Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 275: Bjorn Shallow Bay's Plan to Promote to the Holy Land of Dawn
Although Fandral was full of fantasies about the vision in the sky, the appearance of such a sacred vision after this grand sacrificial ceremony greatly aroused the enthusiasm of everyone in the territory.

Moreover, the universal grace of God means that the per-acre yield of farmland in the Hessen Territory will generally increase slightly, and an increase of about 20 kilograms per acre is no problem at all.

This further increased the enthusiasm and motivation of all slaves in their work. After all, a good harvest means security.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, the territory strictly enforced the "Landing Law". A total of 13 slaves with the lowest output were sent to Squire's Gallows and executed in front of thousands of slaves.

This horrific scene frightened countless slaves to the point of freezing their hands and feet. Death itself was terrifying, but what was even more terrifying was that no one knew who would be struck by it.

Before the Spring Festival, the territory carried out torture, which successfully eliminated the laziness and lethargy of all the slaves. Everyone was in a tense state and spirit, determined to take advantage of the Spring Festival to create value with all their strength.

Of course, this Spring Birth Ceremony is a festival filled with vitality. Last night, the territory also offered rewards that perfectly suited the festive atmosphere.

After executing 13 cunning slaves, all the slaves were terrified and uneasy. Then, according to the incentive program of the "Live Farming Law", the territory freed 15 slaves from slavery! And the territory was very considerate. To prevent them from losing their assets and quickly falling back into slavery after being freed from slavery, each of them was rewarded with a golden crown, two draft horses, and three bags of grain (1 kilograms)!

The territory offered preferential policies for renting farmland. Anyone who applied to join the Hessian Territory could rent 20 mu of farmland for free, waive the rent, and reduce the th tax by %. This meant that these slaves would have a place to live and would have no worries about food and clothing until the harvest season.

The reward of 15 gold crowns is really a drop in the bucket for the territory. Sometimes Su Li's luxurious aristocratic life consumes far more wealth in a day.

But the excitement and intensity for all the slaves was unparalleled. Being able to be freed from slavery! In any territory, this was almost impossible.

In this hopeless world, hope is a precious thing like a gem.

And in Hesse Territory, all this became a reality.

The desire to be freed from slavery immediately overwhelmed their fear of death.

Especially during this spring festival when all things come into being, it is full of hope and vitality.

Everyone looked at Su Li with extreme eagerness. They held the plows and farm tools tightly in their hands, waiting for Su Li's order, and then they would go all out to start cultivating this fertile land.

As Su Li raised the whip and hit the colorfully decorated oxen, the Spring Ox Driving Ceremony officially began.

As the Patriarch of the Church of Dawn, the territory's Minister of Agriculture, Fandral, personally held the plow and plowed the land for hundreds of meters.

This marks the official start of the territory’s grand farming undertaking this year!

Throughout the Bjorn Bay, thousands of serfs, subjects, and halflings were busy farming under the guidance of the nuns of the Church of Dawn.

The dense crowd was like ants scattered on the fertile land of Bjorn Bay. The halflings stepped on their agricultural tools and plowed forward proudly in the envious eyes of the serfs. At this moment, they were like proud knights riding war horses among human masters.

It was normal for them to have such thoughts. After all, if they really had to go to the battlefield, these agricultural machines of theirs could also harvest heads. The battle rams pulled these heavy plows forward. Wherever the six rows of steel tines passed, the hardened soil was almost painted into a velvet carpet.

In less than an hour, under the golden warm sun, they drove a machine and plowed out 10 acres of field ridges.

Su Li sat on the embankment of Bjorn Bay and had a panoramic view of the cultivation of tens of thousands of acres of farmland below.

These ant-like subjects will transform this fertile soil into vast farmland for him, and then harvest countless golden grains in the harvest season.

This put him in a very good mood, and he admired this lively scene for a long time in the warm spring breeze.

After Fandral finished presiding over the ceremony, he came to Su Li and reported to him, "My Lord, good news. Before the blood sacrifice, the army successfully delivered the corpses. The four of us, the Father of Grain, Polevik, sacrificed together and obtained a total of 1200 acres of blood fields."

Su Li smiled and nodded. He had an excellent view from the top of the embankment and could see a group of people performing a blood sacrifice around the land below. After the slender-limbed Polevik chanted a long spell, the land below was filled with the emerald green light of the goddess of dawn, and then a full 1200 acres of land turned into fertile fields bathed in divine grace.

The scale was even larger than Fandral had expected. A full 2100 acres of blood fields really looked like a touch of cinnabar in the border prince's territory.

