I'm not a lord

Chapter 377 Post-War Inventory and Strategic Planning

Lynn always keeps her word.

Before the siege began, he declared that he would have lunch in the main building of River Bend Fort at noon today, and now his wish has come true.

However, he did not hold a grand banquet for this luncheon. He simply had the chef prepare a few simple military dishes and invited only a few core generals who participated in the siege.

"Gentlemen, congratulations on capturing the most fortified castle in the North! I raise a toast to you all! But please do not be complacent. The war has only just begun. I hope you will remain calm and continue to fight. We will still have to overcome countless difficulties to achieve our common goal."

This was both Lynn's reminder to his generals and his personal admonition: never let temporary victories go to one's head.

Ultimately, the siege of River Bend was merely an appetizer in the war to unify the North; the real main course had not yet been served.

After a simple lunch, Lynn and his generals returned to their work.

"Yang, send two infantry battalions to take over the small castle on the south bank of Jinghe River, and quickly relocate the population near the castle to Baihe Territory. I will have Leon's fleet cooperate with you. Also, repair the damaged western city wall and the two small castles as soon as possible, so that River Bend's defenses can be restored to pre-war levels."

In order to protect Duke Vasa of the Vale, and to keep the Southerners and Vasa from fighting each other, Lynn certainly couldn't openly meddle in the south bank of the Tranquil River.

He may not be able to occupy the territory, but he will gladly accept the population.

For Lynn, population is even more important than territory; his rear base is currently lacking people the most.

Even in Jinlu County, the most densely populated area, there are still large tracts of high-quality land available for cultivation.

Not to mention the sparsely populated Baihe County, where the population could easily increase four or five times.

As for the defensive system of River Bend Fort, it consists of a large main fort and two smaller castles on both sides of the Tranquil River. Only with these three forts in hand can one truly control this key hub of the Tranquil River.

"Have the General Staff immediately compile a list of prisoners of war, spoils of war, and casualties, especially the list of fallen soldiers. I need to see it before dinner tonight. The bodies of the fallen soldiers also need to be properly preserved, and ships should be dispatched immediately to transport them back to the rear territory and hand them over to local officials for proper burial."

In Lynn's army, soldiers who died in battle were transported back to their hometowns for burial as much as possible, to give the soldiers and their families an explanation.

Returning to one's roots and being buried in one's hometown is a noble tradition on the continent of Dievas.

Nobles with a certain family background would have their own family cemetery. Even if they died in battle in a foreign land, nobles from neighboring territories would take their remains or ashes back for burial.

Ordinary soldiers generally do not enjoy this treatment; they don't even have surnames, so how could they have family cemeteries?
But in Lynn's camp, both soldiers and generals enjoyed this right after they died in battle.

In Bai Xiong County, where he first made his fortune, he even specially chose a scenic, sunny hillside to bury the fallen soldiers who came from there.

As Lynn's territory expanded and the sources of his conscription diversified, this policy spread.

This year, several counties will build similar collective cemeteries.

"Notify Joseph, who is stationed at the main camp, to send two battalions to take over the territory and population in the north of River Bend, capture all the officials and nobles under Otto, and control the dispersal of the local population as much as possible."

In this attack on River Bend Fortress, Lynn actually only mobilized half of his ships, Old Three Yang's First Legion, and half of the Wilderness Legion, with a total force of just over 10,000, which is only twice the size of the city's garrison.

This seems to violate the ancient military strategy of "surrounding the enemy when ten times their strength", but what can Lynn do when he has cannons?
Advanced weapons can indeed completely change the game of warfare.

In real history, as artillery technology matured, there were many instances of weaker forces besieging and capturing fortified cities.

This directly triggered the subsequent castle revolution, giving rise to a new type of fortress called the bastion, which could counter artillery fire.

Currently, Hugh's cavalry corps is on guard northeast of River Bend fort, preventing possible reinforcements from Otto.

Joseph, the fourth brother, led the Second Army Corps to garrison the northern camp as the general reserve.

After assigning military tasks, Lynn began discussing with Victor the establishment of local administrative divisions and the appointment and removal of local officials.

