For
The reason the
Three years of labor would purge the bitterness from these prisoners' hearts. Then, having endured the hardships, they would meekly accept their arrangements when placed into the family military. The generous treatment and strict discipline that followed would give them a sense of belonging and loyalty to the Norton Family. After five years of service, they would be discharged and given land and houses, reunited with their families — or for single soldiers, provided with a new family — and every last one of them would wholeheartedly become a loyal subject of the Norton Family.
This was Lorist's conversion strategy, and it was how the Norton Family military had grown to hundreds of thousands strong. Without this approach, letting these former enemies' young men scatter freely into the family's territories would make them the single greatest source of instability within. It was thanks to the enormous spoils and funds obtained from destroying the Haneabada Slave Kingdom that Lorist had the means to sustain this strategy.
But this strategy required time — at minimum, five years from conscription to discharge. So another way to rapidly expand the territories' population was forced migration. For Lorist, after conquering the Madras Duchy and the Iberian Kingdom, the only hostile power remaining near the Northland was the Fassabrun Family, which held the three northeastern grassland provinces. But those grassland provinces were even more desolate than the Northland; the lack of population was Grand Duke Fassabrun's biggest headache, and even if Lorist wanted to raid for people, there were few to be found.
This was the consequence of everyone scrambling to relocate population after the conquest of Sabagi Duchy, turning it into a thousand-li wasteland. In the twenty years since the civil war of succession among three princes of the old Krisen Empire, nearly all territorial lords had come to understand the importance of population to family strength. Beyond looting material wealth, able-bodied laborers had become a scarce resource.
Lorist had agreed to the
Although the four central duchies were reputed to be wealthy, Lorist understood well that with over a decade of continuous warfare, their fiscal revenues were far from generous. In particular, three years ago they had lost sixty to seventy thousand elite infantry in the southern provinces while supporting the Fassabrun Family against the Northland's four-family alliance — a deeply unprofitable venture. After three years of tentative recovery, they now faced the Second Prince's invasion. So extracting enormous wealth and resources from the four central duchies was out of the question; the only viable option was large-scale forced migration.
Unfortunately, after the conquest of Sabagi Duchy, apart from the hundred thousand residents of Meishan Castle and the hundred fifty to hundred sixty thousand refugees with destroyed homes who had been taken in, nearly all remaining refugees had been carved up among the Fassabrun Family, the Philim Family, the Shahin Family, and various far-sighted territorial lords. Of Sabagi Duchy's three provinces, Limade Province was exclusively claimed by the Norton Family military, Meishan Province was split between the Shahin Family and the allied noble forces, and Chikeses Province became the domain of the Fassabrun and Philim Families. Of the nearly eight hundred thousand subjects of Sabagi Duchy, by the time the Second Prince's order arrived forbidding all lords from forcibly relocating subjects, fewer than three hundred thousand remained.
For the Second Prince, he had to prohibit such forced migration of subjects; otherwise, after conquering the four central duchies, what would he have left to restore economic development and rebuild the territories' strength? After all, his next opponent would be the already colossal Forde Commercial Alliance. Fortunately, Lorist and the others knew they had pushed things a bit too far — one only had to look at the current miserable state of Sabagi Duchy to understand that if the Second Prince didn't put a stop to it, all three provinces would be emptied of people.
So after occupying Fulundo Duchy, the Second Prince cracked down especially hard on military discipline and strictly forbade the nobles from entering Fakel Duchy. Since Duke Fakel had already fled to Handra Duchy, those towns were simply waiting for the Second Prince to take them over — there was no need to mobilize these scheming, self-interested nobles with their private armed forces.
But what the Second Prince never expected was that Duke Fakel had left him such an utter mess, putting him in an impossible bind. Even though he knew perfectly well that Lorist was after these hundred-odd thousand refugees, he had no choice but to swallow his pride and go along with it. After all, given the current situation, Lorist's migration proposal was the best solution available; otherwise, he could only watch helplessly as these refugees froze and starved to death. And the cost of relocating these hundred-odd thousand refugees to Windbury Royal City would be borne almost entirely by the Norton Family — this was the fundamental premise that had tempted the Second Prince into agreeing to let Lorist and Count Philim go to the three provinces of Fakel Duchy to carry out the migration.
Heh, the Second Prince surely didn't know the saying that "a general in the field need not obey every command from his sovereign." Besides, the hierarchical lord-vassal relationship on the Galentea Continent wasn't the kind of rigid feudal system found elsewhere. As the Grand Duke of the Northland, Lorist had every right to refuse the Second Prince's unreasonable orders that harmed the Norton Family's interests. With the Second Prince's approval, Lorist was now truly free as a bird soaring through endless skies, a fish leaping in boundless seas...
