Author: Yan Liu Chang Cun

With Lao Motou's management help, Ronan's burden was instantly relieved by half.

This gave him more time to train his soldiers.

With the addition of 60 militiamen under Viscount Claude, the strength of the team expanded. At the same time, the neat military formation that had initially achieved results also had many disharmonious factors.

This is an unavoidable problem. What Ronan has to do now is to completely integrate military discipline into this team.

As long as this can be accomplished, when new recruits join, they will be quickly inspired by the words and deeds of the veterans around them and learn to command and enforce orders.

There is no need for Ronan to show up again and perform repeated stress training.

In three months, the long journey is about to reach its end.

Ronan opened the map and let out a sigh of relief when the estimated location appeared.

There are less than two days left to reach the lord's castle in the Cold Wind Territory.

A long journey may initially be filled with novelties, unseen scenery, diverse creatures, and travelers from other places.

But as time goes by, all that remains is physical and mental exhaustion, and the fear brought about by memories.

The dreamy river valley is full of flowers, but the upper reaches are abandoned villages full of dead people; the wild berries that make people salivate contain terrible toxins that can cause death; the traveling merchants and salesmen are smiling, but the carriage is filled with vivid wax figures of girls.

Even the knight attendants from the Triumph City experienced too many horrors along the way.

And the awe and pride that arises spontaneously for the lord who leads them.

Because even though there are so many dangers, they are still brought here intact, and even the deadly poison will be dissipated with the Lord's blessing!

"Sir, do we need to rest in Blackstone City ahead?" Old Motou asked Ronan.

After such a long journey, they finally encountered the first large town, Blackstone City.

This is the viscounty of the Pekes family. It is located less than two days away from Hanfeng. It is also one of the few large cities in the northern provinces with a scale of more than 50,000 people.

For Ronan, Blackstone City was of extraordinary significance, after all, the other party was standing in front of his door.

If Coldwind Territory wants to develop in the future, most of the materials purchased from the kingdom will need to be transferred through Black Rock City. It can be said that the lifeline of survival is completely in the hands of the other party.

But Ronan wasn't too worried.

Baron Exeter originally escaped to Triumph City through the caravan of Black Rock City. According to him, the condition there was very bad.

Although the Viscount of Peix chose to sit in the city and let his knights carry out extremely strict control and kill all those infected with the Black Death, there were still unstoppable cases of sick people in the city.

Ronan guessed it had something to do with the steam room.

After all, this place is far away from the center and is the territory of factory owners, businessmen and small nobles who support Archbishop Holy Water, so the bathroom cannot be closed.

For the future development of the Cold Wind Territory, Ronan must find a way to take the actual control of Blackstone City into his own hands.

But not now, he shook his head at Lao Mo.

"No need, hurry up and you'll reach your destination tomorrow night. There's no need to stay here."

As a new baron, visits to neighbors are inevitable, but not now. At least he must first settle down his soldiers.

The Viscount of Pecks was worrying about troubles in the city. At this time, a strange nobleman suddenly came to the door with hundreds of fully armed soldiers. What would he think?

Do you think you're here to help with good intentions? Ronan doesn't think so.

Now that the kingdom is in chaos, there might be a direct fight.

After bypassing the black city standing in front of them, Ronan and his party finally arrived at the end of the trip in the evening of the next day, just before the sky was getting dark.

The Lord's Castle of the Cold Wind Territory comes into view.

Although he was well prepared, Ronan couldn't help but shake his head when he saw such a shabby and simple castle in front of him.

There are no broad city walls or solid towers, only a thin layer of low walls eroded by the cold wind. The surface of the castle is seriously damaged, and its configuration imitates the classic pointed arched doors and windows and slender spires of the Triumph City. But that

The carvings and decorations that should be elegant are crude and comical, looking nondescript.

It doesn't matter that there is no inner courtyard, but the most important main hall is also too narrow and can only accommodate thirty people at most.

Ronan couldn't help but wonder if Baron Exeter knew that no nobles would come to visit him at all.

After everything is ruined, why would you dare to build your own castle into this horrible state?

The castle had long been deserted with Baron Exeter leaving, and the surface was covered with a thin layer of dust.

After Ronan walked around, he didn't pay any more attention. Instead, he asked Old Motou and Ed to lead people to clean the houses around the castle and set up some camps for the soldiers to station themselves on the spot.

He sat in front of a map and thought about the future of the territory.

In addition to the castle in front of you, there are five villages in the Cold Wind Territory.

It is located not far away in the north, blocking the front of the castle in a semi-encircled form, and behind it is Black Rock City.

Each village originally had at least a thousand people living in it, but now Ronan was not sure how many residents there were. He would need to send his men to check them one by one tomorrow morning.

But I'm afraid it's not worth the wait.

Even if all the villages are well-preserved, more than 5,000 farmers will be unable to support his hundreds of soldiers on the barren land dominated by the cold wind, not to mention that he will need to expand and build massively in the future.

Ronan had considered these issues when he first set his sights on the Cold Wind Territory, but in the end he still set his target here.

Because the area of ​​the Cold Wind Territory is too vast.

The land occupied by the castle and five villages does not even reach one percent of the area here.

In terms of food crops alone, the land here has no value, but what about another perspective?

Deeper to the north, there are patches of pine, coniferous and birch forests on the frozen tundra in the cold wind zone. Among the vegetation in these snowy areas, there are also herds of reindeer and musk oxen.

, snowshoe hare, winter wolf, grizzly bear, etc. The snow water flowing down from the towering snow-capped mountains connects the Arctic sea and lakes, where abundant fish such as pike, gray trout, herring, cod, and salmon swim.

Not only that, with such a large area of ​​frozen soil, Ronan couldn't believe that there wasn't any minerals underneath. If nothing else, there must be coal mines.

With such abundant resources in front of him, as long as he can develop one millionth of them, he can develop his own territory.

It sounds wonderful, but other people are not fools either.

The advantage of the Cold Wind Territory is that it has a large scope, but the disadvantage is also that it has a large scope. If the manpower of this era wants to develop this frozen land, the manpower cost will be astronomical, far exceeding the final return.

Fortunately, Ronan still has an identity.

In a sense, he had to thank the Black Death, which brought wealth to Triumph City and allowed him to gather the materials needed for his research workshop.

He took all the materials he had purchased in Triumph City and walked into the castle alone.
Chapter completed!