Chapter 453

After a long journey of 18 days, Victor finally arrived at Raven Town, the northern enclave of the Randall family.

If he entered Raven castle, this is the inevitable result of the Butz people's light words and unable to withstand internal and external pressure. Then change Raven town to a noble knight mayor, the situation will only be worse. Victor could do nothing but collect some Lord offerings from Raven town every year.

In fact, boots and old ham did a good job. Raven town generally does not deviate from Victor's initial positioning and planning. It has a mature tax and handicraft system and relatively perfect infrastructure. However, the barbarians replaced the alchemists and continuously sent the resources of the skylark mountains to Raven Town, processed them into commodities and then sold them. Moreover, businessmen bought brick houses out of their own pocket, but the property rights of the houses belonged to victor. The rent of shops and freight yards they delivered this year reached 600 kingsol. The commodity transaction tax in Raven town exceeds 1600 gold sols, and the sales profit of processed commodities is 5800 gold sols.

Raven town turned in 8000 gold sols a year, which is equivalent to one quarter of the annual income of Pinghu Town, and its territorial area is less than one eighth of Randall's.

In addition to the territory income, the Lord wants his subordinates to carry out his will. But the Lord is not omnipotent. It is obviously impossible for him to decide everything.

Whether it is vassal system or centralism, the will of the ruling class will be affected by environmental factors. It's like that the Sassanians can make wine with green wheat. If the southern Lord makes wine with wheat, the garrison priest must scold him bloody.

Different environments lead to different lifestyles and different cultures. Even modern countries with highly developed communications and transportation must adapt to changes in the environment, respect local customs, and formulate different local policies and regulations according to different regions.

Western philosophers in modern times of the earth once said: if you fight with a dragon for too long, you will become a dragon yourself; If you stare at the abyss too long, the abyss will stare back. But in ancient China, there was a more profound exposition: those close to Zhu are red, those close to ink are black, the sound is clear, the line is regular, and the shadow is straight.

The weak are assimilated by the environment, and the strong adapt to the environment and transform the environment. The secret is not force, but thought.

Victor holds the alchemy tower and has strong war potential. But compared with the church, the force in his hand is nothing. Even the August family can easily take him away. If you fight a long battle, the alchemy tower can't even cope with any powerful Lord. The alchemy tower takes 12 hours to make an alchemy human, and the strength Lord can replenish the troops immediately. The alchemy soldiers died and their armaments were gone. How can the newly created alchemy militia fight with bare hands?

The strength accumulated by the big family for thousands of years can not be easily shaken by Victor.

Augustus sits on thousands of fast Dragon Knights and has no way to control the whole kingdom of Gambis. They still have to make peace with local lords. What's more, raven Town, thousands of kilometers away from Victor, and even more distant mountain people's camp?

Sylvia said: if you stretch your hand too long, you'll be cut off! This is against all forces, including the church and the king.

Force is limited by environment and distance, but thought is not limited by space.

Victor's biggest card is the alchemy tower, but his biggest advantage is that the Randall family is as clean and pure as a baby, which can be cultivated and transformed by him.

The centralized system is obviously more efficient than the enfeoffment system, but the enfeoffment system is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and all members of the Randall family are affected by it. Fortunately, they did not form a village clan force that could resist the power center, so Victor had the opportunity to create a new situation.

The tenant system can transform Randall's vassal families into the landlord class. The gap between the upper class and the lower class ensures that they will not form a strong clan force by marrying tenants. And the weak small family is not enough to resist the will of the monarch.

The policy of enriching the people and public education can unite the small family under the command of the monarch and form the concept of great unity of family and country from the ideological level.

As long as victor did these three things well, he could still accept knights and nobles. In another 30 years, the competitive advantage of the Randall family will be unparalleled. Other Lord families cannot turn around even if they introduce the tenant system, unless a bloody revolution breaks out in their territory and breaks up the village clan forces.

Compared with the overall development strategy of Randall family, the architectural layout of Raven town and the re investment of mountain people's villages into the embrace of surrounding lords are insignificant and worthless.

Looking at the scenery of Raven Town, Victor suddenly brightened up.

Victor left the tower and returned to the knight hall in Raven castle. Boots and old Ham have been waiting for a long time.

A fire rose in the fireplace, and the rolling heat wave dissipated the cold of the stone hall. On the wall were swords, shields, battle axes and one handed halberds, as well as five white ox skull specimens.

"Wild, primitive, powerful beauty. Very good."

