Chapter 26: Development Direction … city-state

The all-night bonfire revelry ended.

Farra did not set off at once; instead, he asked Mas to order the craftsmen to produce three hundred wooden shields.

This would take some time, but Farra had more than enough time.

Although the equipment of bronze and iron swords combined with wooden shields was somewhat crude, it was roughly on par with the gear both sides had used on the previous battlefields between Nosbaro Kingdom and Blue Featherwing Kingdom.

Craftsmen in this era could forge iron armor given sufficient iron and tools.

But it was expensive.

Not every country or territory could afford it.

They could not even supply mass-produced leather armor in full.

On the battlefields of that four-year war, the rate of armor-clad soldiers on both sides was pitifully low.

If Farra had to describe that war in one sentence, he would say it was a massacre.

It was essentially a slaughter among slaves and commoners.

Knowledge of specialized tactical units and similar concepts was also very limited.

Even the high-ranking commanders on both sides would only say, “Charge!”

And then there was nothing more.

There were no formations and no specific commands.

Both sides relied purely on their ferocity and stubbornness to brute-force their attacks.

Anyone who survived that was either incredibly thick-headed or incredibly lucky.

With the simple equipment Farra could assemble at present, he would easily be able to clear out all the nearby threats.

He could also take the opportunity to open up the map.

The System map was generated based on information that already existed.

At present on the Mu Continent, various countries stood side by side.

Near the western side was the Blue Featherwing Kingdom, which was then at its peak of prosperity… of course, in relative terms.

Near the eastern side was the Nosbaro Kingdom.

Further east beyond the Nosbaro Kingdom were the Far-Eastern states.

Over there, there were no kings, only duchies of various sizes and Count domains.

But due to the Mu Continent’s unique feudal system, upon closer inspection, they were all just a bunch of lower-ranking noble domains.

If a duchy could emerge as the strongest and compel all the others to submit, it could then be elevated to a kingdom.

After that, it could ascend to the rank of king.

It would establish a great kingdom encompassing a large number of noble territories.

Then, under the kingdom’s name, it would concentrate the Strength of all its nobles and carry out a series of unified external actions.

Many, many years ago, the Nosbaro Kingdom was established in exactly this way.

At that time, the present royal house of the kingdom, the Kankangal dynasty, was still the most powerful among the many great and minor nobles.

Therefore, it possessed enough clout.

However, by now the Nosbaro Kingdom had existed for more than two hundred years.

The authority of the Kankangal dynasty had long since fallen to its lowest point.

The king had to submit to the Noble Council.

He was no different from a puppet.

Farra leaned back in his chair and kept zooming out the System map, which only he could see.

As he looked at the location of his territory, he really had to thank King Kankangal.

It was fortunate that it was in the east.

If it had been on the western side, it would have been disastrous.

Everything would have been completely over.

But that was to be expected… the western side of the kingdom was entirely controlled by Grand Dukes.

Only they still had sufficient strength… at least it appeared so… to resist the Blue Featherwing Kingdom to the west.

If the king were to grant Farra the title of Count, he would most likely be subordinated to a particular Duke.

In that case, matters would become far more complicated.

Of course, the starting point would also be much higher, and the benefits plentiful.

Compared with his current situation, it was a matter of weighing pros and cons.

This godforsaken place was not only where royal authority was thin… although such authority was already almost nonexistent.

For the high nobility, it was equally a remote corner they had little concern for.

From the map, it was clear that there were almost no powerful nobles to the east of the Nosbaro Kingdom.

The closer to the edge, the more sparse they became.

Here, there were only a few Low Barons whose strength was not vastly different from Farra’s.

Further west, a few mid-ranking Barons and high-ranking Barons gradually appeared.

They all fell under the control of a particular lower Viscount.

A Viscount also had his own viscountcy to govern.

The nearest Viscount’s directly governed territory was about 180,000 li away from Farra.

It was completely out of reach.

Cagary City belonged to that Viscount.

But it was still far from that Viscount’s direct holdings.

A Viscount did not bother to administer a city like Cagary at all.

It was only the taxes of the city that counted.

The wealthy people of Cagary City bled the surrounding villages dry.

Once collected, the taxes were further extracted by several nearby Barons with fiefs and then by the Viscount above them.

Although the Barons had no right to take blood from Cagary City, they could resort to indirect threats to force the merchants to voluntarily hand over a portion of their profits as tribute.

And it was demanded every month.

By comparison, Farra considered himself merciful.

After all, he had only taken a single cut.

After going over the local situation in his head, Farra had basically finalized the development plan for the coming period.

It was very simple.

He labeled it self-sufficiency.

The network of interests within Cagary City was overly complex, and the city’s faith was essentially set in stone.

Rather than spend all his effort trying to control and reform Cagary City, it was better to start anew under his own rule.

He might as well build from scratch on his own land.

This approach would also save the cost of overhauling the city.

Cagary City was large, and its urban layout had long since taken shape.

How much money would it cost to tear it all down and rebuild?

It was too troublesome.

By comparison, building a city from scratch on barren land would be much more convenient.

With towering buildings rising from flat ground, and since it would be his own, he could design it any way he wanted.

He began by founding a village.

After achieving self-sufficiency, he would then dump the surplus resources into Cagary City.

He would completely strip them of their copper and silver reserves.

Then he would spend money to forge connections in distant lands, hire mercenaries, and purchase production machinery to bring back.

He would establish a complete industrial chain within his territory covering clothing, food, housing, and transportation.

