The northern part of the White Sturgeon Island.

There is a concave deep-water bay called 'Fishman Bay'.

Today the name remains the same, but the murlocs have been driven away and the bay has been turned into a secret port.

"Clatter~~Clatter~~~"

A dry dock was filled with seawater. As the sea water rose, a 38-meter-long and more than 15-meter-wide square-headed flat-bottomed boat parked in the dock slowly floated up.

This ship is naturally made of tempered black clay, and it is almost the maximum size that the tempered black clay material can bear.

At the dock, the person in charge of supervising the construction of the new ship was a mid-level wizard named Belletel, 28 years old, one of the eight khal wizards who remained from the past.

This wizard has little interest in making weapons, but he has a passion for shipbuilding.

However, he also made it clear that although he likes shipbuilding and has been studying hard recently, he currently does not have strong shipbuilding capabilities.

In order not to delay the lord's important affairs, he has written a letter to Master Lukavado who has returned to Kao, begging him for help in finding a group of shipbuilding wizards.

The master has also replied, saying that he is looking for talents everywhere.

Naturally, Rosen would not let the master suffer any loss in this matter, so he directly sent him a sum of 1,000 Ogers as operational funds.

He also said that for every one he found, he would give the master a generous reward.

As for this wizard Belitere, unless anything goes wrong, Rosen plans to keep him as the head of the shipbuilding department.

After all, passion is the greatest driving force for progress.

Back to the topic.

Master Beliteer stood beside Rosen and gave a detailed introduction to the new ship.

"Lord, the empty displacement of this ship is about 300 tons, the fully loaded displacement is 1,000 tons, the maximum speed is 13 knots, and the ability to withstand wind and waves is average, so it is only suitable for near-shore sailing."

"How's the voyage?"

"It depends on how much clean black stone is loaded. If it is loaded with more, it can travel farther. The longest distance it can travel should be 5,000 kilometers. Of course, it will not be able to load any goods at all."

Rosen looked at the cargo hold on the ship, which was as large as possible and the power components which were as small as possible, and knew that it had almost reached its limit.

This boat has basically no technical content, poor power, unattractive appearance, and cannot withstand any wind and waves, but it can still be loaded with things.

In terms of absolute speed, it is no worse than a sailing cargo ship. The most important thing is that the speed of this cargo ship is very stable and is not picky about wind direction.

It's enough for now.

As the ugly ship slowly sailed out of the dock, Rosen nodded gently: "Then build a few ships based on this model and use them to carry large cargoes. Then improve it little by little based on actual usage."

As for small cargo, you can just modify the existing speedboats and use them.

"Yes, lord."

After chatting with Master Belite for a while about the design ideas of the hull structure, Rosen returned to the nearby dock management department.

There are two parts here.

One part belongs to the Ministry of Commerce, and Rosen is temporarily the general manager. It consists of some secretarial officials who are good at maritime trade.

The other part belongs to the Navy Department.

If you want to carry out smuggling safely, you cannot do it without the protection of the navy.

There is a command room in the Admiralty, and in the middle of the room is a chart of the North Veran Sea and the coastline.

The so-called North Weilan Sea refers to the northern waters of the Weilan Island, with the Wind Rest Strait as its boundary.

There are many underwater reefs in this sea area, and there are no economically developed coastal cities on the coastline.

Conducting cross-sea trade in this sea area not only involves huge risks, but also has little profit, so it has become a barren land for maritime trade.

But because of this, this place does not attract the attention of powerful external forces, and there are no strong competitors internally, making it an ideal sea area for smuggling.

The command room is Rosen's destination.

In the command room, some officers from the Navy were sitting or standing. When they saw Rosen coming, they all stood up straight, saluted, and called him "Lord".

Rosen pressed his hand down, signaling everyone to continue working.

He took off another leather glove to keep warm, took a cup of hot tea from Alia's round-eared crystal cup, took a sip, and asked, "How is the precise chart of the North Weilan Sea being drawn?"

The so-called precision nautical chart is the most advanced concept in nautical chart drawing at present. It requires the highest possible precision and marks all factors that may affect navigation safety in a sea area.

Obviously, this is a must-have item for sailing.

