Chapter 876 (1/2)

Chapter 876: Silver City

Translator: TransN_ Editor: Meh

Roland shrugged, it seemed that he had to work harder. Being overtaken by his own subordinates was never something to be proud of.

Thankfully, Redwater City was now back to normal. Out of the remaining filtered nobles, 70 percent had decided to continue doing their previous jobs while the rest wanted to try their luck at the City Hall even though the basic requirement to apply for the administration exam “literacy of sentences” was easy for them. Roland still believed that after the final tests, these people would not have too much of a chance to become official members.

After all, it was hard for nobles to change their habits.

But certainly, becoming a normal clerk was much better than losing your head.

There were even three nobles who wanted to join the First Army. They were knights originally and when being observed by Nightingale, they did not conceal any evil thoughts. However, he still stood by his original decision and refused their applications.

Having solved the issue of the feudal power, the work efficiency of Redwater City and the surrounding areas had greatly improved. In just over a week, more than 20,000 people had boarded the ships for Neverwinter, whilst more and more people continued to arrive at Redwater. At first glance, abandoning the small towns and villages seemed to decrease the amount of land they could control, but in fact, it drastically increased his capability to control the City Hall.

In such an age where even roads were scarce, the implementation of government decrees in the countryside was something he could only dream of. Arranging a few leaders within the course of a year was rather doable, but asking them to go around implementing the decrees was quite difficult. Barov had asked him more than once why he persisted in sending people to Neverwinter, instead of unifying the kingdom and leaving everything as it was. He had never fully answered him.

It was because the City Hall Director could not imagine how many people could actually be absorbed by the compounded industry of coal and iron, nor understand how much energy and time it actually took to build such an industry.

And the most important part was that those remote territories could not operate effectively and thus, from the perspective of resource utilization, keeping them would just be a waste.

Thus, it was more suitable for the current situation of Graycastle to gather the population in several major cities with convenient transportation.

It was from that moment of land reform that Roland finally acquired jurisdiction of the Redwater area.

As for his next target, that was Silver City.

Compared to the huge City of Redwater, the old king’s city district was much easier to deal with. It was originally a common city, not much different from the several cities encircling the king’s city. However, its existence became more special when the first silver mine was discovered there. As more and more precious mineral veins were being excavated, the city became busier and busier, and eventually reached its current size.

Considering the great importance of Silver City’s output to Graycastle’s economy, the latest Lords were only appointed by the family of Earl William, the “good old man” who was loyal to the Wimbledons. In addition, their power was also restricted and in the next couple of years, the city was almost never allocated to other nobles.

In other words, as long as the lord of the city declared it, Silver City would always be a thing.

Roland believed that “persuading” the other side was not a difficult task, considering he was the descendant of King Wimbledon III and the most suitable heir to the throne.

However, he was somewhat concerned about the fact that the city, which was built on mineral veins, was Nightingale’s hometown.

Every time he asked her about it, he would get the same answer “I have cut my ties with the Gilen Family, so you don’t have to worry about my feelings.” He still felt Nightingale was hiding something, but because of his busy government affairs, he did not have much time to think about it so he could only leave this be for now.

Four days after receiving Iron Axe’s secret letter, the First Army of the Eastern Front Army entered the Silver City territory through the canal.

…

It was almost the same with the trip to Redwater City. Earl William led his platoon out of town to greet them and after a warm greeting, he followed up with a dinner invitation. The difference was that in Redwater City, they were welcomed by the city’s nobles while in the old man’s platoon, there were more merchants, including their old acquaintance Hogg.