Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 365: Crown Lands and Noble Territories

The cheering lasted for a long time, eventually dying down slowly.

Wigg unrolled a parchment scroll and read out the names of those to be enfeoffed. Below the steps, a special team of loud-voiced civilian officials had been organized to broadcast the Emperor's decrees to the far reaches of the crowd.

Because the territory was so vast, Wigg simultaneously enfeoffed six Dukes, granting them lands along the southern border based on their respective merits, abilities, and personal preferences.

From west to east, their territories were roughly distributed as follows.

First was Joren. The naval admiral was granted Gascony to defend the western half of the Pyrenees.

Thorkel received Toulouse to defend the eastern half of the Pyrenees.

These two men were tasked with countering threats from the Iberian Peninsula and preventing the Visigoths from crossing the Pyrenees into the north.

Butcherbird, whose contributions were the most substantial, was awarded Provence, a territory boasting the two large towns of Marseille and Montpellier. Correspondingly, his task was the most arduous. He had to defend the southwestern edge of the Alps while fending off the rampant Moorish pirates in the Mediterranean Sea.

Utgard obtained Burgundy to defend the northwestern flank of the Alps.

Viper received Swabia, guarding the exact north of the Alps.Douglas was granted Bavaria to defend the northeast of the Alps, standing against the forces of Moravia and other surrounding regions.

These four Dukes were positioned to defend against the Frankish remnants in the Italian region. Should the enemy muster a large force for a counterattack, they would need to buy at least half a year of time.

Next came the remaining meritorious officials.

Eighteen men were enfeoffed as Earls, including Leif and Ingvar, as well as surrendering Frankish nobility like Jean de Poitiers.

At the same time, nobles who had personally participated in the war and performed exceptionally well, such as Ricard, were granted new earldoms.

The promotion quota for the lower nobility was massive. Wigg enfeoffed a total of two hundred and forty Barons and two thousand three hundred Knights.

To save time, he skipped most of the detailed information, reading only the personal names of the recipients. After a long and busy period, he finally concluded this crucial enfeoffment ceremony.

Aside from the territories distributed to his vassals, Wigg retained vast tracts of land along the southern coast of the English Channel as Crown Lands. This included Breizh, Normandy, Île-de-France (the Paris region), Calais, and Flandre, which were divided into twenty directly administered counties.

As a result, the Crown Lands expanded to thirty-eight directly administered counties. He also controlled the Nantes region, which was intended to be the territory of the second prince.

Furthermore, ordinary soldiers received a minimum of twenty acres of land, with an additional acre granted for every extra month they had spent in combat. Some soldiers who had participated in the entire war from start to finish received up to fifty-three acres of land.

The remaining vast stretches of real estate were used to pay off the war bonds.

During the war, as the situation on the frontlines shifted, the public spontaneously traded war bonds, causing frequent price fluctuations.

If their side won a major victory, such as the Battle of Dunwall Estate, the bond prices would naturally rise.

Whenever unfavorable news emerged, like when Carloman led his army across the Great and Little Belt straits to launch a surprise attack on the Northern Europe Allied forces, the populace scrambled to sell their bonds to others, causing the prices to drop accordingly.

As the war entered its latter stages, the bond prices stopped fluctuating and instead maintained a steady, slow upward trend.

When first issued, each basic bond was worth one pound. By the end of the war, its market value had reached 2.5 pounds, making it arguably the most lucrative investment in recent years. This was, of course, provided the holder had not sold it midway. Following the conclusion of the enfeoffment ceremony, Wigg convened the Witenagemot, ordering them to reference the original Kingdom's Legal Code and compile a new set of laws more suited to the current situation.

The details of this undertaking were overwhelmingly complex. Even after working tirelessly until April, the progress had not even reached five percent. Wigg, utterly unable to endure the stuffiness and noise of the meeting hall, gradually shifted his focus to other matters.

In mid-April, an envoy from the Caliphate of Córdoba arrived, inviting Wigg to launch a pincer attack against the Visigoths. He was explicitly rejected. Afterward, the envoy suggested they could contact Tunis and other regions to launch an offensive on Italy, but this still failed to persuade Wigg.

