I'm not a lord

Chapter 221 The Triumph of the System

"Hello, principal."

"Hello principal!"

As Lynn walked through the newly built school for government officials, the teachers passing by recognized him and bowed to him.

Last winter, Lynn worked as a guest teacher at a school in White Bear County, personally teaching students the Wilderness Language and even compiling related teaching materials.

Today, the best students either graduate and become officials in their territories or stay at the school as teachers.

Most of these young teachers are under twenty years old and have only studied at the school for about half a year. Becoming a teacher is like being forced into it, and they even have to study other courses while teaching.

But there's no other way; Lynn is desperately short of manpower right now. The territory is in dire need of rebuilding, so they have to make do with the available talent for the time being.

It's better to have someone use it than no one use it.

Sanhe City can provide some talent, but the number is quite limited.

After all, it's just a city with a permanent population of 8,000, mainly composed of artisans and manual laborers. How many talented people can it possibly have?

The clergy, who make up more than half of the high-ranking personnel, have not yet fully submitted to Lynn and are only willing to serve as officials within the city.

Lynn didn't care too much about it; the daily management of a city also requires professional talent.

He transferred notary Victor and others from the city to serve as court secretaries, and these vacant positions naturally needed to be filled.

The Church of Three Rivers is now like a wildcat that has been cut off from its eggs. Its wealth, land, army, and population have all been swallowed up by Lynn. It can no longer be arrogant and can only gradually return to the honest and docile state of a house cat.

As long as the city council's top officials are all Lynn's men, he doesn't need to worry about these priests, who have lost their leader, causing trouble again.

As they walked through the wooden corridor of the new school building, Lynn said to Timo, the sixth brother, "You don't need to worry. Do your best to expand the school and recruit students. Don't think about saving me money. The last thing I lack right now is money. If you need anything, just report it to the Ministry of Finance."

"Since you've said so, I'll ask the Ministry of Finance for another sum of money tomorrow."

The sixth brother didn't stand on ceremony with Lynn either.

Currently, tuition and fees are waived for most students in government schools, yet they still have to support hundreds of teachers and students, resulting in staggering monthly expenses.

"Just ask for it! As long as it passes Leah's approval, you can ask for as much as you want!"

Lynn is currently short of people, soldiers, and equipment, but the one thing he has no shortage of is money.

The wealth accumulated over a century by Baihe County's six counties, the church in Sanhe City, and the city's wealthy merchant class all fell into his hands.

Lynn didn't even need to go to the warehouse in person; just by looking at the inventory list compiled by Yagena, he could tell how wealthy he was.

That's the allure of war.

Only war can achieve the effect of turning someone else's entire fortune into your own these days.

With money, one must naturally spend it, and spend it wisely, in accordance with Lynn's development strategy.

Compared to an army where money can be spent to produce results, the return on investment for building schools is obviously much longer.

Lynn has to spend a lot of money to invest in the school.

He has brought a complete set of advanced technologies and efficient systems to the Baihe River Basin and is also vigorously promoting new ideas on the integration of different ethnic groups.

These technologies, systems, and ideas all need to be inherited and disseminated.

Schools and students are the best medium.

Lynn's expansion abroad was not only a political and military victory, but also a comprehensive victory in technology, institutions, and ideas.

He must overwhelm the existing aristocratic system in the North in every way in order to completely replace it.

As he expands outwards, the new things he brings with him will also expand and be exported, further consolidating the new territories he occupies.

Therefore, the construction of the school and its external expansion are completely complementary.

Lynn's substantial investment in the school is like wheat seeds sown in a field in spring; with patient irrigation and cultivation, an unprecedented harvest will surely follow in autumn.

Currently, the territory and population he occupies are at most the size of an earldom, and his overall size and strength can only be considered so-so in the entire Northern Territory.

The seeds of division in the North were sown as early as the establishment of the three duchies at the very beginning of the nation's founding.

Of course, this was a last resort. Without power and titles, who would help the first King of the North to expand outwards?
The Northern Kingdom is now shattered into pieces.

Influential nobles all have their own ambitions and plans.

Unifying the North, which has been divided for nearly two hundred years, is destined to be a difficult journey.

