industrial lord

Chapter 684 This is edible
“This is simply the Gold Coast!”

After sailing nearly 1038 kilometers and establishing five outposts along the way, the fleet arrived at the place mentioned by Psyche on the spring equinox in .

What surprised Frederick was that the largest traditional market on the seaside was not near the river estuary. That large area was mudflats. The suitable place was about 90 kilometers away from the estuary of the river with the largest basin area.

The fleet already has rules and regulations on how to deal with locals.

The big ship stopped at sea. Frederick took a translator and a feather duster to communicate. Coluro cured several patients with tremor disease. The priest on the Flying Tulip went to preach.

After obtaining a piece of land, Frederick once again took action to build the city wall, and subsequent troops followed up to build temporary tents.

This is the final stop of this journey, and all goods are unloaded at this base called "Ant City".

After the first day of sales ended and the inventory was taken, the girls were so excited that they squeezed Frederick to their heart's content.

"There is so much gold accumulated here over the years!" Lilu said happily, "Red Ant received two boxes of happy water and promised to send someone to contact other tribes today."

"According to my preliminary calculations, we can bring back at least six tons of gold from here. Together with the other two places, we can harvest about seven tons of gold on this voyage!"

"In the long run, we can harvest about two tons of gold from the southern continent every year!"

Frederick nodded and said, "It's much better than expected. It looks like we have to build a boat like fish balls."

“But there’s a problem with this. As a lot of gold pours in, the purchasing power of gold will decrease and its ratio to precious metals like silver will decrease.”

"So we should not limit our focus to gold in the future, but also look at other commodities."

“These products can be discovered locally or imported from other places.”

At this time Susan said, "I think it would be a good idea to open up the wasteland and grow cotton here."

"I heard from scholars at the Academy of Sciences that the weather seems to be getting colder."

Frederick was about to tease her about whether she was trying to steal her brother's girlfriend, but when he heard the last part, he shuddered and couldn't help but ask, "Could it be a technical adjustment?"

Susan didn't understand the joke and continued to tell what she knew: "When we counted the incidence of pollen cough last year, we found that it has been appearing later and later in the past five years. A doctor who participated in the analysis analyzed this issue in order to write a paper for his professional title evaluation. She asked a friend at the meteorological station to get five years of weather data and found that autumn was arriving four to five days earlier each year, and spring was delayed at the same rate, so the flowers bloomed later and later."

"Later, a scholar from the Academy of Sciences noticed this paper. He had a friend who kept a diary every day, in which he recorded his complaints about the freezing of the wells. He found that the freezing time was getting earlier and earlier."

"Later, the Academy of Sciences conducted a large-scale survey, collecting diary records reflecting seasonal changes, and finally found that the weather had been getting colder since about ten years ago."

Frederick frowned. He had never paid attention to the weather except for natural disasters. He didn't expect there would be a sudden climate change. Could it be that a small ice age was coming?

He quickly thought of some evidence. In the past two years, the yield of overwintering crops has not increased as expected. He thought it was an error problem and wondered if it was related to this matter.

There is also the Kingdom of Sverriere in the north, which crossed the sea to attack the southern continent. Could it be that they were affected by this?

As the saying goes, an old person in the family is like a treasure.

Frederick got up, dressed, and went to the telegraph room to send an urgent telegram to Psyche.

The next day at noon, Psyche called back: "I have been here for less than two hundred years. Who knows if it is a technical adjustment."

Frederick was at his wit's end.

He kept pacing back and forth on the top of the Ship Island that day, and everyone stopped disturbing him when they saw him.

In the evening, Susan asked him, "Is this serious?"

Frederick has been worried and anxious since last night, which is unprecedented.

He had never done this before, even when a large army was approaching.

Frederick sighed and said, "If, as I suspect, our grandchildren are as old as we are now, the weather will be even colder and crop yields will be much lower. This period will last for three to five hundred years."

"Let's prepare for the worst and solve the food problem first."

He didn't want to practice Humphrey's four-step method himself.

Agriculture in the southern continent is underdeveloped because of the high temperature and overly powerful microorganisms. The soil is all yellow and crops generally do not grow well, so Jinkela must be used.

Birds, beasts, fish and insects here will also be interested in the crops, so it is not excessive to use the strategy of "facing the enemy from this side" when they are ripe.

Moreover, the climate and crops are different. Crops from the north may not be easy to grow here, so it is best to develop local species.

Amy was watching from the side, completely confused. From last night till now, she still had no idea what was going on with Frederick.

Frederick said to her, "Amy, let's go around the tribe tomorrow and you can be the translator."

Amy didn't know what he was going to do, but she finally agreed.

