New Round of Development
After the battle plan was finalized, Victor ordered the Horseshoe Tribe to continue to strengthen its monitoring and reconnaissance of the seven tribes to ensure that no major changes would occur, and to immediately notify the Operations Staff Department if any situation arose.
The General Staff was a temporary unit established by Victor, mainly responsible for compiling and summarizing intelligence and developing detailed plans for this operation. It was composed of instructors and students from the Military Academy.
Some of the instructors at the Military Academy were former officers who, due to health reasons or inability to perform military command duties, were transferred to the Military Academy as instructors because Victor believed their combat experience and military skills should not be wasted. Other instructors were Victor's personal guards. Victor used Calculation Module to compile military theories from his previous life, combined them with current war cases, and reinterpreted them. These personal guards then taught the active-duty officers in the territory.
Currently, the Two Rivers Territory has alleviated the shortage of experienced and capable officers due to the expansion of its army by offering short-term training courses before promotion and occasional intensive military theory lectures. However, even so, Victor still has to recruit talent from the Iron Birch Territory to barely meet the officer needs of this round of expansion.
After several expansions in less than two years, a number of officers in the Two Rivers Territory Army rose through the ranks very quickly. One of them was a serf during the first expansion, but is now Squad Leader and is about to be promoted to Company Commander.
Victor's military reforms are being implemented gradually, aided by Number One and Calculation Module. A detailed reform schedule has been developed, and in the next phase, Victor plans to promote the establishment of military ranks and further standardize the territory's army.
After arranging the battle plan, Victor used the break to check on the progress of the territory's construction tasks for the year.
The territory is now mobilizing a large number of serfs to cultivate new land. The 2,000 hectares of cultivated land that were originally cultivated have basically begun to be planted. Among them, 1,100 hectares are planted with wheat, which was winter wheat planted last winter. The remaining land is mainly planted with soybeans, alfalfa, etc., and 50 hectares of sugar beets. Of these, 30 hectares of the yield is used to sell to foreign countries, and 20 hectares are consumed internally within the territory. In addition, there are 200 hectares of cotton, which Victor obtained through the Gorn Trading Company. After all, the wool textile industry has already begun, and preparations for another major light textile industry, cotton, must also begin.
The territory also planted 200 hectares of various temperate fruit trees in Green Field Town, mainly to supply the territory's army and various employees. Although the Freemen also planted fruit trees, the yield and quality were always unsatisfactory, and the supply of fresh fruit in the territory was very problematic. At present, the Freemen can only supply fresh vegetables, and other categories cannot be relied on. Victor had no choice but to use the cultivated fertile land to plant fruit trees to ensure the supply of fresh fruit, which directly affected the army's combat effectiveness. Victor always believed that the first thing a strong army should do is to be well-fed.
However, this amount of land is not a major problem. There is still a lot of riverine plains in the Two Rivers Territory that can be reclaimed. Victor's Grand Plan this year is to reclaim hectares of land, most of which will be planted with wheat to ensure the territory's food supply. After all, according to the plan, he will purchase 100 serfs and capture Barbarians slaves this year. The population of the territory by the end of this year is very likely to exceed 100,000 people, and the food supply is starting to become tight.
Victor has established eleven settlements again, and the construction teams in the territory have begun construction. This time, Victor will not name the settlements individually, but will name them directly according to the numbers one to eleven. Each settlement is planned to accommodate 3,000 to 5,000 people, mainly as an agricultural production base. Each settlement will have a militia force, ranging in size from a company to a brigade.
Three settlements were established on the north bank: District 9, District 10, and District 11. Each was designed to accommodate 5,000 people and consisted of fortified settlements with a certain level of defensive capability. Each settlement required the establishment of a militia unit organized into a detachment, with a garrison company stationed in each. District 9 was located at the wharf on the Lime River to ensure the production and transportation of limestone.
These settlements are evenly distributed throughout the territory, basically covering most of the river plain. However, in order to help control the territory's boundaries, Victor established these settlements 10 kilometers away from the territory's boundaries and planned guard fortresses at the corresponding locations. These fortresses could house a small squad for a long time and were usually maintained by the settlement's militia.
In order to take care of the serfs in these settlements, Victor promised that the serfs in the settlements could be released from serfdom a year earlier.
James' father, Viscount Ronald, had already fulfilled the first step of his promise from last year by providing James with 400 professional soldiers. These soldiers arrived in Green Valley Territory in early May. Together with the previous 250 soldiers, they joined the forces in Two Rivers Territory with James. This is why Victor chose James as the acting Regimental Commander of the First Regiment.
Along with this army came 1,000 serfs, who were assigned by James to mine iron ore. However, because the transport tracks were not yet completed, the mineral transport capacity was limited. In the first half of May, only 40 tons of iron ore were transported to the Steelworks. Even though the ore was of relatively high quality and had undergone artificial beneficiation, it was only enough to produce 15 tons of pig iron. Fortunately, this marked the start of iron ore production, and the future of the steel industry in Two Rivers Territory was promising.
Vico has also expanded its Iron Bean planting area in Red Soil Village this year, increasing it nearly sixfold to 200 hectares. Based on last year's output, it is expected to provide nearly 300 tons of high-grade iron ore this year.
If the first phase of the iron ore project is completed as planned this year, the annual mining capacity will reach 6,000 tons. With the help of manual ore beneficiation, Two Rivers Territory will be able to achieve a remarkable feat by the end of this year, producing 300 tons of steel and about 2,500 tons of pig iron.
If this goal can be achieved, Victor will be able to control the entire principality's steel market by leveraging the steel production of the Two Rivers Territory. After all, according to the statistics of the Gorn Trading Company, the principality's annual steel trade volume is only about 3,000 tons, which is already a sign of the world's highly developed application of steel and the widespread use of iron products. It should be noted that the annual steel production in the mid-Qing Dynasty was only about 4,000 tons.
However, such a large volume of steel transactions also made Victor realize that there were significant problems with the population and land data of the entire Duchy. Previously, the Grand Duchy of Vera had publicly announced a population of just over 17 million, but Victor had learned from Alex that the Northlands alone had nearly 3 million people. This showed that many nobles were concealing the population data of their territories. Number One estimated that the population of the Grand Duchy of Vera should exceed 20 million.