Three Kingdoms: A Million Soldiers Grown from the Fields

Chapter 75 Skill Update (Uploaded, please read 4k words)

One of the eight sugarcanes was planted.

The internodes of native sugarcane are extremely short, only about one finger's width, and they are also small in thickness, with a span of two fingers and half a thumb joint to spare.

But this is sugar, and that alone is enough to make up for its inherent shortness.

[Zhu Zhe: Remaining growth time 239:59:59 seconds.]

Once the information pops up on the panel, the sugarcane is considered to have been planted. In ten days, all nine stalks in this round will be fully grown.

"There is still too little space. The planting area of ​​18 yuan per square meter only has space for 162 crops. If we want to change to planting on a large scale, it will take forever."

Zhang Xian stood up with a sigh and carefully put away the remaining sugarcane.

There are just too many skills that require a lot of effort.

Commander, you need to work hard to improve your army's combat effectiveness, which is a trump card, but right now you haven't even reached level 2 yet.

Crafting skills require grinding, and this skill can enhance weapons, armor, and even various other crafts.

Medicine can go to hell for now.

Battles require hard work, and the importance of relying on oneself for immense power goes without saying. If you are strong enough, you will have a chance to rise again even after countless failures.

Agriculture and animal taming—needless to say, these two skills require a lot of grinding.

The remaining skills include: knowledge, horsemanship, cooking, survival, medicine making, banditry, law enforcement, and more.

Looking at the list of skills with a level of 0 on the panel, he was instantly overwhelmed.

There are only 24 hours in a day, how could he possibly have the energy to master one skill after another?

Fortunately, he's now focusing on the first few.

A leader needs a liver.

Fighting requires hard work.

Craftsmanship requires liver.

Animal husbandry in agriculture requires liver.

As for the others, let's wait until the experience required for these five skills reaches an astronomical figure before we switch to them.

Out of sight, out of mind, he simply kept only these five skills on the panel and ignored the rest.

The panel looks much cleaner now, which is finally a relief.

That's all for now.

Having made up his mind, he began living with a person growing on his liver.

At dusk, he went to the training ground and set a new rule: from now on, an extra hour of standing in formation would be added every evening, with Zhang Xian as the lead instructor.

The trainees were the people of Taoyuan, including the generals Huang Zhong, Zhao Yun, and Xiahou Lan.
At night, the blacksmithing disturbed the neighbors, so he simply moved to the bow-making workshop and began making bows and armor without saying a word.

In the early morning, after finishing breakfast and tending to the farm and livestock, he appeared at the training ground and took over the morning's drill and posture training.

After finishing his morning martial arts practice, he picked up his hoe and plow and began tending to the more than 1,000 acres of fields.

As for matters related to Taoyuan, internal affairs were handled by Xiahou Lan, and policy decisions were made by Han Ji. He would only listen to a report once a day in the evening and then give a general direction.

The matter of the campers was left to Han Ji to handle. When it came to dealing with powerful and influential families, everyone in Taoyuan combined was no match for Han Gongzhi.

In the remaining days of July, apart from making his usual trip to the Guo residence to deliver a hundred catties of wine and ten chickens and ducks, he spent the rest of his time grinding skills.

Morning, noon, afternoon, and night, Zhang Xian's figure is everywhere.

So much so that everyone in Taoyuan was afraid that their lord might suddenly die on the spot one day.

Unfortunately, they couldn't dissuade them, and could only turn their worries into motivation for progress.

There's no reason why we should just relax and enjoy ourselves when our lord is working so hard.

roll!
Just curl it!
For some reason, Zhang Xian suddenly noticed that when he was training the Peach Blossom Clan, they all had a look of being ready to die.

Picking up hoes and plows, the villagers of Taoyuan, who had been resting, also went to the fields.

Bow makers and armor sewers worked late into the night, their hands burning the midnight oil.

No.

You guys have a control panel too!?

The entire month of August was spent in this atmosphere throughout Taoyuan.

As a result, Taoyuan's production capacity in August was slightly overwhelmed.

The wine production exceeded that of July by 30,000 jin.

Forty-two bows were made in July, and ninety-seven bows were produced in August.

In July, few armors were produced; only two sets of armor made from 600 pieces of armor plates were made later.

However, in August, they produced thirty-three sets of lamellar armor with six hundred armor plates, even though the blacksmith shop was lagging behind.

