Roland leaned back in his office chair, carefully reviewing the statistical reports prepared by Barov.

It took the city hall a full three days to sort through all six thousand refugees, and the proportion of craftsmen was relatively low, with only one hundred and sixteen ultimately passing the review. Of course, this was also related to the intensity of the review, as it involved the allocation of housing and the issuance of identity cards.

In Roland's considerations, only residents holding identity cards would be considered his official subjects in the future, so he had to strictly control the process. He aimed to cultivate a core group of supporters in the early stages when the population was small and easier to manage. Once the population grew, he would leverage the power of the people to assimilate newcomers. After all, humans are social animals, and as long as the environment is right, more and more people will accept his ideas, and he could indeed bring a better life to his subjects.

"Then the housing for these craftsmen will be your responsibility to arrange. Whether they are single or have families, allocate at least one **suite**," Roland instructed.

"Yes," Barov responded, "Your Highness, will these houses be distributed as gifts?"

"Calculate them as rentals," he shook his head, "The original residents get new houses in the residential area for free because most of them have old houses, which is like trading old for new. If these people are also given houses, it will not be conducive to them leaving their homes and actively engaging in work. Of course, the rent can be calculated at a lower rate, and tell them that as long as they work hard and save enough gold royals, they can directly buy the houses."

"I understand."

Roland was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "How many fleeing residents have there been since the awarding ceremony?"

"As of today, none among the original residents, and seven among the serfs," Barov paused, "More refugees from the Eastern Territory have chosen to leave, a total of one hundred and fifteen."

"Is that so," he breathed softly, knowing that such a situation would arise the moment he decided to bring the witches to the forefront. To assess public reaction and avoid accidents, Roland had also specially arranged for a rifle squad to be stationed a few miles outside the town to intercept these fleeing individuals while counting the numbers to see how accepting everyone was of the witches.

And the answer, if not perfect, was at least very good - the original residents had completely accepted the witches, which was close to what he had expected; the number of fleeing serfs was less than estimated, indicating that the theatrical performances depicting life at the bottom were effective; it was the refugees from the Eastern Territory who surprised Roland somewhat, as they had clearly received treatment from the witches and were in a situation where their homes had been destroyed and they had nowhere else to go, yet still over a hundred of them chose to leave.

"Your Highness, I suggest executing them all," Barov said calmly, "Those who are determined to leave in this situation must be deeply influenced by the church. In the foreseeable future, they will not stand on the side of the monarchy, and are likely to turn into followers of the church. There is no need to show them a trace of mercy."

"It's not necessarily the case... The ones who are truly devout to the church are the three hundred or so refugees who were unwilling to leave the royal capital even in the face of the plague," the prince closed his eyes and said, "These people may simply be unable to change their views, stubbornly believing that witches are evil, and want to escape this place."

"Even so, they are still your potential enemies," Barov insisted.

If Roland encountered this group of people on the battlefield, he would not hesitate to defeat them, but to arbitrarily wield the butcher's knife and kill a group of civilians because of backward thinking and conflicting ideas was a huge psychological obstacle for him. After hesitating for a moment, he finally rejected the proposal. "I will have Nightingale interrogate these fleeing people. If there are any spies or scouts hidden within, seize them and hang them, and expel the others from the Western Territory."

Barov lowered his head with a flicker in his eyes, and only responded after a long time, "As you command, Your Highness."

"Is there anything else to report?"

"Nothing for the time being, Your Highness," he coughed twice, "I will go and handle the housing allocation."

"No hurry, these vexing matters can be dealt with slowly," Roland opened his eyes, stood up, and said, "Come with me to take some photos first, to relax."

"Pho...tos?" Barov was stunned.

"You'll find out soon enough,"

The prince smiled.

In the castle's forecourt, he had Carter, Iron Axe, and Soraya called over as well. In one corner of the courtyard were several wooden boards, four or five meters long and wide, with a piece of canvas covering the ground.

"Border Town is not very big at the moment, but when the land to the south is developed and connected to Longsong Stronghold, its size will be dozens of times what it is now. If you rely solely on walking, it will take a day or two to walk from east to west, so there must be something that can quickly travel between places. Raising horses is expensive, and it's impossible for every subject to spend a lot of time learning how to ride a horse." Roland said as he uncovered the canvas, "I plan to promote this mode of transportation in the town, it's simple to use and cheaper than a horse."

"This... what is this?" Carter was immediately attracted to the novel contraption, "Two wheels, an iron frame, is it a cart?"

"With two wheels standing side by side, even a cart would be difficult to keep balanced," Barov shook his head, "I can't see how it can replace horses."

Only Iron Axe remained silent, quietly waiting for the prince to explain.

Roland smiled, "This thing is called a bicycle, I'll demonstrate it to you and you'll understand." He stood with both feet on the pedals, struck a standard starting pose, pushed off with one foot, and rode the bike around the courtyard's stone pavement.

With Anna's precision processing and Soraya's coating technology, it was not difficult to manually manufacture a bicycle. Its principles and structure had no difficulty. The parts that needed rubber were replaced with coating - for example, the inner tube was drawn directly on a roll of paper tube, for which Roland had specially made a simple air pump. The outer tires and brakes used a harder cowhide coating, the frame was made of hollow iron pipes, the brake lines were made of rust-proof copper wire, and the only trouble was the chain, which could only be cut and shaped one by one by Anna before being connected into a long string. As for the kind of classical bicycle with pedals directly installed on the wheels, he simply didn't like it.

After riding around a circle, Roland pressed the brakes, easily jumped off, and looked at his dumbfounded subordinates, feeling extremely proud in his heart. This was the superior mount that a transmigrator should have. Compared to horses that had to be tamed and fed, bicycles were much more enjoyable.

"I plan to open a bicycle factory in the industrial area to produce this mode of transportation. Not only do I need to recruit workers, but I also need to do publicity to promote it to the entire territory as soon as possible," Roland explained simply, "This is why I called you here. You must first learn how to ride a bicycle, and then have Soraya Xiaojie paint your riding appearance on the wooden boards. I want all the subjects to see that as long as they spend one or two gold royals, they can have the same mount as the lord, the First Army commander, the chief knight, and the city hall director."