Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 253 The Necessity of the Right of First Night and Extraordinary Pasture
The Beaver Clan requested the right to dam Lake Ravelin, a sacred site in the Hessen Territory. A key condition was the construction of several high-level magical mills within the territory, capable of grinding extraordinary grains that ordinary animal-powered and water-powered mills could not.

This high-end mill was perfectly situated. Beneath the embankment lay the Björn Fjord, Hesse's most important agricultural region. It housed the territory's first canal, irrigation ditches, and extensive fertile farmland. This made it a convenient location for delivering the iron wheat seeds to be ground into flour.

The bread made from this iron wheat seed provides the knights with a strength and defense bonus. While it only lasts for a short period, approximately four hours, it can be considered permanent. After all, the time between meals is only a few hours, and before a battle, the lord will undoubtedly feast his soldiers. This perfectly covers the warriors' combat time.

The only problem was that the steel wheat had too many sharp blades, and harvesting it required wearing mail armor. This was a very risky undertaking, not just for the slaves, but for the entire territory!
Putting mail armor on hundreds or thousands of serfs and giving them sharp sickles in their hands, the meaning is self-evident!

With so many armed slaves, if they had an idea to imitate the howl of a fox at night, or dug out some strange statues of gods, these strong slaves would definitely be more inclined to riot and rob than to be oppressed.

I'm afraid that when the harvest season comes, the territory will need to assemble the knight corps and station them next to the holy land to monitor them.

After all, holding a sharp weapon will lead to murder, while the throat will be polite to the weapon.

A few hundred mortal slaves in chain mail faced hundreds of elite knights in plate armor. The gap was no smaller than that of mortals in linen and short robes facing fully armed elite soldiers.

This is also the significance of him maintaining so many troops. The rations of 1000 elite knights alone are equivalent to those of 10000 armed attendants.

But it turned out that he had thought too simply about the food crisis in the territory. Just as he solved the problem with Fandral, Edmund gave him a ruthless blow.

"My Lord, I think both you and the Minister of Agriculture have seriously overlooked one point in your calculations. It's not just the soldiers and the people who consume grain in a territory. In fact, maintaining livestock and war horses is also a significant expense. Humans eat and horses feed, and the cost of horse farming is no less than that of humans."

Don't ask why the territory needs to support livestock. If things are really difficult, the knights' meals can be a little rougher. After all, humans can be used as gray livestock, and their willpower and endurance surpass most creatures.

But there was no way to reduce the griffins' rations. They would at least eat chicken, and feeding them pork was like eating rotten meat. While it was not unpalatable, they were extremely averse to it.

To provide meat for so many knights, a large amount of millet would be consumed.

There's nothing that can be done about it, but fortunately, there are ways to alleviate the problem. Su Li said, "When herding horses and sheep, stop using grain. Gather more grass! If you're short on manpower, you can increase taxes on civilians, requiring each person to provide 100 kilograms of grass to the territory every year."

Chu is grass used to feed livestock.

When a king's army is underway, the people will always rush to help by carrying firewood and fodder. This is the same as when providing food and drink.

If the tax system is advanced enough, then basically all civilians in agricultural society will have to bear the fodder tax.

However, the tax system of this world empire is rather sloppy. There is no tax system, but a crude direct 19-year tax. Farmers basically have nothing left except a little food rations.

How well the peasants lived depended entirely on how virtuous the lord was and how much tax he refunded to them.

Su Li felt that giving ordinary people an extra 100% tax refund and asking them to pay kilograms of fodder was a benevolent policy no matter how you looked at it. It was like brushing off his own virtue.

Of course, the Council of Provinces might not support this idea. Iron Chancellor Oliver was very resistant to any idea of ​​tax rebates.

The last time the tax was filed, the prime minister had a fierce conflict with Su Li and Fandral.

He thought Su Li's policy of giving serfs a 30% tax refund was extremely unwise, but due to Su Li's status, he still maintained respect for him.

However, he was not so polite towards the kindness and generosity of the Church of Dawn. He slammed his arm armor heavily on the conference table, and the violent collision caused sparks to fly.

Then, his cold eyes looked down at Fandral and demanded, "Mercy? Has your head been eaten by the fleas on those peasants? The laws of the Empire have always been engraved on the blades of knights! Serfs are born to grease the wheels of their lords' chariots with their flesh and blood."

"The 19th tax is a sacrament bestowed upon the nobility by any Redmar. You should advise those maggots to be more grateful that they have met a virtuous lord. Remember, just last year, when the Knights of Lyonesse in the southern empire suppressed a riot, they used the intestines of 20% of the rebels to fertilize their vineyards!"