The entire Peach Blossom Spring, with its more than 2,000 acres of fields, is barren of weeds, and insects and birds appear only to vanish as soon as they appear, making it a place that inspires fear.

Even Zhang Xian's falcon has started catching more field mice.

But is this a good thing?
not necessarily.

While willpower can make them grit their teeth and roll, their bodies cannot.

So Zhang Xian stopped.

Then they slaughtered pigs, chickens, and ducks, allowing the people of Taoyuan to have a good nourishing meal.

One day in early September.

Taoyuan didn't see the first person emerge from their house until the sun was high in the sky.

Yesterday, their lord ordered the entire manor to take a break, so the whole Peach Blossom Spring was quiet this morning.

All exhausted.

The scene in August was like a dream; the first thing I did every day when I opened my eyes was to work.

The last thing I did before I closed my eyes was work.

They didn't know how they persevered; they just gritted their teeth and kept going whenever they saw the manor lord, whom they regarded as a saint, still working.

They just didn't know why, despite how hard they had worked, their manor owner didn't seem happy in the end.

Peach Blossom Spring is a wonderful place. Here, people can eat their fill, have new clothes, and live in houses. Even the children can learn things they never dared to dream of before. Whenever I see my son and daughter hunched over the table, writing those incomprehensible characters with a brush, talking about the oily meat, tender chicken, and brand-new clothes in the thatched cottage, I feel a surge of joy.

For generations, the villagers of Taoyuan have been toiling in the fields for a living, and their hearts are filled with mixed feelings.

Is this the treatment a farmer should receive?
That shouldn't be the case.

The memory in my mind is of my parents working day and night but still not being able to support a large family.

Every year, they work hard to grow crops but can't even eat a bite themselves, instead having to pick bitter and inedible wild vegetables in the countryside and mountains.

Sometimes, if someone picked up an extra piece of firewood or drank an extra sip of river water, the passing family members would scold them as if they were animals.

Shouldn't this be the reality?
How could a place like Peach Blossom Spring exist?
How did I get here?

Oh, it seems there was a disaster, and people just followed others blindly. How many people died on the way?
I don't remember, it seems like it was a long time ago, how long ago?

It's only been five or six months.

Peach Blossom Spring is such a wonderful place, so wonderful that even those painful memories seem like they happened a long, long time ago.

So when she saw her own manor owner, who seemed like a saint, working day and night, she couldn't help but follow along.

What if I left that little bit of work to myself? What if the manor lord got exhausted? What if Peach Blossom Spring was gone?
Where should my family go then?
Just thinking about it is enough to terrify me to the point of being speechless.

Therefore, such a thing must absolutely not happen! My own son and daughter should be holding their calligraphy brushes, talking about the food at the thatched cottage, going to school every day with a bitter face, and coming back with a smile.

Yes, they should be like this, not like I used to be!
It turns out that I was only able to persevere for myself.
I'm truly sorry, Master.
"Why are you all curling up like that?"

In his own backyard, Zhang Xian gritted his teeth as he looked at the agricultural skill panel, which was just a hair's breadth away from being upgraded.

They were doing all the work themselves!

There wasn't much work to be done on the already planted fields, so he relied on weeding, bird-repelling, and insect-removing every day to accumulate enough experience.

But to everyone's surprise, after only seven or eight days of working, everyone in the village started scrambling to do work in an abnormal way.

I initially thought it would just be a novelty that would wear off, but I never imagined they would be doing it for a whole month.

Zhang Xian sighed.

Actually, he eventually figured out the reason, so he stopped.

They were all people who had suffered terribly, and they would give their lives to keep it alive as soon as they saw even the slightest bit of hope.

Even if it's just to make life a little easier for my children.

"Forget it, I'll just gain experience during planting and harvesting from now on. The small plot of farmland at home is enough for the rest of the time."

After a month of hard work, I only need three more points to advance from level two to level three. These three points will be enough after I finish managing my homestead and farmland today.

After managing a level 2, 18-square-meter homestead and farmland, you will have 67 points of agricultural experience and 19 points of medical experience.

Two months ago, his agricultural skill level increased from level one to level two. If he relied solely on the output of his homestead and fields, it would take him three whole months to reach level three.

Originally, the workload of 2,000 mu of farmland should have been enough in August, but unexpectedly it directly triggered a commotion throughout the entire village.

In a way, it's also partly the responsibility of the smallpox vaccination program. If he had been busy in the fields since the village was established, others wouldn't have felt that he hadn't done his job well and would have been worried.

