Chapter 192: Financial Issues

The guards watching Zhaozebao have all been replaced by members of the Knight Squad from Muma City, while the guards of Sain Territory have all been detained in the castle prison, locked up together with Knight Fenlisi and Leisen's wife and daughter.

Luoning took a cursory look around the manor as if riding a horse to view flowers.

Compared to Shanlin Castle, it was clearly more luxurious here; for one thing, there were quite a few Magic Crystal Lamps, which were rare items back at Shanlin Castle.

However, the humidity here was a bit high and there were many insects, requiring the castle servants to clean frequently; otherwise, furniture, clothing, books, and the like would easily grow moldy.

After a rough inspection, Luoning accompanied Jialier in the castle fortress to conduct a simple interrogation of Leisen's family and attendant knights.

When Fenlisi saw that it was Luoning sitting in the seat of honor, he finally became convinced that the Baron Leisen they followed was truly finished.

"It was you, Qiaofuli, you betrayed Lord Leisen?" Fenlisi, bound by iron chains, questioned through gritted teeth.

Qiaofuli stood at Luoning's side; if not for Luoning's special regard, he would likely be dead in the Wushan Castle prison by now.

He had no affection for Fenlisi; when Leisen had originally arranged for the other party to be at the Heiling Tribe, the two had even had a dispute.

"Leisen paid the price for his own stupidity; it has nothing to do with me."

Qiaofuli said: "Fenlisi, you and I have known each other for a time; I advise you to disclose Leisen's relationship with the Skull Society to Lord Luoning and Sir Jialier of Wushan Castle without reservation. If you do so, you might be spared some torture."

Fenlisi's face was gloomy; he did not continue to pester Qiaofuli, but instead wondered if he could surrender, would he be accepted by Luoning just like Qiaofuli?

Once this thought arose, his tone softened, but he truly did not know what relationship Leisen had with the Skull Society.

"I am not privy to it, but Feilidun might know."

Fenlisi said: "Last December, Feilidun left Sain Territory and only returned after Along time."

Jialier looked at Luoning, "This Knight Feilidun."

"My people will bring him here."

Luoning said, "If it's early, we might know by tomorrow."

Feilidun was also captured?

Fenlisi felt a shock in his heart; Lord Leisen had only gone to Wushan Castle to celebrate the New Year, so what exactly had happened in such a short time?

Luoning did not linger in the fortress; he was not interested in the interrogation, nor did he intend to recruit a professional knight like Fenlisi, who was difficult to control.

On the contrary, other knights with weaker strength, or even the ordinary guards and Archers who made up the Sain Territory Knight Squad, were more interesting to him.

The cavalry, Archers, and Infantry of Shanlin Town were still in training; if he could perfectly absorb these people from Sain Territory, then the territory's defense would be much easier to handle.

Currently, he had six places under his command: Swamp Town, Shanlin Town, Qingzhu Village, Ziguo Village, Huitu Village, and the Heiling Tribe.

Swamp Town went without saying; it was the most populous place in Wubei Territory and needed people to guard and maintain it.

Shanlin Town was Luoning's base of operations, with a large amount of farmland, the Ironwood Workshop, and so on, which also required people to manage.

Ziguo Village was a sericulture base, and Huitu Village was a ceramics base; it was impossible to abandon them.

As for the Heiling Tribe, he had learned from Qiaofuli that the land of the Heiling Tribe was very fertile and the crop yields were high; they had already cultivated more than four thousand mu of land, and last year they had even transported over seventy thousand jin of grain to Sain Territory.

From this, it could be seen that the Heiling Tribe also had huge development value.

Counting them all, it seemed only Qingzhu Village had no great value; Luoning could consider first relocating the three hundred or so people of the Qingzhu Tribe.

"Are you the Steward of Zhaozebao?"

Luoning found a room at random and had Qiaofuli bring Leisen's Steward over.

"Yes, my Lord."

This was a middle-aged man with short brown hair who would normally look quite spirited, but after being detained for several days, he now looked very haggard.

"Your former master Leisen committed the crime of assassinating a noble and was stripped of his noble title and territory; now I, Ronin Wushan, am the new master of Swamp Town. Tell me about the production, operations, and financial situation of Zhaozebao, and I will allow you to continue living on this land."

"Sailin is happy to serve you, my Lord!"

Just as when Luoning first moved into Shanlin Castle, he did not need Leisen's servants to work for him, but he could obtain information about this castle from their mouths.

Sailin was clearly a qualified Steward; he had a clear grasp of Swamp Town's financial situation.

Take the breeding of Black Water Buffalo for example; he knew clearly the number of cattle in the pasture.

There were 82 adult bulls, 566 cows, and another 164 calves.

Luoning made a rough estimate; if each cow sold for an average of 20 gold coins, selling all these cattle in a bundle could earn over sixteen thousand gold coins.

Of course, the price of 20 gold coins should be low.

Black Water Buffalo had large bodies and were good at plowing fields; a slightly better quality Black Water Buffalo was comparable to an Ordinary Warhorse, so selling one for 30 gold coins would not be a problem.

However, compared to the horse industry of Muma City, Leisen's buffalo business was much smaller in scale; altogether, there were not even a thousand head of cattle.

Luoning prepared to distribute some of these cattle to Shanlin Town and Black Earth Village to speed up land reclamation and increase grain harvests.

Besides this, Luoning also learned from Sailin that Leisen operated businesses in aquatic products like fish and shrimp; although it could not be compared to the aquatic business of Lake Town, it could still bring in a sum of income every year.

In the entire Swamp Town, the gold coins that fell into Leisen's pocket every year still numbered in the thousands.

The only pity was that there was not much fertile land here; to maintain the consumption of the territory's population, Baron Leisen needed to purchase grain from outside.

It was precisely because of this that the other party had set his sights on the Heiling Tribe to the north. The seventy thousand jin of grain transported from the Heiling Tribe last year had saved him a not-insignificant expense.

In addition to this intelligence, Luoning also learned from the other party the approximate population of Swamp Town—over nine thousand eight hundred people.

Once Wilson arrived and completed the census, the number of registered people in Luoning's territory could easily exceed ten thousand.

Based on the experience of completing the 【Wealthy】 achievement previously, Luoning guessed whether he would complete two 【Population Prosperity】 achievements in one go this time.

After all, the second tier of this achievement only required the registered population to reach five thousand, and the third tier was very likely set at the ten thousand mark.

It was just that Luoning had not yet figured out how to complete the 【Gongchengluedi】 achievement.

Logically speaking, he had already occupied Sain Territory, so it should count as completed, but the achievement status had not changed.

Luoning guessed that this might have something to do with the character "City".

Swamp Town was still just a town and did not count as a city.

And whether a territory could be called a "City" was mainly considered based on population size.

"If Swamp Town's population reaches ten thousand, could it be considered a city?"

Luoning prepared to wait until the Swamp Town census was completed before considering whether to leave a portion of the thousand-plus slaves purchased from the Viper Slave Exchange in Swamp Town to make up the ten thousand population.

Completing as many Achievement Tasks as possible to obtain Attribute Points and Energy Essence is a very important matter for him at present. (End of this chapter)