Chapter 12: Payment of compensation

Of course, once the agreement had been signed, it was up to the people below to follow it up.

The butler, Victor Durand, and the butler of the Baron of Lorient counted the population of the town in preparation for the ransom payment, and he was also responsible for the subsequent cession of half of the town's land.

Lord Pierre Rogeron and Knight Abel travelled to the capital of France to complete the formalities of Christine's inheritance of the title of Baron. As they passed through the city of Rennes, they also asked the Church of the Goddess of Fortune to send a priest.

No nobleman, including the Baron of Lorient, could possibly have so many gold coins at home. Although the nobles earned a lot, they also spent a lot. A banquet, a hunting dog, or a dress and jewellery for a noble lady were all very expensive.

If there were not enough gold coins, the wealth had to be balanced with other possessions. The priest of the Goddess of Commerce was a good judge of value, and could determine a fair price for jewellery, famous paintings and works of art, and weapons.

Even if Christine doesn't need as many physical items, she can sell them to the subordinate merchant guild of the Church of Fortune at a 10% discount. The priests of the Goddess of Fortune are encouraged to trade.

Yes, the Gold Coin Merchant Guild affiliated with the Church of Fortune is the largest merchant guild on the mainland and has operations in several countries.

However, this process takes a relatively long time. It takes at least a week from the time the priest arrives until all the appraisals have been completed. Christine doesn't want to waste time here.

So she has generously handed the town back to Olika first, allowing him to arrange the family's relocation in advance, leaving her Uncle Liam and Butler Victor to deal with the aftermath, before returning to the territory herself.

Of course, before returning, Christine had to visit the four villages newly incorporated into the territory and accept the allegiance of the subjects under the witness of the priest of the God of Order, which was an essential procedure.

Ten days later, Liam and Victor returned with the other party's war booty, totalling 120,000 gold coins, more than 20 war horses, more than 30 pack horses and more than 20 plough oxen.

Kristin didn't care for the Baron of Lorient's collection of jewellery and weapons, so she sold them all to the Chamber of Commerce of the Church of the Goddess of Fortune for gold coins.

Next came the rewards for meritorious service, and a victory banquet was essential.

As there were not many dead or injured soldiers, there was not much money for pensions. Giving a gold coin to each soldier who fought and an extra gold coin to those who distinguished themselves would be enough to praise the lord's generosity.

The knights received 200 gold coins each for their bravery in battle, while the lord and the squires were only sent soldiers, so they each received 100 gold coins.

Don't think that Christine is stingy for receiving so much land and gold and giving only a trivial reward. In fact, there are long-established rules for rewards and punishments.

Firstly, the lord grants fiefs to barons and knights, and they in turn lead troops to fight for the lord, so the spoils of war, however great, naturally belong to the lord.

Secondly, the lord was responsible for the logistics of the war and the compensation of casualties. The war between Baron Stewart and the Baron of Lorient lasted less than half a month and cost very little, but if it had lasted for months or even a year, like other wars between nobles, with hundreds or even thousands of casualties, the combined costs of food, medical treatment, compensation, weapons maintenance and replacement, etc. would have been enormous.

In the end, the rewards for the knights were based on their military achievements. The two sides fought a battle in which more than 40 people were killed or injured, including more than 30 people killed by Christine's 'Fireball' spell. With no military accomplishments, they simply went to the battlefield for a walk, and the reward of 200 gold coins was the upper limit based on the reward rules.

As the captured soldier Olika was not redeemed, it was up to Christine whether to release him or keep him as a slave.

She could not bear to keep soldiers who had fought in the war as slaves, but it was also against the rules to just let them go. So, for a year, she made them work as labourers, repairing the public buildings in Longzhao town and the nine villages, as well as the roads between the towns and villages. The villages were not only to be paved with stone slabs, but their walls were to be raised and thickened.

The villages in the Barony of Stewart were relatively wealthy and had stone walls, but they were only 2.5 metres high and 1 metre thick. The villages in Baron Lorient's barony still had half stone, half timber walls. Now they were all to be rebuilt uniformly as 4-metre high, 2-metre thick stone walls, with wooden watchtowers built at the four corners of the village.

Without a wall to protect them, wild animals could easily sneak into the village at night to harm people or eat livestock. Not to mention the existence of monsters even more ferocious than wild animals. That is why every village and town on the continent has a wall, although most of them are made mainly of wood.

Of course, relying on these 300 or so people alone was not enough, but the lord could force the subjects to do corvée labour, which meant that they had to bring their own food and work for the lord for free. This time, since they were building a wall to protect their village and town, no one was lazy.

As a result, the only expenditure for Baron Stewart's estate was the food and tools consumed by the 300 or so people.

With the new war horses, Christine selected another 30 people from the standing soldiers, and together with the previous ones they formed a 50-man cavalry team, equipped with lances, helmets, half-body armour, small round shields, etc. Each person's equipment cost 10 gold coins.

The remaining 200 militia members were all turned into regular soldiers, as they had all been to war before. She could easily afford to support them now that her territory had expanded. As for the militias in the various towns and villages, she simply chose the strongest and trained them.

The regular soldiers had to live in the barracks at the castle, where the nobles provided them with daily food, clothing, weapons and equipment, and the knights were responsible for their training. These soldiers received no pay, but each was given a considerable amount of land for their families to farm, so morale was high.

Christine refined this system further by dividing the soldiers into squads of ten, each with a squad leader who was given twice the land of the ordinary soldiers. Five troops made up a squadron, with the squire's squire as squadron leader and an extra gold coin as a reward.

As they had acquired a number of pack horses, Christine had a carriage designed and built by the craftsmen of the area. It was not cheap, but it was well worth the price.

This two-horse carriage can carry ten heavily armed soldiers in addition to the two drivers, and can carry enough food for three days of fighting. It is also protected from rain and snow by a waterproof roof.

Fighting in the Age of Cold Weapons requires a great deal of physical strength from the soldiers. If their strength drops by at least a third after half a day's march, how can walking be as fast as riding in a carriage?

A total of 30 of these chariots were made. The rest were used for spare parts and to transport food and supplies. In this way, the Territorial Army was fully equipped with mules and horses.

The reason for keeping so many soldiers was that the territory had expanded, especially with the addition of a castle, and someone had to guard it. Secondly, as a mage, she had to go to the mage guild in Leyn City to study, so she was not always in the territory. More soldiers might scare off small fry.

As for the ploughing oxen, of course they can't be slaughtered for steak, so of course they have to be used to open up more land to grow more food.