Black Iron Crown

More than a month has passed since the siege of the squires, and the business of the imperial capital gradually began to recover. Merchants who had been away for a long time returned to the imperial capital with their goods, and the depressed streets gradually became prosperous again.

The weather in October is very cool. Even the imperial capital in the central part of the country has already let go of the unbearably hot summer and entered the refreshing and cool autumn.

At the same time, the wheat that has grown in the fields for a whole year has turned golden, and some vegetable fields have already been harvested.

The serfs were slowly harvesting grain among the fields. They looked listless and very inefficient.

These serfs were all self-cultivating farmers near the imperial capital at the time. After the old emperor came here and established the imperial capital, he took back a lot of nearby land or distributed it to his soldiers.

And many squires, yeoman farmers, these aborigines lost their land and became serfs.

However, Emperor Caffett was not a short-sighted person. He knew that the productivity brought by self-cultivation farmers was far stronger than that of serfs.

Working for yourself and working for the lord are two completely different mentality and efficiency.

So after taking away part of the land and distributing it to their own people, they kept some gentry and self-cultivating farmers and asked them to pay taxes for the royal family.

The location of the imperial capital is almost entirely the most fertile land within the entire empire. Not only is the land fertile, but it has also been reclaimed in large areas.

The area of ​​arable land directly controlled by the royal family even reached 5 million mu, which required the cultivation of hundreds of thousands of serfs, and this was also the reason why the royal family was strong, not to mention that the gentry and owner farmers also had to pay taxes to the royal family.

There is not much difference between the northern border and the imperial capital. The crops are also mature in October, and the residents are harvesting in the fields with iron sickles.

Although they are sweating profusely, they are very tired, but their hearts are full of joy. This year is another harvest year.

The wheat seeds that His Majesty popularized at the beginning were more cold-resistant than the previous wheat, and the harvest was better. Thinking of this, the residents were even more grateful to Rainer.

After a whole day of hard work, these residents would take the harvested grain home in an ox cart or a horse-drawn cart in the evening, beat the grain hard with a flail and then dry it for storage.

The rest of the process is to send it to the mill in the village to grind it into flour and then process it into bread, which can be eaten, and even the wheat can be boiled and eaten directly.

The area of ​​arable land that has been planted with grain in the northern border has reached 1.5 million mu, which means that each person has to bear the labor of nearly 100 mu of land. If it is not for the help of iron farm tools and livestock, this is absolutely impossible. possible.

But this year's harvest work should be much simpler, because Leiner brought back a full 50,000 people from the south, and they have already invested in the harvest in exchange for some rewards to survive the coming cold winter.

Earl Redmara took a group of upstarts and the few remaining upstarts under their command, as well as some soldiers left in the imperial capital, and followed the army of the Kingdom of Bukden on the road to the west.

Two hundred heavy cavalry and one thousand temporarily recruited veterans were left in the imperial capital to guard.

Anyway, they don't have much to defend right now, there are defenders in every pass castle, and 1,200 people left in the imperial capital are enough to maintain order.

The royal lords in the north have just withdrawn their troops and are unlikely to send troops again.

The lords in the south had already been maimed by Leiner, and it was impossible to send troops. This is why the imperial capital dared to use troops against the Kingdom of Bazalan unscrupulously.

Except for the first march on horseback, King Satri sat in his luxurious carriage drawn by four horses. The beautiful maid came out to serve.

Apart from him, the earls of the Kingdom of Bookern were similar. Although their carriages were not as comfortable as those of King Sutter Road, they were 10,000 times better than riding a horse. This kind of life inevitably made the upstarts extremely envious.

But it is a pity that although the empire has gradually become corrupt in recent years, the original nature of military aristocrats has not been lost, and people will laugh at them when they sit in the carriage after marching.

Earl Redmara frowned when he heard the coquettish laughter and the man's obscene laughter from the carriage behind him from time to time.

"That's it, can we fight?" Earl Redmara had a big question mark in his heart.

At this time, King Emalu had broken through more than 20 castles, that is, more than 20 baron counties.

Whether it is the property of the common people in the village or the wealth accumulated by the lords in the castle, they have all fallen into the hands of the Bazalan Kingdom.

King Emalu alone has amassed wealth worth more than a thousand gold coins, and the rest of the vassals have also shared a lot, each of whom has at least a few hundred gold coins.

For the Kingdom of Bazalan, this is already a huge amount of income.

Although the Bazalan Kingdom is not short of supplies, after all, the population is small, and the commerce is not well-developed. The income level is better than that of the baronies in the north. Hundreds of gold coins are their decades of territorial income.

King Emalu looked at the mountain of gold coins in his tent, and couldn't hold back the smile on his face. Even if he was a king, the gold coins he could accumulate in a year were only three to four hundred gold coins.

After all, he has to support many courtiers and troops, grooms and horses. Although the income is large, the expenses are also greater.

With this money, he can live a more luxurious life, and it is not impossible to even form an army again.

"Pass down the order and continue to move forward tomorrow. There is still more wealth ahead for us to harvest!"

After more than a month and nearly two months of marching, the army from the imperial capital finally arrived at the territory of the first western lord.

"Thank you Holy Father, you are finally here!"

When the lord saw the golden lion flag with a red background fluttering in the wind, he couldn't help but burst into tears.

The threat of the Kingdom of Bazalan hung above their heads like a sword of Damocles, and they were beaten by the enemy to the bottom of their castle at some point.

Although the western lords have betrayed the imperial capital, most of them can only be regarded as idiots who cannot afford it.

In terms of financial resources, it is incomparable with the southern lords, and in terms of combat effectiveness, it is only a little stronger than the southerners. When the rebellion was suppressed, after the southern lords were put down, they immediately begged for surrender.

It can be seen from this that this group of people actually has no fighting power, almost like grass on the wall, no wonder they are so weak when facing the Kingdom of Bazalan.

Soon, news spread that the imperial army had arrived. The army did not stop, and led the lord and his army to the place where the Bazalan Kingdom's army was.

The news cannot be concealed from others. The Kingdom of Bazalan is also very concerned about what is happening inside the enemy army, and it is easy to hear the news that the imperial army has arrived.

"Hey, this decaying empire is already so weak, do you still dare to send troops to fight us?"

The lords of the Kingdom of Bazaran didn't pay attention to the army sent by the empire at all, and said mockingly.