After this war, Britain had clearly bitten off more than it could comfortably chew. It was struggling to digest so much territory. Conquering even more regions would easily shake the foundation of the Empire's rule.

Currently, the total population of Britain was roughly 2.8 million. During the war, permanent attrition exceeded ten thousand men, accounting for those killed in action, deceased from illness, or permanently disabled.

On the other hand, Wigg had recently enfeoffed a massive number of Knights and Barons. These new nobles would typically bring their families and invite young men from their hometowns to accompany them to their new fiefdoms in Francia. This was expected to cause a population drain of forty to fifty thousand people.

Due to the influence of these multiple factors, Britain found itself trapped in a severe shortage of reserves. Meanwhile, groups in Continental Europe, such as the Frankish people, Saxons, and Frisians, did not recognize the Empire's rule. Their rebellious tendencies were extremely high, making them utterly unsuitable for military recruitment.

After the Moorish envoy departed, Wigg summoned his next visitor—an envoy from Rurik of Eastern Europe.

Times had changed, and the disparity in strength between the two sides was now immense. Rurik's tone in his letter was exceedingly humble. He congratulated Wigg on forging a massive Empire and presented numerous lavish gifts.

Over the past two years, Rurik had acted as a mercenary broker, seizing the opportunity to make a massive fortune. His power had grown steadily, yet he was still far from being a major player. The intelligence network still rated him as a low-threat entity. If necessary, a single field division would be more than enough to obliterate his rule in Novgorod.

Following this, Wigg delivered some good news. Despite the end of the war, the Empire still intended to purchase warhorses and hire nomads. The envoy was overjoyed and readily agreed to continue engaging in this highly lucrative business.

With the war concluded, the four field divisions were forced to discharge the vast majority of their troops. During peacetime, they only retained a quarter of their personnel, making them unsuitable for bandit suppression campaigns. In comparison, recruiting mercenaries to wipe out bandits offered a much higher cost-to-performance ratio.

To maintain control over the twenty directly administered counties on the southern coast of the Channel, Wigg planned to maintain a roster of ten garrison regiments and four Ranger Battalions, allowing a steady stream of Eastern European mercenaries to handle any assorted rebellions.

The remaining regions were the responsibility of the newly promoted Dukes and Earls. This was their fundamental duty as Lords, and there was no room for them to slack off.

The next day, Wigg attended a cabinet meeting, demanding increased investment in medical care.

Records from monasteries across various regions indicated that during peacetime, under favorable weather conditions, the natural population growth rate in Western Europe hovered between 0.5% and 1%.

In recent years, Wigg had gone to great lengths to build hospitals in every town within the Crown Lands, maintain low agricultural taxes, and provide cheap honeycomb coal during the winter. Even so, the natural population growth rate was still only 2%.

He decided to increase financial investments and train more doctors to boost the natural population growth rate to 2.5%, thereby securing a larger pool of military reserves.

The cabinet ministers agreed to this proposal, and the meeting moved on to the next agenda item—the disposal of captives.

Currently, nearly forty thousand prisoners of war were detained on Jersey. The cabinet recommended treating them according to their individual statuses.

The Frankish nobility and the most resolute, defiant soldiers would be thrown into the New World to reclaim the wasteland. They would be left to clash with the indigenous people, and whether they lived or died would depend entirely on their own skills and luck.

There were six thousand soldiers who had put up a relatively fierce resistance. They would be subjected to lengthy periods of hard labor, engaging in tasks such as building roads, draining swamps, and mining.

The remaining thirty thousand militia had barely played any role and had been captured in a state of utter confusion. Wigg had no interest in tormenting them. Moreover, the cabinet lacked the funds to construct more large-scale engineering projects. Rather than keeping them around to consume free food, it was better to simply send them back to their native lands.

Although grand monuments were symbols of power and glory, Wigg entertained no such thoughts. The Empire was burdened with tens of thousands of pounds in war bonds. It was imperative to pay off this debt as soon as possible, rather than increasing expenditures to construct a series of massive, Ancient Rome-style spectacles.