Although the new territory he occupies is only one-sixth of the Crown Territory, it can be divided into two earldoms and five barondoms, and the current total population should be no less than 250,000.

This is the scale after years of war and the exodus of a large number of people; it can only be said that the Crown Territory is indeed wealthy.

Lynn has data on hand; there are over 30,000 refugees who have fled from this region to White River County alone. For example, Lucas's group of refugees originally lived near River Bend.

Victor spread out the simple administrative map he had drawn in his spare time over the past few days. As he pointed at the map, he said, “Your Majesty, I have recently studied the map and believe that this region can be divided into two counties and thirteen districts. Coldwind County will be established with Coldwind Valley as the center, and River Bend County will be established with River Bend Fortress and the riverside area on the north bank.”

Coldwind Valley is the ancestral territory of Earl Coldwind.

Before rising to prominence, Lynn impersonated Roman, the second son of the Cold Wind family, and used this name to take over White Bear County, thus beginning his magnificent journey.

If he has some free time later, he will definitely take a tour of Coldwind Valley.

Lynn carefully examined the map provided by Victor and nodded slightly:

"As for the counties, we will not establish them for now. These places are likely to become front-line battlefields, so it will be easier for Joseph and Young to manage them. It will also make it easier to maintain local security. I have ordered the personnel department of the Imperial Council to select the county magistrates and related officials for the thirteen counties, and a list will be produced soon."

It is customary to impose military control on local areas during wartime, as war brings instability and can easily give rise to destabilizing factors such as thieves and bandits.

Having the military manage local areas can effectively reduce the probability of unrest.

Lynn's good brothers were all very sensible in their actions and knew how to restrain their soldiers so as not to disrupt the normal production and life of the local people.

Moreover, the Crown Territory is flat and almost indefensible, so stationing troops there and building defenses can protect the local people from Otto's raids and harassment.

As for the so-called Ministry of Personnel, it is a new department attached to the Imperial Council. It was established by Lynn during the winter last year and is in charge of the appointment, evaluation, and promotion of local civil servants.

As the business expands, it's natural to set up more departments to manage various affairs.

This personnel department reports directly to Lynn. The minister and several core officials are young officials he promoted from various departments. They hold low positions but wield great power, making it easy for the king to control personnel appointments and dismissals.

Lynn paused, then instructed, "Two weeks from now, the county magistrates of the newly occupied territories will take office one after another. At that time, I will recruit a new legion in these two counties, with a strength of five thousand for the time being. I will also try my best to relocate the families of these soldiers to several counties around Golden Deer, such as Oak County, Canyon County, and Birch County, which can accommodate a large number of people. If other local residents want to leave, we should also make arrangements for them. The Secretariat should come up with a feasible resettlement plan as soon as possible based on the actual situation of each county."

In the past two weeks, Lynn had actually sent officials to investigate the spring planting situation in the newly occupied territories and had also personally visited some estates and villages.

Due to the impact of the war, the completion rate of spring planting in these areas is not high. Many farmers had a batch of grain requisitioned by Otto last winter, and they may not even be able to produce seeds for spring planting.

Even if some farmers managed to squeeze out some food from their rations and sow some seeds, it would be difficult for them to survive until the autumn harvest on the meager surplus of grain.

If Lynn wants to appease the people in this newly occupied territory, he will have to carry out a large-scale disaster relief operation before the autumn harvest.

Instead of transporting food from the rear thousands of miles away, it would be better to directly relocate these people facing food shortages to the rear.

This was undoubtedly a brilliant way to kill multiple birds with one stone. It not only replenished the population in the rear areas but also protected these people from the ravages of the enemy army and quickly established Lynn's lofty image in the hearts of these people.

Victor mentally assessed the remaining grain reserves and replied confidently, "This autumn, several counties in the Swamp Territory will have a bumper harvest, and there is still plenty of grain left from last autumn's harvest. Feeding the people of these two counties should not be a problem."

Before setting out, Lynn, along with Victor and other officials, inspected the Marshlands. Officials in each county were doing their best to promote new technologies. Advanced technologies such as iron plows, composting peat, and seed selection and hole sowing had been rapidly popularized in the Marshlands.

