Surveying the March Route

Victor, along with the territory's civil officials, took turns stationed at the various settlements to ensure that personnel and supplies were in place. After more than a week, the settlements began to return to normal production, and land reclamation proceeded in an orderly manner.

The militia units in the four settlements have been established, and militia officers and instructors are in place. Under the guidance of veteran militia members, the new militia members have also begun to get into the swing of things and have carried out their first militia training. The troops stationed at the outposts have also begun to rotate.

By June 5th, after confirming that all work at the settlement was on track, Victor returned to Wood Fort Town with the civil officials. Victor instructed the civil officials to compile all the problems discovered during the settlement construction into a booklet, and required all settlement officials to understand how to identify and handle these problems, in order to prepare for the construction of the next seven settlements.

After returning to Wood Fort Town, Victor went directly to the Main Camp to check on the new recruits who had been training for half a month.

Conditions in the Two Rivers Territory are much better now than they were two years ago. Resources are plentiful, especially for the army. Although the army's food selection is limited, it is not lacking in protein and carbohydrates. To ensure nutrition, the recruit camp's training meals include meat and dairy products. Victor also provides White Sugar and flour to make some pastries as rewards for recruits who perform well in training. After tasting these sweet and delicious foods, the recruits' enthusiasm has also increased.

The fleet from the Gorn Trading Company that Vitri brought earlier, in addition to 3,000 slaves, also brought a large amount of linen. This kind of material is something that Two Rivers Territory is currently lacking, since the production of wool textiles cannot keep up, and wool clothing is not suitable for summer wear.

Victor arranged for all of this linen to be used to make military uniforms. Victor had been making uniforms since the expansion of the army in Golden Sunflower Territory, but at that time the main color was gray. After two years, the soldiers' feedback was that they didn't think they looked good.

Considering that good-looking military uniforms would help improve the cohesion and combat effectiveness of the army, Victor personally designed the style with Number One and standardized the uniforms of the current territory to blue, because James's family was rich in Blue Rose, and this special Blue Rose was very suitable as a dye, and the color produced by this dye was very beautiful.

Just after James was promoted to baron, Viscount Ronald prepared a batch of blue dye and several dyeing artisans for James. Victor simply paid for the dye and hired the artisans to do the dyeing.

The dyed fabrics were then sent to a Clothing Factory Clothing Factory in Wood Fort Town, which mainly employed military dependents as workers to produce clothing. This job was much easier than farming and was very popular.

However, the production of military uniforms will take time, so the uniforms of the new and old units are not yet standardized. In particular, new recruits can only wear the old stock uniforms, and even the uniforms of a small squad are not the same in color and style.

Victor could only continue to urge the production of military uniforms, hoping to complete all the uniforms before autumn arrived.

After inspecting the recruit training, Victor finally had time to go to the Operations Staff Department to review intelligence on the Barbarian Tribes since May 24.

On May 25, the day after the fleet arrived, Luda of the Horseshoe Tribe personally led the caravan to the Blazing Fire Tribe in an attempt to gather more intelligence. The Horseshoe Tribe's caravan had been trading with these tribes for more than half a year, mainly selling ironware and goods not available on the grasslands, as well as buying furs and livestock, and sometimes even slaves. These commercial activities were of great help to the Barbarian Tribes, and the trade was considered fair, so they quickly gained the trust of these tribes.

In order to gain their trust further and learn more about the inner workings of the tribes, Victor provided a batch of weapons as a commodity. These weapons were acquired from the Barbarian Tribes during last year's battle and should be able to meet the needs of these tribes.

The caravan also brought along scouts from the Two Rivers Territory. These scouts had been personally trained by Victor and were skilled in mapmaking. They were also there to create a detailed map in preparation for the upcoming sweep.

Because the Blazing Fire Tribe was quite far away, the caravan first went to the Target Tribe Two as its first stop. The Tribe Number Two was nearly 200 kilometers away from the Horseshoe Tribe, and it was located in the middle between the Horseshoe Tribe and the Blazing Fire Tribe. If they were to take action against the Blazing Fire Tribe, they had to be careful in dealing with the Tribe Number Two to avoid arousing the Blazing Fire Tribe's suspicion.

Tribe Number Two is not large, with no more than two thousand people in total. However, under the protection of the Blazing Fire Tribe, they live a relatively stable life and have a lot of livestock. According to observations from several caravans, the sheep alone number nearly 20,000, which is more than half the number of sheep in the Horseshoe Tribe.

It should be noted that although the population of the Horseshoe Tribe has decreased significantly, after a year of recovery and the purchase of slaves, the entire tribe has exceeded 5,000 people, but the flock of sheep is only over 30,000. Fortunately, the Two Rivers Territory provides food so that everyone in the tribe can have enough to eat.

The fact that Tribe Number Two was so wealthy and lived such a comfortable life aroused the greed of the Horseshoe Tribe. Luda and Jell had discussed it and hoped to obtain more valuable intelligence through this reconnaissance. They would then apply to Victor to let Horseshoe Tribe deal with Tribe Number Two. Even if half of the people and livestock they obtained were handed over, the rest would be enough for the Horseshoe Tribe to eat their fill.

Therefore, during the transaction with Tribe Number Two, Luda specifically asked the scouts to draw another map for them. Of course, this was also reported to the Operations Staff Department as intelligence after they returned to their territory.

The grassland tribes of this world are different from those of the previous world. Unless there is war or disaster, they will generally stay on a Pastureland for a long time to graze their livestock. As long as the Pastureland can meet the normal breeding and development of the livestock, they will not leave easily.

This is also related to the ecology of the Northlands Wasteland, which is relatively arid. Although there is green grass everywhere, the Pastureland are more lush only in places with abundant water. Therefore, these Barbarian Tribes basically live and graze around Pastureland with abundant water. Where there are Barbarian Tribes, there will definitely be rivers and lakes.

Finding these water sources is also crucial for the sweeping operation in Two Rivers Territory. After all, transporting supplies and troops via rivers is faster and less costly than by land. The main reason the caravan brought scouts who could draw maps was for this purpose: to survey the rivers and draw maps to plan the marching routes for the Two Rivers Territory army.

The caravan camped near Tribe Number Two for two days and used that time to find a small river connected to the Lime River a few dozen kilometers away from Tribe Number Two. Although the river had a small flow, it was large enough to stop the rafts and carry supplies. This solved the planning problem for the first leg of the march.