Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 254: Romantic Secrets and the Sacred Industrial Alliance

Although Lunadesan's seduction plan did not go smoothly, Edmond's extraordinary forage cultivation plan was relatively smooth and did not cause Su Li much worry.

It was mainly because of his divine spell [Creation of the Sacred Forest] that this forest almost became a druid sacrificial temple. After the stone circle inside was activated by the Sacred Forest, all the Gilen wizards who entered it (including elves, the Church of Dawn, Tal maidens, etc.) could gain an increase in magic recovery speed and enhanced divine spell power.

This allowed the druid's spell, [Growth Vitality], to be used to its fullest potential, cultivating Moonlight Clover at the fastest possible speed. He even had enough energy to accelerate the growth of Hirud's Tiger Griffin.

All three tiger-striped griffons were hatched. The name of Hildreth's mount was Tiger-Striped Claws·Torn Bloodscar, which happened to be a good pair of siblings with her other mount, the half-griffon·Torn Claws.

It is normal for a knight to have 2 to 5 mounts, but it is extremely rare for a knight to have two griffin mounts like Hildreth.

These are the treatments only enjoyed by the high-ranking nobles of the empire. For example, the emperor of the empire has a large number of warhorse mounts and a giant dragon kept in the zoo. However, he rarely rides a dragon to the battlefield. His favorite is his sky griffin.

It can be said that in terms of mount training alone, Hildreth has received treatment that matches her status as the Chosen One of the Sun.

Furthermore, because she was favored by the Silver-Horned Giant Herder, she could freely enter and exit the Sacred Forest, benefiting the Tear Blood Scar. Of the three tiger-striped griffins, it was the largest, having undergone accelerated growth. And it wasn't bloated. With four dragon blood stones, its physique was powerful and noble.

Marshal Orlstein named his tiger-striped griffin Yanzong Stormwing, which was in line with the style of the Imperial Griffin Cavalry.

Although the growth rate of his Storm Wings was not as fast as that of Tear Blood Scar, the Marshal also benefited greatly from the time he rested and recuperated in the territory.

After collecting and preparing the spoils, a new month arrived, and the territory successfully used a large amount of God-chosen materials to help him build a second powerful rare-level weapon, the Chaos Judge!
This warhammer uses the [Heart of the Four-Chamber Furnace] as its energy core, and the head of chaos fusion forms the hammer head, impact cone and handle tail. It is extremely powerful, especially after activating the God General state. A single blow can cause the sky to collapse and the earth to split, and can even collapse mountains and destroy cities.

With the help of this powerful weapon, the marshal led five squadrons of provincial soldiers to clear out various monsters in the western part of the Blood Pine Forest, eliminate hidden forest bandit groups and beastman war gangs, and supervise the construction of the Storm Shadow Fortress in the direction of the Blood Mist Hills.

Over the past month, his cleanup work has been very successful. Under the guidance of Su Li's intelligence, he has cleared out four forest bandit groups, one looters' gang and two badland nomad farms.

Apart from the enemies killed on the battlefield, there were more than 200 captives left, all of whom became Su Li's slaves.

Even the Hesse Territory achieved a reverse sale to slave-hunting groups and slave traders for the first time. Some of the apprentice knights and formal knights were sold by Su Li to Krupp, a halfling of the Brandisnap family in the territory.

This Krupp is the elite of the gay club. This club left a very deep impression on Su Li. The conditions for joining the club are to be incredibly brave, incredibly rich, and incredibly stupid, and it would be best if all three are met!
He and the elite of their club formed a guild of Ulfgrim slave traders, meaning slave traders as cold and ruthless as the harsh winds of the north.

They controlled a slave trade route in the northern part of the border princely territory from Maleburg to Hesse. Relying on the gay club's base in Maleburg and its personal connections and business network, they were always able to sell various specialties from Hesse, and sometimes even bring some gossip about Maleburg to the Black Forest.

For example, the greedy, corrupt, cowardly and sexually sadistic clerk Shabulin whom Su Li had met before, had an affair with Lisa, the wife of his superior, the political officer. The two guys were simply obsessed with lust. While the political officer was working, Shabulin actually climbed onto the political officer's bed and rolled with the married woman in his bedroom.

It is said that when they were caught in bed, the enchanting and beautiful Ms. Lisa was blindfolded with a ribbon and kneeling on the ground like a tamed mare.

The clerk Shabulin played the role of a knight.

This made the knights who caught the adulterer very excited, and they spread the vivid description of the situation throughout Maleburg.

