Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest

Roman hummed, "If you don't finish this morning's work, you're not allowed to have lunch!"

Upon hearing this, Green immediately wilted.

Man is iron, food is steel, without a meal he'd starve in a real deal.

The rice bowl was in someone else's hands; it was best to just get on with the work honestly.

Twenty years ago, even at his lowest, Bo Ge was a Fourth Rank Transcendent. But hiding in the mountains with twenty years of hunger, his constitution drastically degraded, until in the end he couldn't even beat a First Rank Transcendent. Otherwise, he wouldn't have worked himself to death.

Likewise, after entering the mountains, Dick and Jet's strengths had probably also decreased. Without enough food to sustain them, let alone train, even maintaining their current strength was extremely difficult.

Green certainly didn't want to end up like that.

"Working with other lords means plenty of fish and meat, white bread enough to eat..."

Green muttered under his breath as he worked with Aaron to fit the ox yoke, then led the oxen out to the field.

For a Conquest Knight to fall to such straits was truly miserable.

If it was like this every day, how could one train and improve one's strength?

Aaron, on the other hand, seemed totally oblivious and quite earnest.

He held onto the heavy plough, which was quite cumbersome due to the wooden wheels, making it difficult to turn; naturally, the plough would move forward in a straight line, and with his strong sense of direction, he didn't have to worry about crooked plow furrows.

Gwivelle looked at Roman with her bright eyes, "Lord, what about me?"

She was not unfamiliar with farm work and was looking forward to what kind of work Roman would assign to her—she had no concept of what a Lord or a Lord's Attendant should do. She just thought the Lord deserved to be the Lord; the Lord's plow used for tilling the land was heavier, bigger, and wider than Moor's.

Roman lifted his chin and commanded, "Just stay here, and don't go running around."

The child was too small, with limbs too weak: reincarnated as a rack of bones; the best way she could help was by doing nothing and staying out of the way.

He had brought Gwivelle out just for fun.

No need to rush now, her good days would come once she had regained her nutrition.

"Oh," Gwivelle replied, obediently sitting on the ox cart. She looked around from time to time, like a bored child watching her parents work in the fields.

"Hmm hmm hmm..." Roman hummed a little tune, steadying the heavy plow, driving the oxen.

He plowed the land at an unhurried pace, with "Planting Experience +1" popping up in his mind from time to time.

Roman's task today was simple: to delineate a specific range for this year's spring ploughing—effectively acting like the white lines on a sports field.

But for this short distance of thirteen hundred meters, it took Roman over an hour to complete.

Wiping sweat from his forehead, Roman looked back.

A straight, deep plow furrow appeared before him, with the black soil, a dozen centimeters deep, completely turned over—something the lighter plows could never achieve. Because of the limited fertility of the shallow soil, the yield was hard to speak of.

This deep ploughing, however, turned over the subsoil along with it.

The vertical plow blade dug deep into the earth and was pulled by the oxen, paving the way for the plowshare, which in turn churned up clods of soil behind the plow blade; the plow board was an angled turning board installed behind the plowshare, stacking the unearthed soil to the right of the plow, thus forming ridges and furrows in the field.

It was much like drawing a line in the sand with a stick, with the sand automatically piling up on both sides.

Looking at this row of neat ridges and furrows, Roman felt very pleased.

He lifted the heavy plow and urged the oxen to turn, continuing to plough another kilometer forward to make a right angle.

Green and Aaron were already waiting at the far end.

The two took turns steadying the heavy plow, working more efficiently than Roman, with Aaron even picking up the large clumps of hard earth, stones, tree roots, and dead grass that were turned over by the heavy plow and throwing them all onto the adjacent land.

From a bird's-eye view, one could see Roman handling the heavy plow, dragged by the pair of oxen, cutting a straight line across the field, slowly closing the gap of the rectangular shape.

Roman met up with the two men, and they lifted the plow head upwards—this type of vertical, sturdy, pure iron plow head was adjustable for cultivating at different depths.

In the end, when the three of them made it back to the edge of the field, they were all basically sweating.

Seeing Gwivelle sitting on the ox cart with that eager little expression, Roman knew she was hungry.

Roman snapped his fingers and said, "Let's go eat, let's go eat!"

After these days of workflow, the farmers too knew it was time for lunch.

This was a free lunch, and the quality of the food was excellent.

They returned to Sige Town. Roman's food was also ready, and although he had the same food as the farmers, his was clearly more refined.

Whether it was the oatmeal porridge or the dark bread, both appeared very clean.

Therefore, Roman tolerated Moor's little actions. As a Transcendent, one didn't fear the dirty, but being a bit cleaner was still better.

After he had finished eating, Deacon Seth stopped him.

"I think it is necessary for you to look at the financial situation of Sige Town."

Seth handed Roman a stack of thick parchment.

Roman took it and looked at it for a moment.

The power of the nobility in this world was unimaginably vast; they only needed to be accountable to their superiors or to the King.

Beyond that, they possessed most rights over their own lands, even the right of the first night.

Roman knew that some nobles would indeed exercise these rights.

For common folk, being able to rent land made one a free tenant, and those without land were essentially slaves, but this only applied to the smaller noble lands. Large noble domains could divide into even more classes.

The financial state of Sige Town was bizarre; it was a muddled mess with no reference or statistical value.

Quite normal, considering this had been Moor's dictatorship.

He wrote down transactions whenever he wanted, and when he didn't want to, he didn't write at all.

The tax collectors of the Duke Domain collected a fixed share of taxes each year and had never inspected the details of Sige Town.

Moor had been here so long, he was unclear even about the population of Sige Town, perhaps deliberately so.

He only knew not to let the farmers starve, to encourage the birth of more children, to cultivate more land, to harvest more food, and to exchange the food for gold. When necessary, he would even lend food to the farmers during difficult times so they could survive the crisis...

You couldn't exactly say that was wrong, but as a Lord, one could not play it that way.

Roman's arrival changed everything.

All the accounts had to be recalculated, all expenses and income had to be detailed, making it easier for long-term governance.

Roman even saw in the financial records of Sige Town a note about lending 100 pounds of rye to the Nova family at one point. They had paid back 150 pounds after the autumn harvest and were to pay back another 100 pounds the following year.

Usury had come into play...

Roman called Moor over, and while Moor was sweating profusely, he took the feather quill from Seth's hand and crossed out all the entries on the thick parchment.

His actions quite resembled the grandeur of the Monkey King altering the Book of Life and Death.

Roman said, "Previous accounts are annulled, understand?"

He had reclaimed all the land, so how were the indebted farmers to pay back the grain?

Of course, Roman also knew that, no matter how much he insisted on concentrating the labor force, most of the farmers would definitely slyly plant some miscellaneous grain and cereals.

Just because they were not allowed to cultivate those wastelands during the day didn't mean they really weren't going to farm.

But as long as it did not interfere with the day's labor, Roman turned a blind eye—after all, those farmers had to pay him half of the land's production come harvest time, and it was impossible to hide the crops in the ground.