Lord Harland.

Chapter 258 Commodity Exhibition

Li Cha stayed in the recruit camp for three months, watching the recruits complete their training almost every day.

Starting this year, Li Cha tried to hand over a large part of his daily work to his assistants.He focuses on the management of the territory himself.

Now Harland's territory has an area of ​​nearly [-] square kilometers, and the number of troops exceeds [-]. Managing such a large stall requires complicated daily affairs, prompting Richard to further decentralize power.

He handed over the government affairs to Rogge, who is the third brother of Sophia and has served the Harland territory for ten years.

After Richard was promoted to Earl, Rogge was appointed as the Chief Administrative Officer of the Harland Territory, equivalent to Richard's Prime Minister of the Cabinet, with an overview of the overall situation, mainly in charge of taxation and financial work.

Now the Earl of Harland is divided into one county and eleven cities by Richard, forming a three-level management system of county-city-village.

This management system is still relatively simple. In fact, the area of ​​Harland's territory is only slightly smaller than that of Gerda Province.Normally, it should be divided into two or three counties, and the management will be slightly better.

It's just that the population of the territory is relatively small now, so a county was established. When the population increases, it will be better to divide it into three counties according to the geographical situation of the Earl of Harland.

After entering November, heavy snow began to close the mountains, and the witcher team that went deep into the Eagle Mountains returned to Fort William to rest.

Sura once again joined the Demon Hunting Team, but unfortunately they were unlucky this year. They entered the Eagle Mountain Range for two months and returned with almost no success. Instead, they scouted the cavalry and defeated three Galewind Wolves, earning some money.

In just three months, Su La noticed that Fort William had changed quite a bit. The streets were full of people, even though it was winter, it still looked very lively.

All the shops on the roadside have also been rented out, and basically all of them are open for business.

Looking at the unfamiliar scene, Sura felt as if she had gone to Heihe Fort.

After Sura returned to Aodaye Hotel, she asked suspiciously, "What's the matter recently, there are so many people on the street?"

"Earl Richard will hold a commodity fair tomorrow. In the past few days, many foreign caravans have come to Fort William. I heard that there are also caravans from the Church of the Goddess of Wealth, who want to sell the goods from the territory to other countries."

"This person comes and goes, will the secrets of the craftsmanship of the territory be leaked, why no one persuades Master Li Cha?"

Sulla had been a squadron leader for many years and had already developed some political sensitivities.In order to cultivate the overall capabilities of the officers, Li Cha will show the territory's annual economic reports to the middle and senior officers.

Through these reports, Su La understood that the monopoly goods produced by the territory contributed the most to the tax administration.

Most of the soldiers' salaries and supplies depended on the income from trade in commodities such as brown sugar, liquor, woolen cloth, and steel.

And these trade incomes are heavily dependent on the production process. Once the production process is leaked out and there is no monopoly advantage, the trade income will drop severely.

A few years ago, the liquor distillation process was stolen by Viscount Cisse, resulting in a [-]% drop in the profit of the liquor trade. It took almost five years to recover the original profit.

This incident had a great impact on Harland's territory, and many officers in the territory had objections to Li Cha's policy of relaxing the ban.

Su La is very satisfied with his current life and has a sense of belonging to the territory. He has doubts in his heart and decides to go to the City Lord's Mansion to talk to Master Li Cha in person.

It is very easy for a mid-to-high-ranking military officer like Su La to meet Li Cha.

When Sura came to the City Lord's Mansion, Richard was talking with Rogge who was in charge of preparing for the commodity exhibition.

After discussing the work with Rogge, and specifically exhorting some details, Li Cha received Su La, and after listening to Su La's persuasion, Li Cha specifically explained a few words to him.

"You can come to me to talk about this matter, which shows that you have a sense of belonging to the territory, and you have some political perspective. Now most of the secret-related units have relocated to the swamp basin. Although the larger factories cannot be relocated, there are a large number of intelligence personnel watching. Outsiders are prohibited from approaching. It is more difficult to leak the craftsmanship.

The most critical issue is brown sugar, steel, and textile trade, which rely on the scale of operation to make profits.Even if the production process is leaked, it will take a long time to cultivate brown sugar saplings and raise a large number of sheep.When others produce products, we can also sell them at a reduced price, or even at a loss, to seize his market and cause a backlog of his products, making this business unprofitable in the short term.If you want to compete with territorial commodities, the threshold is very high. "

Seeing that Sura couldn't understand what he said, Li Cha poured a cup of tea for Sura and asked, "Sula, is it your own idea, or the opinions of many officers and soldiers?"

