Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 146: Fertility Ceremony: Creating Wonders

The arrival of the harvest season is undoubtedly the most pious moment for Rhea believers. In the countryside, among the fields and farms, Rhea faith is most widespread.

Even the most ruthless ruler will feel heavy-hearted when a harvest is bad.

In contrast, when abundance comes, everyone is happy and excited.

In the Hessen Territory, the goddess of the dawn, Rhea, is particularly respected. The people of the territory believe that the prosperous population and abundant wheat harvests in the territory are blessed by Rhea.

So after the crops in the wheat fields were harvested, the priests and nuns of the Church of Dawn held a grand harvest ceremony for the crops in the fields.

At Su Li's request, these nuns arrived at the Golden Spike Farm, attracting a large number of cheering residents to follow and watch along the way.

Amid the excited cheers of the people, the nuns of the Church of Dawn slowly untied their corsets, and their loose green robes fell to their feet, revealing their pure and flawless white bodies.

Su Li also joined in the fun. Under the protection of the knights, he sat in a position with the widest view and had a clear view of the contents of the ceremony.

Which man doesn’t like this kind of excitement?
Especially when the nuns took off their loose robes and dropped them beside their ankles, he became excited and the blood in his chest began to beat faster.

Rhea is also the goddess of fertility, in charge of love and fertility, so sometimes her believers will use some means to increase the fertility of their subjects.

However, the goddess is at odds with Slaanesh, and her followers vehemently oppose the Prince of Libido, for he corrupts the very things the goddess protects. Slaanesh takes love and simple physical pleasures and twists them into a cruel mockery of Rhea's divine power.

There exists a delicate balance between Rhea's bounty and Slaanesh's lust for excess.

Thus, the priestesses of Rhea learned how to moderate the desires of their followers to prevent their corruption.

In practice, although these nuns devoted themselves devoutly to the goddess, they also wore a mythological mask decorated with straw on their heads.

So actually, after watching the entire harvest ceremony, except for the moment when they took off their robes at the beginning, which made all the men excited, there was not much of the charm and lewdness that Su Li had expected at the beginning.

Instead, it is the ugly and scary masks that force men to replace them with the faces of their lovers, and they are eager to have close contact with their lovers.

This is also an important part of the harvest ceremony. After the ceremony, lovers will go to a more private place to do some intimate things.

When the fertility ceremony reached its climax, Fandral excitedly said to Su Li: "My Lord, I clearly feel the grace bestowed upon us by the goddess."

"One of our nuns has been ordained as a Corn Mother. The Corn Mothers are a secretive gathering of women within the church. They meet in secrecy to protect Rhea's most important secrets, secrets not shared outside her clergy. During their gatherings, the Corn Mothers don masks woven from straw to conceal their identities and discuss unique ways to increase the harvest."

Su Li was overjoyed when he heard this. He didn't expect that the pious sacrifice would produce additional effects.

Now that the territory has the Father of Grains and the Mother of Grains, the grain output will surely continue to increase!
Now we have an income of 24 kilograms of wheat. Even 3000 people can survive for more than 80 days, which is enough to last until the next harvest.

After all, the population of the territory is far less than 3000 after excluding the dwarves, and the territory also has a large amount of income from cabbage, carrots, and fishing and hunting.

Although fishing and hunting are unstable, the occasional bursts are also very rewarding, especially under the guidance of Su Li's intelligence, you will get fresh fish, as well as a lot of livestock and live fish.

As long as the planning is done properly, the food in the territory's granary will inevitably increase slowly.

Su Li then looked at the shrine stone tablet built by Rhea's followers in the fields and said to Fandral, "It's time for our territory to become a sacred place for Rhea. After the ceremony, we will send this shrine stone tablet to the pool in the center of the Starfall Basin. There are many wild fruit trees growing nearby. Once the stone tablet sinks to the bottom of the water and merges with this natural wonder, it will become a holy place for our territory to worship the goddess."

Rhea is not without statues of her own, but most of her temples consist of ogham stelae and shrines.

At present, believers have hung wreaths made of wheat ears on the stone tablet and placed flowers and fruits on the stone tablet. Farmers, herbalists, midwives, food merchants, lovers, and hedge wizards sing and dance around the stone tablet and shrine.

In the future, this first stone tablet blessed by Rhea will be moved to the Starfall Basin. When it sinks to the bottom and becomes entangled with the water plants, it will bring divine grace to the entire area and become one of the holy places of the entire Rhea Church.

Fandral said excitedly, "Goddess Rhea is always so generous. Perhaps we can give this area a name."

With the direct favor of God, there is no need to give it more myths.

Su Li said directly: "Let's call it Xinghuitan, or Xingyuan Yaochi."

