I'm not a lord

Chapter 237 The Hungry Sharks from the Southern Territory

Lynn held Leah's hand and whispered, "I love any child you give birth to."

He didn't really care about the gender of the child, and he doted on the girl that Yagena gave birth to.

Of course, it would be best if Leah could have a boy.

Being a boy signifies the right to inherit, which can further solidify the emerging power of Baihe Territory.

What? You're saying this child is illegitimate?
What did it do to you if you were an illegitimate child?

In the North, even bastards can become kings.

Moreover, such things are not observed in Lynn's territory.

Traditional aristocratic lords faced numerous constraints, with powerful nobles above them and smaller lords below, making it difficult for them to have absolute authority.

But Lynn wasn't a traditional lord; his power in his territory was limitless. He could change the law at will, and naturally, he could also change the inheritance law at will.

Lia gently stroked her prominent pregnant belly, her eyes sparkling with anticipation: "My lord, Yagena has already given birth to a girl, and I hope this is a boy."

Leah has always been sensitive to politics.

It appears she is about to give birth to Lynn's child, and her brother Leon has become the new mayor of Three Rivers City, making the family's future very bright.

However, her family's status in the territory is actually declining significantly.

In the past, Lynn only had the territory of White Bear Territory and Shallow Beach Territory.

Lia herself controls the territory's finances, while her brother Leon monopolizes most of the territory's trade. The siblings, one inside and one outside, control the territory's economic lifeline.

However, Leah has now essentially given up her work at the Ministry of Finance.

This stems from both objective physical factors and her conscious relinquishment of power.

Leah knew, of course, that she, as a lover, could not control the territory's finances forever. It would be better to take the opportunity to retire gracefully and leave Lynn with a good impression of not being power-hungry.

What she hopes for and pursues is not this small amount of power; she cannot lose sight of the bigger picture for the sake of small gains.

As for her brother Leon, the mayor's position may not last long. The mayor of Three Rivers City still serves a two-year term, and it is very difficult to be re-elected.

Furthermore, Leon could not possibly monopolize trade in the entire White River Territory. He was merely a black market merchant in the past, and his connections, channels, and capital were far inferior to those of the city's top wealthy merchants.

As Lynn's territory continued to expand, more and more factions joined his cause.

Even in the small city of Sanhe, there are many hills inside.

Victor's two brothers have been making waves lately, not only holding high positions but also sending women from their families into Lynn's court, achieving success on both fronts.

Rumors even circulated in Three Rivers that Lya had fallen out of favor and that Victor's brother, Marcel, would one day replace Leon as mayor.

While these are unfounded claims, once there are many factions within an organization, there's no need for the ruler to deliberately suppress them; the original faction's share of the overall power pie will naturally decline.

Besides her family's status, Leah was also worried about her position in Lynn's heart.

Lynn has not officially married yet, and as his power expands and his status rises, more and more people will be eyeing the position next to him.

The Duke of the Valley wanted to send his eldest daughter to the Earl of White River's bed, along with a huge dowry and astonishing diplomatic concessions.

However, Lynn didn't approve of his daughter and declined the marriage proposal.

When Leah first learned about this, she was quite happy.

Even if the Duke of the Vale is in dire straits, he is still one of the three great dukes of the North.

His daughter comes from a noble family and is said to be quite beautiful. If she really marries Lynn, what chance will Lia have?

In terms of birth, dowry, and help to men, the Duke of the Valley's daughter could completely overwhelm her.

Kria's joy lasted only a moment.
She immediately realized that if even the Duke's daughter was rejected, what kind of woman would be needed to satisfy Lynn's requirements for a wife?

A princess? Or a queen?

The thought of this gave Leah a headache. She was very ambitious, but her background and origins did not match her ambition.

Even if she did give birth to a boy, the probability of him becoming the heir in the future would be extremely low.

But all in all, having a boy is definitely better than having a girl. At least he is Lynn's first son, so he naturally has a very important position.

That night, Lynn spent the night in Yagena's bedroom.

Yagna was very excited and chatted with Lynn for a long time afterwards.

He has indeed been spending less time with Yagena lately.

But there's nothing that can be done about it. No matter how high his status or how powerful he is, the number of hours in a day won't increase; it's fixed at twenty-four hours.