Then Su Li smiled and said, "This is indeed good news. However, we still need to continue our efforts and strive to allow more fields to be bathed in divine grace."

The effect of the blood sacrifice only lasts for 10 years, and one year has already passed halfway through. It is not easy for the territory to get more farmland to bathe in the grace of God.

The Hessen Territory is undoubtedly still a barren land of divine grace. If you want to increase the degree of divine grace in the farmland, you obviously need to take a multi-pronged approach.

More Dawn Church holy sites, more extensive sacrifices, and more nature spirits.

In this regard, there is no way to obtain more natural spirits in the short term, but more extensive sacrifices and more holy places are what the priests of the Church of Dawn are currently working hard to promote.

Fandral pointed to the fertile fields below Bjorn Bay and said, "My Lord, this year, in addition to developing this foothill and increasing the size of the farmland, we also plan to build this land into a core holy site for the Church of the Dawn within the territory."

Fandral's proposal made Su Li's eyes light up. He turned and looked at the Minister of Agriculture with a sharp gaze, saying, "Your proposal is very thoughtful. Bjorn Bay has always been the agricultural center of our territory and the pillar of agricultural output. If it can become the most sacred sanctuary of Rhea in the territory, it will indeed complement each other."

Su Li may not support the Dawn Church building other holy places, as some of the holy places are beneficial to the Dawn Church.

However, Su Li definitely supports this holy land. The vast agricultural area of ​​Bjorn Bay is Su Li's most core asset and the foundation for him to establish his territory and expand outward.

It can be said that the development and harvest here are the guarantee and foundation for whether he can gain a foothold in this border development territory.

Therefore, if the scale of the Bathing Divine Grace here can be expanded, he would have no problem investing directly.

So he got straight to the point and asked, "What are your plans? Tell me in detail what you have in mind."

Fandral immediately asked Su Li to stand up and walk to the side of the embankment. Then he pointed to the distance, encompassing the terrain of the Hessen foothills and Bjorn Bay, and said, "We have already developed 1700 hectares of fertile land in Bjorn Bay. Although the scale is not large, if we calculate that a family of five cultivates 3 mu of land, this is equivalent to the size of at least 5 to 300 villages. And not just small villages, but medium-sized villages with 500 to farmers."

"With the ample machinery and farm tools you've provided, I estimate they'll be able to plow the entire field in about 15 days, and then move on to cultivating new wasteland. However, due to the increased distance, we'll definitely need to build new farms, stables, and roads."

"So, instead of wasting manpower on building roads and farms, we decided to cultivate the existing fertile land. While the serfs are cultivating, we'll send out dwarven engineers to build a Maiden's Ring here. We've already chosen a location: right on those rolling hills."

Su Li followed his gaze and saw a low, round mound.

This is consistent with the topography of the Hessen foothills. As a plain area between the Gray Mountains and the Blood Pine Forest, the Hessen foothills are relatively flat and extremely fertile. However, there are some remnants of hills and a small amount of undulating terrain in the center of the plain.

Of course, even if it is not a foothill but a plain, the terrain is not flat. There are undulating hills inside, which serve as a shady place for grazing horses.

The mound at Bjorn Bay is not very high, but it has obvious ups and downs, about 20 to 30 meters, but its slope is very gentle. Su Li saw the half-orc plowing machine driving past without any hindrance, forming a cultivated field on the slope.

Fandral continued, "We've calculated that this place is approximately 20 miles from Hessen Town, making it just the right size for the Church of Dawn's rural sanctuary. The specific construction doesn't need to be too complicated. When completed, it will be surrounded by miles of fertile fields."

"A circle of standing stones will be built on a low, circular mound, with a statue of the Dawn Goddess in the center, a wooden statue of a young girl. Although some believe that the Dawn Goddess, Rhea, is a middle-aged woman with a broad face, our territory clearly does not recognize this religious content."

Listening to Fandral's introduction, Su Li nodded slightly. Although different places have slightly different interpretations of Rhea's teachings, for example, the image of Rhea is completely different in different places. Some people think she is a beautiful girl, while others think she is a kind-faced mother.

But some contents are common, such as this goddess does not like white marble, and her statues are basically made of wood.

The Sun Goddess and the Healing Goddess, the two sisters, were the exact opposite. Their images were fixed: beautiful young women, and their statues and churches were constructed of pure white marble. The Dawn Goddess was undoubtedly closer to nature, so Fandral continued, "We plan to build wheat fields and lawns on this circular mound, cutting spirals of Rhea's divine pattern into them. These grass paths will transform the water from Lake Rhaefulin, flowing from the waterwheel above, into clear streams to irrigate the entire valley."

