Chapter 186 Development and Expansion

After reaching an agreement with the representative knight sent by Locke and sending him away, Roland refocused his energy on territory construction and military construction.

As Roland's control over the territory continued to grow, the art of meal making began to be widely used in the other two cities.

Because the range for collecting supplies and absorbing life force has expanded several times, the output of the meal-making technique has increased. Even the output of the meal-making technique alone is enough to fill the stomachs of all the people under Roland. Coupled with the output of the farmland on Roland's newly conquered land, Roland's food output is even higher.

In an environment where famine was almost imminent throughout Donnar, but the severity varied, Roland's grain output even overflowed, and he mobilized a large number of workers to build warehouses to store the excess grain.

Roland kept some of the accumulated grain for taxes, strategic reserves, and military rations, and sold the rest to various caravans at high prices through trade routes, taking advantage of the high grain prices to make huge profits.

When the grain output was sufficient, Roland used the grain as bait to mobilize all the labor force in the territory, driving them to carry out a thorough renovation of the entire territory.

Almost all towns were renovated and expanded, public roads connecting every city, town, and village were built, various water conservancy projects were built, wasteland was reclaimed, and mining was carried out.
Under Roland's administrative orders, almost every corner of his territory was filled with hardworking and sweating laborers.

Because the burden was too heavy, there was even a shortage of labor in Roland Territory.

However, the labor shortage gap was quickly filled.

In today's Donnar, there is a lack of everything except fleeing refugees.

After Roland reached an agreement with his neighbors and passing caravans, refugees from all directions poured into Roland's territory in waves.

According to the agreement, Roland would exchange food or gold and silver for every refugee they sent over.

Of course, in order to prevent them from deliberately creating refugees, or driving them away and exploiting them, Roland's food prices vary according to the conditions of the refugees upon their arrival. Regardless of race, gender, or age, only the physical and mental conditions are considered. If the conditions are good, more food will be given, and if the conditions are poor, less food will be given.

Although this kind of restriction certainly cannot avoid all the dark sides, it is better to reduce the darkness a little bit. At any rate, it is better than nothing.

Under Roland's policy, the various forces in the rear that were confused by the refugee problem were also overjoyed.

Not to mention that Roland gave them food, even if he gave them nothing, they would be happy to give all the refugees to Roland.

Therefore, the continuous influx of refugees also provided Roland with sufficient labor to achieve his two main goals of construction and development and conscription and expansion of the army.

After all, these refugees were mostly from Donnar, and they spoke the same language. Moreover, they had experienced hunger before, so as long as Roland fed them, they would be able to do any work and dare to do it.

Wide public roads were built to connect all cities and towns, desolate and abandoned ruins were cleared, new buildings were erected, and desolate land was reclaimed piece by piece.
With enough food and drink and enough physical strength, the hard work of hundreds of thousands of workers naturally led to the rapid development of Roland's territory at a speed visible to the naked eye.

However, just like before, territory development was not Roland's focus. Apart from being responsible for overall planning and supervision, the rest was left to the administrative bureaucrats.

These simple matters should be left to the administrative bureaucrats. Roland has a lot to deal with, and he needs to focus on the military. The development of the territory is ultimately due to the sufficient food brought by the meal making technique. Strictly speaking, all the food consumed for development comes from the territory itself, and the funds for development are also supported by printed food coupons.

As for the gold and silver wealth that Roland obtained through conquest, plunder and selling grain to foreign countries, he invested all of it in military construction.

Since the refugees were basically created by the Green Tide, most of them had a blood feud with them. When they heard that Roland was going to recruit soldiers to fight the Greenskins on the front line, the recruitment office was directly crowded with them.

Therefore, Roland successfully completed the large-scale military expansion.

Roland recruited another 40,000 soldiers in one go, with the original 10,000 soldiers as the main force. He planned to train them for two months, select 10,000 of them to join the main force, and the rest would serve as auxiliary troops. At that time, Roland would directly lead the 50,000 troops to the front line.

If Roland hadn't planned to go the elite route, he could actually have recruited more.

As for the troops, there were too many refugees coming from all directions, and the 50,000 places were divided up in a short time.

In addition to the 50,000 troops that would be sent to the Green Tide front, Roland also recruited more than 10,000 troops who received simple training and were responsible for guarding the territory.

With the current food output brought by the territory's meal-making technology, Roland could sustain it even if he expanded his army by another 50,000 or 60,000. However, doing so would be too excessive.

Although Roland's current population is less than one million, 50,000 full-time soldiers and 10,000 semi-full-time soldiers are already unprecedented in terms of militarism.

However, even though this military force was an important one at the forefront of the Green Tide, Roland did not relax at all.

Faced with the Green Tide, which was still on the rise and prosperous while Kanaozu was still alive, these few soldiers could not shake the Green Tide at all. Once the Green Tide launched an all-out attack under Kanaozu's command, it was estimated that this 50,000-strong army could be crushed with one punch.

Therefore, Roland was not complacent and conducted devilish training for all soldiers.

On February 1444, 2 of the Silver Calendar, news came from the Locke rebels that the application to represent the knights was successfully approved, and Roland was given a certain degree of freedom on the front line.

After receiving the news, Roland also completed the training and selection of new recruits. All 20,000 combat soldiers and 30,000 auxiliary soldiers were selected.

The temporary military system was based on the ten-household, hundred-household, thousand-household and legion. The 50,000 soldiers were divided into eight legions. Each legion had six thousand-households under it, and a number of ten-household and hundred-household units were set up according to actual needs.

The number of people in each legion is roughly around 6,000, and the largest legion, the First Legion, is only slightly more, with 6,300 people.

After the military restructuring, Roland trained the eight legions intensively for a month.

It was not until March 3th, when everything was ready, that Roland set out from Old Qi City with the eight legions and a large amount of logistical supplies, heading eastward in a mighty manner.

(End of this chapter)