Chapter 231 Ancient Ruins
On the night of February 8th, a grand square dance will be held.
February 8th was the day when the first batch of slaves came to Harland's territory. At that time, this area was still a virgin forest and there was no one there.
It was these slaves who built Fort William with their hard-working hands and ushered in a better life. In addition to being grateful to Richard for changing their destiny, the first generation of indentured slaves gathered almost spontaneously on February 8th to celebrate their new life.
February 8th was also named New Year's Day by the freedmen of Fort William.
Richard also requested the Fort William City Council to designate New Year's Eve as a legal holiday and give people a day off to relax.
Through the reports one after another, Richard knew that the largest cash income of the Harland Territory this year turned out to be the wool spinning and garment business. Relying on wool spinning, the territory earned sixteen thousand gold coins.
Of course, the output value of agricultural planting is the largest, but this year there was an influx of 76,000 people into the Harland Territory. This group of indentured servants came to the territory and ate up all the food accumulated this year.
Starting this year, wool weaving has spread in northern Xinjiang, although due to production efficiency, the original textile machines cannot compete with the new textile machines in the Harland territory.
Ranked second is steel products. The annual profit from steel products is 14,000 gold coins.
The income of steel has been very stable. Even if the price gradually drops, the income is still increasing.
Territory taxation, which ranks third, has totaled nine thousand gold coins this year.
The income from hunting World of Warcraft, which ranked high last year, has dropped a lot due to the war. This year, the income is only 3,000 gold coins.
Ranked fourth was the wine business, which made a profit of 5,500 gold coins in one year.
The income from brown sugar, coal, and hemostatic ointment is around 3,000 gold coins, adding up to a total income of 10,000 gold coins.
In addition to honey, glass, masonry, flame spider silk, cement, alloy parts, carriage manufacturing, plus the income from running a carriage and horse shop for transportation, the total profit is 12,000 gold coins.
Last year, the cash income of Haaland's territory exceeded 70,000 gold coins. However, due to the outbreak of the war, the territory's military expenditures were also under heavy pressure, and more than 10,000 tons of grain were sold to pay it off.
With the expansion of the reconnaissance brigade, there are already four infantry brigades, two cavalry brigades, and headquarters personnel in Harland territory, with a total strength of more than 5,000 people.
In addition, the territory also has reserve auxiliary troops. The number of auxiliary troops is not large. Each castle has an auxiliary squadron, and the number of personnel is not fixed. There are now eight squadrons, with a total of fifteen hundred men.
The cost of raising auxiliary soldiers is very low. They only need to train for two months every year. Even though Richard increased the annual subsidy for auxiliary soldiers, the training fee was increased to six silver coins, catching up with the average salary. The annual cost of raising 1,500 auxiliary soldiers is no more than 2,000 gold coins.
But for five thousand regular troops, even if the cost of raising the army is not as high as that of the main army, they will still consume 80,000 gold coins a year.
Soldiers in the Harland territory, as long as they achieve military exploits and become free citizens, will receive a monthly salary of eight silver coins. The salary of professional officers is roughly equivalent to two-thirds of the main army officers.
On average, a veteran's salary is eight gold coins per year. The indentured slave recruits have no salary yet and Richard does not need to pay.
There are more than 4,000 veterans in the territory, and their salary is as high as 34,000 gold coins.
In addition, the salaries of hundreds of officers totaled more than 10,000 gold coins.
In addition to soldiers' salaries, raising an army also requires material investment.
Fortunately, food, meat, clothing, weapons and equipment, nutritional supplies, etc., the actual cash needed, including the purchase of iron horned horses and other messy expenses, is 50,000 Gold coins are enough.
The salary of the lower-level bureaucrats in the territory is the same as that of soldiers, but there are only more than 500 people in number. Including the investment in medical care and education, they only consume 10,000 gold coins.
This year's finances actually have a cash balance of more than 9,000 gold coins.
Richard's treasury has always been relatively empty. Every time he has a balance of gold coins, he will immediately spend them to buy people to increase territory and develop the territory.
But as a lord, breaking the financial chain is a dangerous thing. Richard planned to put this money in the treasury as a reserve fund.
The goddess' birthday is approaching, and Richard brings his family to Heihe Castle to celebrate the goddess' birthday together with his family.
On this year's birthday of the Goddess, my third uncle Bernie took a special leave and returned to Black River Castle.
After the birthday of the goddess, we entered the dawn calendar year 3262, and William was nearly sixty years old.
In these seven years, although William made a lot of contributions to the Haaland family's management of the territory. But he also accumulated three great achievements. After the war last year, William exchanged for the eighth-level professional breathing method and successfully advanced in winter.