Even though Minister of Agriculture Fandral dared to argue with the irascible dwarf, they simply didn't have the courage to refute the iron-blooded chancellor's powerful aura. After all, he was a powerful bureaucrat chosen by God.

So Fandral completely avoided Oliver, fearing that his benevolent policies would be cut short if they disagreed.

This iron-blooded chancellor had offered Su Li more than once some advice. The one that left the deepest impression on Su Li was the sound of his studded boots grinding over the torn pages of tax returns scattered on the ground, making a teeth-grinding scraping sound. He asked Su Li, "Sir, have you forgotten how the greenskin warlord Guk ripped open the throat of Viscount Moka in the south? When those filthy beasts come like a tide, will it be the copper coins you return to the serfs that will build the city walls, or the plate armor soaked in the serfs' blood and sweat?"

Compared to a tax refund, the head of the provincial government would certainly prefer to increase taxes on the civilians in the territory. In the end, even if the two sides had to compromise, the most he could do was to allocate some money from the territory's tight finances to purchase hay from the farmers.

Although this minister did not absolutely support all of Su Li's policies, Su Li did not hate him. On the contrary, he admired him very much.

Unconditionally supporting all of Su Li's ideas was the duty of the High-ranking Attendant General. As the most powerful official in the territory, the High-ranking Attendant General was responsible for persuading others to support Su Li's ideas and attitudes.

The director of the provincial government only needs to be responsible for performing his duties conscientiously.

Su Li admired Oliver's businesslike attitude. Speaking freely about work matters was how he demonstrated his value. His insistence on reasoning didn't lead to any resentment towards him in his personal life.

Therefore, Su Li didn't need to worry about how to get the fodder. He only needed to ask for it, and the iron-blooded prime minister would help him solve it.

Edmund was also very convinced of the ability of the head of the Provincial Council, but hay alone was far from enough. He immediately said, "My Lord, nomadic people cannot raise top-quality war horses. A true warhorse cannot eat hay alone; it must be supplemented with grain. A qualified warhorse must eat the rations of three serfs every day. That is why, in the face of the green dragon disaster, the knights can trample on the spines of the beastmen and break through their lines."

Su Li waved his hand and said, "That's not a problem. I have a solution for the problem of adding fuel to the mount. Do you know [Moonlight Alfalfa]?"

"Moonlight Clover?" Edmund's eyes lit up immediately. "I've heard it's a kind of grass blessed by Tal, growing only deep in dense forests and fertile grasslands. This extraordinary grass, with its silver-blue veins winding through its leaves, is one of the highest quality grasses in the empire."

"Legend has it that on nights when two moons meet, this grass oozes mother-of-pearl dew. At this time, it must be harvested with a sickle inlaid with the skull of a giant herder to reap the full benefits of moonlight clover. Warhorses that consume this clover will have their eye sockets glow like emeralds, significantly increasing their endurance, allowing them to run for six hours straight without fatigue."

Six hours without getting tired?
Su Li made a comparison and found that the gap between him and the wildebeest horse king was still quite large. The wildebeest horse king, the beast butcher Gerold's mount was the most majestic warhorse in the entire Black Forest foothills. It was said that it could gallop for three days and three nights to report urgent military information to the front line.

Compared with this divine horse, an ordinary warhorse can run for six hours without getting tired, which is undoubtedly a huge gap.

But compared to ordinary war horses that do not use this moonlight alfalfa, the difference is several times.

Horses have far less endurance than humans! Warhorses are fine for short-distance charges, but for long-distance marches, humans are definitely outmatched. Even at a marathon-length race, humans can sometimes outrun horses.

Even if the Empire's wildebeests ran at full speed, they would only take about two hours.

The first time Su Li led the cavalry on a long-distance raid on the Halfling tribe, he had to stop after running for about two hours, unsaddle the horses, let them feed the grass, and rest to recover their strength.

But the wildebeests that ate moonlight alfalfa could run for six hours! This meant that the mobility of the Su Li Knight Corps increased by three or even five times!
After all, humans also need to eat and practice. In other words, as long as there is this moonlight alfalfa, the warhorse's rest time can be synchronized with humans, and it won't delay the march much.

And the benefits don't stop there. Edmund continued, "This moonlight alfalfa not only provides the warhorse with ample endurance, but I've heard that the perfect moonlight alfalfa cultivated with the tears of pure girls can allow a warhorse to traverse mountains and rivers as if it were flat ground."

"Any livestock that eats this extraordinary grass has the potential to be tempered by spiritual power and advance to a higher level of extraordinary species."

