Dick, who was sandwiched in the middle, was actually awake at this moment, but the warm and comfortable environment made him decide to stay in bed for a while. However, Hei Qiangdai suddenly started playing with his elf ears, so Dick had to open his eyes.
"You little pervert, still pretending to sleep!"
"Just staying in bed for a while. Today is the weekend."
"Oh, right, today is the weekend, how about... let's continue?"
"Goodbye, Befa will be here soon."
Almost as soon as Dick finished speaking, there was a knock on the door...
Befa, who pushed the door open, seemed to have known that Hei Bai Qiangdai was there. There was no surprise on her face. She even took out some spare clothes for the two of them from the cart. It was obvious that she came prepared.
Unlike Bai Qiangdai who showed a hint of shyness and embarrassment, Hei Qiangdai jumped off the bed swiftly, took the clothes handed to him by Beifa, and greeted Beifa naturally.
"Good morning, Miss Belfast."
"Good morning, Black Knight, White Knight?"
Since the two Knight Kings had the same name and surname, and calling them Black and White Gun Daze was a nickname that was not respectful enough, so in most cases, including Dick himself, they were referred to by pseudonyms, White and Black.
The three of them put on their clothes and followed Befa downstairs to the restaurant.
Dick usually eats all three meals a day with his core team. He sends special invitations to his subordinates and chooses a special day to have dinner with them. The difference is like the difference between how he treats his own family and company employees.
Seeing that Hei Bai Qiang Dai came down from upstairs with Dick this time, the people at the dining table had different expressions.
Tia greeted several people with a smile, her eyes wandering back and forth between the three people. Lily, who was sitting next to her, wanted to pretend that she didn't know, but her red face betrayed her. In sharp contrast to her, Yoel, who was sitting on her left, had an expression that really showed that he didn't know anything.
The expressions of the three ninjas were also different, especially Ayane, who had been trying to compete with her sister Kasumi in every aspect since she arrived. She had a thoughtful expression on her face, as if she was planning something.
Dick looked around and found that only two people from the medical team were absent, so he asked Rita.
"Where are Natasha and Shizuka?"
"Dr. Natasha worked overtime at the clinic all night yesterday to monitor the preparation of medicines. She didn't come back until after four in the morning, so we didn't wake her up. Teacher Marikawa Shizuka just finished breakfast and hurried to work."
Dick suddenly felt a little guilty for his slackness when he heard that Natasha was still working overtime while he was having a great time last night, and that the medical team couldn't even have a good rest on weekends because of the cold patients waiting in line for infusion in the clinic.
Sitting at the head of the dining table, Dick glanced at the basket beside him, which contained several newspapers he had ordered.
Not long after the empire had the Earth traveler, a small number of nobles who could barely be considered "progressive" began to follow suit and started newspapers. Over the years, they have managed to get some form of newspaper business done.
However, just like many technologies on Earth, newspapers were only available in the developed central areas of the empire. The remote Laguge was not within the service area, so Dick needed to entrust someone else to purchase newspapers from the inland areas and then have them delivered by other means.
So by the time the newspaper reached him, the content on it could no longer be considered "news".
But it is better to understand it late than not to understand it at all. The life of the old emperor of the Hesse royal family is as fragile as a candle in the wind, but this man is extremely obsessed with power and refuses to give up.
Rumor has it that Hesse VII secretly had people research black magic to prolong his life, and that every now and then someone in the red guard of the royal guard would mysteriously die suddenly, they were the victims whose lives were sucked away.
This kind of rumor is nonsense on Earth, but this is a magical world, and given Hesse VII's reputation over the years, this is indeed something he can do.
Speaking of which, the first heir to the throne of the empire is almost 59 years old this year. If the old emperor continues to suppress him, it is not impossible that he will shout out that classic line one day.
Dick rummaged through the basket and found three newspapers in total, all of which were dated thirteen days ago.
As the wind and snow in Laguge became stronger and stronger after the winter, the official roads in several passes of the Central Mountain Range had long been blocked. These newspapers might be the last batch he could see before the beginning of spring this year.
"Once the financial problem is resolved tomorrow, I will take care of the griffins and deliver the newspapers."
Muttering to himself, Dick took out three newspapers, namely the Imperial Daily, the Hessian Political News, and the Hydrangea Spring Intelligence.
The third newspaper looked very unofficial in name, and the content was indeed unofficial, mainly some gossip among the aristocrats, such as which family married which family again! Which lord's secret love history was exposed, who was caught cheating on whom, all of which were the kind of content that the parties involved would strongly request to be censored.
Logically speaking, a newspaper that reveals the privacy of nobles should not last long, but the background of this newspaper is too strong! It was founded by Hesse VII, and although the nobles cursed and said that this damaged the image of the nobles, they were the ones who loved to read these gossips the most.
As long as you don't become the news in this newspaper, you will be happy to read it!
Dick subscribed to this newspaper not because he was interested in the gossip about the nobles, but because he used the information in this newspaper to judge the changes in the factions among the nobles. Sometimes some very critical information is hidden in some news that seems very unserious at first glance.
