Expanding the Scale

The town of White Flower City was not as relaxed as usual.

After the original lord of White Flower City was trapped in the Royal Capital, Count Ian came to White Flower City and ruthlessly purged a wave of remnants who supported the original lord.

At that time, the nobles all knew that they absolutely could not step forward and become targets, since Count Ian was really capable of killing people.

However, below the nobles, the guards and commoners did not have such a clear understanding.

They were a group of people who had just been chosen by the previous lord and were able to work in the heart of White Flower City with better treatment than other commoners. This made it extremely difficult for them to accept that their lord had met with misfortune.

Therefore, they made the wrong move when faced with Count Ian's oppression, which forced Count Ian to thoroughly purge these people.

As for the other commoners in the city, they had no idea that Count Ian was only targeting those who still fantasized about the return of their former lord.

All they knew was that at that time, Count Ian killed a lot of people; ten people were crammed onto the narrow gallows, and the supporting pole almost collapsed under their weight.

Every three days, a new group of people would be put on the gallows. This scene lasted for half a month, which shrouded White Flower City in fear.

Now, they have heard another piece of news: war is about to break out again, and it is very likely that the fire will spread to White Flower City.

This plunged the entire city into a tense atmosphere, especially since there had been similar reports of impending war before Count Ian's last purge.

Many people believe that the scene of gallows filled with people will come again, and they are afraid that such a scene will be repeated.

Instead of taking any action on this news, the lord did something else that left the commoners, guards, and even nobles of White Flower City completely baffled.

The lord ordered the city walls to be demolished.

It wasn't the entire city wall, but only a small section on the south side of the west side that was demolished.

That's not all. The lord also ordered the relocation of all the abandoned houses, and even inhabited houses, whether they belonged to commoners or minor nobles, within this section of the city wall.

What are they trying to do?

The lord's actions left all the residents of White Flower City in a state of unease. In their minds, demolishing the city walls was the biggest mistake of all.

Even though the Magic Creature around White Flower Territory were long ago eliminated by the people who have lived there for many years, the Magic Creature now almost always stay away from human settlements.

However, under certain special circumstances, every three to five years, a large number of Magic Creature will migrate, or the settlements of low-level Magic Creature will be occupied and forced to leave.

These Magic Creature had no way of knowing what places they had never been to looked like, so they just wandered around aimlessly, occasionally ending up at the foot of White Flower City.

At this time, the towering city walls were an obstacle that these Magic Creature could not overcome, and also the foundation for the people's survival.

Not to mention, in some extreme cases, the lord may have to go to other parts of the territory to deal with matters, and bandits may take advantage of the situation to break in. At this time, the tall city walls will prove their worth.

Therefore, in the eyes of many people, whatever the lord's reason, demolishing the city walls was an extremely wrong thing to do.

But Finley had to be dismantled, as Fran had insisted.

The territory in River Valley Territory is now ownerless; Anna has taken control of the entire River Valley Territory and found the River Valley Territory's Territory Token in a small room in the castle.

Meanwhile, in White Flower City, Finley was already completely subservient to Fran, and as for who this Duke Theodore was, he didn't know him.

But this meant nothing to Fran; she had much more to consider.

The challenge was to convert all the residents of these two areas into productive workers to contribute to the construction of her factory.

And how to maintain agricultural production and ensure food supply throughout the territory after sending all these residents to the factory?

How can we quickly convert these people into believers of the Lord of Radiance, and get them to obey God's commands instead of those of their lords?

This is all Fran needs to do, but doing it always results in a mess.

At this point, Fran's personal abilities became less effective, because these places lacked only extremely basic facilities and systems.

This requires Fran to begin this work at her Base Camp, which has already completed its basic construction.

The Base Camp is now able to produce a large number of basic components, and at Fran's request, it is continuously expanding production and creating a large number of jobs.

Fran even had to arrange for some residents of White Flower City and River Valley City to be temporarily sent there to start production.

With the help of her three apprentices, Fran believed that the Base Camp could be relocated to another site to build a new factory, provided that transportation conditions were suitable.

Of course, this is contingent on a very important prerequisite: that traffic conditions meet the standards.

