
Bronze, black iron, silver, and gold-rank 4 are not difficult to advance. Bodefinger only needed to master the blood circulation in the high-level combat energy manual that Laurist had given him. If he could use it freely, he would become a gold-rank swordsman.
Fatty Shi nodded, "Alright, I'll go with you. Sir will be in charge here. “
Boddfinger asked, "Knight Shredder, I know you've never been to the north, but how do you know it so well? “
Fatty Shi said, "It's simple. The people sent by the Ford Commercial Union to the Crimson Empire to mediate the conflict between the third prince and the various kingdoms and duchies have returned. Through my connections, I paid a visit to one of the members and even paid a high price to buy his diary of what he saw and heard. After carefully studying it, I learned about the situation in the Northlands. “
Bodelfinger lowered his head in greeting. "Knight Shredder, you are very considerate."
Fatty Shi nodded in return. "You're welcome. This is what I should do for the family."
Yuri made a suggestion. He felt that there were many disillusioned old students in Dawn Academy, and there were also quite a few in the swordsmanship club. Shouldn't they ask the academy if anyone wanted to go with them to the north? Wouldn't it be easier for them to take control of the newly established family armed forces if they could recruit a group of old students who knew their background?
Fatty Shi praised the suggestion. He asked Terman and Yuri to take charge of this matter. The requirement was that he had a good character and the strength of a Silver. He could tell them that this trip would be very dangerous. If they wanted to come back after reaching the Northlands, they would be paid twenty gold fords each. If they were willing to join the Norton family, Sir Locke would take them in as family knights, but that would have to wait until they reached the Northlands.
Fatty Shi also asked Terman and Yuri to find out if there were professionals who wanted to follow Sir Locke to the Northlands, such as pharmacists, blacksmiths, and steelsmiths, as long as they had a skill. Fatty Shi said that the development of the family territory could not be done without these people.
Bodelfinger nodded in appreciation.
The family knight meeting about the northward strategy ended. Bofinger went back to his training, while Terman and Yuri went to complete the task assigned by Fatty Shi. Fatty Shi was even busier. He had to bargain with those unscrupulous merchants and prepare the supplies for the northward journey. Thus, everyone bowed to Lollister and took their leave, leaving quickly.
Laurist sat alone in his study, stunned for a long time. Finally, he understood that it was over. He really had to go back and be the lord this time.
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