What Lynn needs to do now is to lay a solid foundation and cultivate as many followers as possible to help him accomplish the great cause of unification.

Afterwards, he went to the elementary school next to the official school.

The early childhood education school has now begun accepting applications, but it charges relatively high tuition fees.

Because the teachers are teaching young children, they all have some experience in education or managing people.

This included the three butlers sent by Princess Chloris, as well as several tutors that Lynn hired from Three Rivers.

Timo, the sixth son, remains the executive principal, while Lynn holds the title of principal for life.

The school currently has more than 100 students, mostly from middle-class or higher families in Baihe territory, such as stewards or officers and cavalrymen in the army.

This school can both replenish the talent pool for the future development of the territory and serve as a means to recover the Golden Shield.

Lynn currently has no plans to make compulsory education universal.

Being one step ahead of the times makes you a genius; taking two more steps forward often makes you a madman.
Compulsory education is far ahead of its time, completely mismatched with extremely backward productivity, and there are not enough jobs to absorb such a large student population.

Besides, agriculture in classical times relied heavily on the labor force, and even teenagers were a source of labor, weren't they? It's better to let them stay home and help their parents farm for the time being.

The stability of the territory still rests on a stable and abundant food supply.

After inspecting Heron County, Lynn stayed that night at the former Baron's castle on the riverbank.

He had actually considered demolishing some of the six baron castles remaining in the White River Territory.

A sturdy castle was a symbol of the feudal era of knights, and its superior defensive capabilities often deterred attackers from launching a siege.

In territorial wars of the same level, castles are almost impossible to breach.

Moreover, the castle not only had military functions, but was also the political core and main warehouse of the entire territory. It usually stored most of the surplus grain in the territory, enough to feed the garrison for two or three years without any problem.

The great nobles throughout the North recognized the importance of castles early on and therefore strictly limited the construction of castles by their subordinates.

Why did the barons of the White River Valley only build one castle before?
Is it because they don't want to repair more? Of course it's because they can't repair it!
The Duke only granted them the quota to build one castle; building any additional castles would be tantamount to treason. As for the castles built by the Duke of the Marsh after consolidating power, such as the thirty or so small castles in Turbulent County, they were entirely designed from the perspective of defending against external enemies.

These castles abandoned administrative and storage functions, typically storing only small amounts of food and drinking water, and accommodating at most twenty or thirty people.

Not only could they not pose a threat to centralized rule, but they also needed to rely on the court for sustenance and had to be completely loyal to the duke.

From the perspective of centralization alone, Lynn would certainly want to demolish all the castles on his territory, keeping only one or two.

But later he thought it wouldn't be bad to stay.

Given the terrain of Baihe Territory, if it were to encounter a powerful external invasion, he and his army would be able to rely on the castle to put up a step-by-step resistance.

In addition, the existence of the castle can continue to intimidate the local people, especially the two barbarian tribes that have migrated to the White River Territory.

Although both tribes handed over hostages and sent able-bodied men from their tribes to join the army for Lynn's use.

However, even the bare minimum of precautions is still necessary.

The total population of the wasteland people on the territory has quietly exceeded ten thousand. If something really happens, the destructive power will be absolutely extraordinary.

Currently, the castles in each county are not managed by the county magistrate, but by Lynn's personal guard. In essence, they are his private property, or rather, his 'palaces'.

Each castle is garrisoned by a local defense force under the command of the Royal Guard, usually a ten-man elite squad for each castle, along with corresponding maids, cooks and other service personnel.

In case of an emergency, this squad can cooperate with the local security forces to defend the castle and await reinforcements.

Late at night, Lynn listened to the incessant rain outside the window, pondered her future plans, and fell into a deep sleep alone in bed.

The next morning, he woke up on time and saw a ray of bright sunlight shining through the glass window, casting large patches of light on the floor tiles.

He got up, got out of bed, and pushed open the castle window. Fresh air, carrying the fragrance of earth and grass, rushed in.

The sky cleared, the rain stopped, and the dark clouds that had loomed over us last night vanished without a trace overnight.

This means the harvest season in the North is approaching, and naturally, it will bring endless war.

Lynn remained calm and proceeded north for inspection as planned.