The three provinces of Fakel Duchy — Samora Province, Fabuxia Province, and Kribia Province — all had refugees, but they were most heavily concentrated in Fabuxia Province. This was because Duke Fakel had burned down the city of Falamoshi, creating nearly a hundred thousand homeless refugees. As for the refugees in the other two provinces, Duke Fakel had ordered the granaries and food stores in every town burned to the ground, leaving the townspeople without food or clothing — though at least they still had roofs over their heads.
The three provinces of Fakel Duchy had a combined population of nearly a million. How could a mere hundred-odd thousand refugees satisfy Lorist's appetite? On the way to Kribia Province, Lorist had already reached an agreement with Count Philim: the Norton Family would take the lion's share, and the Philim Family could tag along for a bite of meat and a sip of soup. After all, even if the Philim Family relocated a great many refugees, they would still depend on the Norton Family for grain, food, and material support — the underdeveloped southern provinces simply couldn't sustain the effort on their own.
But no matter what, the Second Prince was still the King of the Andinac Kingdom, and basic face had to be given where it was due. Lorist and Count Philim agreed that they couldn't turn the three provinces of Fakel Duchy into the disaster zone that Sabagi Duchy had become — at the very least, appearances had to be maintained on the surface.
So Lorist had no intention of touching the towns or the farmers who appeared in the subject registry — those would be easily traced through the census records. But the estates and territories of the nobles who had followed Duke Fakel to Handra Duchy became fair game for Lorist and Count Philim. After all, to the Second Prince, these territorial lords were all traitors; once he occupied the three provinces of Fakel Duchy, he would purge them anyway. He might as well let Lorist do the cleanup early, and the seized supplies could be put to good use helping the refugees.
This was a peculiar loophole. The three provinces of Fakel Duchy could already be considered to have fallen into the Second Prince's hands, but what was handed over to him consisted only of the family lands directly held by Duke Fakel and the census records of each town's subjects. The subjects ruled by the territorial lords enfeoffed by Duke Fakel did not appear in those records at all. For example, the Norton Family's holdings in the Northland had a population of one million six hundred seventy thousand, and these one million six hundred seventy thousand counted as the Norton Family's subjects. Meanwhile, while Dremke Province and Winston Province fell under the Norton Family's jurisdiction and had a combined population of nearly six to seven hundred thousand, those were all subjects of the territorial lords enfeoffed in those two provinces — their numbers could not be counted under the Norton Family's name.
Just like the residents of Windbury Royal City, their statistics belonged to the Andinac Kingdom. And although Lorist, as Governor, possessed authority over the royal city's residents similar to what he held over his family domain's subjects, he still could not treat them as family subjects. This was because the Governor's appointment was term-limited and could be revoked — even though Lorist was a Governor for life, he could not pass the position on to his descendants. Family domains, however, were hereditary. This was one of the reasons the Second Prince had agreed to let Lorist relocate Fakel Duchy's hundred-odd thousand refugees to Windbury Royal City — after all, the meat was still stewing in the Andinac Kingdom's pot.
The three provinces of Fakel Duchy had a population nearing one million, but the subjects truly belonging to the Fakel Family were only about half of that. Now, driven to become refugees by the shortsighted Grand Duke Fakel's atrocities, over a hundred thousand of them had been forced into that state. Soon, with the arrival of Lorist and Count Philim, these refugees would, with the help of the Flying Tiger Legion and the Flying Pegasus Legion's migration efforts, become new residents of the Southern Province and Windbury Royal City. It seemed to have little benefit for the Northland, but what Lorist wanted was precisely this excuse of rescuing and relocating refugees. He had his sights set on the subjects under the rule of those territorial lords of Fakel Duchy, and he was confident he could turn these subjects into refugees and migrate them to the Northland as well.
Well, to give the Second Prince some face, of the nearly five hundred thousand subjects under those territorial lords, he'd relocate about three hundred thousand to the Northland. By this calculation, this campaign against the four central duchies had added over five hundred thousand subjects to the Northland for Lorist—not counting the roughly one hundred thousand refugees relocated to Windbury Royal City. It could be said that among all who participated in this campaign against the four central duchies, the Norton Family benefited the most.
