A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 409 Superstition Can Also Be a Shortcut

Ten days into the work, Andrei reported to Rorschach:

"Within ten days, three machines experienced structural malfunctions, but there was no leakage of live water or bacteria. One machine encountered a wild boar while tilling the soil. After successfully killing the wild boar, the meat was shared and eaten by the villagers."

Spring is the season when wild boars are restless. They need to forage for food before and after their natural life cycle. As land reclamation encroaches on the habitats of these animals, the conflict between humans and wild boars is becoming increasingly acute, and more and more of them are appearing in the fields.

The unfortunate boar somehow went mad and entered the field. It was driven by the villagers and chased all the way to the construct. The construct, like a spider hunting its prey, pierced it through the heart with a specially made plow.

Rorschach nodded: "Excellent. Make a big deal out of this part and buy a prominent spot in all the Byrne newspapers."

"Okay. By the way, the villagers gave me the tusks, saying they must deliver them to you." Andrei took out a pair of large, yellowish tusks, which had already been cleaned.

Wow, it's quite heavy, both in weight and size. After weighing it in his hand, Luo Xia put it back on the table: "Take it to your younger siblings to play with."

Andrei didn't stand on ceremony, thanked him, and put the item away.

In fact, there were other difficulties in the promotion. For example, the promotional effect of Barthes and Rorschach's tour was too good. Some people wanted to pile the base fertilizer of three acres of land on one acre of land. They only gave up after being persuaded by the people of the agricultural and commercial cooperative.

Some people even use the fertilizer to feed pigs and cattle, thinking it's a universal growth promoter. This behavior was surprisingly widespread until a child drank "fertilizer powder" and suffered acute kidney failure, which was then discovered by the agricultural and commercial cooperative.

It's all Luo Xia's and the Agricultural and Commercial Company's fault for forgetting one thing in all their planning: they forgot to warn against eating it. After all, the taste is so strong, who knows how they could drink it!

After Rorschach miraculously pulled the child up, rumors began to circulate that the fertilizer was devil's salt and that humans and animals would be possessed by demons if they drank it. Rorschach was the one who started these rumors, and he only performed exorcisms on the possessed people after his scheme was exposed.

"Fuck your mother." After a long absence, Rorschach used the "Pearl of Balan" to find the source of the misleading rumors: a landowner who refused to buy new farm tools and fertilizers, and who also forbade his fellow villagers from contacting the agricultural and commercial cooperative.

The autonomous committee immediately took action to deal with the village bully. Bart led a pair of soldiers to drag the guy out of the cellar, publicly whipped him, and threw him into the coal mine.

He should be made to personally collect the raw materials for fertilizer production, so that he can experience it firsthand and realize that there is no devil involved in fertilizer production from beginning to end.

This is just one of the problems caused by fertilizers; Luo Xia doesn't even dare to imagine how many more problems will arise with pesticides.

Rorschach now understands a bit why religions were advanced in ancient times—the best way to get "troublemakers" to obey orders was to first establish a religious system with heaven above and hell below, and then convey administrative orders through religious decrees.

Convincing everyone to take a bath and maintain good hygiene is very difficult. Promoting it requires a huge amount of administrative points, and there's no guarantee that everyone will comply. Sometimes, even if someone has the means to take a bath, they might be lazy.

But you can tell the congregation that they should worship the gods every ten days, and that they need to bathe and change clothes before worship to show their piety. This way, it can be implemented without spending much manpower or establishing a practical reward and punishment system.

When royal power did not extend to the countryside, religious power could control the basic needs of a group of people, from the perspective of this, religion was incredibly advanced during that particular period.

So if Rorschach wanted to save himself trouble, he shouldn't have started any agricultural and commercial company. Instead, he should have used the name of Delyuaz to start some kind of new Druid sect or a new agricultural religion.

Then they sanctified fertilizers and pesticides, called agricultural implements divine beasts and angels, and turned new farming methods into sacred rituals, promoting them quickly and accurately, while those who violated the rules were sent directly to the fire pit.

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium form a unified whole—how magnificent and excellent!

There is one downside: it can be very difficult to adapt to local conditions. If technicians research new solutions in places with different soil and hydrothermal conditions, they may be labeled as heretics by believers who have been overly brainwashed.

If the New Farmers' Religion grows large, it is possible that the two factions of believers, wielding sickles and hoes and driving constructed agricultural tools, will engage in heated debates, arguing whether the ratio of "N-type holy salt (nitrogen fertilizer) and P-type holy salt (phosphate fertilizer) applied during the wheat growing season is 3:1 or 4:1."

Before the battle, the construct must be maintained according to the teachings of the scriptures; this process is called "soothing the machine spirit."

Good heavens, isn't that golden throne beckoning me? Lost in his fantasies, Rorschach suddenly felt a heat in his butt and quickly got up to stretch.

From Andrei's perspective, the teacher's gaze was unfocused for a moment before he suddenly stood up and stretched. He was used to it; Rorschach often did this in front of Andrei and Caroline.

Luo Xia quickly seemed to bring his thoughts back to the office and asked, "How's the development progress of the harvester model?"

"Gaobo's precision manufacturing plant presented a prototype, but the agricultural cooperative said it needed further verification. Previous plow models had encountered many problems in practical applications and had to be revised several times. Now they are more cautious about bringing their designs to fruition."

That's a good thing; you learn from your mistakes. Rorschach didn't ask any further questions.

Because modular farm implements are highly efficient and can plow and till the land 24 hours a day, the purchase price is exorbitant for large-scale farmers, while small-scale farmers can only rent them.

The structure is rented on a daily basis, but many people may only need to use their land for one and a half or two and a half days. Some people also feel that even if they pay the rent during the harvest season, the risk is too great.

Therefore, the agricultural cooperative proposed a solution: several small households with adjacent plots of land could rent the land together, and the rent could be shared among them according to the area.

To facilitate reconciliation, the agricultural cooperative's salesmen suggested that the farmers who jointly rented the land register small businesses in the city hall or town. Amid the villagers' confusion and the agricultural cooperative's intervention, one collective production unit after another was created.

For displaced people, this system was directly adopted as a common practice, and they were uniformly registered as production teams.

Neither Rorschach nor the autonomous committee forced farmers to join or leave, but there were bound to be clever people in each production unit who discovered the benefits of such an organization.

They would encourage others in the team to do some side jobs and make money together. Every village has one or two such quick-thinking "capable people".

It is foreseeable that with the increase in grain output and the lengthening of the off-season in the future, township enterprises with production teams as their "meta-cells" will emerge.

Martin, an intern reporter at the newspaper, was the first to discover, observe, and make predictions about these small units.

His long report began when he noticed an increase in handcrafted goods such as ceramic cups, straw woven products, and wine barrels at village markets.

Compared to the craftsmanship of urban residents, their products were rougher and, naturally, cheaper. Some barrel dealers even started sourcing from the villages and selling inferior goods to wine merchants.

Martin visited the newly formed collective producers and compared these assembled villagers with the old handicraft workshops.

Unfortunately, this report, which had been written with great care, was not published. The good news is that it was not without value; it became a report and ended up on the desks of the autonomous committee members and Rorschach.

"Whether these small trading companies will go bankrupt, be acquired by large corporations, or transform from collective ownership into a single family's business remains to be seen," Luo Xia muttered to himself, putting down the report.

(End of this chapter)