The candle flickered on and off, shining on Lorist's frowning face. Beneath him stood Berunek, Pachko and a plump woman, who was holding a two-year-old girl in her arms. The little boy, the little boy just woke up, was looking around with curious eyes.
The woman and the little boy are exactly Pachiko's wife and his son. The couple wondered why Lorist invited them to bring the child here after dinner. Not only was Berunek there, but it was opposite them. , also stood Mo Luo Singh, Willie Gesang and Ed Walker three.
The door of the hall opened, and four middle-aged maids walked in with four underage boys and girls. The Pachiko couple became more and more curious, because they all knew each other. These four boys and girls, like Morosinger, Willie Gesang, and Ed Walker, were all of the previous generation Baron Norton, Lorist The father's illegitimate son, that is to say, these five men and two women are all Lorist's half-brothers and sisters.
After a while, the door of the hall opened again. This time it was Steward Speer and Reddy who came in. Reddy was holding a five or six-year-old boy in his arms, and Miss Baisha followed behind them.
"Very good, everyone is here." Lorist said, and then waved to Reddy: "Bring the child here..."
The little boy was not afraid of strangers, but instead asked Lorist in a childish voice, "You, who are you?"
Lorist laughed, and kissed the little boy twice: "I am your uncle, you have to remember. By the way, tell uncle, what is your name and how old are you?"
The little boy thought for a while and said, "I, my name is Hercules. I am five and a half years old."
"What a good boy." Lorist touched Heriles' face, raised his head, and said to Pachico and Mrs. Pachico who was covering her mouth with a handkerchief and said, "Pachico, Ma'am, please come here."
Lorist put Heriles on the ground, stood up, and bowed halfway to Mrs. Pachko: "Sorry, madam, I have wronged you. Today, I will return your child to you."
Mrs. Pachiko stuffed the little boy she was holding into Pachiko's arms, and then hugged Heriles tightly: "My child, my child..."
Pachiko hugged his son at a loss, a little confused about what was going on.
"Knight Pachico, may I ask you to become Heriles' adoptive father?" Lorist said to Pachico solemnly.
"My lord, this is, this is..." Pachiko didn't know how to answer. He knew that his wife was originally the young master's maid and gave birth to Heriles for the young master. Later, Miss Baisha wanted Herilet to be her own son, and she separated his mother and child just after weaning, and threw the maid to her as his wife. This is why Pachico has no confidence when he sees Miss Baisha.
When we first met Pachiko, his wife missed Heliles very much, and often cried in the middle of the night until she became pregnant again and gave birth to a child. Anyway, Herriles was her first child, and no mother would Forget about your first child.
"Pachico Knight, you are a man of integrity and keep your promises. Heriles is the only blood left by my elder brother. I hope he can have the love of father and mother, as well as brothers and sisters like a normal child. .I hope he will become your adopted son, and under your teaching, he will also have the noble character of integrity and keeping promises. When he is twelve years old, I will take him back and train him to be a knight like his father." Lorist said.
Pachico handed the little boy in his hand to his wife again, and gave a knightly salute to Lorist in the same solemn way: "My lord, I am happy to be Heriles' adoptive father, and my wife is his mother, young master." Be kind to me, I will treat him as my own child, and I will not let you down."
"Thank you, my knight." Lorist bowed halfway to Pachico again.
Pachiko and his wife stepped aside with their two children, and Lorist returned to his seat: "Morosinger, Willie Gesang, Ed Walker..."
The three walked to the front and bowed to Lorist.
"To be honest, I don't mind your identities. I only know that Norton's blood also flows in your veins. You are my brothers. It's just limited by traditions and customs. I can't give you the family's blood fighting spirit to practice. However, I got these..." Lorist took out three high-level fighting qi cheat books.
"Morosinger, you are an earth attribute grudge, this is for you."
"Wili Gesang, you are metallic grudge, this is yours."
"Edwalker, you are very talented. In one year, you have just awakened and cultivated to a bronze star. I hope you can continue to work hard. You are a fire attribute, and this is yours. Besides, you He will also be educated in family knight training and noble etiquette."
"This is what my brother should do for you. I hope you can continue to work hard to be promoted to the silver rank, become family knights, and add Norton's surname in front of your name. Wait for you to make enough contributions to the family At that time, I will bestow upon you the titles of nobles of the territory, as branches of the Norton family, and I look forward to that day." Lorist said.
The three saluted Lorist again: "Thank you, my lord."
Lorist beckoned to the four middle-aged maids with children, and they came forward with the children.
Lorist said to the four middle-aged maids: "You used to be my father's maids, and you also added four younger brothers and sisters to me. Now you all have your own families. They are well taken care of. I will keep them by your side and let them have the happiness of a normal family as usual. But when they reach the age of twelve, they must accept the Norton family's knight training and noble etiquette education, as long as they work hard If so, they have the same future as their three elder brothers. As for you, starting from this year, an annuity will be distributed to you every year to improve your family life and make their half-brothers and sisters live better Be happier."
