Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 252 Food Pressure and New Wheat Seeds

Chapter 252 Food Pressure and New Wheat Seeds
After Su Li cleansed the corrosion from his body, Minister of Agriculture Vandal and Minister of Animal Husbandry Edmund walked into the conference hall.

These two old druids are brothers, which is a good story of promoting relatives in the territory.

There is no need to worry about them being corrupt. They are both quite idealistic and each has a grand ideal.

Minister of Agriculture Fandral Oak is single-mindedly devoted to the growth of the Church of the Dawn Goddess. As both Minister of Agriculture and Patriarch of the Church of the Dawn, he is deeply devoted to the ancient goddess, Rhea.

The Church of the Dawn believes that since human tribes transitioned from nomadic to settled existence, they have devoted themselves to the goddess of the dawn, Rhea. It is said that she brought the secrets of agriculture to humanity. The earliest humans believed that Rhea gifted them with domesticated grains, tamed animals, and the secrets of farming. Out of gratitude, humans venerated Rhea in the mysterious stone circles they discovered across the land. The women charged with guarding the secrets bestowed by Rhea established a nascent priesthood.

Some scholars believe Rhea is a modern incarnation of a goddess worshipped in the Old Faith. Others believe Rhea was the first civilized deity, bringing stability and order to the capriciousness of nature.

As more tribes settled into settled life, those most dependent on farming began to favor Rhea over other native deities.

Even the fiercest warrior king recognized the need to avert famine and ensure the health of children. After Redmar established her empire, the cult of Rhea remained important, but it began to move increasingly away from the urban centers of power. The church never formalized. As priests Ulric, Tal, and later Redmar fought over the politics of the new empire, the Church of Rhea remained pragmatic, focused on the eternal care of the land—after all, it had always been Rhea's domain.

Therefore, Fandral has dedicated himself to expanding the worship of Rhea to the countryside and villages of the Black Forest. This is necessary. Although Rhea is deeply beloved by the people of the Empire, town dwellers rarely pay attention to the goddess except when they need her blessing—to ease the stress of childbirth, fill granaries and markets, or end a harsh winter. Priestesses visit larger settlements to care for expectant mothers, but they do not enjoy being confined to walls and stone for long.

Rhea's true heartland of worship lies in the villages and farms of the Empire's countryside, for in these places, her favor is essential for survival and prosperity. Rural life is considered "under Rhea's care," and for good reason. If you live in the countryside, she has been with you since birth, watching you grow up, find love, marry, and bear children. Even after death, she is responsible for delivering your soul to Morr and, in some legends, wishes your body to be buried in the earth, where it can support future life within the soil.

With the end of this round of territory war, the Church of the Goddess of Dawn gained a great opportunity for expansion. A large number of villages and farms began to spread out of the town, and many monasteries and mysterious stone circles of the Church of Rhea also emerged.

Their church is in urgent need of more Sisters of the Dawn.

Edmund Oak was even more radical than Fandral. As an elven druid, he had no interest in human endeavors or beliefs, and was solely focused on developing a forest town suitable for refined living. His vision was to find a forest within the vast Hessen foothills as the territory of the Hessen continued to expand, preferably on a tributary of the lower Brienne River, with a river running through the forest. He would then build numerous elven structures within the sprawling forest on either side of the river, housing thousands, even tens of thousands, of elves, who would then rest and recuperate, while also engaging in trade with humans.

In this regard, he has achieved certain results. The Sacred Forest is his pilot project. The development of this forest is full of vigorous vitality, which means that as long as the territory supports him and there are enough elves moving in, he can build a larger forest in another vast territory at any time.

If there were an ancient tree of life, the process would be much faster, and even some powerful elven wizards would move here.

But this also meant that there would be certain conflicts and disputes within the territory. Forming an alliance was never easy. The vengeful dwarves could never forget the hatred of their ancestors, and the Battle of the Longbeard had always caused the elves and dwarves to hate each other.

Perhaps it would be easier for both sides to reach a trade agreement, but the Hessian Lord would have to organize the elven wizards and dwarven artillery into an army, so that they could start fighting among themselves before engaging the enemy.

Even these peaceful druids could not stand the dwarves' violent temper.