This kind of treasure is already quite complete in the current busy trade waters, but it is still a blank in the North Weilan Sea.

As Rosen asked the question, an officer in charge of drawing stood up and reported.

"Lord, we have only completed a quarter of the work, but judging by the current progress, it will be completely finished in about four months."

Rosen nodded: "Four months is still too slow. I will continue to allocate funds and personnel, increase support for the Chart Bureau, and strive to complete it within two months."

Currently, the smuggling trade with Northern County is the top priority of Sturgeon Island.

It is not only the only stable source of supplies for the island, but also a part of the strategy to tie interests with the Northern County.

Only when both sides have huge common interests can they advance and retreat together when doing great things in the future.

After a pause, Rosen handed the cup back to Alia and looked at the highest-ranking officer present: "Major Alex, there is something else you need to pay special attention to."

Alex was originally the deputy captain of the shield guard of the Flame Regiment. Now he no longer carries a shield, and even no longer uses a sword. He only uses a lightning crossbow.

He is now the supreme commander of the North Sea Fleet.

When the lord called his name, he immediately stood up and listened to the instructions.

"I heard that there are many pirates in the North Sea. When you encounter pirates, don't rush to kill them. Try your best to recruit them. We are in great need of skilled sailors now."

The predecessors of the North Sea pirates were actually fishermen.

Why did they become pirates? Because the northern counties were poor, and when the place was poor, many lords had no bottom line, began to do nothing, and greatly increased the exploitation of civilians, causing many civilians in the northern counties to have a hard time and had to become pirates.

Because there was no trade in the North Sea, there were no merchant ships to rob. Therefore, these pirates were only officially called pirates, and in essence, they were just a group of tough fishermen who refused to obey the lord's management.

Alex nodded immediately: "Understood, Lord."

Rosen continued, "My request is very simple, that is, to develop the estuaries of all rivers in northern Weilan into our trade routes. And on the surface of the North Weilan Sea, the only one who has the final say is our navy."

Alex was shocked when he heard this: "Lord, what if the Lord of the Northern County disagrees?"

"Just their few broken ships? If they don't agree, we'll fight them until they agree."

In popular waters, there are navies of big countries cruising, which of course he cannot reach with his current small speedboats, but in this trade desert, he is currently the most powerful maritime force.

As for the subsequent impact, we’ll talk about it after we win the battle.

Alex shouted back.

He was a pure soldier, and he didn't care about any political influence. If the lord said to fight, he would fight! Seeing him like this, Rosen was a little worried that he might get too excited, so he quickly reminded him: "Warn first, and then fight if the warning is ineffective. Don't sink the enemy's ship as soon as you go up."

I feel uneasy when I think about it.

After all, these soldiers are thinking about military merit, and when the ship is at sea, no one is watching, who knows what will happen? He thought to himself: "I have to get a military police to set rules for these unruly soldiers."

Military police are needed not only now, but even more in the future.

This can prevent soldiers from getting carried away and doing stupid things that affect the overall strategy.

After staying at the harbor command center for a while, Rosen set off back to Crescent Castle.

The means of transportation he used this time was not a horse-drawn carriage, nor the latest coal-fired electric car, because the mountain roads had not yet been repaired.

But this situation will not last long.

Because there was a narrow mountain path as the foundation, and with the help of the disintegration spell developed by Bell and Rosen's strong support, the road construction progressed very quickly.

According to current progress estimates, it will take about two months to complete the mountain road from Fishman Bay to Crescent Valley, and the first batch of electric trucks will be put into use.

In the future, when the road network in the mountains is completed, it will become a transportation network, transporting smuggled goods from the Northern County to every corner of the White Sturgeon Island.

At present, Rosen is riding a specially built mountain steel puppet, which is an upgraded version of the combat puppet originally built by M'Bahat.

The main changes are in the appearance and control system. The internal structure remains basically unchanged, as does the power source, which uses mana energy.

Strength energy is a precious energy that cannot be converted by ordinary means. It is very expensive to use and requires many mages to help charge it once.

Sitting on the bumpy steel puppet, Rosen thought secretly.

"For this kind of complex mountainous terrain, the most suitable means of rapid transportation is a helicopter."

"Unfortunately, the power source is not very powerful at present, and there is no specialized aircraft design talent."

