It seemed that he had to work harder, Roland shrugged secretly, it was not a glorious thing to be thrown behind by his subordinates.
Fortunately, Chishui City has basically returned to stability. 70% of the nobles who passed the screening decided to continue operating the original industry, and the rest hope to go to the city hall to try their luck. Although the basic requirement for applying for the administrative examination is "literacy and literacy" It's not a problem, but Roland believes that the chances of this group of people passing the final trial and becoming official officials are not high.
After all, the aristocratic behavior is not so easy to change.
Of course, even being a clerk is better than losing your head.
There were even three nobles who wanted to join the First Army. They were all knights. Under Nightingale's observation, they didn't have any intentions to hide their evil intentions. However, he still adhered to the decision made at the beginning of the army's founding and rejected the three people's applications.
After solving the problem of reclaiming the enfeoffment rights, the efficiency of affairs in Chishui City and the surrounding areas is obviously much more efficient. In more than a week, more than 20,000 people boarded the boat to Neverwinter City, and more people On the surface, the practice of abandoning small towns and villages by continuing to converge on Chishui seems to reduce the number of territories that can be controlled, but in fact, it has greatly increased the ability of the city hall to control.
In this era when even roads are scarce, it is a fool's errand to implement government decrees and go to the countryside. It is barely feasible to form a leadership team within a year, and it is difficult to force grass-roots cadres to bloom everywhere. Barov has also asked him more than once why he insisted on transporting the population back to Neverwinter, instead of reunifying the kingdom and making everything business as usual, but he never gave a comprehensive and systematic answer.
Because the director of the city hall can neither imagine how many people a coal-iron composite industry can absorb, nor how much energy and time it will take to build such an industry.
And the most important point is that those remote territories do not really work well. From a resource point of view, keeping them is a waste.
Therefore, it is more suitable for the current situation of Greycastle to concentrate the population in several major cities with convenient water system transportation.
From the moment the land changed, Roland truly had jurisdiction over the Chishui area.
And his next target is naturally Silver Light City.
Compared with the giant Chishui City, it is much simpler to clean up the satellite city of the old capital. It was originally an ordinary fief, no different from the dozens of fiefs surrounding the capital, until the first open-air silver mine was destroyed. Discovery makes its existence special. As more and more precious metal vein caves were excavated, the place became more and more lively, and finally changed into what it is today.
Considering that the output of Silverlight City is of great significance to the coinage of Greycastle, the later lords were not only assumed by the "good man" Earl William, who was loyal to Wimbledon, but his power was also limited, for decades. Down, almost no other nobles have been enfeoffed.
In other words, as long as the city lord expresses his stance, the City of Silver Light is in his pocket.
With the bloodline of Wimbledon III and the status of the current highest-ranking heir, Roland believed that "convincing" the other party would not be difficult.
But what made him a little concerned was that the city built on the mine was also the hometown of Nightingale.
Although every time he asked the other party, the answer he got was "I've broken up with the Glenn family, so you don't have to worry about my thoughts", but he always felt that Nightingale seemed to be avoiding something. It was just that the busy government affairs prevented Roland from spending too much time on guessing, so he had to temporarily suppress this matter.
On the fourth day after receiving the secret letter from Iron Axe, the Eastern Front Army of the First Army marched mightily into the territory of Yinguang City along the artificial canal.
…
Almost the same as the itinerary in Chishui City, Earl William led his team out of the city to greet him. After the warm greetings, he was invited to a dinner party. The difference is that the welcome team in Chishui City are all divided nobles, while the old city lord's team has many more businessmen, and even the old acquaintance Hogg.
In the evening, the earl's opening remarks set the tone for the banquet, willing to hand over the entitlement and fully support His Majesty Roland's New Deal. Immediately, there was warm applause at the venue, which made the latter's prepared remarks swallow all his stomach.
Hogg's threading and threading turned the welcome banquet into a business meeting.
"Aren't you always asking me how the machine in the mine works?" He said triumphantly in front of a group of businessmen, "Now the real inventor of it is standing in front of you, His Majesty Roland! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you don’t need to go to the West, you can get the answer directly in Silver Light City!”
The merchants rushed over immediately.
"Your Majesty, can you tell us why it is so powerful?"
"I don't know if you are willing to sell more rail systems. The Diamond Chamber of Commerce will look forward to the cooperation with Neverwinter."
"Your Majesty, do you still remember the Clipper Club? Two years ago, we provided you with several sailboats to transport refugees from the east. We are definitely one of the best chambers of commerce in the central region. If possible, the Clipper Club hopes to be able to Buy a complete set of steam engine manufacturing equipment. Of course, the price is absolutely good!"
Thinking of the "good news" that the businesswoman Margery had revealed to him, Roland couldn't help crying and laughing in his heart, "Hogg will take a large number of businessmen to the West," but he did not expect that he would be in front of him.
If other places in Greycastle were like Silverlight City, how wonderful the world would be.
After finally satisfying the curiosity of the merchants, he finally found an opportunity to be alone with the old city lord.
The two walked through the hall and onto the terrace where the evening breeze blew, temporarily isolating the noise of the banquet behind them.
Holding the wine glass, Roland overlooked the city under the night for a long time before he said, "Don't you feel sorry for handing over the entitlement just like that?"
"I didn't really own it in the first place, how can I regret it..." Earl William smiled, "your father, and your father's father, although he didn't say it clearly, he would never allow Silver Light City to have a group of belongings that belonged to I am surrounded by myself, and the family motto of the William family is never to be divided, so it is not as important to me as you think." He paused for a while, "Besides, I don't need this power."
"No need?" Roland couldn't help but wonder.
"The original intention of dividing the seal is to strengthen and consolidate one's own power, so as to prevent the prying eyes of others, and Silver Light City does not have this risk. Anyone who has an idea for this city is tantamount to blatantly provoking the authority of the Wimbledon royal family. Therefore, the family As long as you are loyal, you don’t have to worry about being infringed.” The earl took a sip of his wine, “Conversely, in a sense, enfeoffing is also a weakening of oneself, and it divides the resources that originally belonged to him to others in exchange for The effectiveness of the latter. Rather than putting these resources in the hands of others, I prefer to manage it myself. Do you know how much the output of Silver Light City has increased in the past two decades?"
Roland shook his head.
"Sixteen times, I put most of my energy into this..." The old city owner said with high interest, "In the beginning, it was just an open-pit silver mine, and now there are more than ten kinds of mineral veins unearthed; also initially only the collection team sent by the royal family. , and at present there are not only various ores and jewelers here, but also many auxiliary industries developed through mining, such as oil lamps, mining shovel manufacturing, etc. Your steam engine can also be counted as one of them, am I right? "
"Indeed," Roland smiled.
"This kind of feeling is like raising a child and watching it grow up gradually. How can I be willing to cut it up and seal it to others? So I don't need such power." The earl said here Taking a deep breath, "Your Majesty, are you willing to let me continue to run this shining silver city for you?"
"Of course, if you want," he raised his glass to each other, and the two smiled at each other, then the glasses touched each other with a crisp sound.
"By the way," Roland drank the wine and changed the subject, "Do you know about the Glenn family?"
"Glen?" Earl William raised his eyebrows after thinking for a while, "I have an impression, but I don't remember very clearly. After all, Silver Light City has not had any new nobles for a long time, and these families all existed before the silver mines were discovered. That's it. If I remember correctly, the last Glenn should have changed his last name two years ago, and the land is now owned by the Sommer family."
When the other party said these words, Roland felt that Nightingale grabbed his arm instantly.