As for how to carry out the migration, Lorist wasn't worried. The Norton Family's armed forces possessed extremely extensive experience in helping relocate people to the Northland. Moreover, Count Philim, who was responsible for coordination, was no novice; he was very familiar with such coercive migration methods. After the Flying Tiger Legion and the Flying Pegasus Legion arrived in Klimbia Province of Fakel Duchy, the Flying Pegasus Legion left one regiment to assist the Flying Tiger Legion in gathering and guarding the refugees, while the remaining three regiments continued onward to Fabusia Province and Samora Province. As light cavalry, they were faster on the march and could go ahead to provide relief to the refugees and maintain order.
The Flying Tiger Legion, under the command of Fierce Tiger Ross, followed Lorist's orders to cleanse the estates of all the territorial lords in Klimbia Province who had followed Grand Duke Fakel to Handra Duchy. The orders were simple: all valuables, grain, and supplies within these noble estates were to be collected to aid the refugees' migration. Left with absolutely no supplies, the subjects of these noble estates, lest they perish miserably during this winter, had no choice but to embark on the northward journey just like those refugees...
...crammed with grain and supplies. For Lorist, the family's Wulibel Intelligence Bureau spies long since embedded within Fakel Duchy had thoroughly investigated all information on these territorial lords, even detailing the exact quantities of stored grain and provisions.
With this intelligence and even guides provided by turncoats, the Flying Tiger Legion's harvests were incredibly rich. Aside from sparing a dozen or so territorial lords who had not followed Grand Duke Fakel and had paid a large sum of protection money to Fierce Tiger Ross, a total of thirty-four noble estates were swept clean by the Flying Tiger Legion. Unlike Grand Duke Fakel's method of burning Fallamis City to the ground, the Flying Tiger Legion's cleansing was more rational—they took all valuable or usable materials. For them, experienced in plundering, this was no difficult task. Consequently, Klimbia Province immediately saw an increase of over a hundred thousand refugees.
For other families or armies, winter was a deadly season. No one wished to carry out missions in the howling snow and freezing cold, preferring to idle away the entire winter huddled indoors. The Norton Family's armed forces were different; even in winter, they continued to carry out missions and conduct training. They possessed solid experience in cold-weather resistance and long-distance travel. In fact, the heavier the snow, the more it helped them. As long as the road had accumulated a sufficiently thick layer of snow, skis and sleds could be put to use.
With sleds, refugees could be efficiently and quickly transported to the next location during winter. Through messenger hawks, Lorist had already directed
When the third great blizzard subsided, the long-prepared soldiers of the Flying Tiger Legion began loading refugees onto sleds, embarking on the long journey to the Northland. For the Norton Family's armed forces, utilizing winter for migration had the greatest convenience of not requiring a large number of personnel to strictly guard the refugees. Not a single sensible refugee would flee the sleds or disobey orders during the migration. To leave the warm, windproof, and cold-resistant sled in such freezing winter meant certain death.
Currently, in Fabusia Province, over four hundred thousand refugees had already been gathered. The Flying Tiger Legion had finished cleansing this province and was preparing to move on to Samora Province to complete the final cleanup. The instruction Lorist had given to Fierce Tiger Ross was a quota of eighty thousand refugees. For this province, which had only become part of Fakel Duchy less than seven or eight years ago, meeting this refugee quota might be somewhat difficult. But Fierce Tiger Ross indicated that no matter how great the difficulty, he would certainly find a way to accomplish it.
From the cleared noble estates in Cleambia and Fabusia Provinces, the biggest haul was grain and supplies. Actual cash—gold Fordes and the like—was relatively scarce, amounting to only three to four hundred thousand. The rest consisted of exquisite luxury goods and the miscellaneous collections of the provincial nobles; together, these valuables were worth roughly a million gold Fordes. After discussing the matter with Count Phelim, Lorist agreed that Phelim would keep the cash while Lorist himself would cheerfully take the remaining assets.
By the thirty-second day of the first month of the new year, the refugee migration had been underway for nearly fifty days. The refugees from Fabusia Province had already been fully transported, with only the last thirty to forty thousand still lingering in Samora Province. Lorist estimated that before the snow began to melt on the fifteenth of the second month, all refugees could be delivered to their resettlement locations via sled. After that, a full month of rest during the rainy season would allow them to recover properly, after which they could make their due contributions to the development of the Norton Family's territory.
It was at this moment that Bodfnger, who had secretly received orders to lead three regiments of the Rock Legion to Fabusia Province in stealth, walked into the large tent within the snow shelter and snapped to attention before Lorist with a salute. "Your Highness, we are ready. Shall we begin the operation?"
...