Needless to say, the shameless and lecherous Shabulin was directly cut into eunuchs. It is said that he was in a very tragic state under the influence of the strong potion.

But the political official did not kill him out of compassion. On the contrary, he deliberately kept him at home and let him play the role of Minotaur.

This political official did not suffer any loss. After his wife was seduced by Shablin, he decisively hooked up with Shablin's wife. You know, Shablin's wife was an important background for this fool to be a clerk. Her father was an important senator in Maleburg.

Unlike feudal autocratic territories like Hesse, Maleburg is an open city composed of merchants. The mayor does not have as much power as the lord Su Li. The highest authority that controls the entire city is the Maleburg Parliament.

Senators in the assembly preside over committees that determine the city's policies, power, and military.

This political officer hooked up with Shabulin's wife, which not only took revenge on Shabulin, but more importantly, it also earned him the appreciation and support of a senator.

He was also very active in life. He tied Shabulin up and made him kneel at the head of the bed, and let him watch how he tortured his ex-wife. Sometimes he would even use the same method on him, blindfolding him and making him listen to what was happening on the bed and the obscene sounds.

Of course, this is accompanied by the classic question: Who is stronger, me or your husband?

These gossips spread like wildfire, vividly and vividly. Halflings are particularly fond of spreading such secrets, perhaps because many of them work as servants in wealthy families, constantly hearing these private matters. Then, at night, they return to their beds, and given their intimacy, one person's account can quickly be passed around through dozens of mouths.

Su Li also discovered his potential for gossip, and he had only one comment on the halflings' secret conversations: it was pleasant to listen to, he loved listening to it, and he wanted to talk more.

Life, after all, needs some excitement.

Anyway, he has been living a peaceful and carefree life these days, and he would even wake up laughing in his dreams.

Of course, while the halflings were inquiring about these romantic gossips, it did not hinder their talent for business.

The price of the slaves they purchased from the Hesse Territory was very considerable. The purchase price of an apprentice knight was 10 gold coins, and the profit margin was over %!

Su Li and the territory had no objection to this.

The purchase price and selling price of the slave traders must not be the same, otherwise how can they make any profit?
The price of a formal knight is 25 gold coins, and for those with special bloodlines or divine arts, the price can be as high as 30 gold crowns.

It is basically guaranteed that they can earn nearly double their wealth by selling any batch.

One of the important reasons why Su Li was so generous was that he owned 37% of the shares of this slave trader guild.

He was essentially collecting two payments: one from the price of the slaves and the other from a share of the profits.

However, this investment was not made by him, but by Oliver, the president of the Provincial Council.

The director of the provincial government has unique insights on increasing revenue and reducing expenditure. As for the remaining 30,000 gold crowns in the territory, if there is no increase in revenue, with the current fiscal deficit of several thousand gold crowns every month, the territory's finances may go bankrupt before the end of the year.

In any case, Hesse, such a small pioneering territory with weak foundation, narrow land and sparse population, maintains an army of more than 2000, which is an extremely distorted proportion.

If it weren't for Su Li's guidance of various intelligence, the income from fishing, hunting, and fantastic specialties in the territory greatly enriched the territory's food and wealth, and the continuous military victories brought unexpected gains, alleviating the pressure of bankruptcy. The territory would have been unsustainable long ago.

What the Provincial Council has been doing recently is sorting out the territory's finances, expenditures, taxes and a summary of the year's spoils of war.

At the end of the year, they will make a complete report to Su Li.

With so much revenue and expenditure this year, if there were no professional statistics by bureaucrats and accountants, we would have no idea how much had been lost to corruption and embezzlement.

On the other hand, Oliver did not live off his savings. If the remaining 30,000 gold coins were kept in the vault, they would be used up in a few months.

On the contrary, if it were to be circulated, invested, and increase revenue, it would significantly reduce the territory's fiscal deficit, at least from the initial deficit of over 7000 to 5000 or even 3000. If the fiscal deficit was reduced to 5000 gold crowns per month, it would be enough to sustain the territory for at least half a year.

He invested in many projects. In addition to this halfling slave trading guild, he also invested in several very important projects.

The first was the [Holy Industry Alliance]. He used the large amount of furs seized on the battlefield in the battle for the territory as capital to invest in the half-orc [Balantangborn Leather Armor Manufacturing Workshop] and acquired 29% of its shares.

In this battle, the human Holy Alliance coalition killed tens of thousands of monsters, especially creatures like gnolls and kobolds, who could provide a large amount of leather. The leather armor of wolf-skins was a fine product that halflings rarely saw.

