Hobart noticed that after three consecutive days of household registration, during which he had combined favors with intimidation, his Potion had only digested between one-sixth and one-fifth.
This was with every subject having met him and received grain from him personally.
Hobart sighed inwardly. Bestowing favors truly was not the best way to establish rule. Most of the time, such methods only added icing to the cake.
Only by displaying one's strength could one most easily establish a rule acknowledged by the people.
Of course, that did not mean favors were useless. Excessive "martial virtue" was not a good thing either. It was simply unnecessary to dispense favors too often; only occasional favors could highlight a Lord's benevolence.
At that thought, Hobart suddenly smiled. If it were someone else, without guidance, they would need constant trial and error to learn how to be a Lord. But I'm different. I only need to take the actual circumstances into account and recall the deeds of emperors throughout history to find useful references.
A little after four in the afternoon, the clerks finished their statistics under the guidance of the three teachers.
Hobart sat in the Study, reading the report closely. The three teachers who had brought the statistics stood nervously before his desk like students who had failed an exam.
Hobart flipped through the pages one by one. Though the final report was somewhat disorganized, the information he needed was clearly laid out before him.
There were currently 3,367 people in the territory, seven to eight hundred more than Hobart had expected.
On the final day, some clerks had handled registrations at the front while others made forms in the rooms, ensuring that they never ran out of forms.
There were more than a thousand young and middle-aged adults among them. Hobart