The four middle-aged maids saluted Lorist: "Thank you, my lord."
"Go back first," Lorist said.
After his half-brothers and sisters had left, Lorist said, "Baisha..."
Miss Baisha walked over honestly. Lorist made her feel very strange tonight, just like seeing his father, the former Baron Norton, dealing with affairs, dignified, confident, and imposing.
"Baisha, since you have chosen to lead the women's battalion garrison and serve the family, then I hope you will do your best, abide by the regulations set by the family, and become an excellent female knight. But you have to remember, you didn't get me With your permission, you are not allowed to make your own decisions and change the establishment and regulations of the women's battalion without authorization, understand?" Lorist stared at Baisha and said.
Miss Baisha nodded aggrievedly.
"Brother Baker, Knight Pachico, and Steward Speer are here to witness that I have granted you the position and power of the commander of the women's battalion garrison. Similarly, you must do what you promised, otherwise don't blame me for being rude. In addition, If you are invited, you can go to Pachico Knight's house as a guest to see Heriles. But I forbid you to go there without any reason to harass and disturb the peace of their family. Remember my warning, you can go down."
…
"Erina, thank you for giving me such a baby, he's so cute..." Lorist was swinging around the room with the baby in his arms, and the baby who had just drunk his milk squinted his eyes quietly, and started to sleep again.
Elina leaned on the bed, with a smile of a first-time mother watching Lorist happily walking around with the baby in her arms...
Reddy appeared at the door softly, calling softly: "My lord..."
"What's up?"
"The head of the Five Swords Mercenary Group came to receive the reward. I heard that you are here, and I want to see you..."
Lorist nodded, and gently put the child into Elina's arms: "Shh, be careful, he just fell asleep..."
Elina gave him an angry and funny look: "I know, you go."
The Five Swords Mercenary Group brought 1,174 of their relatives and villagers to the Rock Castle when the first heavy snowfall came in November last year, and was arranged to live in Beiye Town by Manager Kedan. . Their escape from the old lord's territory was very dramatic. They took advantage of September 36 when everyone went to the capital of Windbury to participate in the Harvest Festival. In the name of escorting the refugees to the territory for reclamation, the family passed the Hendryford Cable Bridge checkpoint in the Grand Duke's territory smoothly, and then arrived at the Norton family's territory.
Dubofu, the head of the regiment, saluted Lorist very respectfully, and Lorist invited him to sit down and served tea.
This time, Dubov and his mercenaries brought more than 50 heads of the mountain barbarians to find Speer in charge in exchange for a bounty, and asked for a certain amount of weapons and equipment support.
Dubov reported to Lorist the changes in the past few months. Starting from March, the Five Swords Mercenary Corps has been stationed at the border between the Norton family's territory and the Demon Dragon Mountain Range. Pretty Ranger fought several times. From the initial three-five rides to the current dozens, hundreds of rides, the scale is getting bigger and bigger. Dubofu suspected that after a period of time, he might be besieged by a large-scale mountain barbarian ranger.
Lorist readily agreed to provide a batch of weapons and equipment to the Five Swords Mercenary Group, and promised to put more than one hundred members of the Five Swords Mercenary Group into iron armor to improve their protection.
Dubofu was overjoyed, and after thanking him again and again, he took his leave and left.
Lorist only enjoyed family happiness in Fenglin Villa for more than a month, and an urgent letter from Fatty Shi called him back to Rock Castle.
…
This was the first official opening of Rock Castle's main castle. The spacious castle hall was filled with all the family knights and civil officials under Lorist. Even Pachiko, Berunek, Steward Speer and Miss Baisha from Maplewood Villa rushed over to attend the meeting.
This time Miss Baisha finally saw the strength that Lorist possessed, which made her feel trembling when facing Lorist for the first time. As for her, the only female knight in the family, from time to time, she looked at her with curious eyes, and from time to time, a knight of the family who had the courage to kiss Fangze came up to introduce herself, and Miss Baisha went straight to Beru. Nick hides behind.
Lorist and Fatty came to the castle hall, followed by Reddy and Pat. They held a wooden shelf and a long roll of animal skin paper in their hands.
The hall gradually became quiet. Everyone knew that this meeting was related to the future of the Norton family and the fate of more than half a million people.
Pat and Reddy set up a shelf, unrolled the scroll of animal skin and hung it up. It was a map of a large family territory.
After saluting to Lorist, Fatty Shi directly explained to everyone present the severe situation the family is currently facing and the urgent need to solve the problem of resettlement of the people. He picked up a long stick and began pointing at the map.
