The boxes that the Aini family had finally put together were turned over everywhere.
In some boxes, there was nothing left, only gold and silver coins that were still on the ground that had not been taken away.
Gold coins have magic power in this world and have special functions, so their value is relatively fixed.
However, the value of silver coins is difficult to estimate. Anyway, it must be much lower than gold coins, but it is definitely more valuable than the dinars circulated by ordinary citizens.
It’s hard to count the gold and silver scattered all over the place now.
After finding the castle steward responsible for moving, you can learn that there are more than a hundred boxes that need to be moved.
These more than one hundred boxes are only things that can be moved and are of relatively high value.
Others that cannot be moved, such as manors near Conaston, shops in the city and other fixed assets.
For example, in the castle, there are quilts made of precious velvets, magic lamps made of pure gold, vintage wine stored in the basement, furniture made of century-old trees, etc.
Although the value of these luxury goods has declined due to the war.
However, their essence is that they are all made of rare materials, their value has been reduced, and they are not affordable by ordinary people.
At least Xu Lai didn't dare to do these things casually after he had robbed so many gold coins.
His first reaction was to find a way to sell them and exchange them for gold coins.
There are so many troops to support, and the only stable source of income for the time being is Qingfeng City.
Although Xu Lai has a large reserve of gold coins, he is also the only one who is willing to provide sufficient military pay so that all those who join the army and his family do not have to worry about life.
In this way, they can devote themselves wholeheartedly to military training and military operations.
Ani and other nobles, except for a few legion soldiers and private soldiers, most of the soldiers are recruited temporarily and will not be paid half a cent.
Militia regiments, logistics soldiers, crossbowmen, etc. are all recruited in the territory.
Whether it is imperial law or aristocratic law, there is a rule that the citizens in each territory must work for the lord for free for two months a year.
And this was only formulated at the beginning. Now, under the constant exploitation of the nobles, ordinary civilians spend almost half of the year working for the nobles for free.
These scattered resources must be reorganized.
Xu Lai and his people will definitely not be able to complete this work.
Xu Lai will definitely continue to use the old people in the castle, but he must not have much trust in these "old people".
Xu Lai's choice was to get rid of all the management staff, including the castle housekeeper and the team leader who was only in charge of two or three maids.
Especially for positions such as housekeeper, head maid, and head chef, it is not only as simple as getting rid of them, but they also have to be held down for strict interrogation.
As for the new housekeeper, head maid, etc., Xu Lai will wait until Jimmy and the others arrive.
With the help of Jilong and others, by the next day, Conaston returned to the orderly life before.
By the third day, Jilong had completely taken over all affairs of Conaston City in the name of Xu Lai.
The city walls, castles, and all high-rise buildings were all replaced with Qingfeng City flags made overnight.
The style of the flag is very simple, it is a flowing cloud, representing the gentle breeze.
The flag on top of the city is the most distinctive representative of a force.
Everyone who comes and goes will be able to tell whose territory it belongs to and which force it belongs to when they see the flag flying at the top of the city.
Of course, Xu Lai only changed the flag representing Count Aini. He did not dare to touch the imperial flag representing the camp.
At the same time, on the third day after Xu Lai captured Conaston City, Jimmy temporarily handed over the internal affairs of Martell City to others, and led dozens of assistants, officers and the like. , took the teleportation formation and rushed to Conaston first.
The troops and militia that he organized during the war have been disbanded.
But other hired soldiers, except for the more than 2,000 soldiers stationed in Martell City, the remaining approximately 3,000 soldiers and the temporary establishment of more than 5,000 prisoners will be brought to Conaston by the deputies.
In addition to the defeated recruited soldiers, the Aini army also had tens of thousands of prisoners.
However, most of it was given to Lena. Jimmy considered himself to be the rescued party, and he also took over the logistical equipment left by Aini, taking advantage of it.
Therefore, the prisoners only selected 5,000 infantrymen, and handed over all the remaining nearly 20,000 prisoners to Reina.
Leina is willing to accept anyone who comes. She has ready-made officers and enough troops.
As long as the officers of Aini's army are removed, the original organization is broken up, and they are dispersed into various groups, they will not be able to make any waves.