So when Fandral walked into the meeting room, his old face, like a withered vine, was covered with deep wrinkles. He complained angrily, "My Lord, you really should take care of these lawless dwarf engineers! They actually used gunpowder to blast in Lake Ravelin to open the northeastern drainage canal. How can this be tolerated? Even the excrement of the ratmen is cleaner than their dirty gunpowder and bodies!"

"Look at what they've done. This one explosion killed over 5000 fish! There weren't many fish in the lake to begin with, and this explosion is pushing the ecosystem to the brink of collapse."

"And I went to them to seek justice. They had no compunction at all. They threw a disgusting, dirty blueprint, reeking of alcohol and sweat, in my face, saying that according to calculations, this would significantly increase the inflow area of ​​Bjorn's Bay below."

"These iron-headed people only know how to calculate. They even boast that we druids are just a bunch of long-eared fools. Without their irrigation canals, the wheat fields wouldn't even be enough to feed the goblins. Are we going to destroy the entire ecology of Lake Rafflin just for irrigation?"

The old druid's roar shook off the dust from the antler crown on his head. It was obvious that this round of explosion made him very embarrassed.

Su Li took the parchment scroll from his hand and spread it out on the conference table. The water diversion route marked by the dwarves with rune gold lines ran through the entire Bjorn Bay, and even headed towards the sacred forest in the northeast and the newly emerging farms in the southeast.

When elves and dwarves are together, they always have a series of disputes due to issues such as ideas and tree protection. The last time the elves were so violent was because the dwarves built a canal and poured alchemical hardening agents on the riverbed, causing all the hemlock trees within a dozen miles to be petrified.

At that time, Edmund almost rode his giant eagle to fight the dwarves. In order to fight against this elite force, the dwarf construction team even pulled out a fully armed musketeer team. The two sides were on the verge of a fight, and it was entirely dependent on the high-ranking attendant steward Hilde and a large number of armed attendants to forcibly separate them.

But just a few days later, the conflict shifted to the Minister of Agriculture.

But it is really difficult for Su Li to favor anyone. The Church of Dawn is the most important helper in his development of territory and farming, but he is also indispensable to the dwarves' water conservancy construction and industrial production.

Furthermore, while the dwarves' actions were a bit reckless, they were indeed the most efficient plan after careful calculation. After all, the dwarves suffered heavy losses after the war, and the territory needed to quickly build canals to irrigate the farmland to ensure more food output during the year-end harvest season, thereby avoiding a shortage of food and fodder before the next summer harvest.

They really couldn't dig carefully bit by bit, so they could only blast a gap roughly and build as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, the territory has become accustomed to these lawsuits involving dwarves and elves. There will be various conflicts between the powerful departments in any territory. For this reason, the Provincial Council and the Tribunal have set up special mediation courts, so Su Li does not need to go through the trouble of judging who is right and who is wrong.

As the lord, he only needed to play the bad guy and say some soothing words to both sides. So Su Li said decisively: "The dwarves' style of behavior is indeed a bit rude. How can they curse at others? I will teach them a lesson. Now, my minister, tell me about the agricultural reclamation of the territory."

Fandral did not expect Su Li to really punish the dwarf engineers severely. After all, although he was angry, he also knew that the reclamation of Bjorn's Bay was inseparable from the water conservancy projects built by the dwarf engineers.

So Su Li gave him a way out, and he immediately took advantage of it and gave a detailed report, saying, "My Lord, our reclamation work has been very effective. The current focus of the territory is still on restoring Bjorn Bay. Over 60,000 acres of the territory's most fertile land were burned by the monsters, but with our full efforts, it is being continuously restored."

"Those grumpy dwarves spoke like goblin farts, but the water conservancy projects and flood control dams they built were indeed effective. The green dragon monsters attacked the dams frantically, but they couldn't destroy their alchemical dams. This forced the monsters to burn the farmland with fire. Although the wheat seedlings and crops were burned, the goddess of dawn blessed us, and the burned land became more fertile. We quickly reclaimed the farmland and replanted winter wheat."

"Although the territory suffered from the war, it has no shortage of resources for production. On the contrary, without the overwhelming military pressure, the territory has devoted all its efforts to forging swords into plowshares, creating an abundant supply of agricultural tools. Nearly two thousand slaves reclaimed over 60000 acres of fertile land in Bjorn Bay in just one month, and they are still opening up new farmland to the east. The ditches built by the dwarves provide water for these farmlands."

This situation really made Su Li very satisfied.

