Chapter 127 Magical Mechanism
"Let me see. The number of this batch of new citizens is over 5,000, of which more than 80% are young and strong. There are also seven knights and more than 300 professional soldiers."

Rhodes took the report handed over by Owen, the statistician of Hekou Town.

The above is the specific situation of the exiled nobles after registration.

"There are about 500 people who know how to read and do arithmetic and have received professional education. That's pretty good."

After reading the relevant records, Rhodes nodded with satisfaction.

In addition to knights and professional soldiers, many commoners among this group of exiled nobles were also not simple people.

Blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, clerks, etc., unlike village serfs, are more like working class people from big cities and often have special skills.

It is no exaggeration to say that any barren territory can quickly improve its industry as long as these civilians are obtained.

The time required for town construction, which originally took more than three years, has been cut in half.

This is the foundation of the Alvis family as a viscount family of the principality, and it is their hope for rising again in the future.

But now, with the clan leader Meg choosing to submit, all this heritage belonged to Rhodes.

"Disband all the professional soldiers and have them join the third battalion of the army. The clan leader Meg is an extreme knight, so let him be the deputy battalion commander of the Iron Wall Battalion and station him in Hekou Town."

Rhode made arrangements, "After Holmes drinks the Snow Lotus Potion, he will be promoted to Extreme Knight this month, so there is no need to worry about not being able to suppress him."

"As for the intellectual talents, we still have to disrupt them first and disperse them to different guilds in the three territories."

Although Hekou Town is in urgent need of talented people to manage business, its own foundation is too weak.

Directly placing these new talents in the position will easily lead to the dispersion of power, which the existing management system will not be able to cope with.

Rhodes planned to use these knowledgeable talents to build the guild's education system first.

Improve the level of the original residents of the territory to facilitate balanced management.

In addition, the most important thing is the expansion of the army.

The arrival of new subjects also means sufficient labor force, which can greatly increase the iron ore production in Mole Town.

Combined with the business developed in Hekou Town, it was enough for Rhodes to have funds to develop a stronger army.

In the coming days, he planned to add two hundred cavalrymen to the Royal Guard Battalion.

The Iron Wall Camp added 600 shield and spear soldiers.

The Divine Archery Battalion added two hundred longbowmen and two hundred crossbowmen.

If all goes well, the total number of the three battalions of the army will become 500 cavalry, 1,000 shield and spear soldiers, 300 longbowmen, 600 crossbowmen and 100 medics.

Including the extraordinary troops, there are forty snowfield cavalry, ten heavy armored sword guards, and ten ice bow hunters.

A total of two thousand five hundred and sixty people.

Rhodes did some calculations and found that according to his military plan, he would need to replenish a large amount of equipment, including horses, armor, weapons, bows and arrows, etc.

The price of the equipment that is vacant for the soldiers in the third battalion is about 1800 gold coins.

Judging from the superficial figures alone, it is far beyond what his treasury can bear.

But this price is calculated based on the market price of the Dragon-Breaking Fortress, and there is a lot of water in it.

The heavy armor of the shield spearmen, the steel shield spears and the steel crossbows of the crossbowmen can all be made in Mole Town, and it only takes three or four months to complete them.

War horses are expensive.

But through his last purchase, Rod has already established a relationship with the Mayfield family in the league, where Charlie belongs.

The Earl family of the Golden Sword Territory is rich in war horses, and they have even bred the family's unique fire-patterned horses.

In consideration of their mutual relationship, the unit price of large-scale purchases of war horses can be reduced to 1 gold and 20 silver.

After his fame spread, the surrounding pioneer knights expressed their goodwill to him.

The most direct manifestation is that you can do business with the families behind them at preferential prices.

From war horses, armor, to the Rosa longbow, etc., you can find the corresponding production family for all of them.

Rhode finally calculated that the money he actually had to pay was only about 610 gold coins.

The major families even allowed him to pay in installments.

After these 350-plus troops are built, the monthly maintenance cost will be around gold coins.

At the limit of what he could bear.

With the help of golden bread and the military merit system, the dual blessing of material and spiritual levels is enough to fully squeeze the war potential of the territory.

Honestly speaking, this is a bit of a tightrope walk, as militarism will put pressure on the territory's economy and people's livelihood, which in turn will restrict development.

But there is no way, because I am on the border with the barbarians.

There is also an evil god who is about to break free from the seal and is ready to make a move.

If you don't have violence, once the enemy's army comes to your door, no matter how many gold coins you have in your treasury, they will all be a joke.

After Rhodes made a plan, he notified his knights and officially began the large-scale expansion of the territory.

The collective exercise of the third battalion of the army had just ended.

The residents of the territory are at their most enthusiastic about joining the army.

He didn't need to worry about the source of soldiers, as the statisticians in the three territories were busy every day.

Even when I was having a meal, I would be surrounded by enthusiastic residents who came to sign up.

After confirming that the expansion was proceeding in an orderly manner, Rhodes arranged for ravens to deliver messages at any time.

Then he returned to Pingdingshan to start new research.

The economic burden on the territory is too great to maintain the army.

To solve this problem, we have to start from the iron mine in Mole Town.

With the spore explosion of the sun mushroom, the mining of iron ore has become much more convenient.