"We still need airplanes. When we have enough funds, I will go back and set up a project, make a start, provide an idea, and then gather a group of talents, build a laboratory deep in the mountains, and do it secretly."

A powerful weapon like an aircraft cannot be leaked easily. It must be made secretly and then used when it is really needed.

In addition to airplanes, Rosen also had all kinds of ideas from Earth in his mind.

Airplanes, rockets, satellites, computers, and so on.

But these ideas have one thing in common, they are all products of very complex system engineering, products of the Earth's technology tree.

And Rosen only knows the most basic principles.

Fundamentals are clearly not enough.

Everyone knows that fission bombs are based on chain reactions, but who can make a nuclear bomb with this little knowledge? Since it is a technology tree, it is impossible to grow a crown without roots.

It is necessary to invest massive resources, introduce a large number of talents, explore bit by bit in practice, from scratch, from simple to complex, and light up key technologies one by one, before it can grow.

Rosen's knowledge of the earth can only serve as a guide to avoid detours as much as possible.

Even if you are given guidance, you have to be very cautious, because the situation in the other world is different from that on Earth, and it is easy to suffer from acclimatization.

So Rosen encountered a difficult problem.

'At present, the problem of material shortages has gradually eased, and some low-level talents have accumulated, but there are still too few high-level talents, and even strategic talents who can take on major responsibilities.'

While he was thinking, the iron puppet had already carried him and a group of guards across about forty kilometers of mountains and entered the Crescent River Valley.

Rosen did not return to Crescent Castle immediately, but turned around and went to the newly built magic center.

As the source of new productivity on the island, the magic center is heavily guarded and has a very tight protection network to ensure that the highest magic secrets of the island are not leaked.

The second is big.

There are a total of 10,000 acres of land, with 20 magic laboratories built in it, but only 6 of them are actually put into use.

The reason is that there are no talented people who can take on the responsibility.

In addition to the magic laboratory, the center also has various living support buildings built specifically for these scientific research mages.

It includes residential buildings, restaurants, pubs, walking parks, and even a hidden brothel.

Anyway, as long as the mages enter the magic center, they can enjoy the highest quality of life on the island, even better than Lord Rosen in some aspects.

After entering the magic center, Rosen asked his mages to drive the iron puppet to recharge, while he went straight to the recruitment building.

Seeing what kind of talents are recruited every day and what new magical ideas are obtained has almost become Rosen's daily habit.

As the lord, he went directly into the recruitment building through the back door, ready to check the recruitment list directly.

I was walking in the corridor on the second floor when I suddenly heard a noise coming from the front yard of the building. Out of curiosity, I went to the window to check what was going on.

The front yard is always very lively because many mages come every day to respond to the call.

Most of those who came were young civilian mages, the vast majority of whom were informal mages, but occasionally a few formal mages could be seen.

But they basically all come from the northern counties and are very rare in the south.

But today it seems particularly noisy.

After observing for a while, Rosen found the source of the noise and was slightly surprised.

Because the one who came looking for a job turned out to be a fourth-ring master of magic, and judging from the faint fluctuations in his magic power, he was a fourth-ring master at the peak of his powers.

Looking at his attire again, a dark green vertically striped robe, a pointed wide-brimmed hat, three-quarter wide-leg pants and tight cotton socks, a very typical Kaa wizard clothing style.

This master of magic was probably in his early fifties, with gray hair, tall stature, a very capable face, and a pair of leopard eyes that looked intimidating even without anger.

He doesn't look like a master of magic, but more like a charging general.

He didn't come alone, there were two young men following him.

One was younger, about 23 or 24 years old, and was a senior mage. The other was older, about 25 or 26 years old, and was also a master of magic.

Judging from their appearance, these two young men should be the old wizard's sons.

In other words, a family of three came, and two of them were masters of magic.

Rosen was slightly surprised: "Is my reputation so famous that it can attract the magic master Kao?"

I kind of suspect that it was Luwakado who helped recruit them, but the other party didn't write to inform him.

Moreover, this kind of family, which is obviously a family with a long tradition of magic, is very steady in their actions. It seems that it is impossible to recruit people with Luwakado's mediocre magic achievements and reputation.

(End of this chapter)