Following the road overseen by Lao Ai, he and his personal guard arrived in Chixi County at noon that day.

Compared to four months ago, Chixi County has undergone almost earth-shattering changes.

To the west of the territory, near the forest, dozens of iron smelting furnaces were built, from which wisps of black smoke rose.

Both main streams were dammed, and large brick and stone workshops sprang up near the dams.

Eric, the blacksmith in charge of smelting and forging, led Lynn on a tour of the workshop area, explaining as he went:

"Master, this is the newly built armor workshop. The blacksmiths you transferred from Sanhe City are all extremely skilled. Currently, two of them are already able to forge half-body plate armor."

By September, the workshop's production of plate armor uppers should be able to increase to twenty pieces per month, while the production of plate armor lowers is expected to increase to forty to fifty pieces per month.

Before they captured Three Rivers, even if Eric and his two sons swung their hammers until their arms ached, they could only provide a maximum of four sets of half-body plate armor and less than ten sets of plate armor each month.

With the new large-scale armor workshop now in operation and the emergency assistance of the skilled blacksmiths of Sanhe City, its production capacity has increased to five times its original level.

Moreover, as the new blacksmiths gradually become familiar with the production process, Eric believes there is still room for improvement in production capacity.

That's the beauty of authoritarianism.

For the armor workshop in Chixi County, Lynn mobilized all available manpower and resources in his territory.

The carpenters who made the waterwheels were all recruited from various counties to ensure their skills were superb, and they were all put under the command of Torima, the former head carpenter of the White Bear Territory.

Workers for the dam and workshops were recruited locally, and Lynn even exempted Chih-hsi County from road construction duties for this purpose.

It was only through investing regardless of cost that this new workshop, which includes more than twenty water-powered forging hammers, was completed in just a few months.

The blacksmiths in the workshop were also recruited from all over the territory, including more than twenty intermediate and above blacksmiths from Three Rivers City, which can be described as a gathering of elites.

This massive investment resulted in a significant increase in armor production capacity.

At the same time, Lynn also transferred a large number of people from the High Cliff tribe and the western suburbs of Three Rivers City for iron mining and ore smelting.

The permanent population of Chixi County has now increased dramatically from more than 5,000 in March to more than 13,000.

The small town located in the center of the territory, whose area has increased eightfold in a short period of time, still cannot accommodate the massive influx of people.

With the influx of people, the food supply in Chixi County has gradually become tight.

Lynn had to mobilize surplus grain reserves from other counties to solve the local food problem.

With a large population, industries such as iron smelting, forging, commerce, and transportation will flourish, and by next year, this small town may be upgraded to a real city.

Lynn smiled and patted the blacksmith foreman's exaggeratedly muscular arm: "Well done, keep it up."

The praise was brief, but it greatly encouraged Eric.

His hard work and sweat finally earned him the master's approval.

Eric did not become complacent because of this achievement.

He knew that everything he currently possessed was a gift from the master.

This includes his advanced forging knowledge, as well as his current status and reputation in the territory.

After visiting the workshop area and meeting some elderly people from White Bear County, Lynn rushed to inspect the ironworks that afternoon.

Iron smelting technology was still relatively backward at that time, but its advantage was that it was easy to learn and master.

Under the careful guidance of experienced blacksmiths, the workers who moved from the western suburbs of Sanhe City have been able to smelt qualified bloomery iron.

They divided into groups of four and worked together around a blast furnace that was more than a meter high.

Typically, one person would stoke the fire to smelt iron, another would blow air into the furnace, and two others would wield wooden hammers to strike the iron ingots.

Freshly forged bloomery iron resembles a large clump of black sponge, hence its other name, sponge iron.

It needs to be continuously hammered with a wooden mallet to solidify into a rough iron ingot shaped like a cuboid.

Once these iron ingots reach the blacksmith, they still need to undergo multiple quenching and hammering processes before they can become relatively pure wrought iron ingots that can be forged into artifacts.

As Lynn watched the sparks fly from the rough iron ingot beneath the wooden hammer, hundreds of kilometers away in the city of Tot, the Duke of the Marsh set off eastward once more.

In the southern city of Sanhe, Lao Sanyang had already led two infantry battalions westward.

(End of this chapter)