Victor withdrew his eyes, made a comment, and sat down on the Lord's throne.

"My Lord, these ox skulls are the craft of barbarians." Old ham, the garrison officer of Raven Town, said happily.

Victor's heart moved and asked, "have the barbarians started the handicraft business?"

"They don't do cattle skull business." Old ham shook his head and explained, "the Lord mother was worried about the barbarians and asked people to transport the red haired bison from the Wharton prairie to Raven town to serve as test prey for the little barbarians. The barbarians valued their prey skull. Because we taught the barbarians the art of wine making, they gave the cow skull to Raven town as a symbol of friendship."

Victor was silent for a moment and asked, "what else did the barbarians learn?"

Mayor boutz replied: "My Lord, there is also a 300 mu stream reservoir 7 km east of Raven Town, which was dug by barbarians and paladins. The walls of the town were also built by barbarians. The soft silver ore mined by barbarians filled three warehouses. They also helped herd cattle and sheep, collect herbs, feed pigs, cut wood, build houses and forge weapons... As long as they were given food and wine, they would be happy They are willing to do all kinds of work, er... Except farming. That's the only thing they don't want to learn. "

"Forging weapons? Who is teaching barbarians to forge weapons?"

"Paladin."

Victor frowned slightly. Barbarians should be vigilant to learn human production and labor technology. The most strange thing is, why should the church teach the technology of forging iron to barbarians? Aren't they afraid of losing their technical advantage in front of barbarians?

Restraining his doubts, Victor turned and joked, "you two are red and your life is very moist."

Old ham and boots looked at each other and said with a smile, "it's soft to receive the money, but it's not enough if you don't..."

"Money can be taken, hands can't be soft, and hearts can't be soft." Victor laughed and said, "from now on, the bribes given to you by those people don't have to be turned over to the inspector. I allow you and the town sheriff to keep 30% of them, and the remaining 70% will be put into the vault of Raven Town, but there should be detailed accounts."

"Thank you for your generosity." Old ham and boots stroked their breasts.

Victor waved his hand and said, "you can accept money and gifts, but you must not accept women or touch the waitress in the pub. This is the bottom line I draw for you."

Seeing Victor's cold eyes, old ham and boots were cold in their hearts and said repeatedly, "master, we will never dare to go against your will."

Victor relaxed and warned: "Every family has an iron rule: the village head and town head can only marry the housemaid trained by the Lord's wife. The businessmen in Raven town are spies of all families, and there are more spies here than businessmen. You know limited things, but your power is very useful to them. These spies can't control you except women and children. Therefore, your children are four years old You must be sent to Yinyue manor to receive attendant education. This is your protection. If you mess with women outside, don't blame me for not talking about past feelings. "

"Master, I will remember your teaching." The two said in unison.

Victor nodded, leaned back in his chair and said, "I came here mainly to see elder Harald. I can't stay in Raven town for a few days. You can tell me what difficulties you have now."

"Raven town is understaffed." Old ham, the garrison officer, raised his head and said: "Now, the permanent resident population of Raven town is about 17000, of which the family members are only over 5000. The remaining people come from all directions, including dodo, Neville, Susi, Borui and Sasan... And these guys don't look like loose refugees. They have their own forces and fight openly and secretly... With my 280 soldiers, they can't take care of them."

"Sir, can you send me another 300 mercenaries?" Old ham asked cautiously.

Victor knocked on the handrail, shook his head and said, "Raven town is a free trade town. I can't garrison too many troops here to avoid the rebound of viscount Negus and Viscount Soren... There are 2000 paladins of the church in Raven Town, and those people can't turn the waves. When the barbarians leave, they will naturally leave."

Old ham and boots looked worried. After all, they were not knights and lacked the ability to protect themselves in the face of the strife of various forces.

Victor thought and said: "Well, I'll go to pastor Kent and ask his Paladin to help patrol the territory. You just need to guard the castle and be responsible for the order in the town. In addition, the double headed lizard chamber of commerce is also a strong support of Raven town. If there is anything, you can consult them. The army of the great Knight Viscount Hanas will enter Raven town at the first time."

"Any questions?"

"No more." Boots shook his head.

Victor waved his hand and said, "prepare a car for me, send someone to the paladin's residence, contact the Reverend Kent, and say that Viscount Randall will visit him."

"As you wish, dear master."

Butz and old ham bowed down and left. Victor looked at their backs and thought, "it's time to train the secret Knight of the Randall family."