Unknown Knight

After conquering the city of Berbera and capturing nearly 20,000 people, the two cities of Memphis and Ripero and six other towns were basically empty. Aix struck while the iron was hot and sent out 5,000 troops to advance all the way and successfully occupied these places.

Immediately afterwards, Aix launched an even more severe purge against these newly occupied territories that were resisting stubbornly, killing a large number of dignitaries who had committed heinous crimes and confiscating their property and land.

Originally, according to X's personality, killing one to warn the rest would be enough. He has always put people first and always tried to kill as few people as possible. However, when he thought that he would return to Calradia soon, he could not leave too many hidden dangers behind him. The revolution had to be thorough, so he made up his mind and put some of the targets of dictatorship on the death list.

This grand public trial lasted for nearly half a month. Hundreds of nobles who committed heinous crimes were beheaded, including many priests and officials of local temples. Ordinary temple staff were all dismissed.

The false statues in the temple were destroyed by the soldiers led by the high priest Velen, the precious religious utensils were confiscated and smelted, and the empty temple was used as a church of the Supreme God, as well as warehouses, government offices, schools and other functional facilities.

The next step was to distribute the land, houses, and materials. As a ruler, one must have his own ruling foundation, commonly known as the "basic plate". Through the operation of distributing land, houses, and materials, Aix transformed the vast majority of slaves, poor people, and ordinary people into vested interests. Not only did they benefit, but because the land and houses could not be moved, the interests of the Aix Group were firmly tied together, forming a solid foundation for their loyalty to Aix and maintaining the group's rule.

After a very professional search and picking operation, this time Aix plundered wealth that he could not even imagine. In recent years, the lord of Humamu City not only made a lot of money from the spice business, but also collected money and never stopped making money. After accumulating over the years, he had saved up a huge fortune.

In addition to some precious gold and gems that the Lord of Humamu took away when he escaped last time, there was much more wealth that hundreds of people could not take away. Based on the clues provided by the maids and slaves in the Lord's Mansion, the searching soldiers broke into four underground secret rooms one after another, which were filled with precious items such as gold and silver jewelry, antiques and jewelry, as well as huge amounts of gold and silver coins and countless copper coins of various kinds.

In addition to these four secret rooms, the searching soldiers, led by two professional leaders, Niza and Bestur, found two more secret rooms. In addition to huge amounts of wealth, the other one also contained a large amount of precious information and documents.

After an inventory and calculation, the total amount was more than 123,000 gold coins, more than 550,000 silver coins, more than 3 million copper coins, and a large number of gold cakes, gold sand, silver ingots, silver blocks, copper blocks, copper ore, and treasures whose total value was difficult to estimate in a short period of time. It was truly a huge amount of wealth.

To be honest, if the Lord of Humamu was an ambitious person, he would have used this wealth to arm the army and expand armaments, and he might have established an empire long ago.

However, from Aix's point of view, it is impossible for the Lord of Humamu to become a great leader. One of the reasons is that the area around Berbera's power is too remote. Its power is only concentrated in a narrow strip of land along the Black Water River. The surrounding area for thousands of miles is a vast desert with no grass. There are few strategic support points outside. This problem alone is enough to trap Humamu, a wealthy landlord.

Another thing is the political structure. Based on the information he has, Aix learned that the so-called Lord of Humamu actually controls a considerable force, but does not have the rudiments of a country at all. It is just a loose organization of people related by blood through marriage, and is compatible with local indigenous nobles, forming a political system similar to a city-state alliance.

Although they regarded Humamu, the lord of Berbera, as their overlord, in fact the landlords and nobles mainly relied on feudal rent-style exploitation of the land, and used the superstitious religion of the indigenous people to restrict their thoughts. Everyone was independent in their own manor towns, and the system was very loose. Even a considerable part of the production was carried out by raising slaves. In general, it gave people the feeling that it was a transition stage from a slave society to a feudal society. There were all kinds of contradictions, and it was very chaotic. The oppression of the lower-class people and slaves was also extremely cruel, and the social environment was very dark.

Another problem is that the corresponding scientific knowledge and technology are too backward to support a ruling group to become strong and to form effective rule and management over the entire area under its jurisdiction.

Through the intelligence collected and consulting the few local documents, Aix learned that people here basically do not keep accounts, except for particularly important events and particularly large income and expenditure, which are recorded on precious parchment or carved on the stone walls of the temple. Even the lord of Humamu City has only a few financial staff to record the accounts, and the entire account management is a mess.

Fortunately, the climate here is dry, and the grain collected from the land will automatically dry out when piled up in the warehouse. It usually won't get moldy, and even insects won't breed. It can be stored for many years. Even if it becomes stale or even rotten, it doesn't matter. It can be sold at a low price to the poor or given to slaves to eat. There won't be much loss, and it seems there is no need to record it. Just pile it up in the warehouse.

Similarly, the copper coins, gold and silver coins collected would not rust. They could be put into the secret room after it was built. When the secret room was full, a few more would be built. As a result, there was so much wealth piled up in the warehouse that even the Lord of Humamu City himself did not know how much wealth he had.

These three points make the sphere of influence under the jurisdiction of Humamu City Lord not only have heat and water sources, fertile land and abundant production, but also produce a large number of spices with high circulation value. Moreover, the location here connects to all directions, taking advantage of the geographical advantages, and can collect money on the spot, which is tantamount to a highway robber.

However, it is impossible to generate a powerful force and use this force to effectively utilize the resources here and gather them into the endless ambition of a powerful ruler.

How can I describe this feeling? It's like a person from a wealthy family who uses all his family wealth on food and drink, and becomes fat. However, this fat does not bring him any substantial benefits except making it inconvenient for him to move.

Moreover, this body of fat is of an exceptional kind, so fat that it is extremely tempting and would attract enemies from far away to covet it, so much so that several large-scale foreign invasions have occurred here.

However, it was precisely these invasions of foreign enemies that forced the local rulers to mobilize their fat and spend a certain amount of money. They made great efforts and used this part of the money to form a decent armed force. They moved almost all the residents into villages, towns and cities protected by city walls, built majestic city walls, and filled them with city defense weapons.

Aix estimated that if it weren't for these foreign invasions, the abundant output here would only make the local rulers more corrupt. After a certain extent, there might be a "national riot" from the bottom up, and the country would collapse on its own.