Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 365 Directly Controlled Territories and Noble Territories

The cheers lasted for a long time before slowly subsiding.

Vig unfurled a parchment scroll and read aloud the names of those receiving the titles. A group of loud-voiced civil officials were specially organized below the steps to relay the emperor's decrees to a wider area.

With the territory so vast, Vig appointed six dukes at once, assigning them to the southern border according to their merits, abilities, and wishes.

From west to east, each person's territory is roughly as follows.

First was Joren, the naval admiral who acquired Gascony to defend the western half of the Pyrenees.

Tolga acquired Toulouse to defend the eastern half of the Pyrenees.

The two men were responsible for dealing with the threat from the Iberian Peninsula and preventing the Visigoths from crossing the Pyrenees Mountains to the north.

The shrike made the greatest contribution, acquiring Provence, which included the large towns of Marseille and Montpellier. Correspondingly, his task was the most arduous, requiring him to defend the southwestern end of the Alps and deal with the rampant Moorish pirates in the Mediterranean.

Utgard acquired Burgundy to defend the northwest side of the Alps.

The viper acquires Swabia and defends the north of the Alps.

Douglas gained Bavaria to defend the northeastern Alps and Moravia.

These four dukes were defending against the remnants of the Frankish forces in Italy. Assuming the enemy rallied a large force to counterattack, they would need to buy themselves at least six months.

Next are the other contributors.

Eighteen men were ennobled as counts, including Leif and Invallon, as well as surrendered Frankish nobles such as Jean de Beauval.

Meanwhile, nobles who personally participated in the war and performed exceptionally well were granted new earldoms, such as Ricard.

The number of promotions among the lower-ranking nobles was enormous; Vig enfeoffed a total of 240 barons and 2,300 knights.

To save time, he omitted most of the information and only read out the names of the recipients. After a long period of work, he finally completed this crucial investiture ceremony.

Besides the territories that were granted out, Vigue retained a large area of ​​territory on the southern coast of the English Channel as a direct territory. This included Brittany, Normandy, Île-de-France (the Paris region), Calais, and Flanders, divided into twenty direct counties.

In this way, the number of directly governed counties under the royal domain expanded to thirty-eight. He also controlled the Nantes region, which was planned to be the territory of the second prince.

In addition, ordinary soldiers were given at least twenty acres of land, with an additional acre for each month of combat. Some soldiers participated in the entire war from beginning to end and amassed fifty-three acres of land.

The remaining large tracts of land were used to repay war bonds.

During the war, war bonds were traded spontaneously by the public as the situation on the front lines changed, and their prices fluctuated frequently.

If one side achieves a major victory, such as the Battle of Dunworth, bond prices will rise spontaneously.

If unfavorable news emerges, such as Kaloman leading his army across the Great and Little Belts to launch a surprise attack on the Nordic forces, people will rush to sell their bonds to others, causing prices to fall accordingly.

As the war progressed into its later stages, bond prices ceased to fluctuate and instead maintained a slow upward trend.

At the time of issuance, each underlying bond was worth one pound; by the end of the war, its market value had reached £2.5, making it arguably the most profitable investment in recent years—provided the holders did not sell it midway. After the investiture ceremony, Vig convened a council of wise men, instructing them to draft a new legal code more suited to the current situation, referencing the original royal code.

The content was too complicated, and by April, the work was less than 5% complete. Vig couldn't stand the stuffiness and noise of the meeting room and gradually shifted his focus to other matters.

In mid-April, the Umayyad Caliphate sent envoys to invite Vigé to join forces against the Visigoths, but he refused outright. Later, the envoys suggested contacting Tunisia and other regions to launch an attack on Italy, but this still failed to persuade Vigé.

After this war, Britain was clearly overstretched and unable to digest such a large amount of territory. Conquering more regions could easily shake the foundations of the empire's rule.

Currently, Britain's total population is approximately 2.8 million, with over 10,000 permanent casualties during the war (killed, died of illness, or wounded).

On the other hand, Vig had recently conferred a large number of knights and barons, and the new nobles would usually bring their families and invite young men from their hometowns to Frankish to receive their titles, which was expected to result in a loss of 4 to 5 people.

Due to a combination of factors, Britain faced a shortage of reserve soldiers. Meanwhile, the Franks, Saxons, Frisians, and other groups on the European continent did not identify with imperial rule and had a high rate of rebellion, making them unsuitable for recruitment into the army.

After the Moorish envoy departed, Vig summoned the next visitor—an envoy from Rurik in Eastern Europe.

Times have changed, and now the two sides are vastly different in strength. Rurik's tone in the letter was extremely humble, congratulating Vig on building a vast empire and presenting many gifts.

Over the past two years, Rurik has worked as a mercenary intermediary, making a fortune and steadily increasing his strength, but he is still not a force to be reckoned with. The intelligence system still assesses him as a low threat; if necessary, a single field division would be enough to wipe out his rule in Novgorod.

Next, Vig delivered some good news: despite the end of the war, the empire still intended to purchase warhorses and hire nomads. The envoy was overjoyed and readily agreed, continuing this highly profitable business.

With the war over, the four field divisions were forced to reduce their forces by most, retaining only a quarter of their original strength in peacetime, making them unsuitable for bandit suppression. In contrast, recruiting mercenaries to suppress bandits was a more cost-effective approach.

In order to control the twenty directly administered counties on the south coast of the Strait, Vig planned to maintain a force of ten garrison regiments and four ranger battalions, allowing a steady stream of Eastern European mercenaries to deal with various rebellions.

The remaining territories are the responsibility of the newly promoted dukes and earls, which is their duty as lords and they cannot afford to slack off.

The following day, Vig attended a cabinet meeting and requested increased investment in healthcare.

Data from monasteries around the world indicate that during peacetime, under favorable weather conditions, the natural population growth rate in Western Europe remained in the range of 0.5% to 1%.

In recent years, Vig has gone to great lengths to build hospitals in every town within the Crown Territory, maintain low agricultural taxes, and provide inexpensive briquettes for the winter, resulting in a natural population growth rate of only 2%.
He decided to increase investment to train more doctors, raise the natural population growth rate to 2.5%, and obtain more reserve soldiers.

The ministers agreed, and the meeting moved on to the next item on the agenda—the treatment of prisoners.

Jersey currently holds nearly 40,000 prisoners of war, and the cabinet has recommended treating them differently.

They threw the Frankish nobles and the soldiers with the strongest will to resist into the New World to cultivate the land, letting them fight each other with the natives, their fate entirely dependent on their abilities and luck.

The more resolute resistance consisted of 6,000 soldiers who were required to perform long periods of hard labor, engaging in tasks such as road construction, swamp drainage, and mining.

The remaining 30,000 militiamen were of little use and were captured without much understanding why. Vig was too lazy to deal with them, and the cabinet lacked the funds to build more large-scale projects. Rather than keeping them around to freeload, it was better to send them back to their places of origin.

Although wonders are symbols of power and glory, Vig had no such idea. The empire was burdened with tens of thousands of pounds in war bonds, which should be paid off as soon as possible, rather than increasing expenditures by building a series of colossal wonders in the style of ancient Rome.

(End of this chapter)