Now the farming in the territory is no longer constrained like it was before. There are plenty of serfs and farm tools. With the help of dwarves and halflings, the territory even has a considerable number of professional agricultural machinery. The area cultivated every day far exceeds that of ordinary small peasant economies.

After all, professional plows and harvesters already constitute the level of industrial production in the empire.

Su Li asked with great interest: "How many industrial machines such as plows do we have now?"

"Thirty-three, Lord," Fandral replied immediately. "The main factor limiting our agricultural equipment is the number of battle rams. You know, it takes three battle rams to pull a heavy plow, and two to pull a small harvester."

"How fast are these devices?" Su Li asked.

"It's very fast. A heavy-duty plow can open up over 40 mu of fertile land in a single day. It's not that the plow's speed is limited to that; in fact, if they were allowed to run freely, they could easily cover over 100 mu a day. However, the serfs behind them have to clear away rubble, level the land, dig out roots, and so on, which limits their speed."

That’s pretty quick too!
One machine can open up 40 mu of fertile land a day. 33 machines can open up thousands of mu of fertile land a day, which means more than 400 hectares of fertile land in a month.

Perhaps by next year, Su Li will own 4000 hectares of land. This once envisioned goal is not far away.

Moreover, this is the speed of opening up new fields. Next year, when spring plowing and sowing are carried out, the efficiency can be even higher, and it will be no problem to open up one hectare of land a day!

This means that the territory will have more free time to cultivate new fields next year, and these agricultural equipment may be rented to various villages and farms after the land is plowed. In addition to earning considerable wealth, it can also increase the area of ​​each farm.

But this isn't the full extent of the farming in Bjorn's Bay. Fandral continued, "In addition to these halfling equipment, our territory has also produced over 80 Nord heavy plows. Therefore, the recovery of production is very fast. All we need now is time for the serfs to take good care of the wheat fields and increase the yield during the harvest season."

Time is what the territory currently has the most! After defeating the Green Dragon, the territory can finally focus on production.

Su Li was full of expectations for the winter harvest, especially after reactivating the eye of the storm, the territory would usher in a period of good weather.

There are no severe natural disasters, and the harvest is guaranteed regardless of drought or flood in Bjorn Bay, so the next good harvest is fully guaranteed!

Su Li then said, "We've found a solution to the battle ram issue and will quickly breed a batch of rams for next year's development. You must organize the Dawn Church to produce more production machinery and increase the scale of the blood sacrifice."

The two aspects Su Li mentioned are the focus of the territory's future farming.

In particular, the scale of the farmland used for blood sacrifice will greatly affect the amount of grain harvest.

Fandral nodded solemnly and said, "Our logging camp has begun to resume production. With the specialized logging machines of the Halflings, we can cut down over 3,000 trees every day, which is enough for us to build a large-scale construction project and produce a batch of agricultural equipment."

"But there's been no progress with the blood sacrifice. We haven't found any trace of the next Polevik yet."

The whereabouts of the Father of Grain, Polevik, will probably require Su Li's intelligence to collect.

Su Li did not force the Dawn Goddess Church to do anything about this matter, so he asked, "My Minister, how much grain do you estimate we will harvest this harvest season? Will it be enough to sustain the people until the next harvest?"

One copper coin for one pound of grain has been the bottom line for ensuring stability in the empire for thousands of years.

Once the food price exceeds this, the civilians who have been exploited to the bone may not have enough food to eat, and their families may even go bankrupt and become slaves.

The Green Dragon's invasion had the greatest impact on the territory's farming rhythm. If this year's third harvest wasn't sufficient, next spring would be a time of widespread famine. Many people would die of starvation in the chilly spring weather before the next summer's harvest.

As Minister of Agriculture, Fandral was the most concerned about this. He immediately frowned and replied, "My Lord, the situation is not optimistic. Our territory's greatest agricultural asset is undoubtedly the 1100 hectares of fertile farmland beneath Bjorn Bay."

"After our best efforts, the damaged farmland has now been planted with winter wheat, but grain production has inevitably been affected. We estimate that even with buckwheat, peas, cabbage, and radishes, the total grain production will only be around 20,000 tons."

"It's enough to meet the current size of the territory, but if the population grows rapidly, famine will inevitably occur."

Su Li calculated and felt that the food was indeed enough for the time being. Even if the territory's population recovered to 6000, there would still be a certain surplus.