"Of course, everything in this world comes at a price. This is especially true when it comes to psychic energy. Excessive psychic energy greatly increases the probability of corruption. If artificially cultivated moonlight alfalfa lacks the blessing of sufficient maiden tears, there's a chance it will mutate into inferior humus alfalfa, growing rotten flesh in the stables, and vines with beating hearts crawling in the hay troughs, dragging serfs who steal grain into a maze of roots and stems covered in fangs. Then the flesh and blood will restore peace."

Flesh and blood will restore it to peace! This is truly full of the eternal despair of this world.

Don't think this is a good thing. On the contrary, it means eternal darkness and despair will always shroud this stable. The serfs will never know which moonlight clover are safe and which have temporarily returned to peace.

As long as the serfs entered the stable, they might be dragged into the root maze by the hideous vines of humus alfalfa.

But since they stole the grain from the stable, it was only natural that they should bear the consequences.

Su Li quickly overlooked this point and instead focused on the cultivation of these extraordinary forages.

Perhaps this wild god, Tal, is really a bit unruly.

His priest's name is Maiden Tal, and his sacred beasts, such as the giant herder and the unicorn, can only be ridden by pure girls. Even the grass that contains his divine power needs to be irrigated and cultivated with the tears of pure girls.

This makes the right of first night in the territory seem particularly necessary.

Any girl's chastity belongs to the lord. At least before the lord's permission, if a virgin loses her chastity, she and her damned adulterer will be hanged on the gallows.

Su Li could refuse the amnesty, but the serfs could not steal it themselves.

Su Li then said to Edmund, "The territory will fully support you in all you have proposed. Whether it's the tears of pure maidens or large quantities of hay, we will do our best to collect them. I have only one request: that this hay be cultivated in the Sacred Forest as soon as possible to meet the needs of war horses and battle rams."

"No problem, Lord! I will use my divine power to quickly gather moonlight clover seeds and sow them extensively throughout the forest, expanding to at least 20 acres in the first phase."

Su Li nodded and asked, "How many livestock do we have on the ranch now?"

"The number is running low, my lord. According to the Blood Pine Forest Reclamation Order, every family willing to go to the frontier to reclaim land can apply for three bags of winter wheat seeds and two draft horses. We have already sent out thousands of draft horses."

"At the same time, the number of knights in the territory increased, and the knights also purchased nearly 2000 war horses."

"We only have about 920 war horses, 2000 draft horses, and 500 mountain rams left on the ranch. However, we still have a considerable number of ordinary goats and sheep, over 6000. Our shepherds are currently moving these flocks to the Crimson Highlands, which are natural pastures after all."

One good thing about the Hessen foothills is that this vast and fertile land not only has developed agriculture, but also has many natural pastures, especially the cool highlands near the northern mountains, which are natural grazing areas.

In fact, Su Li wasn't the only one grazing there. Many knight families, prominent families, and large landowners had bought Su Li's land and hired shepherds to graze their flocks. While Su Li was patrolling on his griffin, he'd seen at least eight or nine herds of cattle and horses grazing in the lush meadows below. There were probably a total of one or two thousand horses and cattle.

These knight families are actually quite wealthy. After all, Su Li is very generous. After winning so many battles, the spoils distributed to the knight families account for 2% to 3% of the total.

This was also the most important reason why Su Li was so powerful. Victory was the best motivation, and his soldiers could always follow him in victory to reap rewards, gaining a large amount of wealth, benefits, land, and livestock.

An important reason why the territory's population statistics had to be rechecked every few months was that these knight families would continuously purchase slaves from slave traders and slave-catching groups arriving in Hesse Town to cultivate their estates and raise their herds.

Every time he took inventory, Su Li would find that the population of the territory was more than he expected, and the farmland was more extensive than he calculated.

Of course, Su Li was happy to see this happen.

The vast Hessen foothills could not be developed rapidly by his own efforts. He had to rely on a large number of knight families to expand outward, establishing strongholds and manors, and then, based on these strongholds and farms, to open up surrounding farmlands and pastures.

After Su Li placed the focus on farming, Fandral and Edmund immediately began to implement these policies.

The first thing was the forage that Edmund needed. As expected, Su Li guessed it right. Edmund went to the Provincial Council to ask Oliver for support, but was immediately scolded by the iron-blooded prime minister and could not even raise his head.

Oliver gave him a simple calculation to show him how much property loss the exemption of 10% of taxes would cause to the territory, and how many merchants and large landowners might take the opportunity to evade taxes. Just a preliminary calculation showed that with the current size of the territory, hundreds of gold crowns would be lost every year.