"If all goes well, this place will become one of the most sacred shrines in the Hessen Territory. Priestesses from villages over a dozen miles away will come here to offer sacrifices and commune with the goddess. Even passing nature spirits will pay their respects here."

"As the most sacred, largest, and closest holy land to the Goddess of Dawn, this place will surely receive a strong divine grace, allowing the land to be bathed in the glory of the Goddess of Dawn."

"Our church believes that when a breeze blows through the wheat fields, it is Her Majesty Rhea strolling across the land. If the spiritual energy here is abundant enough, and the holy light is diffuse and brilliant, then the statue of Rhea on the mound is very likely to be endowed with divinity. When the breeze blows through the lush green wheat fields, the statue will summon a layer of Rhea's divinity, strolling above the wheat fields as a golden shadow."

After hearing this description, Su Li had already felt the powerful divinity of this holy land after it was built.

There were definitely many such holy places within the empire, as some local lords actually levied a 19% tax, with no rebates. They had this confidence because their territories were bathed in divine grace, and their farmland was practically nuclear-powered, producing five or even six crops a year.

The territory currently boasts a sacred site capable of producing four crops annually. Located within the Blood Pine Forest, the Frost Creek Basin is a druid-heavy area. With abundant forests, the druids have used the antifreeze resin secreted by birch trees during the harsh winter to create a natural ice crust. The nuns of the Church of Dawn then crafted foghorns from empty wheat straw. When temperatures drop below freezing, thousands of these foghorns, planted in the fields, automatically sound due to the temperature difference between the inside and outside of the ice crust. The sound waves melt the frost, transforming it into irrigation mist.

So when the entire Hessen Territory can only produce three crops a year, the more than 2000 acres of fertile land in this Wusong Wheat Post can achieve the feat of producing four crops a year.

If the construction of this Maiden's Ring is completed, not to mention other particularly powerful effects, as long as it can enable the farmland near Bjorn Bay to achieve four harvests a year, the additional income for the Hesse Territory will be as high as thousands of gold crowns each year.

It could even be worth more than tens of thousands of gold crowns! After all, income is nonlinear. With basic expenses fixed, a higher benefit value means more wealth can be accumulated in the territory after deducting expenses!
And this is really just the influence of the most basic worldly rules, which only involves the climate and temperature, making the terrain and environment here more suitable, so that crops that can be harvested three times a year can be harvested four times a year.

Fandral continued, "Also, after this holy land matures, we plan to plant new wheat seeds here."

"New wheat seeds?" Su Li also suddenly thought of this question.

He is not the Minister of Agriculture, so he pays less attention to the specific details of agriculture.

Vandal, who was responsible for the entire farming planning of the territory, had obviously considered everything very carefully. It not only included the development of wasteland and environmental improvement, but also, of course, the selection of crops.

Fandral smiled and said, "Yes, Lord. After we have such fertile land this year and created such a powerful Maiden's Ring, you are not still thinking of planting ordinary seeds, are you?"

Su Li raised his eyebrows and asked, "Doesn't the Extraordinary Ear require a purple spiritual field to cultivate?"

Sister Isabella usually cultivates these spiritual grains carefully in the Bauhinia Manor, but due to the lack of spiritual fields, she has not been able to expand the scale.

Fandral nodded and said, "Indeed, even if the spiritual grain is only of the Emerald Ear level, which can permanently enhance the knight's attributes, it still requires purple spiritual fields to be planted. But have you forgotten that we also have some relatively ordinary wheat seeds that can only temporarily enhance the knight's strength?"

Su Li suddenly remembered and asked, "Are you talking about steel wheat seeds?"

This wheat seed is a powerful wheat seed that was reborn from the ashes after the Green Dragon Alyria wreaked havoc. Their proximity to the dragon caused them to mutate, and the stems they grew had sharp edges, requiring serfs to wear mail armor to harvest!

In order to prevent these hundreds of serfs from putting on armor and holding sharp dwarf sickles, an idea king appeared among them, imitating the howling of foxes in the early morning, or stuffing strange things into the stomachs of fish.

During the winter harvest, Orlstein specially mobilized 500 elite knights in heavy armor to sit in Bjorn Bay and supervise the harvest.

The size of the army is even larger than that of the slaves. If the harvest is not valuable, it may not even be enough to cover the cost of the army's deployment.

The reason for mobilizing such a large force is that this wheat seed is indeed very effective. If a knight eats it, it can slightly increase the knight's strength by no less than 20% in a short period of time.

Therefore, if the army is not large enough, or only armed servants are sent, these slaves may secretly eat the iron wheat seeds and really start a riot, pushing back the army of the territory.