Fortunately, the other skills were not affected.

The commander's rank rose from level one to level two, a total of over 2,900 points.

Commander Level: 2 (2968/5000)

Sub-skills:
Sufficient food and supplies: As long as your soldiers have enough food and supplies, they will not easily leave you, and you will gain a 10% combat ability bonus.

Armored: When 70% of your soldiers are armored, the deterrent effect of your troops is enhanced, and your combat effectiveness is increased by 10%.

Comrades: When your troops have a clear battle objective, troop cohesion, morale, and combat effectiveness increase by 10%.

Craftsmanship Level: 3 (21/50000)

Skill sub-items:
Skillful Hands: Your hands will increase accuracy and stability by 10% when crafting any crafted item.

Future Vision Level 2: When crafting items of the current generation, there is a certain probability of obtaining the crafting process for the future evolution version of that item (current probability increased by 6%, skill level increased).

Craftsman's Soul Level 3: When you are fully engaged in crafting an item, that item has a certain probability of receiving a game trait bonus (currently a 9% probability bonus, skill level increases)

Taming Level: 3 (358/50000)

Skill sub-items:
Homestead Farming Level 4: You will have twenty-four breeding slots, and you can select nine of the same animals to raise in each slot, which is a game feature.

Spiritual Companion: Opens a pet slot (allows you to bind a creature weighing no more than 10 kg with an intelligence no less than that of a single-celled organism as a pet). (Special Note: A spiritual companion only has a spiritual connotation in its name; it does not increase the intelligence of the bound pet, and you cannot directly control the pet. However, as its owner, you will have a very close relationship with it.)
Superior breeds: The livestock you raise are more likely to inherit good genes.

Fortunately, the experience gained from taming animals is primarily focused on caring for livestock. The most abundant livestock in Peach Blossom Spring is warhorses, which were purchased twice from horse merchants, bringing the total number of warhorses in Peach Blossom Spring to over five hundred.

Zhang Xian would not normally give ordinary people the opportunity to come into contact with warhorses, so his acquisition of beast taming experience was not hindered, and he successfully upgraded his skill to level three.

It was also the improvement in his beast taming level that made him realize that the size of the homestead template increases incrementally.

Level 1 farming and animal husbandry only has three slots, level 2 has six, but after he upgrades to level 3 and adds points, the number of farming and animal husbandry slots does not increase from six to nine, but directly to twelve.

So he simply chose the Superior Breed skill and then put his last skill point into the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry skill, thus increasing the number of skill slots to twenty-four.

Each of these slots has a capacity of nine of the same species, meaning he can now keep an astonishing 216 animals.

The sheer number of people might not be that surprising.

But what if he could raise 216 warhorses or raise 216 draft cattle within a month?
In one year, he could train a cavalry force of 2,600 men at extremely low cost, regardless of the terrain!

Moreover, it can ensure that these 2,600 warhorses have the same weight, size, stamina, strength, and courage.

Wouldn't that be more surprising?
It was because the information given by the Beast Taming Level was prior that he was so eager to gain those last few experience points in the Agricultural Skill.

The base size of a Homestead Farm starts at nine square meters, and at level two it's eighteen square meters. If he puts all three skill points into the Homestead Farm skill, he can get a planting area of ​​one hundred and forty-four square meters, enough space to grow one thousand two hundred and ninety-six plants.

This will undoubtedly greatly increase the probability of crop mutation, thus benefiting the outside world.

With high-yield, drought-resistant, and flood-resistant crop seeds, that is the cornerstone of a great undertaking!
With that in mind, he rushed to his farmland and carefully tended to it, finally completing the upgrade to level three in agriculture.

The newly added skills are irrelevant. The characteristics of this panel do not mean that the higher the level, the better the skills. The choice is up to you. Right now, the most important thing is to change the crops and the size of your home farm.

Therefore, he allocated two skill points to the Homestead Farm skill, expanding the planting area to 72 square meters.

Although 72 square meters only provides space for 648 plants, improving the replanting skills can increase the chances of successful replanting.

Agriculture: 3 (64/50000)

Sub-skill: Homestead Farmland Level 4: You will have a homestead farmland with an area of ​​no more than 72 square meters. Each square meter of farmland can accommodate no more than nine plants. It has game-specific features.

Sub-skills:
Benign Variant Level 2: There is an extremely small probability that your crop will undergo an excellent mutation, with the mutation direction being random. The current mutation probability is one in a thousand.

(End of this chapter)