Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 524: Rootless People
Harvey sat next to the magic brain instrument in his office and quickly read the interim strategic report sent back by the Northern Expeditionary Force.

"I thought they would choose to hold their ground at Langya Ridge and Highland City on the border, waiting for the second batch of reinforcements to arrive with supplies." He clapped his hands, quite satisfied. "I didn't expect that in order to reach their target location as quickly as possible, the expeditionary force would actively cooperate with the local anti-Church organization and seize a temporary supply point where they could transfer supplies."

Asdalen smiled and said, "When you asked the intelligence department to reveal the news of the Stoneheart Hermitage to the expeditionary force, weren't you planning on letting them make their own contacts and closely cooperate with the subsequent operations?"

When the army conducts military operations far away from its homeland, it does not need to act rigidly according to a predetermined plan. The senior military officials and the General Staff Headquarters at the headquarters only provide the overall strategic deployment. The specific implementation of each stage of the operation is ultimately handed over to the commanders and officers at all levels who are on the front line.

This also gives the front-line combat teams a high degree of autonomy in action, and tests the strategic vision and command and execution capabilities of officers at all levels, which just meets the overall outline of the "actual combat training" and "talent training" plans formulated by Harvey.

What they didn't expect was that... after the expeditionary force, under the leadership of Wayne and Duff, successfully established cooperation with the local anti-church organization, they actually quickly incorporated these "cultists" into the action plan, letting them act as "guerrilla forces" hidden in the dark, active in various aristocratic territories along the expeditionary force's route, creating internal chaos in advance and reducing the possibility of the expeditionary force being blocked by nobles from all over the place.

Even Pierce, who was always strict with his subordinates, couldn't help but praise Harvey in front of him, "It's indeed an effective tactical arrangement."

From this perspective, the expeditionary force is expected to arrive at the Rift in the Divine Ridge Mountains nearly half a month in advance and establish a defense line at the rift at a speed far exceeding expectations.

However, the following "plundering plan" is the highlight.

Harvey stood in front of the map that covered the entire long table, and set his eyes on the Wolf Fang Ridge area on the border of Isengard. This border pass with a crisscross of mountains happened to be on the border of the three countries of Daeus, Saint Varen and Isengard.

The Daeus enclave, through which the expeditionary force passed, was actually a special "wizard principality" that nominally belonged to the wizard kingdom of Daeus, but in reality had no borders with its own country. It was jointly governed by several famous wizard families with long histories, and also had close ties with the Federation. However, its territory was small and its population was sparse. It had always relied entirely on trade between Saint Varen and Isengard, which sandwiched it, to provide food and supplies, and the enclave exported a large number of spellcasting consultants who served the nobles of the surrounding countries in return for benefits.

Harvey had no interest in invading this tiny enclave, which was less than one-third of the Principality of Yarid, by force, and there was no need to break the good cooperative relationship with the Federation.

After experiencing plagues, external disturbances, and internal strife, most cities in Saint Valen were ravaged by war. Coupled with the constant influx of refugees from the North, this led to a surge of people abandoning their land and migrating to northern cities like Spark City. This phenomenon naturally benefited from accelerated industrialization, with numerous manufacturing factories springing up across the North, providing a constant source of power for Harvey's vast state machinery. However, this also had drawbacks. Harvey's policy of nationalizing land was gradual, and much of the land scattered across the country, before it had even been properly accounted for and confiscated, had been ruthlessly abandoned by the local population. Compared to heavily taxed farmland with a dependable harvest, the stable, long-term employment opportunities in Spark City, which offered adequate food and clothing, were more appealing to these impoverished laborers.

With the continuous influx of people from all over the country into the northern border and the surrounding Grizzly Territory, more and more wasteland is being left in the central and southern regions of Saint Valen. The former "granary of the principality", Fengyuan City, is faced with a ridiculous situation where alchemical agricultural machinery is in place but the number of farmers is insufficient. Harvey has to reconsider adjusting the population recruitment plan.

Rather than leaving those abandoned farmlands idle and overgrown with weeds, it would be better to directly introduce people from foreign countries to fill the labor shortage in agricultural planting - and the domestic people of Isengard are the most suitable "importation targets".

Originally, he was not very optimistic about this group of blind people who devoutly believed in the church, and he had no intention of migrating them to Saint Valen. The beliefs passed down from generation to generation would make it difficult for these people to change their minds in a short period of time. Rashly introducing them would be tantamount to burying a group of religious powder kegs in his own country that could explode at any time. The risks and benefits were completely disproportionate.

But as the intelligence network gradually invaded Isengard, Harvey discovered that there was still a very unique "border tribe" in the country - this tribe, called "rootless people" by local people, had a large number of people. Although most of them were ruthlessly expelled to the border mountains and the desert in the north near the Divine Spine Mountains because they were unwilling to believe in the church, the total number was estimated to be no less than 100,000.

The "rootless people" who have lived in the bitter cold for generations have an indescribable desire for grassland oases and fertile fields. As long as a suitable "diplomatic mission" is sent to have in-depth contact with them, even if only a few tribes in difficult situations can be "tricked" into migrating at first, as time goes by... and with the pioneers' exploration and verification, hundreds of other tribes, large and small, will soon be unable to resist the temptation and will flock to Saint Valen to become "good citizens" under Harvey's rule.

Harvey was not too worried about the integration of the local population and foreign tribes. The "rootless people" who had no religious beliefs and only a small amount of primitive nature worship were a natural blank slate. As long as the huge education system of Spark City directly incorporated these people into it, they would soon be trained to become firm humanists, and under the concept of ethnic unity, they would no longer have any thoughts of distinguishing between each other.

As for those special living customs and cultural features, Harvey felt that they were actually a manifestation of diversity - even in his previous life on Earth, the differences in life and diet between people in the north and south often sparked some controversial topics. Perhaps after the large-scale population migration to Saint-Valen, the interesting scene of "the dispute between salty and sweet tofu pudding parties" will appear in the near future.

Just as Harvey was distracted, Egno and Chris suddenly knocked on the door. "Your Majesty, the two inherited secret treasures from the Eastern Territory and the Southern Underground City, the Golden Tree Heart and the Earth Crystal Core... have arrived in Spark City under the personal escort of the two clans."

(End of this chapter)