This is also the reason why Reina had to rest in Martell City for a whole day. Without rest, these prisoners would not be able to reorganize.
If it is not reorganized, she will not be able to take it away.
If she doesn't take it away now, she will be even less likely to come to pick it up in the future, so even if she knows that Xu Lai is in Conaston, she has to rest for a day.
In the final analysis, Xu Lai's troops are still too small, and there are also relatively few officers and leaders.
Otherwise, there is no need to pay too much attention to the 20,000 surrendered troops, or simply leave them to others for reorganization and training.
The movement speed of the large army is slow, and it also has to carry a group of 5,000 prisoners who were still fighting before and are now incorporated into the army.
You know, even if all the officers are detained, the organization will be disrupted.
But after all, there are 3,000 people leading 5,000 people. In a small team, most of them are former enemies. Even if they did not know each other before, the pressure will not be small.
And with so many people, there is no way to sit in the teleportation array, even in batches.
These days, continuous teleportation has consumed Xu Lai's hundreds of thousands of gold coins. This is because Xu Lai is the city lord and only needs to pay a cost price.
This thing is charged per person, and every time more targets are transmitted, the energy consumed increases exponentially.
The more targets you teleport, the less cost-effective it is. If you teleport separately, firstly, the mage in charge of the teleportation array needs to rest. Secondly, it is also very time-consuming and will also delay the normal operation of the teleportation array.
Furthermore, the teleportation array is teleported from both sides, and is also charged at both ends.
Xu Lai doesn't care if he spends hundreds of thousands of gold coins, but on the other side of the city, Martell City, also has to come up with energy stones worth hundreds of thousands of gold coins to fill it.
This shows how important it is to have your own energy stone supply channel, and Xu Lai happened to have found such a channel.
So when the mage in charge of the teleportation array complained to Xu Lai, he just calmly asked him to use up all the inventory and give him something better later.
Xu Lai paid a high price to have Jimmy transport dozens of people together. Of course, he had a purpose.
He has decided to let Tahan take Joseph and the others back to join Reina.
First of all, Leina's troops have also been greatly expanded. Xu Lai needs to send these officers back so that the combat effectiveness of Leina's troops will not be lost.
Anyway, the biggest enemy on the grassland, Count Aini, all the troops he had assembled had been eliminated by Xu Lai. After searching the entire grassland, he should no longer be able to find an opponent.
You can roughly guess how many troops each family has by just counting them on your fingers.
First of all, a lot of soldiers from the major nobles must have been recruited by Aini. After all, even they themselves are under Aini's command, so they have to bring some personal guards there.
In the last stronghold war, the losses of the major nobles were not small. Otherwise, Aini would not be able to raise even a thousand knights because he lost one of his bodyguard knights.
Under such two major losses, how many troops can they still have left in their hometown?
Even if Jimmy, who did not suffer a second loss, gathered the strength of the entire territory, he could only gather more than 10,000 soldiers, tens of thousands of militiamen, and hundreds of thousands of civilians serving as civilian husbands.
This is because Jimmy was deeply trusted by Aini before and received many benefits. He was still a viscount.
In exchange for the nobles who fled back this time, it would be amazing to have 5,000 or 6,000 warriors in the territory.
At most, some militiamen and civilians are added, but those are basically not considered combat effectiveness.
When defending the city, these militiamen can also control crossbows, catapults and the like, and the civilians can also carry ammunition.
If they go out to fight in the city, Xu Lai's small group of knights can kill them all.
Moreover, there were as many as 4 or 5 nobles captured by Xu Lai.
This is still a traditional nobleman with a name and surname, and his title has been recorded in the Parliament of Nobles.
For example, when the stronghold was attacked, those knights, barons, and the like who were temporarily canonized, including Xu Lai, were not actually included in the records of the Noble Council.
Of course, because Xu Lai had the temple present to witness, it would not work even if Aini did not report it after the battle.
But the other people are different. After the battle, if the empire is still there and the noble council is still there.
If Aini does not report or register, then these nobles will not be recognized by other nobles.
Even if Aini reports, the Noble Council will send someone to register the merits. Otherwise, unless Aini uses his own land to enfeoff, it must be approved by the Noble Council.