The chief of this tribe was called Red Ant. Every time he saw Frederick, he would enthusiastically try to sell his daughters to him. The reason, of course, was that Lilu and the others were too thin.

Fortunately, he didn't say that he would give a lot of gold if he married a daughter, otherwise Lulu would really sell Frederick and take the gold back to expand the fleet. "My friend, you want to see the farmland?" Red Ant's expression was a little strange, "What's so good about that? Useless people go to farm, and powerful people go to hunt."

Frederick soon understood what he meant.

“[Calcium oxide]!” he shouted from a farm not far from the coast. “It’s here!”

Frederick came here not only to look for gold, but also for something else - bauxite.

Not far from the sea, the ground is full of bauxite, so crops and other plants do not grow well. No wonder farming is despised.

Seeing him so excited about the reddish-brown soil on the ground, the red ant asked in confusion: "My friend, what's wrong with you?"

Frederick asked him, "Is there much of this kind of soil around here?"

The red ant replied, "There are a lot of them around here. Trees can't grow tall in places with this kind of soil. It's disgusting."

Frederick calmed his excitement and said, "I will help you dig out such mud in the future."

The red ant looked at him strangely for a while, and said, "My friend, you have done so much for your friends. Although we are definitely happy that you are willing to help, let's forget about this kind of thing. We don't want to let our best friends suffer."

Frederick didn't want to explain more, he just agreed with a few words casually, thinking that he could just build the electrolytic aluminum plant nearby and directly pull the aluminum ingots back to save shipping costs.

Then he went to look at the surrounding farmland.

Surprisingly, there are plants like cassava here, and they look pretty good.

The red ant said to him, "There is a bird with wings as big as a ship. It flies to the sea at this time every year and comes back half a year later. When it flies over, it sometimes drops the seeds of this wine root."

"Eating too much of its root will make you dizzy and breathless, but it's fine if you use it to make wine."

Frederick scratched his head. Could it be that the bird flew to the New World?
He then asked, "How do you usually eat?"

The red ant said: "Just throw it into water and cook it, and then eat it when it's cooked."

Frederick pinched his chin, thinking that this thing should be cassava, but due to the variety, it contained a high content of toxic substances, so he recalled how he had made it before.

Red Ant reluctantly had someone dig up a wine root and repeatedly reminded Frederick that he could only eat a piece as big as a fist.

Frederick peeled the root himself, cut it in half to remove the core, and then cut it into thin slices.

He picked up a piece and smelled it carefully for a long time. With his sharp sense of smell, he smelled a hint of bitter almonds. It seemed that this was a poisonous substance.

Then he divided the wine root slices into three parts, soaked one part in plenty of water, changing the water every half a day, dried one part in the hot sun, and steamed the other part directly.

The steamer was brought down from the Flying Tulip.

Frederick vaguely recalled that the boiling point of the poisonous substance was very low, and steaming the slices for half an hour should be enough.

Just as he expected, the bitter almond flavor in the wine root slices disappeared after half an hour.

The red ant asked someone to drag over two people. They ran to the red ant's territory to hunt and were captured and made slaves according to the rules.

Frederick didn't want to comment on this. He looked at the red ants and asked someone to feed them steamed wine root slices.

Today was the first time the two had eaten a full meal since being arrested. After eating three fist-sized pieces of wine root slices, they burped and then it was time to watch.

Not only the red ants, but also the chiefs who came to do business after hearing the news were very curious whether the wine roots that the King of Ten Thousand Feathers tinkered with could really be eaten without poisoning.

The sun was setting, and the two men did not look like they had been poisoned.

The red ant immediately asked people to dig up more wine roots and asked Frederick to continue the experiment.

Three days later, the two slaves who ate steamed wine roots four times a day had nothing to do.

On the fourth day, they ate the wine root slices soaked in water and dried, and they were still fine.

At this time, more and more chiefs gathered around, and finally hugged Frederick one by one.

The yield of wine root is very high compared to other grains and is not afraid of water shortage. Every tribe grows it to make wine.

There is no steaming skill here, and the boiling time is too short. No one thinks of soaking it in water for a few days, so the toxins cannot be effectively removed. Even no one dares to eat too much of the dried ones.

Now, the King of Feathers is here to teach you how to make a steamer and how to steam wine roots. After the wine roots are steamed, they can be mashed and mixed with other things to eat, such as boiled ant eggs...

The reason why red ants are called red ants and Ant City is called Ant City is because there are many ants nearby. Ant hills more than one meter high can be seen everywhere. Ant eggs are a delicacy that only hunters and warriors can eat.

From that day on, the people in the fleet became polarized. Some became nervous when they saw the ants, while others smacked their lips as if they were recalling some delicious food.

(End of this chapter)