Struggle in the Steam Age

It is not a strange thing for Lawrence to join the labor force as a hereditary nobleman. At least according to the cultural tradition of the Holy Visby Empire, it has always been regarded as an important thing for a pioneering nobleman to build his own territory with the people. This is a very honorable act, which is one of the important reasons why the relationship between the nobles and the people of the Holy Visby Empire is relatively harmonious.

It's just that with the development of society and the increasingly close exchanges between nobles from all over the world, many traditions of the Frans Empire have also flowed into the Holy Visby Empire. For example, their slightly artificial and remote approach to various practices. After all, compared with the imperial tradition, the new style of the Frans Empire is obviously much more relaxed and comfortable.

But Lawrence, who had been a commoner in the previous two lives, obviously couldn't accept this kind of atmosphere. In his opinion, he had to pay a corresponding price for enjoying the benefits. If you don't want to pay any price but want to get all kinds of benefits, you may be able to do it at the beginning, but as time goes by, these benefits will slowly become poison that kills you.

This is why Lawrence is always at the forefront in all wars and constructions on the island, because he feels that only after he has participated in a series of work related to development and construction can he enjoy this island with peace of mind. various benefits to oneself.

For example, when building a cable system, an important process is to build some places for fixing cables in many dangerous places. And the biggest difficulty in this kind of work is how to transport those personnel and materials to those points on the cliffs in the mountainous area.

After a brief discussion, Lawrence and Nora took over this crucial transportation job. At least from their point of view, they could easily complete the job by using the ability to transport across terrain. And this is obviously better than letting those workers risk their lives to do a better job.

During the construction period, the expedition teams who inspected the surrounding minerals also came back one after another. At the same time with their inspection records. However, compared with the results of previous animal and plant inspections, the conclusions of this group of mineral experts are basically depressing.

For example, they can confirm that not only are there no extraordinary minerals on this island, but there are even no high-value gemstone mines or precious metal deposits. Although there are one or two iron mines, if you consider the terrain of the burial location and the grade and reserves of those minerals, you will find that mining those mines will not only make no money, but also lose money.

As for the coal mines, which are crucial to the development of industry, there is also a point, and it is more convenient to mine. The problem is that the coal reserves here are really small. Therefore, this coal mine is only for those ships transporting materials upstream to have one more coal mine supply point to transport more goods, and the coal needed on the island mainly has to be imported from the outside world.

The only bit of happy information is that at a nearby lake they found a large amount of high-quality granite and limestone that could be used for construction, and even some marble. If there are no accidents, a quarry will be built in this area to provide raw materials for the buildings on the island.

At present, most of the buildings on the island are still temporary buildings with a mixed structure of bamboo, wood and mud. Only a few areas have used imported raw materials to build some permanent buildings of stone or reinforced concrete. Therefore, in terms of construction, the island definitely needs a lot of building materials, and such a quarry can be regarded as just needed on the island.

After completing the investigation and helping to build the cable transportation line, the military also completed the clearing of the goblin territories around the fortress. So Lawrence led the army, mixed with the first group of armed immigrants who had just arrived by boat, to the meadow through the passages in the mountains.

They have only one job now, and that is to clean up all the goblin tribes in the predetermined area and lay a solid line of defense in this area. Fortunately, because the human resources of the goblins were almost exhausted in that war, the next work can be said to be very easy.

With the help of Nora, those goblin tribes hidden in the forest on the hillside were marked on the map one by one. Then the military members and armed immigrants easily cleaned up the dens of the goblins under the command of the little dolls. After losing all the young and middle-aged goblins, cleaning up these goblin tribes is no more difficult than cleaning out rabbit nests.

So after a period of not-so-intense fighting, most of the goblins within the planning range were successfully eradicated. Only a handful of goblin tribes near the edge of the planned area sensed the danger first because they were put on the final cleanup, and chose to leave this area with their wealth and go to other parts of the meadow.

"Okay, this is the last tribe here." Nora said when watching Safiel walk out of a goblin tribe while wiping the blood on the sword, "I think we have succeeded in completely eradicating it according to the original plan." Lost this precious grassland and those damn goblins around."

"Huh—that's good." Safiel said, throwing the piece of paper used to wipe the goblin's blood on the ground, then looked at the blade and inserted the sword back into the scabbard. "This period of time feels much better than before squatting in the office all day, especially the recent attack on the goblins, so I can finally move my hands and feet."

For Safir, proper combat is a very beneficial pastime sport for body and mind. This is especially true in battles like killing goblins. After all, the previous battle to support Vieques Island was really stressful, so she was quite satisfied with these recent low-intensity wars.

And after ending this campaign of suppression, Lawrence and the others led the main force and advanced nearly 10 kilometers outward along the planned first phase of the construction border. Completely pulled out a goblin tribe of more than 2,000 people and several small tribes on the flat ground, and forced other goblins to temporarily stay away from the construction area where Lawrence and the others were located.

In this way, there will not be many large-scale goblins coming to harass during the period of construction of the defensive circle. Contribute to the completion of those fortifications on time. And as long as the fortifications are completed, even if the main force is withdrawn, those returning goblins will not be able to go to the fertile meadow occupied by Lawrence and the others as before.

Considering the requirements of the construction period and the intensity of the war, the first batch of fortifications were all built with thick wood felled from the surrounding forests and rammed earth mixed with gravel, although such fortifications may be slightly insufficient in modern warfare . But in the face of those goblins, this kind of strength building is enough.

At the same time, the biggest advantage of this kind of field fortification-like building is that it is convenient to construct and relatively fast to build, so when Lawrence and the others completed a week of deterrence operations and expelled the goblins in the distance and returned, they found Several basically completed fortifications have been erected, and even some of the fortifications have been stationed with guards.

After entering a randomly selected fortification, Lawrence found that the main part of the entire building had been constructed, and the engineering team had also withdrawn. In the yard of the fortification, several tents were set up there. Guards from the three races came in and out of the tents, looking at the tools in their hands as if they were doing the final processing on the fortification building.

"Yes, my count, the situation here is very good." The person in charge of the fortification said after seeing Lawrence's arrival, "As for the reason why everyone is living in tents now, it is also very simple, because the room has just been painted. , so we don’t want to go in for the time being, but fortunately, the weather has been good recently, and it’s not uncomfortable to live in a tent.”