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Chapter 125 Food Status
On the Black Stone Merchant Road, the city that announced its independence from the empire was named Emerald City. As the name suggests, the location of the city is famous for producing various emerald, agate and other jewelry.

The location of the Emerald City is very special, it is located at the junction of the Northern Province and the Dolan Province.

The vast northern land of the kingdom is divided into six provinces, of which the largest and most powerful is Earl Drake of the northern province.

He is not only the actual ruler of the northern province, but also more or less involved in the other five provinces.

It is precisely because of this that after feeling the threat of his ambition, the earls in other provinces became wary, which kept the northern part of the kingdom in a state of chaos and division.

Back to the topic, Emerald City has always lacked a lord with sufficient dominance due to the unclear jurisdiction of the Emerald City.

The local lords often died due to various accidents, and then were occupied by other nobles in the northern province or Dolan province.

However, because of the injustice of the name, it is easy to be robbed by the nobles again.

The frequent change of rulers has led to the internal management of Emerald City having little to do with the lord, mainly through the local council.

The influence of the local council has penetrated into every aspect of the city, and when necessary, it can even bypass the lord and directly command the army of the Defense Office.

Just like now, the parliament directly declared the independence of the city, and even drove the current lord out of the city.

After listening to the detailed introduction of Finance Minister Aldridge, Ronan was not in a very happy mood.

Emerald City declared independence and he had no objection.

But the problem is that after checking the city's business situation, the members of the council announced that there was a problem with the grain trade with Black Rock City.

They said that the ownership of the grain belonged to the council, but the money paid by Ronan was embezzled by the previous lord, and the Emerald City did not receive it.

Either the order will be voided, or Ronan will need to repay the deposit to them.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to bring him food and seeds.

Ronan felt that these members of the council were deliberately trying to trick him.

Since they can drive the lord out, can they still let the other party take away the money smoothly?How can it be.

Most likely because of his status as a royal family, his prestige in these parliaments represented by merchants and new aristocrats has dropped to a negative number.

"How is the expelled nobleman now?" Ronan asked Aldrich.

"The original lord of the Emerald City was Viscount Jonson of the Red Flower Family, and he is currently staying in the town of Ginkgoland to seek help from Earl Drake." Aldridge reported.

"Count Drake is currently busy with the war with Dragon Tooth City, I'm afraid I don't have time to talk to him." Ronan shook his head.

Not only that, although the Emerald City declared independence in name, it can actually be regarded as a branch of the Dantuma Alliance.

Under the current situation, Earl Drake may not offend the Dantuma Alliance, but more likely to recognize their independence.

"Go and send a letter to the council of Emerald City, telling them that if the grain trade continues as usual, I will increase the trade between frozen soil resources and them."

Aldrich, who got his order, bowed his head and left.

Grain trade is very important to the current territory, Ronan thought to himself, there are not many places that are willing to sell grain to the outside world.

Before the outbreak of the Black Death, the nobles had a lot of food in their hands.

But now two years have passed, the deserted farmland and the lack of labor have caused famine in many territories, and even many lower-level nobles were killed by the rioting people, and the entire territory was wiped out.

The reason why Earl Drake and others are in such a bad situation today is to launch a war that wastes people and money.

A big reason is to tear a hole so that they can go deep into the Great Plains, get more farmland, and let themselves have a stable food channel.

It's a pity that he was pushed back with a musket.

They are still too busy to take care of themselves, and it is difficult for Ronan to buy enough food from Earl Drake.

Therefore, the channel of the Dantuma Alliance has become extremely important.

So he is willing to continue communicating with the Emerald City Council.

But if they still choose not to eat oil and salt, then Ronan will not be polite.

Goods for which he has paid must be his.

"Old Motou, what is the specific situation of the farmland near Black Rock City?" After bidding farewell to Aldridge, Ronan asked Old Motou beside him.

Previously, it was Old Mo who had been worrying about the specific issues of spring plowing for him.

"My lord, according to the statistics of the officials I sent out, there are currently about 30 hectares of land available for cultivation outside Black Rock City, that is, [-] mu of farmland."

Old Motou said, "These farmlands are distributed in farms outside the city and [-] villages. Among them, there are more than [-] mu of farmland left unmanaged, and at least one farmer needs to be arranged for every six mu of farmland."

In other words, there are at least 3 peasant labor shortages in your own territory?

Ronan couldn't help but have a headache, but it wasn't over yet.

"According to the tax statistics of previous years, taking into account factors such as farmland abandonment, disease, and fallow, the annual grain output of the farmland here is about [-] pounds per mu." Old Motou reported.

Is the annual output of almost 180 catties per mu?

It sounds pitifully small, but it is actually much higher than Ronan imagined.

You must know that due to the bad land problem in Black Rock City, the local farmland uses the two-field system.

That is to say, two acres of farmland, one acre of cultivation, and one acre of fallow cultivation, will be rotated in the coming year.

Compared with the three-field system in the Great Plains, the utilization rate of farmland here is low. Coupled with the cold climate in winter, the harvest of autumn plowing is often less than half of that of spring plowing.

It is not an exaggeration to say that such output can be achieved under such circumstances.

It's just that this obviously can't meet Ronan's needs.

After finding ways to fill the labor force, the population of Cold Wind Territory and Black Rock City is around 12, including 9 farmers, 2 urban population, and [-] Cold Wind Territory population.

According to the most basic food requirements, each person needs two pounds of grain per day, which is 760 million pounds a year.

And the farmland in his territory can only produce 6000 million pounds of grain under the condition of good harvest.

Ronan estimated that by using fertilizers on the farmland and carrying out intensive cultivation, and further improving the rotation system, the grain production could be doubled and tripled, which should be able to meet the supply needs of his territory by then.

But that's just his estimate.

Before the actual situation is determined, he must prepare for the fact that he cannot be self-sufficient in food, and find ways to buy food as much as possible.

And there is another big problem, don't forget that he still has a hundred knights with big appetites under his command!
The food consumption of knights is almost fifty times that of ordinary people. This is only the staple food, and the rest needs sufficient meat, eggs and milk to supplement nutrition.

Calculate the cumulative cost of a knight's daily food, salary, horses and weapons.

If Ronan charged farmers [-]% of the land tax, he would need the output value of [-] farmers to support a knight.

That is to say, he relied on selling mines, furs and other various frozen soil resources to keep the territory's funds from being cut off, otherwise he would not be able to support the hundred knights at all.

This is also the reason why Ronan always does not want to continue to increase the number of knights.

These knights are not very strong, and they have a lot of demands. As a human being with rich emotions, Ronan needs to take care of their mood at all times.

It's not like a puppet, it doesn't need to eat, and it doesn't need to be paid. The only meaning of existence is to work for him without complaint.

It's a pity that my brain is not very good
(End of this chapter)