Farra drew out a sheet of paper, dipped his pen in ink, and began sketching rapidly.

He would pay craftsmen ten times the wages of other places, purchase slaves with clean backgrounds, and restore their freedom.

After bringing all the production machinery back, he would use the enlarged self-sufficient production chain to keep exporting goods outward, buy construction materials, upgrade the territory, and build walls on the existing layout.

He would establish nearby villages specifically for commodity trading, replace barter with copper coins, then use the surplus funds to purchase iron ore and forge his own weapons, which would be far cheaper than buying them; if worse came to worst, he could melt down copper coins and cast weapons directly.

All of this would rest on a larger livestock farm.

Wheat and barley would be used for his own needs, and chickens, ducks, and beef would be sold to the wealthy.

His pen tip traced a circle on a sheet of white paper covered in block characters.

Farra stared at the papers on the desk for a moment and then smiled.

This was his starting point.

In this era, ordinary villages and towns lacked the ability to resist risks.

Only cities with high walls could serve as core bases for focused development.

There was plenty of land, but little of it was valuable.

There were many villages and towns elsewhere, and populations were available.

But not a single one had a castle of any value.

Farra hesitated over whether he should leave space for building walls.

“…Given the current rate of territorial expansion, if I were to build walls, they’d have to be torn down in just over a year. There’s no need to build any walls right now… In offense lies defense; as long as there’s a sufficiently powerful army, so-called walls are unnecessary.”

“On the back mountain side, after it’s developed, we can build it into a castle and extend downward, leave space here for a commercial district and here for residential areas, move all the farms over to this side, and then when expanding the buildings, extend in the opposite direction…”

Farra continually put the ideas in his head onto paper.

This was what he did every day while staying at home.

An ordinary visitor would see a slightly larger village here.

But he saw a massive city capable of accommodating tens of thousands, even up to one hundred thousand people in the future.

With the rear mountain palace as the center, it would radiate out in all directions.

According to conventional thinking, if nobles in this era intended to expand, they would usually need to capture the opponent’s fortress and then occupy the villages within the opponent’s territory.

For minor nobles, a single village served as a stronghold.

War thus consisted of capturing one stronghold after another.

The space between villages formed the range of their Faction.

Farra had originally thought in the same way.

However, after some analysis, he changed his mind.

As for the reason, it was simple.

He despised those filthy cities and impoverished villages.

The streets were absurdly crowded, filth and stench were everywhere, and the air seemed completely saturated with a sour, foul smell.

It was disgusting.

What was more disgusting was that he had become used to it.

Rather than conquer such a vast, empty territory, he chose to designate a single core.

He would then draw population from elsewhere to work for him and mold his territory into what he desired.

As a result, the actual area under his control might be much smaller than those of earldoms, marquisates, duchies, kingdoms, and the like.

But the essence lay in concentration.

A hundred villages he disliked were no match for one city he was satisfied with.

Furthermore, the retainer Contract was indeed useful.

But because it allowed Attribute points to be directly assigned to retainers, it could not be regarded as a unilateral control Contract.

Each slot was best allocated to individuals with long-term benefits.

For example, a witch.

Compared to the witch’s special Strength, other people appeared very “ordinary.”

Since there was a retainer Contract, Farra did not want to overly worry about Loyalty issues… after all, he still had other matters to concern himself with.

He had no time to engage in imperial power maneuvers.

A single Contract could free up a good deal of his mental effort.

Therefore, the core ruling class could only be retainers.

At present, he had only one retainer.

He could not control such a large region.

Overall, developing around a single city as the center was the most suitable method at present.

Namely, the special political system that had existed in another world.

The answer was a city-state.

It just so happened that he had recently established the Church of the Goddess of Plenty, a theocratic regime called Power in Both Hands; he would first cultivate a sense of belonging among the commoners in his territory, and then use the city-state as the nucleus to expand in all directions.

The ideological environment in this era was too chaotic.

Imposing this whole set of policies firmly on a single city was feasible.

But if he spread it outward right now, the risk would be too great.

The risks were too high and too diverse, and it might trigger some special resistance or joint attacks.

After all, this era was also one of theocratic ideologies clashing with each other.

It was best not to expose himself too early.

He’d have to slowly boil the frog in warm water and proceed gradually.

Finally, and most importantly, he considered the limitations of Resource point reinforcement.

The System’s Resource points could only reinforce a limited area of land.

If he relied on these high-grade Resource Sites to get started, then these locations would inevitably become the absolute centers thereafter.

This could not be expanded outward.

Also, in the early stages, it would require concentrating all Strength to control and protect them.

Taking this into account, in the end, he still needed to opt for the city-state system.

Farra propped his chin with one hand, and the quill in his other hand suddenly paused.

After analyzing from five major directions, all the reasons ultimately pointed to the city-state.

“…Ideology, resources, governance costs, economy, military… Fine, it looks like a city-state is the only option. Now, there’s just one final question left in the plan…”

Farra muttered to himself and then asked:

“System, can Resource points be reclaimed?”

“Yes.”

“What are the conditions for reclamation?”

“After a Resource Site is judged to be ‘destroyed,’ Resource points can be reclaimed.”

“Very good.”

A smile involuntarily reappeared on Farra’s face.

A city-state combined with a public ownership economy, equal distribution of resources, highly centralized power, and development under Farra’s sole intervention and control.

After blending some of the ideas and ideologies from this world and the one he came from, a unique system of governance became exceptionally clear in his mind.

It was as if a ghost had traveled with him into this world.