Dick planned to read the other two newspapers after breakfast, but this gossip newspaper was perfect for eating with breakfast.
Then Dick saw the headline on the front page and almost couldn't hold it.
"Breaking news! The Imperial War Marshal, Duke Rune Best, recently married the daughter of the Marquis of Horn in the South, making her his fourth wife."
"Ahem... Another mother!"
Dick wiped the coffee from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He never expected that the headline would be about his cheap father who had no moral integrity.
Dick thought about it carefully. He had an impression of this Marquis Horn. Earlier this year, before he graduated from magic school and took the blame for his elder brother, he saw this Marquis talking with the old Duke at the Spring Banquet held at the Duke's Mansion.
This Marquis was in his early forties, and compared to the fifty-three-year-old Duke, the age difference was only two or three years, and they were of different generations. And Dick thought that if he remembered correctly, both of them had children with them, the Duke's eldest son Reinhard, and the Marquis's daughter.
To be honest, she was a beautiful girl in her prime. Her elder brother Reinhardt seemed to like her very much, and he stood there as proud as a peacock with its tail spread out.
The scene at that time looked like the two elders were introducing potential partners to their children, trying to arrange a political marriage or something, but the old duke ended up going along himself (literally).
Dick simply couldn't imagine what his older brother Reinhard's expression would be when he saw his father marrying the woman he thought was introduced to him.
Dick was also thankful for this, because he had summoned the girls secretly, and the first group of spies who came here all knew how to disguise themselves. His father should have noticed that he had kept women outside, but he definitely didn't know how many beauties they were, otherwise this lustful old man would definitely have evil thoughts!
In fact, the Best family did not have a good reputation in the aristocratic circles of the imperial capital. Although they were a noble family of founding fathers, they were also a "lecherous family" that many male nobles hated.
The Best family claims to have bloodline from the ancient Titans. The members of the family are tall and strong with handsome looks, but at the same time, their desires and abilities in that area are also beyond the ordinary level.
The social circles of the nobility are so corrupt, so many times, the people of the Best family become "minotaur" either actively or passively.
Ordinary noble families cannot afford to provoke the Best family in terms of power, nor can they win in a duel, so they can only choose to forgive with gritted teeth.
As for the marriage between the Best family and the Horn family this time, leaving aside the complaints about the old man and young wife, it actually implies a signal, that is, the military honor group headed by the Best family and the large landowner group that runs plantations in the southern part of the empire are showing signs of uniting.
It is strange that the prime minister, who was a member of the royalist faction, did not prevent the marriage.
However, in view of the incomplete content of the newspaper, Dick did not dare to make a rash conclusion, whether it was not stopped or it was useless to stop. I think there must be a wonderful struggle going on in places he can't see.
"I, a father with a rebellious heart, am becoming increasingly lazy in hiding it."
Putting the newspaper down first, Dick concentrated on eating breakfast, chatting with other girls from time to time. The atmosphere at the table seemed very harmonious.
At this time, Dr. Natasha came out from the room upstairs with a tired face. Judging from her expression, she probably didn't get enough sleep but woke up because of hunger.
Dick himself stood up and pulled out a chair for Natasha and helped her sit down.
Natasha, who looked sleepy, said "thank you", and then she realized it was Dick.
"Lord Governor?"
"Thank you for your hard work, Teacher Natasha. Take a good rest today."
"No! Now is not the time to rest. At the clinic..."
"Teacher Shizuka Marikawa is at the clinic. From today on, the two of you will take turns. I will assign more staff to the clinic. Don't let one of you carry all the burdens alone."
With his hands on Natasha's shoulders, Dick made it clear that he would not tolerate any refusal. He even took out the slave contract to "threaten" Natasha, warning her that if she didn't get a good rest, he would use the evil power of the contract to make her get a good night's sleep!
"I made this decision based on my own interests. There aren't many high-end talents in our territory. If you get exhausted, it will be my interests that will be damaged!"
Hearing Dick's serious words, Natasha smiled helplessly.
What a tough and unreasonable "slave owner"!
After breakfast, Natasha was "escorted" by Dick himself back to her room to rest, and then he went to the living room to read the newspapers that he had not finished reading in the morning.
Although these are all "news" from more than ten days ago, some of the information is still very useful. For example, next spring, the Imperial Crown Prince Wales Hammerati will tour the north to visit the imperial princes.
Every time Dick saw the unfortunate name of the Crown Prince, he would secretly complain in his heart, you deserve to be the Crown Prince for sixty years, competing with your own father to see who lives longer.
It is worth mentioning that the Best family is not from the prince's line. The old duke supports the much younger third prince Bailey Hammerati.
The third prince is just 28 years old this year. He is one of the two sons that Hesse VII had when he was old, so he is very precious.
The old emperor had many children in his life, but the ratio of princes to princesses was seriously unbalanced.
There were five sons in total, two died young, leaving three.
The princess gave birth to seventeen children, all of whom lived to adulthood, but most of them were married off through marriage arrangements.
It is said that King Hesse VII once thought about marrying one of his daughters to the Duke of Best, but was rejected by the old duke on the grounds that "your deceased second princess was my sister."
