Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest

Chapter 53 - 53 22 Acceleration

?53: Chapter 22: Acceleration 53: Chapter 22: Acceleration Even after a significant amount of labor had been liberated from the land, they still fell short in the face of more tasks.

The main structure of the new livestock shed was a stone-and-wood construction, spacious and bright inside, with a high top that shouldn’t be suppressive, maintaining good ventilation, and taking into account the subsequent expansion work.

Each requirement meant that more labor had to be invested in the livestock shed.

Sige Town did have masons and potters, and in this era, everyone could repair roofs and furniture, but not many made a living from this craft.

The entire town only had twenty or thirty people who could be called builders, some of whom had built houses at Origin Manor and were scarcely peers of Roman, who had the Innate Civil Engineering Saint Body.

But the manpower was still too sparse.

Roman had no choice but to pull Aaron and Green over to build the big livestock shed.

The strength of a Conquest Knight, if used well, could definitely match that of four or five workers.

Then there were over a hundred children over ten years old.

Able to open their stomachs and eat at midday, they had spent over a month at Origin Manor, learning simple counting and literacy—at least they knew that 5 was more than 3 and what 7 and 8 were about.

The group of children had grown stronger as well and could do some of the lighter work, at least moving lighter wood and stones was no problem.

Due to the acute shortage of labor, Roman had no choice but to use them as little oxen and horses.

Finally, Roman also called over Sige Town’s forty or so guards.

Aaron trained them in basic formations and marching every day, and with a sufficient supply of meat every day, the spirit and vigor of these guards had noticeably improved a notch.

Now they didn’t need to supervise the ignorant laborers, nor did they need training, so they could join the little oxen and horses to work happily!

In fact, once they knew of the existence of the salt mine, the farmers worked with considerable efficiency, and there were few who slacked off.

Because they did the same thing every day, they formed a work inertia, they just needed to move forward step by step, and eventually pave the road to the salt mine.

Roman was now unable to supervise the progress there.

As the chief engineer of the livestock shed, he had to focus entirely on the construction of the shed.

The new shed covered an area of over four acres, the entire structure was an 80-meter-long, 30-meter-wide stone-and-wood building, and was divided into living and nurturing areas.

Its location was chosen between Sige Town and Origin Manor.

About two to three hundred people participated in the construction, and Roman estimated that it would take half a month to complete the initial construction.

The new livestock shed he designed was nominally more scientific, clean, and hygienic, and these conditions were actually quite easy to fulfill.

Simply put, it was walls made of stone and yellow clay, with a height of two meters.

Several windows were left open for ventilation.

The roof was constructed from logs in an umbrella-like structure, with a large number of load-bearing timbers to share the overall pressure, then covered with plenty of dead branches, bark, and clay, and finally padded with a thick layer of thatch.

The thatch came from the reeds by the marsh, which were extremely plentiful and were the most common building material in Sige Town.

They were bundled together, the large leaves overlapping like fish scales, which served the purpose of drainage.

If half a meter thick, they wouldn’t leak even during heavy rain, mainly afraid of strong winds that could easily blow the thatch away.

However, Sige Town was a basin, backed by mountains, and not very windy, so this issue was not a concern.

[Construction Experience +1]

[Construction Experience +1]

[Construction Experience +1]

These days, Roman was too busy to care for the increase in experience points.

Skyscrapers rise from the ground, without a foundation, high skill levels were useless—he even dreamt of giving instructions to these large and small oxen and horses.

Many challenges were encountered during construction.

For example, when constructing the framework, most instructions could not be understood by the ignorant workers, nearly driving him to faint from frustration, almost wishing he could manually upgrade their brains.

Roman had no choice but to climb up and teach them hands-on, climbing up and down every day, personally constructing hundreds of wooden pieces.

The construction technology of Sige Town was quite backward, with even a livestock shed being so poorly constructed, loose and flimsy, needing repair every half year, wasting labor.

But this new livestock shed he built could be considered sturdy and durable, not needing major repairs for four or five years.

This very livestock shed that could at least house four to five hundred large animals was essentially Sige Town’s largest building.

Gazing into the distance, it even surpassed Roman’s Origin Manor in terms of grandeur and openness.

By the 10th day of construction, the framework of the roof beams was initially set up, and it was then that Seth sought him out.

“Master, the road by the salt mine has been leveled.”

“Road?

What road?”

Caught up in busyness, Roman asked subconsciously.

Then he smacked his head, disentangled himself from the burdensome construction work, and ordered the children to gather reed grass and bundle it up, as it would be spread on the rooftop in a few days.

Roman rode his steed, following the road that stretched deep into the wilderness.

Although it had some ups and downs, unevenness, on the whole, it was passable.

This 40-kilometer-long road, with a width of three to four meters that had not been reinforced or compacted, finally had its preliminary construction completed after one month.

This accomplishment could be attributed to the daily free lunch and the farmers’ enthusiasm.

The pace of over a thousand meters a day wasn’t remarkable since in most areas, all that was needed was to clear the vegetation and trees.

Places as difficult to cross as swamps and streams were after all, in the minority.

Moreover, Roman had allocated eighty percent of Sige Town’s animal labor to this project.

In past years, this animal labor would only be used to reclaim wasteland or till other lands.

Unless they were sick or pregnant, they wouldn’t have many days of rest throughout the year, just like the farmers who toiled every day.

For a while, it was hard to say which was more beast of burden – the farmers or the oxen and horses.

…

Arriving at the salt mine to inspect the work, they had extracted large chunks of rock salt crystals during this period, but due to the unfinished road, it couldn’t be transported out on a large scale.

The purity of the rock salt was quite high, and it could be used directly as salt bricks.

Without processing, however, it wouldn’t fetch a good price, and consuming this rough salt long-term could lead to health issues.

Therefore, their work was not yet finished here.

They needed to build a salt processing facility here, something that would earn Roman a substantial profit.

The costs were merely fuel and labor, the former being inexpensive, and the latter, too.

These days, Roman was extremely tired, with the heavy labor and pressure stripping him of a noble’s usual composure, his face hadn’t shown a smile for many days.

But this matter was a piece of good news that lightened his mood.

Even if he couldn’t pull these people away, they were still ready to move on to the next phase of work.

Roman declared loudly to everyone present, “Today, you may take a piece of rock salt home with you.

In the future, I will distribute more salt to you.”

Receiving the grace of their lord, the farmers had anticipated it, but still, they were stirred.

It was as if they were employees finally reaching payday.

Everyone erupted in great cheers, and there were even many farmers with tears streaming down their faces out of excitement.

Roman understood their feelings; if he were in their shoes, having only occasionally tasted salt from childhood, mostly eating tasteless bread and vegetable soup, suddenly hearing that from now on there would be seasoning, a taste of salt, he too would struggle to control his emotions.

The process of purifying the salt wasn’t complex, indeed it was quite simple.

After upgrading his “Collection” skill to 2nd level, he had the necessary basic knowledge, and this era already possessed salting techniques.

Roman had reserved two hundred people here for this task, to build the saltworks.

Others needed to calcine limestone, collecting lime, clay, and sand.

This dirt road would become pitted and uneven before long, significantly delaying transportation efficiency.

As the saying goes, to do a good job, one must first sharpen the tools.

If they intended to use it for the long term, they couldn’t avoid reinforcing the road, a process that might take even longer than leveling it.

As the pillar of Sige Town’s future income, Roman placed great importance on this salt mine.

It meant the economic development speed of Sige Town could now accelerate wildly.