Chapter 405: Gawain’s Grant Plan

Heddy’s question was exactly what Gawain had anticipated. He also knew that deep down, Heddy already understood the answer—she was simply voicing the concerns of those present.

“We all know how powerful the Duchy of Cecil has become,” Gawain began, his gaze sweeping across the conference room. From Norris, the head of agriculture, to Hammel, in charge of steel smelting, and the senior clerks of the administration bureau along with other department heads—each familiar face had witnessed and contributed to Cecil’s rise. “But we must also understand that Cecil’s strength is built on ‘magical industrialization’ and an advanced social system. It rests on an order fundamentally different from the traditional feudal domains.

“Hosman and his ragtag army of seventy thousand have already crumbled. Among the southern land nobles, aside from those who have pledged allegiance to Cecil, there are only three types left: those who died under the bombardments at Shattered Ridge and Whitewater River; those imprisoned in POW camps near Hosman’s territory and along the Whitewater’s banks; and those currently in exile, whose destruction is only a matter of time. Once these nobles and their armies vanish, over forty undefended, ungoverned towns will remain across the Southlands. Cecil will take control of these lands and rebuild order—Cecil’s way.”

Gawain was determined to establish a new order. He was already on the critical path to unify the entire Southlands. He had to extend Cecil’s success across the region, transforming the Southlands into a strong, stable, and unified duchy—not just a patchwork of over forty fiefdoms continuing to operate as before. Otherwise, even if the people on those lands swore loyalty to him, it would merely be a reshuffling of noble families, with no real change.

No matter what, the foundation of the Southlands’ traditional nobility—the land and the population—had to be fundamentally altered. This war was the opportunity to change everything.

Gawain had considered two plans.

The first was to relocate the entire population of the Southlands to the Cecil region, eventually creating a massive population center along the Whitewater River and the Dark Mountains. On this basis, a powerful industrial empire could be built, maximizing the population’s potential in an industrial society and rapidly advancing Cecil’s magical industry to the next stage. But after roughly estimating the Southlands’ population and surveying resource distribution and city locations, he abandoned this blunt approach.

The Southlands had millions of people—far more than he expected. This was due to the presence of supernatural forces, which made food production relatively abundant, and the generally higher physical fitness of ordinary people. Even in the poorest, most backward parts of Ansu’s Southlands, the population was large enough to make the first plan unfeasible.

Although Cecil had a relatively advanced social system and rapidly developing magical industry, relocating and resettling millions within a short time was impossible. Even if the timeline stretched to three or five years, the enormous resource and social pressures generated by such a massive migration would overwhelm Cecil.

Not to mention, this plan would mean abandoning over 80% of the Southlands’ land in the short term. Once the population concentrated along the Whitewater-Dark Mountains corridor, what would happen to the resources and farmland in the rest of the Southlands? Without those resource outputs and agricultural areas, Cecil’s current level of development could not sustain an industrial structure of that scale.

So Gawain chose the second plan: relocate only the southern population, establishing new industrial zones on Cecil’s northern shore and to the east and west, while concentrating populations in other Southland regions nearby. By creating secondary administrative bureaus, several new, mid-level cities could be built in these areas. Since they had prior experience setting up secondary bureaus in the Kant region, this plan was quite feasible.

Moreover, this approach would allow Gawain to maintain control over most of the Southlands, ensuring that resources scattered across the region would be fully exploited and continuously fed into the magical industrial machine.

Of course, the pressure would still be immense, but Gawain had every reason to proceed.

“Population migration, building a magical industrial system like Cecil’s, and having experienced Cecil administrators oversee construction—this is not only about creating a new order and promoting magical industrialization. Another key goal is to destroy the foundation on which the old nobility survives.”

Heddy, having absorbed much from her ancestor, immediately understood: “The land and the population?”

“Exactly,” Gawain nodded. “Simply removing or killing the current batch of land nobles isn’t enough. As long as their land and population systems remain, new nobles will inevitably arise. We must break this system to ensure the old nobility never returns.”

The old nobles maintained their authority through land grants, while the land system tied peasants firmly to the soil. Peasants couldn’t leave their lord’s land at will, nor engage in anything beyond farming. When Ansu was still unstable, this feudal system ensured basic order. But with the advent of the magical industrial age, binding people to land became a shackle.

Cecil’s current agricultural model, based on large-scale industrial production of alchemical potions and concentrated, efficient farming, meant many agricultural workers could—and should—be converted into industrial laborers.

Gawain’s population migration was both a necessary step for magical industrialization—since a sufficient, relatively free labor force is essential for productivity—and a way to completely destroy the old nobility’s survival base.