Now most of these spoils are monopolized by Su Li. If they are sold, it may even impact the leather trading market in Maleburg, causing prices to drop sharply in a short period of time.

So except for less than one-tenth of the quantity that Oliver sent to the two leather farms under Su Li's name, the rest were given to the Balan Autonomous Region to make the halflings' special [Invisible Leather Armor].

This leather armor allows soldiers to conceal their movements in challenging environments, much like the Skaven's Sewer Rats and the Goblins' Despicable Lurkers. Wearing this armor unlocks the [Vanguard Deployment] and [Sneak] abilities. When far away from enemy forces, these stealth soldiers are completely invisible from a distance. Even warlords and generals commanding from atop cliffs or mountaintops remain invisible. Only when they appear on the enemy's flanks or alongside ranged units, launching a surprise attack, will the panicked enemy realize they are surrounded.

However, this leather armor's greatest value lies in its use for ranged units. If their range is long enough, their stealth abilities can be activated. Even as they fire continuously, the enemy cannot see these ranged archers behind the fiercely engaged lines. They are like complete invisibility, with only the endless stream of arrows seemingly appearing out of nowhere, whistling out from behind the enemy lines.

This means that facing these invisible shooters, enemy ranged units will be unable to counterattack unless a cavalry regiment charges in, gets close to them, and breaks their stealth.

A set of this Stealth Leather Armor costs a whopping 15 gold crowns! It's only slightly cheaper than a fine piece of Dwarven Heavy Armor. Six tailors and one combined armor workshop in the Halfling Territory produce this type of leather armor.

After Oliver's investment, the halflings saved the money they would have spent on purchasing raw materials, so they expanded production and formed a Halfling Leather Armor Guild, which controlled all 10 tailor shops and 2 leather armor factories under it.

Even before these equipment were sold, the territory benefited. All two squads of Swan Knights were outfitted with this leather armor, allowing these air cavalry to remain invisible in the air. This greatly facilitated their reconnaissance efforts. Harpies couldn't detect them unless they were within about 100 meters of them. This effectively made the Swan Knights a stealthy aerial scout force, even more effective than drones.

The only problem is that the cost of forming such an air cavalry unit is really not low. Just preparing leather armor and mounts for them will cost nearly 500 gold crowns. If you take into account their weapons, wages, and training costs, it will cost at least 24 to 800 gold crowns to form such a 900-person air cavalry unit.

Because their weapons were also specially made, as the territory was upgraded, they replaced their bows and arrows with crossbows made by dwarves.

Dwarves never use bows and arrows. Crossbows and muskets are their main equipment.

The powerful crossbows that the Hessen Territory used to arm these Swan Knights were another result of the territory's [Holy Industrial Alliance]. The [Hessen Armory], built by the Hessen Territory's human priests and dwarf forging masters, produced a large number of sophisticated weapons and equipment.

According to the preface to the Hessian Armory, "Those flames on the blades are not mere decoration—each sword is blessed by a battle-priest before it leaves the factory!"

This is not an exaggeration at all. The Black Forest Territory reached an agreement with the Gray Mountain Dwarves. After the Troll Skull Tavern was built, more than 200 dwarves have come to the Black Forest Territory one after another.

Even more gratifying is that the Black Forest Territory and the dwarf Redbeard Clan have reached an agreement, and humans have dispatched a three-squadron knight group to the foot of the Gray Mountain to cooperate with the dwarf rangers' patrols.

The dwarves stationed six squadrons of elite dwarves in Hessen Town to protect the rule of the Bauhinia family.

This deal was very fair. Although the number of people was two to one, it was always like this according to the military organization of the old world. The infantry was more dense, so a squadron was a phalanx.

The cavalry was larger and their formation was relatively sparse, so a regiment consisted of 60 men.

In this way, both sides sent out 6 phalanxes to help each other fight, which was a fair agreement.

Even if it is a mutual aid agreement, both parties feel that they have gained an advantage.

Needless to say, the dwarves were well-fed; their appetites were perfectly satisfied. This was fine troll brew, the equivalent of dwarven blood. Furthermore, stationed in the Black Forest Territory, their food was infinitely better than in the mountain fortress. Dwarven bread, mixed with gravel, tasted rough even to the dwarves. But in the Black Forest Territory, they had meat, vegetables, and plenty of wine.