Once the territory grows and has a population of 20000+, it may lose thousands of gold crowns every year!

Fortunately, the appearance of Moonlight Clover made Oliver see some value, and he gave Edmund a little good face.

He granted Edmund 30 golden crowns and asked him to collect grass on his own.

30 gold crowns!

Compared with the income of hundreds or thousands, it seems insignificant, but it demonstrates unparalleled purchasing power!

This is equivalent to the total annual income of 30 farmers.

It was spread out at one time and easily mobilized more than 1000 farmers to help the ranch collect more than 10 bales of grass.

This is a real project that makes money very quickly. The people deliver the goods and the ranch pays for them.

Many families brought their entire families with them, and even 5-year-old children took stone knives and ran to the fields to harvest grass in exchange for a copper coin.

Especially in the villages that are closer to the pasture, dozens of households in each village will rush to cut a batch of grass before nightfall after finishing their farm work. Then, a dozen strong young men in a village will push carts or drive horse-drawn carriages to deliver the grass to the pasture in exchange for a huge fortune of up to several silver coins.

This was equivalent to several days' income for them. A farmer's average daily income was only about 20 copper coins. The only thing that bothered them was that the official's announcement stated a copper coin per bale of hay, but they couldn't get that much. The ranch manager, that fat, big-eared fellow, would deduct 1-1% of the commission, depending on his mood, under the pretext of saving money for the lord.

The farmers were helpless, and they were quite content holding the few copper coins they had earned. After all, this was a benevolent policy from the lord. With this extra income, their children no longer had to compete with wild dogs for food.

After all, even if the civil servants don't give them money, these common people have to "voluntarily" sacrifice themselves for the great cause of the lord.

But the situation changed when Master Su Li personally inspected the pasture forage. On the fertile pasture with tens of thousands of bundles of grass, the fat and big-eared head of the master was hung on the top of the flagpole.

The richness of the pasture and the piles of hay made Master Su Li very satisfied.

However, the person in charge actually dared to meddle with Ma Zheng's project, which made Master Su Li very angry.

Ma Zheng’s corruption is Su Li’s taboo and forbidden zone. Anyone who dares to cross the line will be executed without hesitation!
Although this small official had only embezzled a few dozen silver coins, the court still had no chance of forgiving him.

While hay was being stored, Edmund's moonlight alfalfa project in the sacred forest was also progressing in full swing.

These noble silver-horned giant deer were like the aristocrats among the giant deer. When they entered the sacred forest, they inspected the entire forest. A large amount of moonlight alfalfa grew in the traces they left, which greatly reduced Edmond's cultivation time.

If the footprints of these giant deer could cover the entire forest, thousands of acres of high-quality forage grass could be cultivated.

After all, the area of ​​this sacred forest is not very large, and it was artificially transformed by Edmund.

For this great plan, Edmund even bribed the Patriarch of the Tar Church, Her Excellency Lunadesan, to seduce these giant deer.

Of course, he didn't dare to say this directly, otherwise Lunadesan would tear his beard apart.

He was pushing the project forward in the name of cooperation.

This is also a tradition of the two churches. Pastors of the Dawn Church and the Tower Church often cooperate to preside over ceremonies at celebrations.

This was also his inherent impression of the Tal Church. Tal and his sacred beasts were all old perverts. Even a giant herding deer liked to have pure girls ride on them.

Luna Deshan had no idea what Edmond was thinking, because the old man had deceived her in the name of compensation.

The giant herder that Lunadessan had loaned to Fandral died in the dragon's lair. Its skull, along with the carcasses of two other giant herders Su Li had found, was collected and brought back. The dwarves crafted three sacred beast skull sickles from bronze, oak, and the skull, and gave them to several innocent 17-year-old girls to harvest moonlight clover in the forest.

Fandral and Edmund both suggested to her that she tame another giant silver-horned deer as her new mount.

Lunadesan accepted the kindness of the two old men without knowing why.

But things did not go as planned. These giant silver deer seemed to ignore her and were even less friendly than they were to Hildurde.

But you have to know that Hildreth is definitely not a pure girl, she is even full of Su Li's scent.

This is basic physiological common sense. If an intimate activity is perfect, the male scent will remain in the female body for at least two days.

That is to say, during the two days, when women are active, there will be male semen flowing out on their underwear.

But even so, the Silver-Horned Giant Deer is closer to Hildurdo, which makes Lunadesan a little shocked.

Although she likes to see the exposed chest and abdominal muscles of male knights, she is still a pure girl serving Tal.

(End of this chapter)