Divine Kingship

Chapter 531 Entering the stage of Rand's best mess
The nobles of the Kingdom of Borun finally became anxious.

Now they were certain that this was a trap set by Rand to eliminate their soldiers.

For the nobility, there was also a difference between soldiers and levies.

On a battlefield dominated by nobles.

The distinction between the two types of soldiers is actually very simple: the lowest level is the conscripts who consume weapons and ammunition, the middle level is the noble regular soldiers and mercenaries, and the top level is the knights and mages.

The soldiers who came to harass Rand were already regular soldiers of the nobles, and they would have normal weapons and armor.

Weapons and armor are also very valuable items.

The selected standing soldiers are also relatively speaking, a higher quality population.

These nobles could accept the loss of some soldiers if they could defeat Rand.

But now we have only received a small amount of goods and the soldiers have lost so many, it is hard to accept.

"Rand is more cunning than we thought." The atmosphere in the nobles' meeting room was depressing.

"What should we do? Fight with Rand?" asked a noble.

"It seems that the troops Rand brought here are more than we thought. It will be difficult for us to defeat Rand on our own." A noble quickly made a judgment.

If Rand was an unknown person, these nobles might still have some illusions, but now they have truly realized the significance of Rand's past reputation.

The reputation of the past was clearly well deserved.

"Let's send someone to negotiate. At least Rand is still the loser now, so he won't dare to go too far." Someone among the nobles suggested.

In theory, that was true, but now, after what had happened, they were not so sure.

However, they still couldn't accept admitting the loss like that.

"Then let's send an envoy." The nobles quickly made a decision.

Soon the messenger came to Rand.

"Emissary from the Kingdom of Bolen? What do you want from me?" Rand sat on the chair arrogantly.

It was not his giant stone lord's chair, nor was there a tall power armor beside him.

But Rand's presence was still quite oppressive, especially since these nobles already knew how powerful Rand was.

The messenger is a knight, and knights are also considered nobles.

The knight was very clear about the current situation. Facing Rand, he tried hard to maintain his momentum, but he could not hide his inner fear.

"It's like this, you have captured many of our people by mistake, and I hope you can release them," said the knight.

Rand narrowed his eyes: "Oh~ Then who are they?"

"They have been on a mission recently, so they are dressed a bit like bandits, but in fact they are all soldiers of the nobles, and you arrested them by mistake." The knight messenger certainly knew that his words were untenable, but he still said it out loud.

"I don't know about this. I haven't encountered any robbers recently." Rand was not pretending to be stupid, but denying it with the attitude of a superior.

Rand didn't need to put on an act in front of this knight messenger. This messenger had no right to act for him. He just needed to deny it.

As for whether the knight envoy believes it or not, how can you, a envoy and a knight, be qualified to question him, the Duke?

The title of nobility in this world is property rather than rank, but that does not mean that a duke and a knight are equal.

In fact, Rand could even go a step further and have the messenger identified as an accomplice of the bandits and arrest him to make him work.

But now Rand still intends not to escalate the conflict too much.

What he needs right now is population, not war.

Rand actually felt that the probability of him being able to swallow all these people was not high.

However, a knight envoy was not qualified to talk to him. If anyone wanted to talk, let their feudal lords come, not the small and medium-sized nobles, but the feudal lords of the small and medium-sized nobles.

The knight's courage had been exhausted when he stated his request. As for pointing out Rand's lies, that was naturally impossible.

The messenger soon left in disgrace.

And Rand returned to the camp that needed to be rebuilt.

After eating several waves before and the last one, Rand had eaten all of them, and the number of people he had eaten from these small and medium-sized nobles had reached 2000.

Rand knew very well that these small and medium nobles were heartbroken, but what did it have to do with him?
The fate of conscripts in war is of little consequence, for most of them are old, sick, and disabled, and this is not only a problem of lack of morale, but also of physical weakness.

The value of standing soldiers is much higher. Although the nobles do not raise many standing soldiers and the only type of soldiers they rely on are still knights, standing soldiers also play many roles, such as daily guarding of the territory or assisting the nobles in entertainment activities such as going out hunting.