At the age of fifty-six, William was promoted to an eighth-level professional. William was already an extremely talented person.
Generally speaking, when professionals reach the age of sixty, their physical functions begin to decline, and the difficulty of advancement becomes much higher. Even a man as talented as William can maintain his best condition until he is seventy years old at most.
You cannot advance to Legend at the age of seventy, and it is even less likely to succeed if your physical condition declines.
According to the speed of William's advancement and the difficulty of being promoted to legend, it is very difficult.
William is the most talented person in the previous generation of the Haaland family. Even he is like this. It is even less likely that his third uncle Bernie will be promoted to a legend.
On the contrary, it is the next generation of the Harland family, Richard, Sophia, and Wendy, who have greater potential and are younger, and have the opportunity to break through the legend bottleneck.
After the birthday of the goddess, Richard had just returned to Fort William. The soldiers who developed the swamp basin rushed to the lord's mansion and reported an unexpected situation to Richard.
Lizardmen were discovered in the swamp basin. Hearing the news, Richard was immediately shocked.
According to the treatment that Richard learned, lizardmen like hot and humid environments and generally live in the jungles of the south.
Lizardmen are widely distributed in the Dawn Plane. There are lizardmen not only in the south of the central continent, but also in the eastern continent where the elves are, the western continent where the dwarves are, and in the hot and humid jungles.
It is said that the lizardmen are an alien species that followed a lizardman god to invade the plane of dawn.
In the end, the lizardman gods were hunted down by ancient wizards, and even the godhead became a collection of wizards.
The wizard captured a large number of lizardmen for experiments, and even hybridized lizardmen with creatures from the Dawn Continent, creating many messy varieties.
According to records, lizard people live in the swamps and jungles of the south. The discovery of lizard people in northern Xinjiang is a big news.
But it was impossible for the soldiers in Harland's territory to lie, especially the soldiers responsible for reconnaissance, who were basically veterans, and the backbone of the force was elite cavalry riding Warcraft horses.
The elite Warcraft Cavalry has never made any mistakes in its investigation intelligence.
After hearing the news, Richard took the Warcraft Cavalry Brigade, the Scout Cavalry Brigade, the First Brigade, the Harland Wizard Association and other backbone forces to station near the wizard tower in the swamp basin.
After obtaining the swamp basin fief, Richard spent a sum of gold coins on the construction of the mage tower.
Since last fall, the Mage Tower has been raised two stories. Wendy took the magic apprentice with her and used the magic of turning mud into stone to build the mage tower into an integrated building, and also set up some magic traps inside the mage tower.
This mage tower has the legendary magic core as energy, and is also equipped with a magic circle to gather magic power. Inside the magic tower, a small artificial magic well is built.
The magicians of the Tower of Death have already built half of the Mage Tower.
The core energy room of the mage tower has been constructed.
Richard only needs to spend less than half of the money and modify some runes that gather magic power to get a complete mage tower.
Richard is planning to build a seven-layer space on the surface.
The first floor is the office of the Harland Mages Association. The second floor is the magic meeting room. Install the portal on the third floor. The fourth floor is the magic plant plantation. The fifth floor is the private magic laboratory of Richard, Sophia, and Wendy. The sixth floor is the bedroom of Richard, Sophia, Wendy and other high-rise residents.
Set up a defensive magic circle on the seventh floor.
Richard is preparing to set up a large attack magic array that releases chain lightning. The energy channel of the magic array is directly connected to the energy room.
Normally, the use of magic power from the magic tower is restricted.
At a critical moment, the magic energy stored in the legendary magic core is used to release a powerful magic chain lightning. With the bonus of the thunder staff, the power can be compared with the legendary magic.
The several underground floors are used as energy rooms, warehouses, public magic laboratories, magic libraries, and magic training grounds.
When building a magic tower, the only trouble now is the portal.
Back then, Richard used wizard texts to exchange a batch of magic knowledge with the Church of Dawn, which included methods for building space altars and portals.
But to build these magical buildings, precious materials are needed, and this precious material must contain spatial properties. For example, the dragon crystal of the space-time dragon, the stomach bag of the ancient giant lizard, the magic crystal containing space attributes, etc.
Currently, Harland's territory does not have such materials containing spatial attributes, so it is not possible to build space altars or portals.
A magic tower without a portal can only be regarded as a semi-finished product.
The swamp basin covers an area of only more than 300 square kilometers. Richard kept sending people to search with nets, and soon found clues. It turned out that these lizard people were hiding in a ruins.
This ruins is less than ten kilometers away from the Mage Tower.
After arriving near the ruins, Richard and others carefully surveyed the ruins and found that the coordinates of the ruins actually corresponded to special stars.
