[Chapter 177: Winter Town’s First War]

When Laura began to purchase high-end carpets, mattresses, and quilts in large quantities, Winter Town continued to develop at a high speed.

As the Winter Fortress with Fort Glamorgan as the core took shape, the internal traffic planning plan of Winter Town has also been formally established.

Four main roads extending in different directions will eventually intersect at the Winter Fortress.

Unlike David’s original plan, the intersection of the main roads in the west, east, and south directions was set at the square in front of the south gate of Winter Fortress.

This is because the south gate of Winter Fortress is the only main entrance to the city center and Fort Glamorgan. The three main roads converge here, which is also convenient for people coming to Winter Town to find the correct gate.

“Once these roads are planned, we can start building the craftsmen’s own houses.”

David looked at the drawings in front of him and talked with Van Cleef about the next construction plan.

“Everyone has been looking forward to this day for a long time, right?”

Van Cleef smiled from the bottom of his heart. This was the first time David had seen this kind of smile on the face of the former leader of the Stonemasons’ Union and the founder of the Defias Brotherhood since he came to Winter Town.

It was a relaxed smile of relief. It seemed that he had been waiting for this day for a long time.

“Everyone will be very happy to hear this news.”

During this year, the craftsmen have always maintained a high intensity of work. Although they have no worries about food and clothing in Winter Town, they can also decide where to live relatively freely: if they don’t want to live in a big wooden house together, they can also build a small house by themselves and live alone with their wives, children or good friends.

But there is no salary. Everyone works so hard because of the “bright future” promised by David before.

If this state continues for a long time, it is inevitable that there will be problems. Fortunately, David has divided the land for the craftsmen before.

These united craftsmen did not choose to take leave to cultivate the land alone, but Van Cleef uniformly allocated manpower to be responsible for cultivating the farmland.

In order to maximize the interests of the craftsmen, Van Cleef mobilized almost all the people in the team who knew agricultural knowledge to be responsible for reclaiming farmland, and even some women who were family members picked up farm tools to fight.

The result is gratifying. Although the current lord of Winter Town, Baron Glamorgan, did not provide wages for everyone, the lord allocated land to everyone.

According to the work efficiency of the reclamation team, when Winter Town is built, each of them will be able to get a lot of land. Even if they don’t know how to farm, they can hire farmers to help them farm and be a small landlord with peace of mind.

Now, the new home built for the lord has been completed. Next is the municipal building and some public facilities of Winter Town, and then everyone’s own house.

According to the current standards of Winter Town, their new home will no longer be the previous simple wooden house, but a more solid mixed structure: wood, bricks, concrete, and steel bars will be used.

From the design drawings, these houses are not only beautiful in appearance, but also extremely practical. In addition, each house will have water, electricity and heating, so it will be very comfortable to live in.

In terms of the type of house, almost everyone chose a two-story or three-story building design, and some people wanted a street-side shop plus residential design.

It won’t be long before these small buildings will become the main building complex in Winter Town.

“According to the plan, the first batch of houses will be concentrated around the farmland area and the residential area in the southeast of the fortress.”

David’s idea is that the farmland area is located in the southwest and southeast and is the main residential area.

Although the plan is planned in this way, it is impossible for all residential areas to be residential. There will definitely be shops, restaurants and the like; and there will also be various shops in the farmland area, especially shops selling various agricultural products.

So this plan is just a simple and rough allocation, just like now when everyone has to divide the house, they know where to build the house.

Most of the craftsmen chose the new home in the residential area in the southeast, and it is relatively close to the two main roads in the east and south.

A small number of them chose the agricultural area, perhaps to be closer to their own fields;

some of these people have already discussed with several partners to cultivate the farmland of several people together, one of them is responsible for management, and the others do other work.

“Once everyone has a house, Winter Town will end this centralized management state.” David did not deliberately conceal this news, and even released some information on purpose.

Eva, Jonah, and Van Cleef all contributed to this matter, and helped David receive a lot of feedback.

Although the farmers and craftsmen in the town are not too dissatisfied with the current unified management model, they do look forward to lifting the current situation as soon as possible.

When they heard the news, everyone was looking forward to it, and no one expressed concern.

“Have your craftsmen thought about their next plans?”