Back to the Crown Prince, he himself was the leader of a faction and had the support to a certain extent from the royalist civil service group headed by the Prime Minister.
It is not ruled out that his northern tour this time is intended to win over the northern nobles, and he will definitely come to Laguge, after all, this is the most important cold iron production area in the empire.
Dick was thinking about how to respond when Befa brought over a stack of documents. After a preliminary review by the secretarial team, the documents had been divided into priority levels.
The current top priority of the territory is still to treat patients with colds.
Although the God of Winter has been appeased and the doomsday winter will not come this year, the dimension of Lagug itself is not a warm place. The liaison officers who drive sleds regularly between villages will still bring back one or two patients with cold syndrome from time to time.
But compared with previous years, the infection rate is low enough for locals to thank God.
Plus, they now have effective medicines, so there is medical pressure, but it is not very great!
The weakened winter will be milder and end earlier than in previous years, allowing precious human resources to be preserved to the maximum extent.
At this time, Dick saw the second document, which was the latest batch of simulation reports submitted by the military team.
After the intense simulation exercises, the reckless men in the private army staff finally got some enlightenment recently. After all, in the previous simulations, they were beaten by the bandits under Dick's command every time, who used the terrain to penetrate behind enemy lines and launch pincer attacks. Even the dumbest people should learn to use their brains.
Dick didn't expect these people to give any brilliant commands. After all, the bandit he played on the sand table was actually an "out-of-specification bandit."
However, judging from the report, there are several bandit dens that seem to be really difficult to fight, and the deduced results show that the casualties are more than 20%, which is unacceptable for a feudal aristocratic private army.
So Dick took out the military map, marked out these bandit hideouts, and retrieved information about these strongholds from the intelligence collected by the ninja team before.
It has to be said that Hongye's investigative work was very meticulous. The intelligence collection she submitted not only included the general information about the bandits she observed, but also sketches of their hideouts from multiple angles.
Looking at the large number of sketches in the intelligence collection, Dick took out his notebook and added another important item.
I must buy a magic camera next year. This money belongs to military expenditure and cannot be saved!
There are four difficult hideouts on the map, all of which are located in strategic locations, and the gangs entrenched here are more powerful than other gangs.
The largest group among them, estimated to have nearly 300 people, controlled several surrounding villages and had already shown a trend of "fiefdom" and became bandit lords.
Dick would not allow such an arrogant person to exist in his territory!
It is worth mentioning that Laguge is densely forested and mountainous, and is also a frontier where the empire has weak control. Therefore, it is loved by bandits and robbers, who often build their nests here.
But the locals are actually very poor, and there is not much profit in robbing them.
Therefore, most of these bandits used Laguge as their base, and then went to the wealthy areas on the other side of the Central Mountains to rob and loot, and then took back what they had stolen.
Some scheming bandits knew the principle of not eating grass near their own backyard. They only controlled the surrounding villages but did not kill or plunder them. They would even spend money to buy food and fodder for the winter from these villages.
In contrast, there are aristocratic lords who impose heavy taxes and levy heavy taxes without caring about the lives of the people.
It is not difficult to understand why some villages would choose to collude with bandits.
However, bandits are bandits. They do not engage in production and make a living by killing people and robbing.
The real world is not a fairy tale, and there is no such group of thieves who help the weak and fight against the strong. The information Dick has at hand is enough for him to kill him with justification.
As for these difficult dens, Dick gradually came up with a plan in mind.
031. If you kill me, I will kill you!
In the blink of an eye, more than a month has passed.
There are only seven days left in the year 1677 of the Yao calendar, and it is about to come to an end. The Hessian Empire, the largest and most powerful empire on the continent, is divided by the Central Mountain Range. The cold air from the north is blocked by the barrier-like mountains. The north is completely covered with ice and snow, and it looks pale when viewed from the sky.
But for northerners who have lived here for a long time, this year is an unexpectedly "warm winter".
Winter came so early, and everyone was mentally prepared to deal with an extremely cold winter. However, it is already the end of December, and the lowest temperature at night is only minus 20 degrees Celsius. Although it still feels very cold, this temperature was simply unimaginable in the past!
People only think that this year is a special gift from the gods, but they don’t know that this is the beginning of the climate in Lagug returning to normal. From now on, as long as the winter god Ajax no longer has nightmares and the seal no longer cracks, the terrible super cold winter will become history and become a legend among the old people like the story of the troll.
Of course! The warmth is relative to previous years. The thick snow still blocks most of the local roads leading into the mountains, and the villages are almost completely isolated from each other.
Only the liaison officers sent by the Governor's Office continued to drive dog sleds, shuttling between villages along the river without any hindrance from the wind and snow. Because most villages were built near rivers, and even if the river was covered with snow, as long as it was not fresh snow, it was flat and hard enough.
The Governor's task for these liaison officers was not to collect taxes, but to act as postmen to deliver messages and take those who were unfortunately infected with the cold to town clinics that were said to have effective medicines.
The villagers were skeptical at first, but as the first group of recovered patients returned and told their own stories and the kindness of the young governor, their doubts and worries disappeared.