Daily routines and handling official business take up a lot of time, leaving women with very limited time.

Even during this limited time, a large number of women were watching.

However, Yagena always held a special place in Lynn's heart.

After all, she was his first woman in Baihe Territory, and she even gave birth to his first child.

Moreover, the shallow water territory claim that Agna brought saved Lynn a lot of trouble, helping him to easily occupy the shallow water territory while also shielding him from the questions from Golden Deer Castle, thus buying him precious time for peace and growth.

The main thing is that Yagena is very sensible; she doesn't fight or grab, and she only accepts what Lynn gives her.

The next day, Lynn got up early as usual, did his morning exercise and had breakfast before starting to deal with official documents.

After processing a few official documents, he then went out to inspect Kawanuma Prefecture.

Previously, Lynn had relocated more than 3,000 serfs from the western suburbs of Three Rivers to River Marsh County.

These serfs have not yet been allocated land, but are harvesting the lord's public fields under the guidance of stewards and estate managers.

Because Lynn provided them with ample food rations and promised to distribute land after the autumn harvest, these serfs were highly motivated to work.

In less than a week, they completed the harvesting and drying of the public fields.

However, due to the exceptionally high grain yield this year, the existing granaries in Kawanuma Prefecture were insufficient, and large quantities of grain could only be piled up on the side of the threshing ground, as there were simply no warehouses available to store it.

So, under old Albert's leadership, these foreign serfs immediately threw themselves into the construction of the granary.

Kawanuma Prefecture boasts a superior geographical location and excellent transportation conditions, with the main agricultural production area to the north and the waterway transportation hub of Mikawa City to the south.

The granary designed by Lynn will be the most advanced and largest granary in the world, capable of storing enough food to feed 30,000 people for a year.

In his future plans, Kawanuma Prefecture will become the military food supply center for the war effort, and the stored grain can be transported by water along the Shizuku River and its tributaries to most of the northern region.

Currently, Lynn only has a professional army of over four thousand men, but this is clearly just the beginning. With each expansion of his territory, the number of soldiers will increase accordingly.

In order to prepare for larger-scale battles in the future, Lynn must plan ahead.

The warehouse was located on a small hill in the eastern part of Kawanuma Prefecture, about one kilometer from the Shirakawa River.

This is a safe distance to avoid flooding during the rainy season, while also not being too far from transportation routes.

To the north of the warehouse is a narrow waterway that connects to the Shirakawa River. This waterway is an irrigation canal for Kawanuma Prefecture and will be widened after the warehouse is completed, becoming an artificial canal that can be navigable by boats.

When Lynn arrived at the construction site, old Albert was directing the serfs to dig the foundation.

“Sir, this place was carefully selected by me. It was inspected before construction began. There is no groundwater even three meters underground.”

Although Old Ai still holds the position of county magistrate of River Marsh County, he has essentially become Lynn's personal contractor.

He was involved in road construction, dock construction, and now he's directing the construction of a large grain silo.

Having worked in civil engineering for so long, Lao Ai has become quite skilled, mastering various architectural techniques with ease, and even acquiring some ability to draw blueprints.

During his inspection of the construction site, Lynn patiently explained the precautions to Old Ai:

"After the foundation is dug, pay special attention to the construction of the moisture-proof layer at the bottom of the granary. Everything must be built according to the drawings I gave you. The foundation walls should be paved with large rocks, and the spaces between the walls should be filled with lime mortar."

Lynn must take the granary matter seriously. In the future, all the tax grain in the entire Baihe Territory will be concentrated in the granary of Heuma County. It is not only the majority of his wealth, but also the foundation for his external expansion.

These days, the biggest enemy of food storage is dampness.

Due to inadequate moisture-proofing technology, no one, from lords to farmers to city merchants, was willing to store grain for long periods.

Grain stored in a warehouse for a year will lose at least 30% of its value. Who in their right mind would store grain? It's safe to brew it into liquor, which steadily increases its value. Storing grain is just a foolish thing to do.

This is why grain prices surged dramatically as soon as the war started last year, and no one had any surplus grain.

The lack of a food storage habit led to another chain reaction: large-scale wars in the North often only occurred in the autumn.

Since no one had stored up any food and there was no systematic military food transportation system, they decided to fight again during the autumn harvest and just plunder wherever they could.

