The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 564: Rhine Province

Richard accepted a large number of polytheistic priests, but did not restore their faith. He did not intend to intervene in the fight between polytheism and monotheism.

Richard allows freedom of belief. On the surface, monotheism is still dominant, but in fact there are already many polytheistic believers.

The Gaul region did not recover after the war. The looting of the Hun Empire left the Gaul province in ruins, with many people being massacred and towns being looted.

Although the Huns had been repelled, many towns had not recovered, not to mention that the empire had no money to help the refugees resume production.

Seeing this situation, Richard naturally would not let it go, so he began to secretly expand his strength. He began to occupy the surrounding towns that had been looted.

Then he moved some of the refugees here, gave them food, seeds, and farm tools, started to restore production, and stationed troops here to incorporate these places into his territory.

Richard's actions did not attract other people's attention at all. Even if some people noticed it, someone at Count Valenza's place had already taken care of it for Richard.

This time, Richard directly occupied all the areas around the Vosges Mountains. Next to the Vosges Mountains is the Rhine River, and on the other side of the Rhine is the Swabian Mountains.

The two mountain ranges are parallel, and the Rhine River flows in the valley between them, which can be said to be easy to defend but difficult to attack. This time, Richard plans to directly occupy the entire area between the Vosges Mountains and the Swabian Mountains.

At that time, as long as both ends are guarded, we can develop with peace of mind. At the same time, this passage is also a passage for the Germanic barbarians to move south. Richard used the Rhine River and the mountains to guard one side, and the Germanic barbarians were plundering from the other side.

Now he plans to block this entire passage to the south. When the Germanic barbarians move south in the future, a major war will inevitably take place here.

This area may not look big, but it can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people for farming. And because the Rhine River has created a large plain, the land here is very fertile.

The former province of Gaul was an important province in the empire, with a population of three to four million, and even five million at its peak.

But after all these years of turmoil, barbarian invasions, imperial oppression, and slave uprisings, Gaul today, or even the entire province of Gaul, may not even have two million people.

If Richard could control hundreds of thousands of people here, then the province of Gaul would basically be his.

Richard has no plan to occupy the entire Gaul province now, because most of the Gaul province is plains and there is almost no strategic location to defend.

The Germanic barbarians in the north continued to move southward. If he occupied the province of Gaul, he would have to face the invasion of the Germanic barbarians like locusts.

Richard plans to seize the opportunity to do some farming first.

He had to take in refugees, cultivate the land, build city walls, forge weapons and armor, train the army, and bring vitality to this area. Otherwise, when the food in his hands was used up, even the food supply would become a problem.

The geographical environment of Richard's territory is not bad, and the most important thing is that the Rhine River runs through the entire territory. Abundant river resources are very important for agricultural production.

In many places, there is no need to build any complicated water conservancy projects, and they can use the Rhine River water to irrigate farmland.

Just the land on both sides of the Rhine River can be easily reclaimed into millions of acres of land.

Richard's reputation among exiles and bankrupt farmers had long spread. These people knew that as long as they came to Richard, they would not have to worry about starving to death, and they would even be allocated land. So when the Huns retreated and the Germans recuperated, a large number of exiles also rushed to Richard.

These exiles who had originally hidden in the mountains and forests of the Gaul province did not trust the Roman Empire at all. In addition, local officials did not take any action to provide disaster relief or restore production, so these exiles began to rush to Richard with their families.

Richard recruited these exiles, took them in, and made them work for him, while at the same time he sent caravans to various places to purchase food.

Although civilians everywhere were almost starving to death, the province of Gaul was actually not short of food.

There were many noble estates in Gaul, and there were mountains of grain in these noble estates. The reason why those Germanic barbarians liked to plunder Gaul was that they wanted to plunder these estates.

Richard took out the gold and silver he brought back from Jerusalem and used them to buy food. Along with the outflow of a large amount of money, Aleiya's caravan brought back a large amount of food.

Since the end of the war, hundreds of people have come to Richard's territory almost every day. At least four to five thousand people have fled here from all over the place every month.

The population under Richard's control began to increase rapidly. In just half a year, the population under his control increased from less than 20,000 to more than 50,000. From a God's perspective, a city wall was being built at the northern pass of the Vosges Mountains. This city wall was built based on the mountainous terrain and a defensive fortification was built with the help of the Rhine River to block the Germanic barbarians in the north.

A city wall was also built in the south, also relying on the Rhine River for defense.

Richard named this territory the Rhine Province. In fact, it included the Upper and Lower Rhine Provinces of France in later generations and a large area of ​​Germany.

While the province of Gaul was still in a dilapidated state, the province of Rhine had already begun large-scale construction.

Richard conducted a mental scan of the entire Rhine Province, then digitized the entire area and regenerated a territory system template.

"Territory: Rhine Province (Valley Territory).

Road: Dirt road, a few gravel roads, some cobblestone roads in towns (poor road traffic)

Transportation: land, water (water transportation is excellent).

Agricultural level: Medium-low (rotating cropping system, land reclamation in progress, relatively complete irrigation and water conservancy) (because the cultivated farmland is on both sides of the Rhine River, most of the land can be irrigated by the Rhine River.)"

"Commercial level: low, (there is a lack of goods in the territory, and commercial circulation is extremely low. Commercial activities require the development of the people.)"

“Technology level: Low (After obtaining Roman craftsmen, the technology level has been improved, but it is still in the Iron Age.)”

"Population: 52142. (Continued to grow.)"

"Farmland: 830,000 acres;"

"Towns: 3; Villages: 25."

After this period of development, the current territory is completely different from before.

Although the territory still looks miserable now, the foundation has been laid.

Because there is the Rhine River in the territory, Richard did not build roads on a large scale. The Rhine River runs through the territory, and the river can be used as a means of transportation here.

Compared to land transportation, rivers are so convenient.

Richard continued to recruit people and settle them on both sides of the Rhine River. Richard planned to develop the Rhine River basin first and then other areas.

Richard told these exiles that as long as they farmed here for ten years, they would get the land they were farming now.

At the same time, he also gave various incentives. For example, if you handed in more grain, you could reduce the farming time, and the land would be divided among you in eight years.

If you join the army, this land will be given to you immediately.

Richard's policies made the exiles and refugees excited and worked very hard. You know, in the past, they couldn't even have enough food, let alone own their own land.

Otherwise he wouldn't have fled.

The empire's exploitation of them has almost reached its limit, and now that they have suddenly come here, many people even feel that this is heaven.

It must be said that when it comes to being unkind, the Roman nobles have always been far ahead. Of course, the same is true for the nobles who came after them.

These European noble lords were so greedy that they almost swallowed up all the profits.

Even in the eyes of many nobles, these poor people at the bottom of the society are not human beings at all. They are just a wave of consumables. If they die, they die. Anyway, there will be more consumables next year. They don’t care about the life or death of these people at all.

(End of this chapter)