In the garden, a well-dressed middle-aged man was walking quickly towards the Hunter family's meeting hall.
The man's name is Iger, and he is the butler of the Hunter family.
Iger was adopted by the Hunter family since he was a child. He has been working for the Hunter family since Grandpa Richard's time. His honor and disgrace have long been tied to the Hunter family.
Before Richard was born, the internal affairs of the territory were mainly handled by Egger, who assisted Viscount Sauter. He was the only one among a group of big bosses in the Hunter family who had some ability in internal affairs, and had always been the chief steward of the Hunter family.
Even after Richard took charge of the territory, he still let Iger continue to be the chief steward. However, the power was not as concentrated in his hands as before, so Iger had no complaints. After all, it was his life's mission to be loyal to the Hunter family.
Arriving at the door of the chamber, two guards at the door saluted Egger.
"Master Richard is inside."
"Um"
Egg responded with a slight nod to the two guards.
After entering the door, he saw Richard sitting on a chair.
"Good day, Master Richard"
As he spoke, Egger made a standard bow to Richard.
"Uncle Egg, no need to be polite."
"Master, the etiquette must not be discarded."
Richard could only greet Egger to sit down with a helpless expression.
Sometimes people are just hypocritical.
Although Richard told Ige not to be polite, if Ige really dared to act carelessly like an elder in front of Richard, it would definitely arouse Richard's disgust.
Fortunately, Ige abides by his duties as a minister and has never acted beyond his bounds. More importantly, he is loyal and possesses certain management skills.
Although these management talents are very basic in Richard's opinion and are also experiential management, he is an internal affairs talent after all, and he understands Richard's new management methods quickly, so he still sits firmly in the leadership position after he has been in power for several years.
In the butler's position.
"Uncle Egg, how much food do we have in hand now?"
"There are still more than 7,000 pieces of stone rye and more than 3,000 pieces of stone blue rice in the warehouse, and there is also some stock of dried meat."
The staple foods of this world are rye and green rice.
"Furthermore, in order to attract farmers, the young master has lowered the land tax very low in recent years. Almost all farmers in our territory have grain reserves. If there is a shortage of grain, we can collect thousands more dan of grain."
Although the Northland is a bitter cold land, it actually has relatively fertile black soil. The Daling River and Xiaoling River originate from the Snowy Mountains further north, pass through the entire ironwood forest, and flow through the Hunter Territory.
The land formed a large accumulation plain.
In one year, one acre of land can yield a harvest of one stone and a half.
In recent years, Richard has attracted a large number of refugees and rural escapees from other territories by reducing agricultural taxes, encouraging reclamation, and developing water conservancy projects.
The prevailing land tax in the kingdom is 40%. Taking into account the corruption of low-level tax officials, it is common for homesteaders to only keep half of their harvest. Life is even more difficult for tenant farmers who rent land.
However, Richard implemented a 20% land tax in Hunter Territory, and completely abolished all the exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes with clever names.
This is naturally a good thing for the common people in the territory. In recent years, the people in the Hunter Territory have become visibly richer, and almost every household has a few stones of food.
However, the good governance of the Hunter Territory is not a good thing for the territories of other families. The impact at a distance is not great, but the Weir Territory, which is adjacent to the Hunter Family, has suffered a lot.
Originally, the poor people in the two territories were equally poor, so everyone had no idea. But suddenly one day, the poor people next door began to become rich, and their mentality changed.
As a result, many homesteaders in the Will Territory simply gave up their land and went to the Hunter Territory to reclaim it. Many tenant farmers of the Will family even began to run away. The Will family hated this with all their teeth.
"No need, the food is enough."
One stone of grain is equivalent to about 125 kilograms of grain, and more than ten thousand stones of grain are enough to support Ironwood City for more than a year. There is no need to break your own rules and collect grain again.
Of course, Richard was not a holy lady. He just tried his best to maintain the rule of levying the 20% field tax once a year. If it was really necessary, it would still have to be levied.
"Next, I plan to expand the Tiemulin Guards to 500 people. Uncle Egg will cooperate with the equipment distribution and placement."
"yes"
Iger didn't ask too much about the reason. Loyalty and doing his own thing well were his greatest strengths.
"Nothing's wrong, I'll leave now."
"Um"
After Egger left, Richard met with several people one after another to arrange some things, and finally a man dressed in civilian clothes came to Richard.
"Brother Kelun, how is the development of Yusidu recently?"
"According to Master Richard's arrangements, most of the circuses performing in the North and some larger hotels and taverns have arranged our manpower. We are also actively deploying spies for large caravans."
"Now we have more than 30 core personnel and nearly 200 peripheral spies."
"Okay, thank you for your hard work, Brother Column. This is a hard job, not as glamorous as the city guard."
Although the name "Yusidu" is delicate, it expresses Richard's high hopes for this start-up intelligence department.
"Like rain, like silk, it penetrates every hole."
"It is my honor to serve the young master."
Colen is an orphan brought by Hunter. He was adopted by the Hunter family when Richard was still young.
The territory of the Hunter family has only been managed by Richard like an iron barrel in recent years. In the past, snow bandits often appeared in the Hunter territory. They attacked caravans and plundered villages. Coren was lost to the attacks of snow bandits.
parents.
As an orphan who was adopted since childhood, Colen also received training from the Hunter family since he was a child, and also had the experience of practicing martial arts with Richard.
Because of his reserved and careful personality, he was chosen by Richard to be the head of the intelligence department.
"Inadvertently revealed to the Will family the news of the discovery of iron ore at the bottom of the northern valley."
…
"yes"
Just execute without asking why, this has always been the style of Richard's subordinates.
When Richard communicates with them in a consultative tone, they can speak freely. When Richard assigns tasks in a commanding tone, they always have only one answer - "yes"
The Northern Valley is in the ironwood forest north of Hunter Territory. Some hunters accidentally discovered the existence of iron ore while chasing their prey.
After learning the news, Richard did not rush to develop. Instead, he chose to suppress the news and continued to buy iron materials at high prices. At that time, the Hunter family was not ready for an all-out war with the Will family.
Now this news will be the last straw for Will's family.
…
After Column left, Richard in the meeting hall was once again entangled.
"Would you like to place a human base camp?"
This prompt began to appear as soon as he arrived at Ironwood Fort, but there was no response after he left Ironwood Fort. After several experiments, Richard came to a conclusion:
The base camp must be placed on the basis of an existing castle, and cannot be done randomly in the wild like receiving troop rewards.
But from the bottom of his heart, Richard did not want this golden finger to be exposed to the world. The water in this world is not deep, and Richard has not yet found his psychological bottom. After so many years of hard work, he has never been able to escape the large scope of the northern border.
The Hunter family is just a small noble who has just made a fortune. In the eyes of the real big nobles, they are just a few lucky upstarts.
If it were just some soldiers who appeared suddenly, it would not be difficult to conceal them as long as they did not allow anyone to see them appearing out of thin air.
But with such a conspicuous building directly in the city, in full view of everyone, even if Richard covers the sky with one hand in Ironwood City, it is inevitable that someone will spread the news.
But the temptation of a human castle is too great. Fourth-level soldiers like the Crusaders are at the level of knights. If there are a few knights and angels in the back, wouldn't they be walking sideways?
Richard raised his hand again and again, and finally put it down again.
"Wait a little longer, don't take risks, there will be a better choice soon."
The last murmur seemed to be an effort to convince himself.