"But I remember the nuns from the Dawn Church said that these iron wheat seeds have a hard time surviving in ordinary fields." Su Li frowned and asked, "The last time these wheat seeds appeared was when the green dragon was rampaging, it was the result of a series of accidents."

As the Patriarch of the Church of Dawn, Fandral was of course aware of this situation, but he was ambitious. Pointing to the cultivated farmland in the distance, he said, "Ordinary fields certainly can't provide enough spiritual energy and vitality for the Iron Wheat Seeds. But here in Bjorn's Bay, it's different. The soil here is fertile, and irrigated by the waters of Lake Ravelin, the spiritual energy level is already very high."

"More importantly, once the Maiden's Ring is completed, the water from Lake Ravelin will be pumped to the top of the mound via a waterwheel. This water will flow down through the spiral grass path, carrying Rhea's divinity. Our church's high-ranking priests held a special discussion meeting on this matter, and most people believe that the use of the [Sunfall] magic should be unnecessary to ensure the growth of iron wheat seeds here."

"Last year, we harvested over 1380 kilograms of Iron Wheat Seed, and it's almost 1400 kilograms. We allocated 1000 kilograms to supply the army, ensuring that in the event of a fierce battle, the elite knights can eat Iron Bread to improve their combat effectiveness."

"We plan to cultivate the remaining 100-plus kilograms in three batches, striving to achieve a successful planting this year. Of the first 80 kilograms of wheat seeds this year, we will first sow about 20 kilograms here in Bjorn Bay, and the remaining kilograms will be tested in various sacred sites, including the different terrains of the various manors in the Blood Pine Forest."

"These 80 kilograms of wheat seeds will be sown while the Maiden's Ring is being constructed. We will strive to ensure the smooth growth of the steel wheat seeds after the construction of the holy land is completed."

Hearing this, Su Li immediately gained confidence.

Since the Dawn Church has already made plans for three rounds of training, Su Li has no reason to refuse their attempt.

"No problem, I approve of your proposal for the Maiden's Ring." Su Li waved his hand generously and said, "Your church should submit the application to the Provincial Council. I will have Oliver approve it."

With the development of the territory, Su Li basically stopped providing funding to other churches indiscriminately.

If each church has any needs or suggestions, they will submit an application to the Provincial Council, and the Provincial Council will then approve the payment.

Although this slightly reduces efficiency, the benefits are unparalleled. The process is more transparent and the conditions are clearer, which can greatly stimulate the enthusiasm of various churches to apply.

In order to receive the funds, each church submitted various applications to the provincial government.

There are so many plans, and there are always some that are eye-catching and have significant effects.

For example, the Church of the Sun Goddess plans to construct a pass at the Grey Lady's Pass in the Grey Mountains. Nestled in the rugged shadows of the Grey Mountains, it represents the only reliable and secure trade route through the Grey Mountains of the Hesse Territory. Standing in the fertile Lady's Valley, straddling the Blackwater River, the pass will profit from the constant flow of trade from its bustling commercial district, receiving goods from the mountain dwarven stronghold for export within the Empire and beyond.

Even now, the road is crowded with long-distance carriages, wagons, and horses carrying goods to and from the town's several busy markets. Similarly, its rivers and canals are filled with all kinds of ships carrying all kinds of goods for sale and trade.

Once the Grey Lady's Pass is completed, the territory will be able to earn at least thousands of gold crowns worth of customs duties and commercial taxes every year, and the garrison will significantly improve public security along the Grey Mountains.

The knights of the Hessian Territory and the dwarf rangers will join forces to fight against various monsters hidden in the mountain roads and canyons, such as looters, bandits, beastmen, greenskins, trolls, etc.

After these monsters are cleared, the prosperity of this trade route will be further enhanced, and more caravans will come out of the Gray Mountains and into the Hessen Territory.

At the same time, this dangerous pass and the garrison inside will significantly prevent various cultists, demons, and ogres from infiltrating the territory.

The last time the cultists dug out a God-chosen demon and broke the terrible seal, it was because the Hessen Territory was too far away from this area and they were unable to come and prevent it in the first place.

Otherwise, the battle between the human and dwarf coalition forces would not have been so brutal.

With the help of Su Li's intelligence system, all evil orders and Chaos Knights that infiltrate the Hessen Territory will be destroyed by this legion in the first place.

So even though it would take 4000 gold crowns to build this pass, the Hesse Lords still gritted their teeth and built it, and sent their foreign minister to join the dwarves in participating in the construction of this project.

To some extent, this can be considered an important wonder building of the Church of the Goddess of the Fiery Sun.

(End of this chapter)