Su La is a cadre from the army, and he is more lenient towards Li Cha, a cadre from the army, and attaches great importance to their opinions.In particular, Li Cha must have a rough grasp of the ideological dynamics of military cadres.He will adjust his policies at any time, and cannot go too far with the mainstream ideology of officers and soldiers.

After all, the officers and soldiers of the army are fighting with Harland's territory with their heads up, and their interests cannot be ignored in the slightest.Any ruler who ignores the interests of violent institutions will naturally be overthrown by violent institutions.

"This is just my own idea, because the army's military pay and logistics mainly rely on trade income. If the production process is leaked and we lose our monopoly position, our trade income will drop sharply. At that time, our military pay will be reduced, and we will lose sufficient supplies. The combat effectiveness will be severely reduced. The morale of the officers will become low."

"You're right to think so. Commodity trade income is indeed very important now. But if we want to develop in the future, we can't suppress commercial flows forever, prohibit the migration of citizens, and refuse to communicate with the outside world. Closing the border will limit our vitality. In the long run, it will not be conducive to the economic development of the territory."

Li Cha is still very satisfied with the fact that the officers below can take the initiative to think and give him some advice.However, the anti-espionage work cannot be slack either. After sending Su La away, he summoned Noel, George, Vitas and other intelligence system officials.

"During the commodity expo, what measures do you take to prevent the infiltration of spies and the leakage of commodity production processes?"

Noel's new official took office, and this was the first fire he encountered.If the matter is not handled satisfactorily and the craftsmanship is really leaked, his life will have no future at all, and he may lose his life for malfeasance.

Hearing Li Cha's question, Noel took a step forward and said: "During the fair, all factory employees are not allowed to leave the factory and stay in the factory for a few days. Our people will cooperate with the city defense army to shoulder the responsibility of sealing off the factory to prevent employees in the factory from meeting outsiders.

In addition, we will arrange special personnel to keep an eye on the caravans sent by several great nobles, and let some intelligence personnel with special talents come forward in person.

Finally, we will strengthen border inspections as the last line of defense. "

Li Cha knew in his heart that only the first one would work.Now that the decision to lift the ban will inevitably bring about the risk of leaking secrets, how to choose is just a matter of weighing the pros and cons.

There is no perfect thing in the world, and the secret information transmission work does not know how it will appear. This world has magical power, and some methods are almost impossible to guard against.

Now we can only do our best to delay the leak of the process for a few years.

The territory of Harland is still developing at a high speed, and every year it is delayed, the territory will become stronger.

The leak of craftsmanship was delayed for ten years, and according to the development speed of Harland's territory, it was enough to fight against the duchy of Grant Kingdom.

"The work of preventing espionage must be closely coordinated with the wizards of the territory. To allow magicians to participate in the intelligence work, I will issue an order to the Harland Mages Association to assign some magicians to the intelligence department to prevent the enemy from using magic to transmit information."

The officials of the intelligence system were sent away, and the first commodity fair opened on the second day.

The Commodity Fair in November was very successful. During the fair, Harland Territory reached a foreign trade order of [-] gold coins.

The fastest growing foreign trade channel is the Church of the Goddess of Wealth channel. In just a few years, the trade volume between the two parties exceeded [-].Among them, [-] are imported and [-] are exported.

The imports are mainly some magic materials and medicines. The magic materials are mainly super magic metals such as orichanite and mithril. Some of them are used to make magic equipment, and some are used for research and magic experiments.The magic potion is mainly Tenghui potion plus a small amount of meditation potion.

Now there is a big shortage of Tenghui medicine in Harland Territory. In addition to the two channels of the Grant royal family and the great nobles of northern Xinjiang, there is also the channel of the Fortune Church. The annual import volume has reached [-].

This year's advanced professional soldiers totaled more than 100 soldiers.Now there are more than 500 professionals in Harland's territory, almost catching up with the Northern Army.

After the expo was held, it was already December in a blink of an eye.

Entering December, the territory of Harland began to collect various reports and make an annual year-end summary.

Today, Harland's largest output value is still agriculture.

The territory has reclaimed 190 million mu of farmland, of which about 50 mu is private land for free citizens and 140 million mu is official land.