Aini only has enough land. If it were other nobles, it would be impossible to promote so many nobles at once.
You must know that nobles have basic requirements for land. Nobles without land are just wandering nobles and are not qualified to be recorded by the Parliament of Nobles.
Each level of noble title has different land requirements. Generally speaking, it can only be more but not less.
As an earl, you can own even the territory of a duke, and at most you can be considered an actual earl.
And if you are a duke but only own the territory of an earl, unless the territory is a big city such as Magic Plains or Super Port, you will be discriminated against.
Of course, the title of nobility is permanent and will not be deprived of the title due to the reduction of land, unless you have done something major like treason.
It's just that after the land is sealed, your actual income will actually decrease.
The number of such new nobles, knights, lords and the like is as high as dozens.
After Xu Lai defeated Aini, he also wiped out the hopes of these new nobles.
Without Aini, there would be no one to prove for them and no one to report for them.
If they don’t report it, there will be no one to make noble heraldry, record the family name, etc., which means they will never be able to verify it, and they will not be qualified to have their own family crest and coat of arms.
As for making it yourself, that's not impossible. Many nobles made their own coats of arms.
The problem belongs to others and has been filed with the Parliament of Nobles.
When you use your own privately engraved coat of arms to sign and seal, and someone checks the contract and finds that the signature and seal cannot be found, that’s not the end of the world.
But Xu Lai didn't like them anyway. Whether they surrendered to him or wanted to pay ransom, they were all locked in the dungeon with the rebellious officers.
Xu Lai had to wait until Jimmy arrived to deal with these people, even if Jilong was there.
Surrendering, Xu Lai needs to know whether the relationship between them and Aini is worthy of trust.
For those who paid the ransom, Xu Lai could not just look at their titles, but also the territory and wealth they actually owned.
How could we let them just walk out without peeling off their skin? Who made them stand in the wrong team?
Except for these captured and escaped nobles, Xu Lai may not necessarily attack them.
According to Xu Lai's original intention, of course he hopes to unify the entire grassland now.
However, even if he can gather the troops to unify the grassland.
In fact, he doesn't even have to join forces. He will wait for Reina's Qingfeng Legion to reintegrate the soldiers and fully integrate the logistics troops to form a real legion.
At that time, this tens of thousands of Qingfeng Legion will definitely have the strength to sweep across the entire grassland.
At that time, even if there were respected nobles who could stand up and unite the strength of all the other grassland nobles, they might not be Reina's opponent.
After all, then and now, they are one and the same.
But even if he had such a force, he would not be able to form enough dominance.
To rule, to rule, we must both unify and govern.
So it is easy to conquer the world, but difficult to defend it.
It was only the city of Conaston, and there were so many helpers behind Xu Lai, and they still made him one head and two big.
He can't get away now, so even if he transports the resources back to Qingfeng City, he can only let Tahan escort him.
In addition to the gold coins and treasures he looted from Aini Castle, Xu Lai also needed Tahan and the others to escort a group of mages to Qingfeng City.
Qingfeng City does not have its own teleportation array, so it is inconvenient to do anything.
As for the teleportation array, it cannot be set up by just any mage. It must be a high-level mage who is good at space magic.
Qingfeng City does not have such talents yet, but Conaston does.
So Xu Lai politely asked the space magister named "Issam Gates" to go to Qingfeng City.
This time, Xu Lai was really polite. Not only did he pay for all the resources needed to build the teleportation array in advance, but he also sent two boxes, each with 100 units of gems and crystal resources that are very important to mages.
Looking at Xu Lai's "full" sincerity, he agreed to go to Qingfeng City with Tahan.
At the same time, he also promised that after arriving, the minimum time would be 3 days and the maximum time would be one week. The details would depend on the cooperation provided by Fengcheng and the number of mages who could provide auxiliary help.
Anyway, the master promised to arrange a medium-to-large-scale teleportation array for Xu Lai that could accommodate at least 80 people and perform teleportation at the same time.
Teleportation arrays with less than 10 people are collectively called small teleportation arrays, while medium-sized teleportation arrays with more than 10 people and less than 100 people are called large-scale teleportation arrays with more than 100 people. There are only a few economically important towns. (End of chapter)