Saving on administrative costs was another factor. Cecil’s administrative capacity was limited, and the Southlands were vast. To implement Cecil’s advanced management system across the Southlands, the current scattered, sparse, and chaotic settlement patterns had to change.

Concentrating populations rationally, redistributing land, and establishing more scientific and standardized town and village structures were effective solutions.

Not everyone fully grasped Gawain’s entire theory, but those present had witnessed Cecil’s rise and the new order’s operation firsthand. They understood the necessity of population migration and shifted their focus to the practical challenges this grand plan would face.

Norris raised the most immediate concern: “What if the farmers refuse to leave their land?”

In this era, land was both the shackle and tool nobles used to bind their subjects. Sadly, most commoners didn’t understand or accept this. On the contrary, they often identified with their bondage—farmers unwilling to leave their land was almost inevitable in any agrarian society. Those being liberated often resist their liberation; this was a problem Gawain had to confront.

Even if people didn’t have a strong sense of “attachment to homeland,” forcibly relocating so many would inevitably meet huge resistance. Even under Gawain’s second plan, which only moved people to nearby urban areas, peasants who had never left their villages would still resist strongly.

Traditional nobles might not care about such resistance, but Cecil’s rules forbade such heavy-handedness—Gawain had to consider social stability during migration.

“First, population migration will be a long-term project. I initially plan to complete it within three to five years, and this timeline can be extended,” Gawain explained. “We can proceed in stages, using Cecil’s founding experience. First, relocate serfs and slaves—over 80% of them belong to lords and knights, but now they are ownerless, making them the easiest to move.

“Second, ensure land supply through land swaps, reclaiming new land, and confiscating and redistributing old noble estates. This guarantees enough farmland for migrants and prevents disruption to overall Southland agriculture.

“Finally, focus on incentives and propaganda. You and your clerks in the administration bureau have experience with this. We’re not forcing peasants to leave their homes; we’re preparing better new homes for them. We’ll promote the opportunity to become city citizens, receive land grants from lords, and benefit from redistributed estates. This way, migration is seen as an opportunity, not a command, smoothing the process.”

When Gawain finished, Norris nodded repeatedly. As someone from a farming background, he believed these measures would handle the vast majority of migrants.

In fact, even without these measures, forced migration could be enforced—peasants in this era had a surprising tolerance for their lords’ orders and hardships. Often, a lord’s mood alone could ban all villagers from entering the mountains or forbid fishing in the river. If Gawain forced migration, most peasants would probably see it as just another whim of the new lord and grit their teeth to comply. After all, after this war, the Cecil family had effectively become the absolute authority in the Southlands.

But… Gawain didn’t want to do it that way.

During Cecil’s founding, every stain left behind would cost ten or even a hundred times more to fix years later—sometimes it couldn’t be fixed at all. He understood the gains and losses clearly.

Based on existing experience, with alchemical potions produced by factories and agricultural guilds sharing high-yield techniques, combined with advanced systems, grain production would rise dramatically. With abundant food, a large, concentrated free population could enter factories, a crucial step in magical industrialization.

Heddy then raised another concern: “Ancestor, establishing secondary administrative bureaus requires many personnel. Although the administration bureau has been training various officials and can barely fill the supervisory roles, we will likely face a significant shortage of clerks and assistants. Also, there’s the issue of influence… Although Cecil defeated the coalition of over forty southern nobles and has the power to take their lands, the administrators we send won’t have enough local influence. Military personnel could maintain order, but to build functioning secondary bureaus, local cooperation is essential.”

She paused, then added, “We also have to consider the remnants of old lords’ loyalists who might sabotage us. Though their numbers may be small, their impact on social order could be significant.”

“There will definitely be residual resistance,” Gawain nodded. “The army will provide protection and suppression. The influence problem is real, so I’ve already ordered Byron and Philip to bring back the noble and knight prisoners from the POW camps. I’ll have a ‘talk’ with them. Once they ‘cooperate,’ it will be easier to recruit and train intellectuals from across the region, easing our personnel shortage.”

Gawain was dismantling the old noble system in the Southlands, but as he had realized earlier—whether they liked it or not, most intellectuals and upper-class talent in this era were concentrated among the nobility and their retainers. To build a new order, especially quickly, he had to find ways to leverage these people.

So, in his effort to dismantle the old aristocratic order, he found himself compelled to preserve—at least to some extent—the faction of nobles and their retainers who were willing to cooperate and embrace reform, putting the resources they controlled to practical use.

(End of chapter)