Su Li then asked, "My minister, how could there be a famine? According to previous levels, this amount of food should be sufficient."

Fandral sighed, "My Lord, you absolutely cannot calculate based on the previous level! Previously, the territory had five or six thousand civilians, slaves, and armed retainers, but only three or four hundred elite knights."

"But now the combined number of knights in the territory, various knight orders, and their garrisons is nearly a thousand. They're all voracious eaters. Even if they only eat meat, they can eat two to three kilograms in one meal. If they eat ordinary grains, the amount they consume every day is astronomical."

This is indeed a problem.

Even ordinary human recruits on Earth can eat up all their food allowances.

During training and fighting, the energy consumption of those vigorous young men is not comparable to that of office workers.

The knights of this world, as people of extraordinary bloodline, are all big eaters, even more extravagant than the biggest eaters on Earth.

This is also why class mobility in this world is very low, and it is almost impossible for a commoner family to give birth to a knight.

Because the poor are in literature and the rich are in martial arts, just providing these knights with enough food to make their blood boil is enough to overwhelm a not-so-wealthy family.

Considering the meager food reserves in an ordinary farmer's home, if a knight with a bloodline about to awaken appeared, it would be a double blow to the family, enough to drag the whole family to collapse and fall to the brink of starvation.

From an apprentice knight to a formal knight and an elite knight, each stage is a hurdle.

Why did the knights have to have their own manors? Because their demand for food was really huge.

To support 1000 elite knights equipped with strong weapons, excellent armor and well-trained, the food consumption alone is equivalent to that of 10000 to 20000 infantry.

With this calculation, the territory's food supply is indeed insufficient, and the territory's farmland must continue to be developed. At least the farmland in Bjorn Bay must be developed to more than 1500 hectares this year.

So Su Li sighed and said, "In terms of grain production, there is really a long way to go! My minister, after hearing what you said, I feel that a food famine is inevitable."

When winning the battle against the Green Dragon, Su Li was only concerned with his happiness. After all, with so many elite knights emerging, the military strength of the territory had made great progress.

But maintaining such an army was much more difficult than he thought.

Such an elite force of heavily armored cavalry not only needed large quantities of food, but also had very high demands for food quality. If they were given the food that was being misused by civilians and serfs, they would have thrown it to the ground, raised their arms, and marched out of the camp to protest in front of the Provincial Council. They might even have smashed the tables in the Provincial Council in their excitement.

As Fandral said, they must be provided with sufficient and high-quality food, such as cheese, bread, pork sausage, ale, vegetable soup, pies and some barbecue.

The more Su Li thought about it, the more headache he felt. He said, "My minister, why do I feel like I can't afford to support so many troops?"

Fandral said solemnly, "This is normal, Lord. I've long told you that you should discuss reducing the military with Marshal Orlstein. We're just a small pioneering territory, and maintaining over a thousand elite troops this year is truly beyond our territory's capacity."

"Marshal Orlstein will not agree to reduce the army. Moreover, we should be prepared for danger in times of peace. Our land is not peaceful, and it is not wise to reduce the army at this time. Do you have any other ideas, my minister?"

Upon hearing this, Fandral sighed and said, "Then we, the Church of Dawn, will have to increase the pressure. Lord, please be at ease. Our territory's wealth extends beyond Bjorn's Bay. There are also many farms and villages that can alleviate the territory's food pressure."

"Furthermore, we can't rely solely on Vanishing Valley to supply these elite knights. After the green dragon's rampage, some of the grain we grew near the dragon mutated and turned into [Iron Wheat Seeds]. The stalks of these grains have sharp edges, so we need to wear mail to harvest them."

"But this wheat is stronger and more psychic, requiring a high-level magical mill to grind into flour. If it can be made into bread, it can greatly alleviate the knights' hunger and slightly increase their strength by at least 20% for a short period of time."

"Unfortunately, we don't have this kind of high-level magic mill yet."

Tsk~
Su Li couldn't help but sigh that the fantastic plants in this world were really bizarre and always broadened his horizons.

He had never imagined that the serfs would have to wear mail armor when harvesting wheat.

But he immediately laughed and said, "Constructing a high-level magic mill is no longer a problem. I'll help you with it. You should cultivate these iron wheat seeds now, and try to increase the planting area next year."

(End of this chapter)

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