That's exactly what Fran is asking Finley to do now.

She knocked down a section of the city wall to make room for the factory. After all, White Flower City was only so big, and its current size was only achieved after its expansion thirty years ago, which was already quite new for a feudal town.

After all, unless there are major changes in the situation, their city wall layout remains unchanged. They repair what is damaged and only expand when the lord decides to do so.

At this time, the common people were unlucky again. After all, it was the lord's job to come up with ideas, but they had to do the work. It was common for several people to die every time such infrastructure was built.

Of course, this situation arose because the construction methods here were quite outdated, and the technology relied heavily on manual labor.

Getting back to the main point, Fran plans to demolish the city walls and expand the territory of White Flower City outwards, building factories and stations in the new area.

As for what kind of factory to build here, that's a matter of some consideration.

Fran's previous Base Camp had almost every kind of facility. Fran intended to use it as a basic workstation—small in scale, but capable of handling all sorts of tasks.

In normal times, if there is a shortage of resources in any place, some will be temporarily produced at the Base Camp and then transported to other places by rail.

In densely populated areas like White Flower City and River Valley City, it is suitable to build large-scale factories based on the characteristics of the region, producing a large number of similar products and amplifying the regional advantages.

As for the regional characteristics of these two plots of land, Fran knew that the River Valley City area had abundant mineral resources, but she felt that there was nothing else unique about it, so she naturally could not plan according to the regional characteristics.

Without any distinctive features, the plan must revolve around the issue that Fran currently needs to address: the problem of food production.

The majority of the people gathered by Fran were farmers. After all, in the feudal era, there was simply no solid economic foundation for these people to engage in other industries.

If Fran forces all these people into factories, then no one will be able to farm. Therefore, it is necessary to implement mechanization to increase agricultural production and manufacture fertilizers and pesticides.

She planned to allocate a large amount of land in White Flower City to use White Flower City as a fertilizer and pesticide factory and an agricultural product manufacturing site.

Fran believed that if she could get this whole system working, she could basically solve the food problem, but she still had to get it done.

Given the food production cycle, it would take her at least a year to get everything sorted out, which was impossible before she left Antir.

But even knowing she couldn't complete it, Fran still had to do it. After going to the Floating City, she didn't just abandon Antir.

After all, this was land she had exchanged for with the Silver Alchemy Award, so it was her private property from now on. It was perfectly normal for her to have a long-term vision.

However, new problems arose one after another. Fran knew that this was a long-term plan. Although Finley, who gave the orders and carried out the actions, did not expect Fran's grand plan, he knew to obey Fran's orders.

However, the commoners and nobles were clearly unaware of this, and they were quite agitated by the demolition of the city walls.

"My God? What is going on?!"

"The city walls are being torn down!! Do we even have a chance to survive?"

"If only we had teamed up with the other knights and thrown that guy out during the first Knight's Duel..."

"Now look at what this is—is this something a human being would do?!"

A large crowd gathered in front of the demolished city wall, and at Fran's request, no guards stepped forward to stop them. Finley also stayed at the castle, seemingly oblivious to what was happening, letting the situation escalate.

At this moment, a local nobleman could no longer sit still. He was originally in charge of the financial statistics of White Flower City, but Finley did not trust this treasurer who had been managing the affairs of the former lord for more than ten years.

After a thorough investigation confirmed that the former treasurer had not embezzled or misappropriated a large amount of property, Finley, also mindful of the influence of the nobles who had worked with him, did not kill him outright.

Now, he has stepped forward in front of the residents, using his infectious words to resonate with the masses.

He also pinpointed the sore spot of public opinion: although people have opinions, the lord's sword and guards are not blind.

He cleverly attributed the lord's actions to a minor mistake—he had listened to an important figure in the town and thus demolished the valuable city wall.

In the end, he evacuated the people, telling them not to stay there anymore.

He thought he had given the lord a way out and helped alleviate the public's discontent, at least making the lord take him a second look.

As a group of unfamiliar Gray Robes led him away, he began to doubt the idea, for these Gray Robes had the endorsement of Lord Finley.