The North has enjoyed favorable weather in recent years, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, the counties of the Marshlands will surely have an unprecedented bumper harvest this year, just like White River County in the past few years.

Lynn sat in a high-backed chair and smiled, “Only when the rear is stable can the soldiers on the front lines fight with peace of mind. In the next few months, our most important task is to build the newly established River Bend County and Coldwind County into a stable rear.”

This task is not difficult in a way; Lynn has already established a basic administrative system that is functioning well.

Every time Lynn occupies a new territory, he only needs to copy and paste the established system to convert the new territory into war potential faster than others.

Otto, however, could not do this. He became king before Lynn and occupied the richest Crown Territory.

However, since he could not directly use bureaucrats to manage this large area and population, he could only enfeoff his nobles to manage it on his behalf.

When he found that he could not raise military funds and food, he could only force these nobles to hand over money and food through various means, and even allowed the army to forcibly requisition food in the local areas.

This approach would certainly be less efficient than Lynn's, and it would also easily lead to local unrest and population loss.

Of course, Otto was aware of this and tried his best to make up for it, and even recruited a number of young civil servants from church schools in the southern region.

But war waits for no one, and Lynn waits for no one either.

When Otto tried to salvage the situation, Lynn's army was already urinating on his head.

By evening, the officers of the General Staff had completed the initial post-war statistics.

A young staff officer reported: "Your Majesty, we captured more than 4,200 enemy soldiers in this battle, most of whom were new recruits Otto had enlisted in the North. Most of the enemy officers from the South were killed in action, and only 29 were captured."

The new army that Otto formed was modeled after Lynn's army, with squads of ten men, companies of fifty men, and battalions of five hundred men.

Most of the squad leaders were from the North, while the company commanders, battalion commanders, and supreme commanders were all from the South.

In other words, of the hundreds of officers from the Southern Border nobles, fewer than thirty survived; the rest, like Earl Schulz, died in battle at River Bend.

It cannot be ruled out that a very small number of officers escaped River Bend Castle by means of diving or other methods, but the post-war count of corpses still provides a glimpse into the bravery of these southern nobles.

This shows that the war-torn southern region was indeed full of martial spirit, and even the lower-ranking nobles were not afraid to die in battle.

Lynn tapped the armrest lightly with his right index finger and asked, "What about our losses?"

The staff officer immediately replied: "Aside from the minor losses of the navy, the First Legion and the Wilderness Legion suffered a total of 331 wounded and 147 killed in action."

Despite it being a siege, Lynn's casualties were not high, totaling less than five hundred.

The defenders suffered few casualties; of their five thousand men, more than four thousand were taken prisoner.

The reason is simple: the siege battle lasted too short a time, starting at nine o'clock and ending before noon.

The only firearms, cannons, were mostly used to bombard the city walls. In such a short time, not many people would die in the era of cold weapons.

In cold weapon combat, most soldier casualties actually occur in the subsequent pursuit battles, while deaths in direct confrontations and fierce battles are relatively few.

After all, the killing range and lethality of cold weapons are relatively limited.

After reporting the casualties on both sides, the staff officer then began to report on the spoils of war captured in the battle.

The largest quantities of these items were naturally various weapons and armor, followed by grain, wine, and coins from the warehouses.

River Bend Fort is only so big, so there's not much that can be stored.

All Lynn could use were the supplies in the warehouse; the captured weapons and armor had to be sent back to the rear to be melted down and reforged.

The weapons and armor used by his army had long been standardized, produced uniformly by the casting and forging departments of Chixi County. The arrows and various parts were mostly of the same specifications, which greatly reduced logistical pressure and ensured the army's continuous combat capability.

That evening, Lynn hosted a grand banquet for the troops at the castle, and each soldier received a sumptuous dinner consisting of bread, wine, and roast meat.

While everyone was enjoying themselves at River Bend Castle, Otto III, far away in Dawa, had just received devastating news from the West.

"River Bend Fort is lost? So quickly? Impossible, absolutely impossible!"

Otto had actually anticipated the possible fall of River Bend, but he didn't believe Lynn could take this fortified city in the North within a week.

"It's fake, it must be fake!"

(End of this chapter)