Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 532 Gathering Grain

Seeing that everyone no longer had any concerns about the food safety of the demonized grain, Harvey paused and continued, "As I just said, the number of grain seeds assigned to you each year will be proportional to the number of planting tasks. Similarly, agricultural machinery and technicians to assist you in planting and production will also be dispatched to various locations. As long as you are sufficiently dedicated to this matter, I believe that most of you will not be placed on probation or directly demoted for failing to complete your tasks, as was the case before."

Agricultural officials in Fengyuan City and Grizzly Territory couldn't help but shudder... The chief executives in charge of the two places, the vassal nobles headed by Earl Fagan, were punished with probation because they failed to meet the production targets in previous years. This was entirely the result of Harvey taking some obstacles into consideration and giving the two men a lenient sentence.

"In addition, grain transactions in all regions must be strictly controlled. No individual is allowed to sell grain privately. Even on land that has not yet been nationalized, ordinary grain grown by farmers or freeholders must be sold to the city hall first. Selling to foreign grain traders is strictly prohibited, and not a single grain of wheat is allowed to be shipped out of the country!"

Of course, if the farmers and free farmers strictly follow the regulations, Harvey will naturally allocate the magic grain seeds to them as appropriate, so that these individual farmers can also enjoy the high-yield planting income.

An official from the Ministry of Finance pondered for a moment and said doubtfully, "Your Majesty, if the yield of Harvest No. 1 grain truly doubles, it will be more than enough to feed our people. If the grain is distributed to private individuals for cultivation, and all is purchased without export, our financial pressure will be enormous. Unless we have gold yuan banknotes..."

Harvey waved his hand, interrupting him. He said decisively, "The issue of currency unification will be discussed after I officially ascend the throne. However, the ban on grain exports must be implemented immediately. Aside from the processed food export orders previously signed by Spark City, neither the city hall nor private individuals are allowed to sell domestically produced grain to foreign chambers of commerce. The specific laws and regulations have been drafted. If you have any questions, please go to the Ministry of Justice for details."

As everyone began to quietly discuss the grain embargo regulations again, Ambichi Kenny leaned over to Harvey and whispered, "Your Majesty, if we hadn't temporarily built a warehouse after the autumn harvest this year, we would have been unable to store so much grain... We'd have to continue purchasing from the public, and with Harvest No. 1's output doubling, I'm afraid the storage pressure would be enormous... Besides, growing so much grain is simply not enough to eat it all, so isn't it unnecessary?"

According to his idea, the Ministry of Agriculture should actually turn to developing some cash crops and breeding industries, which can not only meet the consumption of the domestic population, but also be exported in large quantities to foreign countries and earn real "foreign exchange income".

Harvey patted his shoulder and said with a smile, "Then continue to build warehouses. Not only in Spark City, but also in Grizzly Fort, Fengyuan City, and Jinhui City. Send all the excess food there to store it."

The shepherd knight was slightly taken aback. "Store them all?"

"Yes, all of this is for the upcoming alien invasion," Harvey said seriously. "You are one of the senior officials who know about this. You should understand the true intentions of the City Hall and me."

Ambichi's face darkened and he bowed solemnly to Harvey, no longer trying to sell his economic breeding income-generating plan to His Majesty.

Among the officials, both big and small, present, the vast majority were born in a peaceful era without having experienced alien invasions. Although the political conquests between the nobles continued, it was never a cruel war of genocide. Although they had been indoctrinated with the terrible truth of alien invasions, and under the arrangement of the City Hall, they had lined up to witness the specimens and live captives of the Demon Lizardmen with their own eyes, just like visiting "aliens", they had never developed a collective emotion of being too vigilant.

This was entirely due to a blind confidence in Harvey and the power of Spark City. A huge army that was absolutely loyal and powerful, epoch-making magic weapons, and tens of thousands of alchemical beasts that could also be deployed on the battlefield to assist in combat... If he wanted, the power Harvey controlled could easily sweep across the central countries of the southern border, and it would not be a problem to station troops in the holy city of Goris.

A foreign race from the far north? Lizardmen?
But it's just a new target for the Northern Army to add to their record.

...But Harvey is different. As a time traveler, he was also born in a peaceful era, but the history of his previous life made him know what would happen to a huge country and nation when it experienced a protracted and brutal war, so he could only make preparations for war in advance based on historical experience.

The worst-case scenario Harvey could foresee was that the Divine Spine Mountains, a defense line considered an insurmountable barrier by humans, would eventually be broken through like a sieve. The Demon Lizardmen, along with the Demons and the Evil Beastmen, would invade the Southern Territory in an unstoppable manner. Within three months, the entire Southern Territory would be completely engulfed in war.

By that time, he dared to assert that except for the magic city of Alaye and Saint Valen under his control, no country could withstand such an invasion. The population, which he regarded as the most precious, would decline rapidly. Even if Saint Valen joined forces with Alaye and the Seven Wizarding Nations to build a defense line and accommodate the people, a large amount of farmland in the southern border would be abandoned. If there was not enough food supply to sustain hundreds of thousands of people for two or three years, the entire human nations would quickly collapse, and the so-called united front would fall apart.

Shelled grains like wheat can have their storage time extended to nearly five years after the introduction of the advanced underground storage technology of the burrowing dwarves from Breath of the Hills. Although the taste and flavor will become extremely poor, at least it can ensure that you are full.

Corn, soybeans and sweet potatoes, which have relatively shorter storage periods, are gradually being promoted as supplementary food varieties that are sold immediately after production. In particular, with sufficient soybeans as feed, animal husbandry can also be developed simultaneously. Like sugar and salt crops, they are very important economic crops.

Most of the officials Harvey called to the greenhouse test field today were high-ranking officials who were aware of the crisis of alien invasion. Without Harvey deliberately pointing it out, many people gradually figured out what was going on - food embargo, official purchases, new grain varieties, large-scale storage... These were all war preparedness plans that His Majesty had formulated long in advance to deal with the impending war!

On matters concerning the survival and vital interests of the ethnic group, naturally no one dared to stand up and raise questions. Although most of these officials from small noble and commoner backgrounds had been frustrated in the past, they were not ignorant and short-sighted people without ideals and ambitions. Now that they had gained a certain degree of power by relying on and being loyal to Harvey, they were naturally tied firmly to the same boat and began to make suggestions with all their heart and soul.

"Your Majesty, we can promote the Harvest No. 1 wheat seed on a limited basis in the plains. In mountainous and hilly areas like Grizzly Territory, we can consider promoting the cultivation of corn and sweet potatoes."

"Yes, we recommend intercropping beans and wheat in the Jinhui City area. The canals and irrigation systems built by the old nobles are fully capable of large-scale planting."

Asdalen and Durt exchanged a few words in a low voice, and then suggested to Harvey, "Your Majesty, we hope to offer agricultural courses in both public colleges and spellcaster colleges. This way, both ordinary civilian students and natural spellcasters can learn and master agricultural cultivation techniques."

This is a plan that Asdalen and Durt have been trying to promote. That is to completely transform the spellcasters trained by Starfire City into practical "magic science and engineering" talents through the integration of disciplines, and directly break the tradition that spellcasters used to be high and mighty and only focused on themselves.

Arturo, the dean of the Academy of Magical Sciences, did not attend the meeting today, but Harvey believed that he should have contributed a lot to this matter - compared to the orthodox spellcasters, the necromancers were probably the ones who most wanted to break the tradition and achieve equality of ideas.

Harvey nodded meaningfully and smiled, "That's a good suggestion, but we'll need to wait until I'm officially crowned before we can discuss it again..."

(End of this chapter)