This year, there are about 20 mu of official land fallow, and the scale of economic crops in the territory is not large. In addition to 120 mu of cotton, about [-] million mu of official land is planted for grain.

The grain harvested from 120 million mu of official land adds up to about 170 tons.Combined with dry fields and paddy fields, the average yield per mu is 12 jin, which is a little lower than the [-] jin in good harvest years.With [-] tons of new grain and some old grain left over from last year, the accumulated grain in the Guantian grain storage depot this year has exceeded [-] tons.

In addition, there is a lot of tax and grain this year, about [-] tons.

The accounts of tax and official food are calculated separately, and tax and food will be counted in the tax.The grain harvested in the official fields is equivalent to the profits turned in by state-owned enterprises, which are calculated by another ledger.

There are now 20 free people in the territory, and the next two years will be the two years when a large number of contract slaves will become free people. By then, there will be more than [-] free people in the territory.

As of this fall, there are still 23 indentured slaves in the Harland Territory, among whom there are 14 children under the age of 40, and [-] elderly people over the age of [-].

According to the sampling statistics of the Harland Territory Hospital, the average life expectancy of serfs in Chenxi Mainland is only 35 years old. The reason why the average life expectancy is so low is that apart from the poor living conditions, the high infant mortality rate is the key.

In the territory of Harland, after so many years of development, some diseases can already be treated. According to this year's sample survey, the average life expectancy has increased to 48 years old.

According to this standard, those who are over 40 years old in the territorial population are old people.

As for the aristocratic class, because they are all professionals, they have a strong body and better medical security, and their life expectancy far exceeds that of ordinary people. For example, the Duke of Brenner lived to be more than 160 years old.

Ordinary aristocrats have an average life expectancy of more than 80 years, which is better than that of developed countries in their previous lives.

There are only about 16 young and hardworking contract slaves in Harland's territory, and the rest are old people and children.

Indentured slaves do not have complete freedom of life, and the elderly and children have to undertake the work within their ability, such as picking up dung, collecting firewood, making bricks, raising chickens and ducks, mowing grass and herding sheep, cleaning wool, and night watch, etc., are basically done by the elderly and children.

23 contracted slaves need Li Cha to provide for daily food and clothing, and 1 tons of rations need to be left.In addition, [-] tons of grain need to be left for planting, and the wine market has expanded a lot. Next year, [-] tons of grain will need to be left for wine making.

In order to prevent accidents, Li Cha plans to leave [-] tons of grain reserves this year.

This year, the army will be expanded by [-], and the soldiers and horses will all have big bellies. People will eat horses and chew for a year, and the army rations will also consume [-] tons.

The grain that can be sold outside, plus taxes, is only [-] tons.

The input of [-] tons of grain into the Heihebao grain market will cause the price of grain to drop.

However, Harland Territory sells grain, and there is a stable major customer, the Northern Legion, which consumes more than 6000 tons of military rations every year. Through William's relationship, Harland Territory can occupy a large share, selling [-] tons of military rations.

Richard also opened up the channel of the Fortune Church, and sold [-] tons through the channel of the Fortune Church this year.

Richard will not sell the remaining [-] tons of grain at the Black River Fort grain market, but will exchange slaves with the Duke of Guise.

Fifteen thousand tons of grain can be exchanged for six thousand slaves.These six thousand slaves are all slaves with complete families, and there are only two thousand young and middle-aged slaves, of which only one thousand are male and middle-aged slaves.

According to the agreement between the two parties, the caravan of the Duke of Guise began to escort the slaves to the northern border in February, and returned to the south with food in March.

The size of the annual transaction needs to be negotiated in the winter of the previous year.In order to trade with the Harland family, the Duke of Guise established a large-scale trading station in Black River Fort.

In addition to selling slaves, the commercial station also sells some southern specialties.

In this year's war with the orcs, the army of Harland Territory suffered a lot of casualties, [-] officers and soldiers were killed, and [-] officers and soldiers were disabled, unable to continue fighting.

As long as the disabled officers and soldiers are in good physical condition, Li Cha will be arranged in factories and in the countryside to serve as the most grassroots cadres and receive disability subsidies.

Including the casualties of this year's soldiers, the current pension issued by the Harland Territory is about [-] gold coins per year.

Time can heal the wounds of war, and it has already entered December in a blink of an eye.

(End of this chapter)