Rhodes was concerned about how to improve the efficiency of blacksmiths in forging pig iron, as manual forging was too slow.

He needed to harness the wizard's productivity.

"Magic mechanism, one of the branch technologies of wizard alchemy."

Rhodes closed his eyes and carefully reviewed the wizard's manual, which contained a detailed introduction to this technique.

[Magic Mechanism], as the name suggests, describes how wizards use magic power to drive real materials under the transformation of alchemical rituals.

Thus, a complex mechanism structure is constructed to achieve self-operation. [Magic Mechanism] is mainly divided into two parts: material activation and magic drive.

The most classic example is the alchemical puppet.

Material activation gives it mental instructions, and magic drive ensures its flexible actions.

The software program and hardware structure are similar to those of robots in previous lives, so it is not difficult to understand.

But it is not easy to put it into practice.

Up to now, Rod has not yet started to explore the activation of materials.

However, he had some gains in magic drive, which enabled him to carry out his plan.

Magic drive is a general term for a large category of knowledge.

It is further divided into two categories: "Material performance transformation under alchemy" and "Material movement changes under alchemy".

Property transformation is responsible for changing the hardness, elasticity and other properties of the material.

This allows the alchemical puppet to move flexibly like a human and be flexible even though it has a steel structure all over its body.

The ability that Rhodes mastered to turn fossils into mud and mud into stone was a simple extension of the performance transformation.

Let’s not talk about this for now. The focus of his research during this period is actually movement changes.

And learned two of the simplest movements.

Rotating and reciprocating.

Rhodes came to his laboratory and picked up a palm-sized round steel piece on the table.

The surface of the steel sheet looks like Damascus, with unique spiral patterns emerging.

This is an alchemical ritual that represents rotation.

Rhodes pressed his index finger against the center of the steel sheet, drew pure magic power from the magic pool, and injected it into it.

The next second, driven by magic, the steel sheet began to spin at high speed at his fingertips.

After it stopped, Rhodes went to the other side.

There, a metal hammer fastened to the track was moving up and down, constantly hitting the iron ingot below.

An alchemical puppet requires tens of thousands of combinations of movement changes before it can truly move.

Rhodes couldn't do it, but he didn't need to right now.

Achieving full automation of territory production is a distant future goal.

For Rhodes now, just the disassembled rotation and reciprocation are enough.

With the energy supply from the magic pool and the power of flying bricks, he is able to create simple versions of blowers, steel-making converters, large power hammers, etc.

Let the territory's steel production make a leap forward.

After confirming the next production and construction, Rhodes sent someone to notify Mole Town.

The five most skilled weapon craftsmen there and their apprentices were summoned to Pingdingshan.

"The first thing is to make the gun barrel." Rhodes pondered the design drawing.

From the five weapon craftsmen who came over, Rhodes learned that the Northern Frost Principality had also manufactured artillery on its own.

It's just not forging, but casting.

That is, after the pig iron is melted into molten iron, it is poured into a sand pit, and the rough shape is first cast, and then it is polished into shape.

It is conceivable how poor the quality of this cast iron artillery is.

The possibility of firing and self-destruction is almost equal.

As for why they didn't use molten steel for casting, the biggest problem was that the temperature was not high enough.

The melting point of pig iron is above 1100℃, while that of steel requires 1500℃.

Coupled with the cold plateau environment of the Northern Frost Principality, steelmaking is even more difficult.

After several tragic failures in attempts, the principality naturally gave up manufacturing and just used the dwarf's white steel cannons.

"As for the temperature, we can use the magic flame of the ash furnace rat, with the blower and the converter to solve it. After casting the steel blank of the cannon, we will hand it over to the weapon craftsman to forge it with a large power hammer."

Roeder listed the ideal production situation, "We also need to design an extra-long drill bit to make deep holes inside the barrel."

The weaponsmith is no stranger to the structure of artillery.

Theoretically speaking, with Pingdingshan's current conditions, it is already capable of producing this kind of high-quality steel artillery.

After all the preparations on paper were ready, Rod marked out an area in Pingdingshan.

A large amount of steel was transported from Mole Town, and the construction of the Magic Steel Plant officially began.

Compared to other power sources, the biggest advantage of [Magic Mechanism] is that it is controllable.

The entire movement process is completely controlled by the wizard.

As long as your spirit is strong enough and your control is high enough.

From atomic robots to world movers, the creations are up to your imagination.

This relieved a lot of pressure on Rhodes' shoulders when manufacturing the converter and power hammer.

After continuous failed experiments, only half a month later, the prototype of the production equipment had taken shape.

Rhodes was teaching five weapon craftsmen how to use it.

Looking at their expressions as if they had seen the God of Forging, Rhodes felt both happy and disappointed.

[Magic Mechanism] Although it is convenient, it requires magic power to drive.

There is a magic pool supply here in Pingdingshan.

But Mole Town, which needs it most, may not be able to enjoy this convenience in the short term.

But it wasn't bad. Rhodes witnessed the weaponsmith's movements go from cautious to skillful.

A 76mm caliber artillery can be completed in about ten days of production time.

Combined with the terrifying power of the sun mushroom spores, one shell is enough to blast open an ordinary five-meter city wall.

If it explodes on flat ground, it can cause effective casualties within a radius of ten meters.

(End of this chapter)