In addition, after hearing that there was a battle in the Black Forest Territory, two champion-level dwarf butchers, also known as giant butchers, came from the Gray Mountains. They could kill a giant alone. These two dwarves had red Moshe hair styles and their bodies were covered with tattoos and runes. They had bad tempers and were difficult to get along with. Su Li didn't have much contact with either of them. He only knew that one of them was a dwarf from the Redbeard Clan. He was seeking liberation, but the Redbeard Clan was recuperating and not fighting, so they came to the Black Forest Territory.

The other was a dwarf wandering around in the Gray Mountains. When he heard that humans had broken into the Blood Pine Forest and were chopping down those stupid giants, he decisively came here as well.

Su Li threw these two guys into Marshal Orstein's army and asked them to participate in the war in the forest.

It was said that they were very happy with their current life. Every day brought battles, they could bathe in blood, and every day they had delicious troll brew. It was simply perfect. The only regret was that no matter how frantically they charged, they could not die. Those abominable Demigriff Knights always appeared at the critical moment, thwarting their hopes for relief.

However, when the half-griffin knights brought over a pot of fine wine and they drank together, the grumbling and complaints in their hearts immediately disappeared.

These big friends are just what the dwarves want! They're so generous, always taking them to battle, letting them linger on the brink of life and death. They're truly the dwarves' best friends.

In addition to these two champion-level dwarves, there are also a dozen troll butchers who also operate in the tavern or join the free militia.

Their fighting power is high, but their value is far lower than that of other orthodox dwarves.

The Hessen Lord felt that the biggest advantage he had gained was that these dwarves could help the territory create a large amount of equipment.

That’s 6 squadrons, more than 720 dwarves!

Together with the more than 600 dwarves in the territory's dwarf community, the number of dwarves in the territory is close to 1500.

It was not until this time when the territory had enough time to observe so many dwarves that the territory discovered that not every dwarf was a master forger.

Many dwarves do not know how to forge. When they are young, they have to work in mines, digging ore, and then start learning as dwarf apprentices.

But the addition of so many dwarves is enough to make the territory take off.

Su Li once again obtained a Barony Experience Card. These dwarves were really tough and had no complaints about the territory treating them like slaves.

On the contrary, if they were left to stay in the camp and do nothing, they would become bored and spend their days drinking and fighting.

Essentially, these dwarves are just a bunch of grumpy, red-nosed miners.

After arriving at the territory, they immediately assigned over 300 people to the iron ore watchtower to mine. There was also the dwarven outpost they had originally built there. By simply building a wall along the outer walls of the base, they could complete the expansion.

This kind of engineering is simply the most brainless basic subject for the dwarves. Under the command of the dwarf engineers, the dwarves completed the expansion in just 4 days, while meeting their development needs and those of the "Fifth Territory Charter".

Many people from the Hessen Territory came here to mine in order to seek a high-ranking servant position for their eldest son.

This outpost currently accommodates more than 100 dwarves from the Black Forest Territory, more than 300 dwarves from the Redbeard Clan, and more than 200 human miners, totaling nearly 700 people.

This scale is not small at all!
In any territory, a mine with 700 people is considered to be of considerable scale.

And it is precisely at this level of mining that the value of this giant iron mine is finally revealed!

He is like a gold mine, one of the territory's greatest resources and wealth.

About 100 kilograms of vibranium are mined every month. Based on this level, the territory can create about 60 sets of vibranium rune armor relying solely on this giant iron mine.

In just 10 years, Su Li's elite knights will be able to fully arm all 500 of them and become vibranium rune armor knights.

When such a group of 500 knights launches a charge, it will be an overwhelming momentum and invincible. Even if 5000 or even 10000 monsters block their way, they will be able to break through their formation.

In fact, this process will only be faster because Su Li also holds another huge iron ore in the core area of ​​the fertile forest of Lake Essonide.

However, the mining level of this giant iron mine is far lower than that of the iron mine watchtower, and only more than 30 kilograms of vibranium were delivered to Su Li this month.

It wasn't that they were hiding it. Marshal Orstein, as the victor, would constantly send troops in to supervise and inspect it. They couldn't hide the vibranium. Moreover, they didn't have the ability to process it, so hiding it was worse than hiding gold.

The monsters have underdeveloped this place, but it's not their fault. There has always been a shortage of manpower here. There are only one or two hundred gnolls mining every day, and at the peak there are no more than 400.

The green dragon dispatched all these monsters to deal with the war in the eastern part of the forest. Ever since the war with humans ended, the forest has been plagued by constant fighting and smoke everywhere, and there has never been a peaceful day.

The green dragon Ailiriya has been very upset recently.

(End of this chapter)