Although the weapons and armor of the standing soldiers were not as sophisticated as those of the knights, they were still made of iron after all, at least the weapons were made of iron.

No matter how valuable the armor is, even if it is leather armor, its value will not be too low.

Many of the captured soldiers have already started to accept their fate and work.

Of course, they hoped that their lord would come and rescue them, but at least for now they dared not work or be lazy.

Rand preferred to use hope for life to encourage workers to work, but this did not mean that Rand was not good at using the whip.

I learned it from Taran.

Use a whip but don't over-oppress, it can be considered a combination of work and rest, with rewards and punishments in moderation?

Anyway, as long as you can do the work, Rand has never been kind to his enemies, and labor reform is definitely not an easy job.

The work done by the villagers found by Rand was relatively easy, while the work of these soldiers who disguised themselves as thieves and came to rob was much harder.

This is because the villagers are weak and the soldiers are strong, and also because Rand needs to ensure that the labor reform is not too comfortable.

Rand also paid special attention to the knight who had taken out the emblem to prove that he was not a bandit but a knight.

Rand walked up to the knight and then passed him.

Rand did not ask anything like, "Do you realize your mistake now?" which is very villainous.

The main reason is that this knight is not worthy of Rand showing his smug face.

If Rand could win any favors from King Marcus, he would show off.

"How's the reconstruction going?" Rand asked Olenna.

Lysa followed Rand as his guard and scribe, so Olenna became the overseer.

As for Tanr and Fenris, they were stationed in their respective territories.

As for the rising stars like Tata, Ranta and Serai, Rand will slowly arrange them to take charge of their own affairs.

At least the Holy Moon Territory will definitely need a general to garrison there in the future.

We'll see which general is suitable then. "Very quickly." Olenna handed the sorted documents to Rand.

Olena is always gentle and meticulous, and she never makes any mistakes when handling documents.

Rand took the document.

Finished scanning quickly.

The location here is really pretty good. Although the undead have burned, killed and looted when they passed through, at least there are still many materials that can be recycled. Although the land has been abandoned because it is not cultivated, it will be a few years later, and re-cultivating it will definitely be much easier than starting a new land.

Rand now has a lot of manpower, and there are still survivors in many villages. They know of some intact facilities that Rand can use.

For example, a mill or a warehouse.

"So we estimate that everything will be back on track by next summer." Rand analyzed the data given to him by Olena.

"Well, our progress is much faster than we expected." Olenna said, "These nobles really sent us a lot of people."

Rand is good at infrastructure. Now it has people, a good location, and has accumulated technology. It used to take several years to rebuild and restore production in a territory, but Rand can complete it within a year.

Moreover, Rand also planned to absorb more people from the surrounding nobles later.

Of course, it’s not the soldiers who are arresting them like they are now, but in the noble territories, there are always some villagers who can’t survive and are fleeing, some bandits, and some cultists.

These people are certainly not as high-quality as the soldiers who are now being arrested and sent to labor camps, but there are naturally relatively milder ways to use a less healthy population.

"One year." Rand looked at the land where the skeletons of houses had already been built in many places.

Between the dilapidated wooden houses and stone walls, villagers and prisoners were moving through the ruins, carrying things on their shoulders or driving skinny livestock.

There is still a faint burnt smell in the soil, but new life has sprouted again.

It is not the new green seedlings and sprouts, but the gradually built buildings that serve as the foundation for the development of life.

These "construction sprouts" are thriving in the sweat of the workers.

And it will soon grow into fertile land that can produce output.

……

A few days later, the lords of the small and medium nobles found out what these people had done.

"What!" The earl's eyes widened. As a nobleman who had lived for nearly fifty years, he thought he could remain calm no matter what happened, but the current situation still made him unable to help but stare and open his mouth.

The reason for such a loss of composure was that the current situation was really difficult for the Earl of the Kingdom of Bollen to understand.

He expressly forbade his vassals to harass Rand. After all, he knew that in the fatal battle at Crescent Harbor, the Kingdom of Borlan did not gain any advantage over Rand and might even have lost.

The king did not directly tell the earl the outcome of the war, but as an earl, he could see a lot from the attitudes of the royal family and ministers.