Richard had studied the Book of Astrology carefully, and when he saw this scene, his expression became a little solemn. Because Richard discovered that this ruins turned out to be a city ruins. In the center of the ruins, there was a huge energy supply center. Such a huge energy supply device could only be used by the legendary floating city.
Nowadays, there is no floating city in the Dawn Plane. The floating city is the product of the ancient wizard civilization.
After the Church of the Seven Gods defeated the ancient wizards, the gods fell into a deep sleep and all the floating cities crashed. Some legendary wizards who were lucky enough to survive left the plane of dawn with the last few interstellar magic ships, and the magical civilization fell into a serious decline.
Although many relics from the Age of Wizards and the Age of Seven Gods have been excavated in the past three thousand years, and the level of magical civilization has made some progress, it is still not comparable to the magical knowledge mastered by ancient wizards.
Sophia and Wendy also read the Book of Astrology and quickly discovered the anomaly. The two looked at each other, walked to Richard and said quietly: "It looks like the building left by the astrological magician, but it doesn't look like a magic tower. Instead, it is somewhat similar to the legendary floating city." "It is indeed one
. The ruins of the fallen floating city, but it is not very safe inside. The danger should not only come from the lizard people."
Li noticed that he had awakened his talent for danger perception and came to the ruins of the floating city, and he immediately had a warning of danger in his heart.
The internal areas of the floating city are generally divided into comprehensive defense areas, energy core areas, comprehensive management areas, residential living areas, commercial entertainment areas, material production areas, and education and training areas.
Depending on the strength of the energy, a small floating city only has an area of tens of thousands of square meters and no more than one or two thousand people.
Large floating cities cover an area of more than several hundred square kilometers and can accommodate millions of people.
This floating city in the swamp basin is medium-sized, covering four to five square kilometers, and should be home to twenty to thirty thousand people.
Richard walked around the ruins of the floating city a few times and decided to dig up the ruins of the floating city to see if he could find some precious magic materials and magic knowledge.
Because there were unknown dangers hidden inside the floating city, Richard acted very carefully. He decided to start searching from the residential area, commercial entertainment area, and education and training area first.
These three areas are relatively less dangerous, so excavation work should be smoother from here.
Richard asked the most powerful first squadron, the Warcraft Cavalry, to be on alert, and the rest slowly walked into the ruins of the floating city.
The soldiers from Harland's territory had just entered the floating city. Suddenly, a powerful magical light came from inside the floating city. Several magicians actually activated the teleportation array and left the floating city ruins.
Seeing this scene, Richard was shocked. He never expected that there were people hiding in the ruins of the floating city.
It's just that the people hiding in the floating city were not strong enough to defeat the army in Harland's territory, so they decisively chose to teleport away.
In order to fear that the enemy would move reinforcements, Richard must quickly destroy the teleportation array.
Richard does not know that it is Elena, the legendary magician of the Venus family, who is hiding in the ruins of the floating city.
If Elena was intact, she would certainly not be afraid of the army in Harland's territory.
As a legendary magician, even if he cannot defeat thousands of regular troops head-on, he can still withdraw from the battle at any time and seize the initiative on the battlefield.
However, Elena was severely injured by Duke Brener. Although she survived with the help of the Book of Artifact Contract, she could not use the power of magic to fight for three years. It would take twenty years to rest and recover to restore the strength of the legendary mage.
So after discovering that the Harland Territory Army had entered, Elena estimated the strength of both parties and felt that with the help of several high-level magicians from the Venus family and more than ten mid-level and high-level knights, even if they occupied the favorable location, there would still be buildings built underground. With the help of the mage tower and the controlled lizardman soldiers, it would be difficult to defeat the two thousand elite soldiers in Harland's territory.
Although I felt a little reluctant to give up, the Venus family suffered heavy losses by giving up this secret base.
The Venus family has been operating this secret base for more than a thousand years. There are not only a large amount of materials inside, but also a lot of precious information. The most important thing is that the ruins of the floating city also contain many magical techniques of ancient wizards, which are of extremely high research value. After leaving this ruins, many subsequent studies will be impossible to carry out.
Unless the Venus family is reborn, overthrows the rule of the Grant family, and gains absolute authority, it is possible to regain this secret stronghold from the Harland family.
Otherwise, this site can only belong to the Harland family.
Even if this battle is won and the soldiers of the Harland family are defeated, after the hidden base is exposed, the Harland family will suffer a loss and will definitely report it to the royal capital. When Nolan sends an army, the hidden base will still be unable to defend. Living there will also consume the lives of members of the Venus family.
Elena is a decisive person. Once she realizes that something cannot be done, she immediately decides to save her strength and leaves the floating city with the Venus family.
(End of chapter)