It's normal for a holy place to have many beautiful names. Even the same mountain range or scenic spot may have different names depending on the region or faction.

At that time, people who like Western style can call this place Starlight Pond, which means that the morning light of Rhea's sun shines on the Heisen Territory, shining like stars.

The distant eastern country can also be called Xingyuan Yaochi, after all, Yaochi is also the dojo of a goddess.

Fandral nodded excitedly and said, "The goddess will protect us. With the presence of the willow silkworm butterflies, the pollen of those wild fruit trees will continue to improve. I believe that with the blessing of the gods, this patch of wild fruit trees will soon be transformed into a fruit forest, perhaps even this summer."

That would be the best!

Su Li smiled and said, "I hope there will be a Ten-Mile Peach Garden or a Ten-Mile Pear Garden."

This will further deepen the believers' impression of the goddess' generosity. If there is a ten-mile orchard, and pilgrims can eat abundant fruits, how can they not be happy?
Of course, a feat like the Ten Mile Peach Garden may still be a long way off.

However, there are thirty or even hundreds of acres of orchards on the slopes around the Starfall Basin, which is completely worth looking forward to.

One acre of apple trees can produce more than a thousand kilograms of apples. By then, a hundred-acre orchard will have a profit of one hundred thousand kilograms of fruit.

When Fandral led his believers to Xinghuitan, Su Li came to the threshing ground and mill of the farm.

These mills are one of the masterpieces of the dwarves. Their arrival helped build more than ten water-powered mills and animal-powered mills in the territory.

This greatly accelerated the progress of agricultural harvest in the territory.

Sheaves of golden ears of wheat were sent to the threshing floor, and then baskets of wheat were sent to the mill.

Today is a day of harvest. Bags of flour are sent to the castle, and a large amount of bran is left behind. This is an important ingredient in the serfs' main food, black bread.

The territory's bakery would use wheat flour, bran, wheat bran and sawdust from the carpentry workshop to make black bread and supply it to the people.

Then mixed with wild vegetable soup, wild berries and occasional meat soup and fish soup, it became the main food of the serfs.

Of course, more wheat was loaded onto carts and ships, and stored in baskets in warehouses in castles and towns.

Seeing the granary in the treasury being filled up one by one, Su Li's heart was filled with joy.

Each warehouse can store more than 30,000 kilograms of grain, and the castle alone has three warehouses full of grain.

The rest would be transported to Hesse Town to feed the larger population and freemen.

The bumper harvest of these grains means that Su Li’s territory will be able to survive a long period of stability.

Even if he didn't get any results from fishing or hunting, he wouldn't be worried.

This is what it means to have food in hand and not be worried.

More importantly, this means that his industrial planning for the territory has already taken shape!

When Su Li first entered the territory, he thought about what the territory's advantageous industries and specialties were.

The dwarf's blacksmith shop is undoubtedly one of them. The blacksmith shop in his territory is now so large that it has accepted a large number of mountain dwarves.

A set of fine-grade dwarven armor costs at least 20 gold crowns, which is equivalent to the annual output of 20 farmers.

This is the advantage of industry. As the saying goes, there is no wealth without industry. The value created by industry is incomparable to that of the small peasant economy.

But this does not mean that agriculture cannot create value.

In fact, another characteristic industry in Su Li’s territory plan is agriculture!
Develop farming to the extreme and become the number one agricultural power in the vicinity, then agriculture will be the characteristic of the Black Forest.

Especially with this vast farmland, if he could cultivate hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land, he would produce millions of kilograms of grain every season and could sell a large amount of grain to other countries.

Selling millions of kilograms of grain would bring in a considerable fortune. Especially since there were canals within his territory, a single ship could carry tens or even hundreds of thousands of kilograms of grain.

From the very beginning, he was determined to distinguish himself from other pioneer lords who relied on caravans to deliver food to their territories.

He wants to develop the farming industry and allow the territory to export grain!
In this way, he could expand his power and recruit troops with greater peace of mind without worrying about food shortages.

Of course, farming in the fantasy world cannot rely solely on basic crops.

His farmland also includes some spiritual medicine fields, such as the tranquilizing flowers and swift grass that are produced in large quantities by relying on Ji Lun's wind.

These can be used to produce a considerable amount of potions in the territory, and the lowest price of a healing potion is 50 silver coins.

The territory now has two pharmaceutical workshops and a monastery that can produce potions, and has produced more than one hundred ordinary potions for the territory.

When divine grace descends, he can also obtain the more powerful blood of the earth.

In a year, it can generate more than a thousand gold crowns for the territory.

With so many items, even if he didn't have any wars or adventures, he could easily earn 5,000 gold crowns.

(End of this chapter)