Roland was recently immersed in a pleasant mood.
Even when sitting alone in his office, he would hum a couple of tunes from time to time, while recalling the wonderful moments in the hot air balloon basket.
Anna's appearance of closing her eyes and asking for a kiss was simply too cute, and just thinking about it made him unable to help but curl the corners of his mouth. And most importantly, the meaning of her words had revealed her fiery emotions without a doubt.
The only thing he could do at the time was to respond to her even more enthusiastically.
So much so that Roland felt a faint ache in his lips when he landed.
Perhaps it was because too long a kiss made her breathing difficult, and she used her teeth in a panic?
In any case, he hadn't experienced this kind of feeling for a long time.
When life was approaching its quarter mark, the skills he had learned from TV movies and comics finally came in handy, and the object was the beautiful and moving Anna xiaojie. Roland felt that he had finally taken the first step towards becoming a winner in life.
He took a satisfied breath, and reached into the drawer, wanting to chew on some snacks to calm his joy, but found it empty—these beef jerky strips were clearly put in yesterday.
Roland glanced back at Nightingale, who was lying by the window. The latter whistled, pretending to be looking at the scenery casually. He had deliberately changed the fish jerky to beef jerky in order to prevent Nightingale from stealing it, but he didn't expect her to accept beef jerky as well?
Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door.
"Your Highness, Sir Barov requests an audience."
"Let him in."
Nightingale did not hide her figure as usual, but pulled down her hood and sat down in the reclining chair by the wall.
The Minister's Assistant pushed the door open and was slightly taken aback to see other people in the office, but quickly returned to his normal expression.
"Your Highness, this month's population statistics have been completed." He handed over a roll of parchment.
"So fast?"
"With the citizen registration files, it is much easier to compile statistics now," the Minister's Assistant said with a smile. "Your previous decision was truly a wise move."
Well, now he's starting to flatter me... Roland spread out the scroll. He saw that it was clearly laid out according to the different occupations of the people in Border Town, with the numbers categorized. Compared to the reports that didn't even have paragraphs when he first transmigrated, Barov's abilities had indeed improved significantly.
The first line was also the largest group, serfs, with a total of three thousand six hundred and twenty people (including family members). There was a note below: the number of serfs engaged in farming was one thousand five hundred.
"Your Highness, is the farming population a little too small?" Barov pointed to the first line and said, "According to Senny. Ellie of the Ministry of Agriculture, in order to make the town no longer import grain, I am afraid that the farmland and manpower will have to be doubled to meet the grain needs of Border Town."
Roland had some impression of the name Senny. He should be a knight from the Benlang family. The one thousand five hundred people engaged in farming were the first batch of serfs sent over. The subsequent batches were transferred by Roland to the mines or Karl's construction team—they had also received the same guarantee that they would be promoted to freemen as long as they worked for a certain period of time.
"I don't plan to achieve self-sufficiency in food this year. There is still a lot of wheat stored in the castle warehouse, enough for two or three months of consumption. Moreover, the wheat planted this year is not quite the same."
"Not quite the same?" Barov was stunned.
"Well, you'll know when the time comes," Roland smiled. That was Leaf's improved Golden No. 1, with a single plant yield at least three times higher than ordinary wheat. When it was harvested, it would definitely surprise everyone. This was also the reason why he didn't want to invest too much population in agriculture. With Leaf's modified crops, in the future, only a small number of farmers would be needed to feed most of the people, thereby saving valuable human resources and investing them in industrial development and urban construction.
He continued to look down.
The second line of parchment was construction personnel. The notes below were very complicated, including stonemasons, tilers, mud masons, carpenters, handymen, and so on. The total number was more than one thousand one hundred, most of whom were serfs acting as handymen.
It was precisely because of the addition of this new force that Border Town was able to quickly build batches of residential areas and factories—modularizing, batching, and programming construction templates was an important means to speed up the construction progress. Although in Roland's eyes, this speed was still not fast enough, it was already shocking to the locals.
The third line was mining personnel.
Similar to the construction industry above, the number of local residents in Border Town had dropped to twenty-five, mainly responsible for steam engine operation, mine registration, and management. The remaining one thousand six hundred people were outsiders, including the mercenaries captured in the Longsong Stronghold battle and the serfs sent later.
"There have been several brawls in the mining area recently," Barov said. "The main conflict is between mercenaries and serfs, which is a hidden danger, Your Highness. There are too many of them. Once a riot breaks out, the twenty-five managers alone cannot control it. I suggest that the First Army be responsible for assisting in guarding."
"Hmm...," Roland considered for a moment, "Let's do that. There are not enough people now, and there is no way to form a police force. I will tell Iron Axe that a musketeer team of about fifty people should be enough."
"Police...what is that?"
"You can understand it as a patrol team, but the scope of jurisdiction is much larger, and basically all internal security is completed by them." This era does not distinguish between internal violence and external violence, so letting the army take care of security will not become his own black history. Before solving the huge enemy of the church, he does not intend to divert manpower to build a second violent machine.
The fourth place was the Border Town First Army.
After the end of the stronghold battle, the First Army's reputation resounded throughout the Western Region—three hundred people defeated the Duke's coalition of one thousand five hundred people at a very small cost, making the stronghold nobles lose the courage to resist. After the rewards, Roland doubled the size of the First Army, increasing it to six hundred people. As soon as the recruitment list was sent out, the town names who enthusiastically signed up filled the entire square. Roland still followed the concept of the people's army being composed of the people, and selected three hundred aborigines with good qualities and no criminal records to join the First Army.
The rest are various technical personnel.
For example, smelting and firing industries, the number of people has increased significantly in the past month, from the initial twenty or so to about four hundred. Thanks to the furnace expert Losia, the North Slope Furnace Group can not only produce red bricks, but also burn cement and glass. At the same time, three vertical furnaces are being built. Soon after, the ore placed in the stacking yard can be primarily smelted through the vertical furnace, and then transported to where it is needed in ingots.
As for education, chemistry, industry, and animal husbandry, these add up to less than fifty people, so from the population statistics alone, Border Town still has a long way to go. However, the fact that a town originally composed mainly of hunters and miners could become like this in half a year can be described as earth-shattering.
Now the hunters have basically disappeared, and hunting has changed from being forced by survival to a hobby. Apart from those who have joined the First Army or the smelting industry, there are still nearly a thousand people in the town who are unemployed. When the literacy part of universal education is completed, Roland will decide to pull all these people into factories and start the prelude to industrial production.(。)