So Rand's coming to support the construction is probably some kind of deal, not an unequal treaty.

So he obeyed the king's order and asked his vassals not to harass Rand.

But now it seems that the people below cannot understand what I mean, or rather, they understand but do not agree with it.

Do they think they can get away with Rand just by themselves?

What a joke.

But now he allowed these small and medium nobles, many of whom were his vassals, to be taken advantage of by Rand...

Not to mention whether the taxes from vassal states can be collected after losing a lot of population, these are all minor problems.

The real problem is that if Rand gains too many benefits from these small and medium-sized nobles, it will accelerate Rand's development.

This wasn't a big problem before. It would take at least three or four years to build a charred wasteland from scratch.

This is still preliminary construction.

But they thought so before. It takes a long time to build a port, a long time to build a fleet, and a long time to train sailors who can sail and fight.

The Kingdom of Bolen always thought that it had overestimated Rand, but every time it faced Rand, it found that it had underestimated him.

So now the Earl must consider how fast Rand will develop after obtaining additional resources.

After Rand developed, the Earl of the Kingdom of Bollen couldn't even imagine how uncomfortable it would be to be neighbors with Rand.

The small and medium noble vassals all bowed their heads before this earl.

"Stupid!" the count cursed!
After a while, the earl, Rand's neighbor, calmed down and said, "Look at what you have done. I will try to get some back for you. As for how much..."

The neighboring count snorted coldly. He didn't want to clean up the mess for these idiots, but if he didn't do it now, Rand's development would still cause even greater trouble.

The relationship between the Kingdom of Bolen and Rand is not friendly.

Now that Rand has established a foothold here, he will definitely cause trouble, and there will definitely be a lot of trouble.

Soon, Rand's neighbor, the Earl, arrived in the Holy Moon Territory.

Rand did not show the same arrogant attitude towards the earl as he did to the envoy. He smiled and said, "Mr. Earl, what can I do for you?"

"You know what I'm here for. Return some of the people and armor and weapons to them, and we'll just pretend this never happened." The Earl said bluntly. He didn't intend to beat around the bush with Rand.

"That's not a problem." Rand didn't intend to put too much pressure on you. "But the soldiers can be returned, but they must be exchanged for people. I can accept ordinary villagers in exchange for soldiers, and even return weapons and armor, but they must be exchanged for something else. I can't give it back to you for nothing. After all, you took the initiative to come here to hinder me, didn't you?"

Rand did not intend to directly provoke the Kingdom of Bolen now.

The Kingdom of Borun is still much larger than the Dukedom of the Moon Phase. This does not mean that Rand is afraid of the Kingdom of Borun. It's just that he cannot provoke a full-scale conflict between the Kingdom of Borun and him too early.

As Rand develops here, it is inevitable that there will be another major conflict with the Kingdom of Bolen.

But at least he had to wait until he was ready. Rand knew very well that the Kingdom of Bolen did not really want to give him the land. Even if they planned to do so now, it might not happen after Rand had built it.

It's just that Rand needs to accumulate more strength, and at least wait until the matter of Grand Duke Vladimir is resolved.

Otherwise, Rand was worried that he would be backstabbed by Grand Duke Vladimir.

That being said, we need to pay more attention to the affairs of the heroes. If there is a hero to help solve the problem of Grand Duke Vladimir, many things will be much easier.

The earl, who was Rand's neighbor, stayed and discussed with Rand for a while. Rand would return some soldiers, and the small and medium-sized nobles would exchange them for some villagers and money.

This was a barely acceptable result for the neighboring earl. Giving money was better than giving it to people. If Rand developed a little slower, the Kingdom of Bollen would have more opportunities, and he, Rand's neighbor, would have a better life.

As for what happens next, we can only hope that Rand reveals some flaws.

Rand's enemies are not limited to the Kingdom of Bollen. Anyway, the neighboring earl believes that there will always be a time when Rand can no longer take care of this side.

As long as they can really gain an advantage from Rand, there is no need to cover up their defeat and give Rand benefits.

Yes, the count has basically determined what the people above are thinking.

(End of this chapter)