But Lynn's army could not do that; his goal was to rule over every piece of land he conquered, and all the people in that land.

Any soldier who dares to plunder civilians and tarnish the reputation of the esteemed Earl of Shirakawa will be severely punished by military law.

His army not only had to refrain from looting, but also needed to be able to launch campaigns year-round, which required the establishment of an efficient logistics system.

Grain depots are the starting point of the logistics system, so they must be built and their quality must be guaranteed.

Old Ai, accustomed to Lynn's meticulousness and rigor in construction, replied, "Sir, I've kept everything you said firmly in mind, and I guarantee there won't be any problems."

He then added, "Including various craftsmen, there are currently 900 people on the construction site, and the granary is expected to be completed in late November."

The construction site for the grain depot is only so big; we can't use more laborers. Nine hundred people would even be a bit too many.

But in order to finish repairing the granary before the snowfall, Lao Ai did everything he could to arrange the construction.

Lynn was still not satisfied and instructed, "After the autumn harvest in River Marsh County is over, you'd better take some time to repair the castle."

This castle in Kawanuma Prefecture is, after all, of baronial scale, and its main function is to defend against foreign enemies. The interior space is very limited and the buildings are quite old.

Lynn's court is currently expanding rapidly, with not only more women but also a number of court officials.

Kawanuma Prefecture is considered the 'capital' of his territory, where important institutions and departments are located, so the castle will inevitably need to be renovated and expanded.

Currently, there is a shortage of both labor and time, so we can only make do with repairs for now and wait until the off-season next summer to carry out major construction.

After inspecting the granary construction site, Lynn, as usual, rode his horse around River Marsh County before returning to the castle at noon for lunch.

Just as we sat down to start eating, an urgent message arrived from Sanhe City by fast horse.

"Is Otto from the Southern Territory about to make a move?"

Lynn was slightly surprised after reading the intelligence.

According to intelligence reports, merchants from the South have sent word that Otto III of the Kingdom of Rui is raising ships to sail north and join the battle for the crown of the North.

Since Lynn was inland in the North, the intelligence he obtained was naturally outdated.

If we extrapolate the timeline, Otto had already taken action at least a month ago.

Even in the worst-case scenario, Otto is probably already at sea.

Standing next to Lynn, the clerk Victor sighed, "It's like a shark smelling blood; the Southern Territory has finally taken action."

Although Victor had never been to the Southern Reach, he had studied at Amber Harbor for five years, met many people from the Southern Reach, and had a deep understanding of the various kingdoms of the Southern Reach.

Victor then said seriously, "My lord, if the Northern Crown falls into Otto's hands, he will become your most formidable enemy."

As far as I know, the people of the South are always exceptionally hungry for wealth and territory. It was a group of adventurers and colonists from the South who established the Kingdom of the North.

Once Naoto opens a breach in the North, the sharks from the South will swarm in, tearing apart every prey they see, until they devour the entire North.

Victor's concerns were not unfounded, and this was the fundamental reason why Otto's previous diplomatic attempt to seize the throne in the North had failed.

Behind Otto lies the Kingdom of Rui, and the nobles and knights of the Southern Territory.

The nobles of the Crownlands were terrified of these southerners, which is why they preferred to elect their bastard son, Maurice, as king rather than support Otto in inheriting the throne.

The population density in the South is much higher than in the North, and the struggles between the regions are also more intense.

Amidst brutal political and military struggles, a large number of displaced nobles emerged in the southern region.

These impoverished nobles either became mercenaries, bandits, or adventurers.

They were madly craving wealth and status.

The establishment of the Northern Kingdom stemmed from this deep-seated hunger.

To satisfy their own desires, those impoverished nobles were even capable of destroying the civilization of the barbarians and building a kingdom that lasted for two hundred years on the ruins of that civilization.

After its establishment, the Northern Kingdom absorbed a large number of impoverished nobles from the Southern Kingdom.

Two hundred years later, the cycle begins again.

If Otto could truly conquer the Northern Kingdom, he would only need to raise his arm in the Southern Kingdom, and instantly a large number of impoverished nobles would spontaneously gather under his banner.

These hungry and thirsty sharks are bound to flood the entire northern region once again.

(End of this chapter)