“Some people want to be farmers in peace, and some want to continue to be craftsmen.” Although Winter Town has completed its infrastructure construction, everyone thinks that with the strength of Winter Town, it will continue to develop in the future, and there will be many people settling here. As craftsmen, they will definitely have no shortage of work to do.

“How about this, when the basic construction work of Winter Town is completed, I will hire craftsmen to build some facilities. You can count how many people are willing to take this job.”

“Sir, what kind of building do you want to continue to build? City walls?” Van Cleef thinks that for work like building city walls, diggers may be more suitable.

Some craftsmen want to be comfortable small landlords, because they think that with diggers, craftsmen may not have too many jobs to take in the future.

But David doesn’t think so. Diggers are indeed powerful, but David needs them to build larger buildings such as power plants and water plants. For ordinary houses, shops, etc., diggers are at most responsible for providing building materials and digging foundations. For

specific construction work, craftsmen are more suitable, especially the internal details are more convenient for human craftsmen to do.

“No, it’s to build hotels, churches and more houses.”

David pointed to the residential area he planned. He designated this place as a residential area for a reason.

“I plan to continue to build more ordinary houses here. All kinds of houses can be built, and even basic furniture must be prepared.”

“Sir, are you building so many houses to provide for those who come to Winter Town in the future?”

Winter Town currently has not so many people. David built so many houses to prepare for absorbing more people, and Van Cleef also knows the general situation on the northern plains.

Not long ago, his daughter Vanessa Van Cleef was recommended to David by himself and went to several surrounding villages to inquire about the news.

“It is prepared for new civilians, but it will not be provided for nothing.” David does hope to absorb more people, but he is not prepared to give too many benefits to the newcomers.

Now the people in Winter Town can be divided into land and houses, but those who come later will not have this benefit.

They did not contribute to the construction of Winter Town, so they are naturally not qualified to take advantage of David. Although these houses have been built, the new residents cannot live in them for free, they have to pay.

“Either you buy a house directly as your new home, or you find a job in Winter Town and rent a house.”

Of course, David also took into account some practical situations, that is, many people who came to him might not be able to survive without anything.

So the kind Lord Glamorgan would not watch these precious people being wasted. As a lord, he would provide loans to these newcomers so that they would have the basic guarantee to live in Winter Town.

This loan is not only money and food, but also includes renting houses at low prices, providing farm tools, seeds, etc. New farmers can use these things to reclaim land, and then repay these loans in installments until they are paid off.

As David was talking, he jumped from urban planning to the issue of reception for future new residents. Van Cleef pulled the corner of his mouth speechlessly, and finally made a suggestion: “My lord, I think you need to form a suitable team to help you deal with various internal affairs of Winter Town.”

David, who realized that he had gone off track, nodded slightly embarrassedly. He also realized this problem.

He had already decided on the candidate: Elizabeth’s father, Mr. Weatherby Swan, was an excellent choice. Weatherby

Swan had governed Port Royal well, and as an internal affairs official he was quite excellent. Hiring him to be his political officer was the most reliable choice at the moment.

Just when he was thinking about talking to Weatherby Swan, Gareth Stanton suddenly came to see him with two soldiers, accompanied by Arcee.

“What happened?”

“Sir, just now, Chief Amamantis of Ironwater Village led twenty soldiers to invade the southern border of Winter Town.”

“Then…” David knew that the matter had been resolved when he heard the tone of Gareth’s report. He was now reporting the specific situation to him, not asking for his instructions.

“After our soldiers patrolling the southern outpost issued a warning, but Chief Amamandis ignored it, the soldiers called for air support according to your previous instructions.”

“Oh…” David understood why Arcee came along. Arcee was the air support for Winter Town. If Arcee was not there and went to another world, he would take care of this job himself.

“I rushed over immediately after receiving the communication and found that this group of people had crossed the border and were about to attack our soldiers, so I opened fire.”

Gareth Stanton looked very strange when he heard this. He took over the conversation and continued to report: “We fought with the people of Iron Water Village for a total of ten seconds. Chief Amamandis and his twenty soldiers were wiped out; one of our people was slightly injured… because he did not wear a helmet during the patrol, and the stone blown up by the missile hit his forehead.”

(End of this chapter)