industrial lord

Chapter 649: Build a Wonder
There are many large and small gold mines and mining caves in the area 20 to 30 kilometers south of the city of Boyheim. Many years ago, tens of thousands of people lived around the gold mines.

After decades of war, this was also the most fiercely contested place.

The place that should have been farmland was overgrown with weeds and dead silent. When a gust of wind blew, grayish human bones were faintly visible among the grass.

As soon as the convoy arrived here, everyone felt very depressed, especially the magicians, who felt palpitations and shortness of breath for unknown reasons.

The roads and bridges in this area were severely damaged. A bridge that was barely open to traffic a dozen days ago had a pier collapsed not long ago. Frederick and his party could only wait in a nearby village for the engineers to repair the bridge.

There are only a dozen households in this village. In addition to farming, there is also a blacksmith shop. People pick up discarded weapons and armor from all over the place, re-smelt them into molten iron in the iron furnace, and then make new swords to sell.

When setting up camp, an officer told Dafranche and his men about the history of this place: "This place is the southern gate of the city of Boheim. Over the past few decades, it has witnessed eight battles involving more than 100,000 people, and the deaths of five magic gods and sword masters. There have been countless battles involving thousands of people, and countless nobles have died here. At the same time, countless people have become new nobles because of their military exploits."

"There was a magician's offensive and defensive battle that lasted for five days and five nights here. The magic power around was disordered, making people uncomfortable and animals dared not approach."

Dafranche sighed: "How many people must have died here?"

"No one knows." The officer shook his head. "The battlefield has not been cleaned up yet after the previous battle, and the next battle happened again. No one has counted it."

"There have been many major plagues here before. The living people ran out of the barracks, and the dead were left in the barracks. No one went to bury them."

The officer pointed to a nearby river and said, "I heard that the riverbed here is covered with bones. Human bones can be fished out from time to time. The old wells are also filled with bones. We can only use new wells."

The businessmen were horrified when they heard this.

The language of the villagers in the village is highly similar to that of the Piast Kingdom, while the language of the residents of the previous Budwiss City, the Barony of Sto and the Iron Ore Town is the same as that of the Rhine Alliance and the Osmaga Empire. The different languages ​​make it difficult for the two sides to communicate effectively.

Therefore, when the villagers saw so many people suddenly appear outside the village, they all hid back in their homes and piled all movable objects behind the doors, fearing that someone would break in and steal their things.

Fortunately, the church was open, and Frederick visited as the Grand Master of the Knights of the Church of Light, and Father Bozhil received Frederick.

Father Boyer was very old, half of his teeth were missing, his eyesight was not very good, and he was the only one in the church.

He told Frederick: "In the past, when the army passed by, they either robbed or raped. The villagers were afraid, but it was not disrespectful to the commander-in-chief."

Frederick said to him, "It's okay, I can understand."

"The day after tomorrow is Sunday, and I think holding a worship service can eliminate the barriers between us."

Bozhier looked embarrassed, hesitated for a moment and then whispered: "I'm sorry, I'm old and frail, and I haven't presided over the worship ceremony for several years."

Presiding over the worship ceremony is the priests' job. He hasn't organized team building for several years. To put it mildly, it is dereliction of duty. To take it to the extreme, it is blasphemy against the God of Light. As the leader of the Knights Paladin, Frederick has the right to purify him in the fire.

Frederick naturally would not burn him, but asked with concern: "Didn't the church send young monks to help you?"

According to tradition, there is usually only one priest in a small church in the village. When the priest is unable to work due to old age or other reasons, the higher church will send a young monk to work with him. After the priest dies a few years later, the monk will take over as the new priest.

This tradition has been going on since the founding of the Church of Light. The process is already very complete. There is no reason why Father Bozhier has no successor. Father Bozhier shook his head helplessly and said, "Alas, the village is too dangerous. No one wants to come. They all hide in the city."

"Many people died in the war, and all the young men were taken to serve as soldiers, so there was no one left to become monks."

"The bishops of the diocese are either dead or have fled. When I went to the church in Boheim, no one wanted to pay attention to me. The rest were only concerned with enclosing the ownerless land."

"I am still here in this village, but it's hard to say about other villages. Some villages haven't had a priest for more than ten years."

Frederick had not expected the situation to be so bad. It seemed that the war had also caused serious damage to the local church organization.

There are many young monks in the seminary in Oak City, but they do not belong to the Archdiocese of Bohemia and cannot be easily transferred over.

Although Father Arms has gone to work in Weissenburg in the Rhine Archdiocese, his organizational relationship in the church is still with the Archdiocese of Bohemia.

He could serve as Minister of Education in the city of Weissenburg, and the educational funds he handled in one year were more than many nobles earned in their lifetime, but he had no right to preside over even the smallest religious activities.

According to the procedure, the archbishop of the local diocese needs to send a letter to the Holy City, stating that support from other dioceses is needed due to a serious shortage of staff. The Holy City's Conference of Cardinals will then discuss where to transfer people. After the Pope agrees, the letter will be sent back to the archbishop, asking him to take the document to negotiate details such as the number of people with the archbishops of relevant dioceses. After the discussion, they will jointly send a letter to the Holy City. Finally, the Pope will entrust the Conference of Cardinals to issue relevant documents. Only in this way can large-scale cross-regional transfers be completed.

The reason for going through so much trouble is to prevent a situation like the current one, where the local church organization suffers heavy losses and Frederick next door cannot easily lend a hand.

Frederick really wanted to intervene, but the process and the relationships he had to establish were extremely troublesome, especially since it was easy for some people to create obstacles in some way. To be on the safe side, he had to spend a lot of money to establish connections.

But the temptation to add sand to the situation was too great, so Frederick decided to talk to the professionals and pay for it himself.

Frederick had a plan and asked, "What do you think about building a cathedral nearby and collecting the remains around and burying them in the cemetery?"

Father Bozhier said, "If you are willing to pay, that would be great."

"Not only around here, but many mines are filled with corpses and need to be cleaned up as well."

Frederick nodded.

If I want to expand my influence here, the best way is to create wonders, and they must be wonders that stand on the moral high ground.

It is enough to build an ordinary church here. The key is to collect the remains, which requires a lot of manpower and material resources.

Frederick naturally paid for the money, and those who were willing to do this job must be people from the lower class, which was equivalent to building up a wave of reputation.

However, there is not an inch of land here that belongs to him, and he must first solve the land problem before building a church and a cemetery.

To solve the land problem, we have to go to the city of Boheim.

(End of this chapter)