"This is the wasteland between the mountain city and Beiye Town that is planned to be built. The next task of the family is to develop this wasteland and turn this wasteland into the granary of the Norton family. You see, this wasteland has been divided into seven parts by us. blocks, painted in different colors. This is how we divide the wasteland into seven districts. We will build a town in each of these seven districts. Each town has more than ten villages under its jurisdiction. 1,500 households, 300 to 500 households in a village, at least 300 to 500,000 people can be resettled in these seven districts, and 10 to 20 million acres of land can be reclaimed...
This map was obtained in exchange for a month's hard work of the scout light cavalry brigade and the survey team and the sacrifice of dozens of family soldiers. At present, there are still large groups of monsters in this wasteland. These are the groups of monsters that crossed the Demon Dragon Mountain Range from the wilderness and entered the family territory in winter. Many of them did not return to the wilderness after the winter, but stayed in this wasteland. If we want to develop the wasteland, the first thing we have to deal with is these groups of monsters.
We plan to develop this wasteland in three years and build a happy and beautiful home for our relatives in the troubled times. This year, we will exorcise the monsters in this wasteland, resettle the people in the resettlement sites of the villages and towns in the seven districts, reclaim the fields and sow winter wheat first, build protective walls and shelters, rest the roads, and make arrangements. Stocked up for winter, everything will be ready before winter hits in November.
Next year we will expand road traffic, build water conservancy facilities on a large scale to reclaim land, and divide the fields into households. Each household has more than 50 acres of land. We will also distribute necessary agricultural tools and a horse to each household. In the next year, our lord will fulfill his promise to build new stone houses for each family, so that all the people who follow us to the family territory will live in new homes.
This three-year plan to develop the wasteland, the family plans to invest millions of Jinford funds. After the land is divided into households, our lord also announced that it will give preferential taxation for three years. 20%, 30% in the third year, and then 40% as the standard, no increase. As a relative of a family soldier, there is also a 10% discount. I believe that after three years, this wasteland will become a paradise on earth. "
Fatty Shi turned to Lorist: "My lord, you should give this wasteland a name."
"Okay." Lorist stood up, "A bumper harvest is in sight, happy and healthy. Let's call it Fengleyuan."
"Everyone has heard that Knight Shredder has arranged a plan to develop the wasteland. Today is July 4th, and there are only four months until November. The time is very tight. I hope that everyone will unite and work together to contribute to the family. A power." Lorist gave a knightly salute to everyone.
Everyone in the castle stood up one after another: "My lord, we will serve you to the death..."
"Knight Josk..."
"My lord, I'm waiting for your orders." Josk stepped forward.
"Where is my Tiger Rider?"
"My lord, your Tiger Knight is always on standby!" Rod Wells stood beside Josk excitedly.
"Where's my knight order?"
Terman came out: "My lord, your Knights will always be your most loyal sword..."
"My eyes, where is Yuri Knight?"
"My lord, what you are pointing at is the direction we are heading!" Yuri also stood up.
"Very good, cavalry archers, armored lancers, knights, and scout light cavalry. I order you to sweep up the monsters in the wasteland, and wipe out the large groups of monsters in the wasteland before September."
"Follow orders, my lord."
"Knight Vasinma..."
"Here, my lord." Knight Vasinma walked to the front.
"Your iron cavalry squadron is merged into the armored spear cavalry, and you will go out as the deputy of the Ross knight."
"Yes, my lord."
Lorist looked at everyone in the hall: "Bodfinger Knight's heavy armored regiment is responsible for guarding the safety of the immigrant camp. Ovikis' guard squadron is responsible for the defense of Rock Castle as usual. Pachico's guard squadron is responsible for the security of Maplewood Villa. Defend, and pay attention to supporting the two mountain fortresses guarded by the five-sword mercenary regiment. Farea's three garrison regiments escorted the leaders to the reclamation site, and left garrisons to assist according to the size of a squadron in a village and a brigade in a town Construction. El, you lead the guard battalion to watch over the construction of the road for the captives. The rest of the people are all subject to the arrangement of the development director, Knight Shredder, and there must be no mistakes."
"Yes, my lord."
"Knight Malek, please come out." Lorist said.
"My lord..." Knight Malek walked in front of Lorist.
"Knight Malek, I order you as a lord. From now on, you will be on leave until you are promoted to the gold rank." Lorist said with a smile.
"But my lord, the family is now at a critical juncture, I must contribute..."
"No, no, you have been delayed for a long time for the convoy to go north. I have ordered Knight Berunec to be the deputy of Knight Farea to lead your garrison. You should take a rest at ease and wait for you to be promoted to It will not be too late for the golden rank to serve the family. This is my request, and it is also the order of my lord, and it must not be disobeyed."
"Okay, thank you, sir." Malek showed a rare expression of gratitude on his unchanged face for thousands of years, and saluted Lorist as a knight.
…