The Lord of the Rings: Lords of Middle-earth.

Chapter 342 The Food Shortage

Roland, riding his Charles horse absentmindedly, swayed with the horse's gait, his thoughts already drifting to the distant city of Swiftstream...

"The population is still too small! Relying on that small wave of refugees every day is not enough to quickly increase the population..." Roland said with a bitter feeling. Although he had tried his best to protect the people, the population base was only so small, and no one could conjure up so many residents out of thin air.

"System! Is there any way to quickly increase the population?" Roland could only turn to his arrogant system for help. Other people's systems call their hosts "Dad," but Roland had to call his own system "Grandpa"... Damn it, it wouldn't answer him unless he asked, and now it hadn't even issued any main quests...

"Whenever the host actually controls an additional castle or city, the daily number of refugees will increase accordingly! A castle increases by one time, a city by five times! The current number of refugees will increase by three times!" the system's voice announced.

"How do you calculate cities and castles?" Roland quickly asked.

"A castle is a city with complete defensive facilities and a garrison of no less than 1000 people! A city is a city with sufficient economic resources and a population of no less than 20000 people! The host owns 2 castles!" The system popped up a detailed panel.

"6!" Roland simply wrote a single six. After all this time, he couldn't even make it into a city in Swiftstream City? Roland instantly felt a pang of bitterness.

Moreover, the current population of Delwin is tied to Stream City. Once Delwin is fully developed, Stream City will have to relocate at least a thousand people...

"Five times! I want a city!" Roland gritted his teeth, his voice a weak, defeated howl. Ten thousand people... that would take at least a year to accumulate! (Not counting system check-ins).
Roland calculated that his population was increasing by about 10-20 people per day, which was a three-fold increase... Back in the early days of Swiftstream City, three or four refugees joined every day.

"How was this year's harvest?" Roland suddenly asked, looking up.

“This…” Caslo was speechless. He had been busy training the griffon knights and traveling between Swiftstream City and Lulong Fortress for some time. He had no time to care about this. Besides, weren’t these kinds of internal affairs handled by Yunfeng and Lance? At the very least, it was Grand Duke Nyx who took over. How could a dragon knight general like him know anything about these things?
“I’m sorry…” Roland glanced at Caslo, who was staring at him with wide eyes, and instantly understood his predicament.

"Let's go! Let's go back and ask Yunfeng!" Roland sighed.

……

"What's wrong, Your Highness? Why do you come back looking half-dead?" Yun Feng asked, looking at the somewhat dejected Roland.

"How was our harvest this time?" Roland asked.

"Yes, I was just about to tell you that! The harvest in Swiftstream City is excellent! This time, we harvested nearly two thousand tons of grain! Enough to feed ten thousand people for a year! Delwin has another batch, probably several hundred tons as well!" Yun Feng said with a smile. At least they no longer had to worry about food shortages and being held hostage by others. Yun Feng's happiest moment every day was looking at the boundless wheat fields before him! With the ten Gallen ships that Roland had won in his lottery, diligently fishing on the Swiftstream River, it was foreseeable that the faces of the people of Lagrange would soon no longer show signs of malnutrition. Yes, the faces of the ordinary people of Lagrange still showed faint signs of malnutrition. Although Roland had managed to feed everyone, the massive army's food supply was the main expense. The limited source of meat was the Swiftstream River, but the lurking monsters in the water prevented the fishermen from venturing too far into the river. The bottoms of those boats had been repaired several times; the worst time, they were almost torn apart, and even the fishermen on board suffered serious injuries.

"That's good!" Roland breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't expected that they could be self-sufficient in food. After all, the geographical location of the Lagrange Kingdom meant that they could only be an agricultural people. They didn't even have a place to hunt. The most terrifying thing was those cavalrymen... whether they were knights or cavalrymen... their warhorses' mouths could really make people collapse from eating.

As for why it hasn't completely collapsed yet, it's purely because Roland is relying on the system to keep it afloat. Although this lousy system basically doesn't give anything worthwhile for daily check-ins, the food in the shop is still of good quality and cheap. Ten thousand wealth points can buy enough supplies for Roland's entire army for more than a year.

"Speaking of which, the army's consumption is quite high right now... Your Highness..." Yun Feng said with a headache. As the person in charge of logistics, he knew better than anyone how much those bottomless pits of livestock could produce... It was fortunate that Roland had them collect the horse manure and compost it, otherwise, there really wouldn't be anywhere to put the treasures produced by these manure-making machines. That's right! As a member of the transmigrator army, Roland knew how much manure was useful for crops. This autumn harvest should have been partly due to Roland's efforts; otherwise, no one would have associated those filthy things with increased crop yields.

"How many people do you think we need to support these soldiers?" Roland asked, looking up.

“It has to be at least this number!” Yun Feng raised one hand with difficulty.

"Fifty thousand? A military-to-civilian ratio of 1:10? That's pretty much militaristic." Roland chuckled self-deprecatingly. If the system shop ever went offline, Roland could just find a rope and hang himself from a tree branch.

"Yes! This is the best-case scenario! Even with the aid of the curved plow and manure, and with favorable weather, it's still possible for our people to support this army entirely!" Yun Feng looked at Roland with admiration. He didn't know how much stock Roland had, but the fact that Roland could support this massive army with his own private treasury was already unbelievable to Yun Feng. When Yun Feng first received these figures, he was so shocked he almost threw them away. As a wise man with extremely high knowledge, Yun Feng naturally understood what these figures meant... He had suggested to Roland at the time that he disband most of the soldiers, keeping only the elite knights and other elite troops. However, Roland refused, telling Yun Feng that he would support those soldiers himself using his private treasury.

“Yes, at least there is hope…” Roland nodded, agreeing with Yun Feng’s words. Although 50,000 people was an astronomical number for the Kingdom of Lagrang at present, there was always hope!

“We have no time left… but we still have time!” Roland said meaningfully, gazing into the distance.

"..." Yun Feng was silent for a moment, realizing that he couldn't understand the meaning of Roland's second half of the sentence.

"Come on! Let's go to town! I heard there are quite a few merchants here!" Roland smiled, dispelling the slightly heavy atmosphere between the two.

"Of course, Your Highness! It's my honor!" Yun Feng also extended his hand. To him, whatever His Highness said was law. If he couldn't understand it, then he didn't need to think about it. His Highness was much smarter and more capable than he thought!
"I'll go see old man Adile later. I really hope all those knights' squires can successfully become apprentice knights!" Roland said with anticipation.

(End of this chapter)