Chapter 350 Now that things have come to this, let’s plant the land first

Year 5, early winter.

When the army came back, Roman was busy expanding the production of the mine, and the original production scale gradually couldn't keep up with the demand.

The mining efficiency is quite impressive. But the processing efficiency is not good.

In the current era, these processing positions are all technical jobs. The small workshop-style production is very stable, but once the scale is expanded, it will face the dilemma of insufficient skilled workers. Because cultivating talents is a long process, Roman can't always throw all the apostles into it.

Now the production direction of Coal and Iron Town is mainly steel farm tools. Roman not only sells them to the outside, but also uses them internally.

Reclaiming wasteland is a task that consumes farm tools very much.

This year alone, there are nearly a hundred human-shaped farm tools that died due to reclamation. Some died of illness, some drowned, some were taken away by wild beasts, some reached the end of their service life, and all kinds of accidents.

As for those who starved to death or froze to death, there was none.

Of course, the loss rate of another type of farm tools is even higher.

This year, Roman distributed more than 100,000 various farm tools to them. The most common ones are hammers and sickles, axes, hoes, shovels, etc. The less common ones are steel wedges, pickaxes, scythes, etc.

A dozen kinds of tools can meet all the needs in the process of land reclamation.

This farmer has a hammer and sickle, and that farmer has an axe and a shovel. They exchange them to cultivate a cooperative atmosphere and a sense of collaboration... This is a helpless move.

Because it is impossible for everyone to have a complete set of farm tools, the cost is too high, and the production capacity is limited.

The limit for Coal and Iron Town is 700,000 to 800,000 farm tools a year - on average, each blacksmith produces one farm tool every day.

It sounds small, but they are also responsible for military equipment.

Just forging plate armor consumes a lot of manpower.

If you have to divide the scope, then half of the senior blacksmiths are responsible for plate armor, a quarter of the ordinary blacksmiths are responsible for weapons, and the last quarter of the apprentice blacksmiths are responsible for forging farm tools - wartime is another count.

On average, the blacksmiths in charge of farm tools have to forge seven or eight farm tools every day. Sometimes, if they are pressed hard, they have to work for more than ten hours every day.

Although it is more efficient to cast farm tools - directly cast them with molten iron. This kind of cast iron has high hardness and is very brittle. It cannot withstand high-intensity impact - if a cast iron sickle hits a stone, there is a probability that it will be scrapped.

Although the hardness and output of forged farm tools are not as good as casting, they are more durable and are indispensable for land reclamation.

Therefore, Roman is forging farm tools, and he has given more than 100,000 farm tools this year alone.

Guess how much has been lost?

The answer is more than 200,000 pieces. Almost all farm tools have been replaced with new ones, and some farm tools have been replaced more than once.

Every day, hundreds of people come to More with scrapped farm tools to exchange for new ones.

If the farm tools were their property, they would use them carefully and extend their useful life, at least for two or three years. It would be normal to pass them down as heirlooms to the next generation, as they were valuable assets... But who let them have Master Roman as a backup?

Oh! Generations of people have been fleeced by the master, and now they finally have a chance to fleece the master.

It's like a bicycle that others are reluctant to ride, they stand up and pedal!

If it's broken, they will replace it with a new one, and then stand up and pedal hard!

Great effort can make miracles happen, and the efficiency of land reclamation is naturally very fast, because the time during the land reclamation period is precious, and no one will do stupid things to deliberately damage farm tools - replacing farm tools is a waste of time.

Faced with such a high loss rate, Roman had to expand the production of farm tools and improve agricultural efficiency.

In fact, there are two paths before him now.

One is to upgrade the military industry, which requires a huge investment - just look at the manpower required for plate armor and weapons. If the military industry is upgraded, agriculture may not even be able to drink the water, let alone sell farm tools, even self-sufficiency will be difficult.

One is to develop agriculture, continue to farm, and enhance the potential for war - war is fought on logistics, and logistics is food. If Roman had unlimited food, he would dare to convert half of the people in Origin City and Abundant City into war firewood.

Roman chose the latter.

Invest more blacksmith apprentices and carpenter apprentices in agricultural development, popularize farm tools, and transform the land.

How can this output be enough? It's not enough!

...

When he was formulating the development strategy, Jet brought people back.

Roman had already known the result of this war through the Warcraft Witch.

He did what he should do, but the Black Iron King still died, and the Black Iron Land was torn apart.

A new force has risen in the north.

Although the witch named Kashanla has a little problem in her brain, it may not be a bad thing for him.

Where did Kashanla's dragon come from?

Ego.

Ego's dragon belief has a long history and is not necessarily inferior to the belief in gods. Both are equally ancient and come from those lost dark ages.

The dragon belief of Ego's land has deeply influenced the Arctic Ocean. In fact, the core of the mythology of the Arctic is Ego's dragon belief.

For the Church, this is paganism.

Although heresy is more hateful than paganism, the world of gods has a recognized religious leader, the near-god sitting in the holy city, also known as the guardian of gods, the Holy See, and the Pope. He has the right to interpret gods and beliefs - commonly known as the final right of interpretation.

At least Roman has never heard of heresy in the Church. Individuals like Garin do not count and cannot cause any waves.

If there is no heresy in the Church, then paganism is the biggest enemy.

The Iron Order vs. the Gods Order has ended. With the two Iron Dukes defecting, the latter won.

If the witch named Kassanla is really capable...

Then the next is the Dragon Order vs. the Gods Order - the Dragon World vs. the Gods World.

Of course, Kassanla's dragons are not enough, far from enough.

But based on the intelligence from the Pegasus Plains and the crows of the Warcraft Witch telling the situation at the time, Roman suspected that Kassanla and the Pirate King Alex had hooked up.

After all, the latter really said "My army and the dragons will reign over the Black Castle".

Where did a witch get the army?

Apart from the Egos and the Pirate King, Roman couldn't think of any other army for the time being.

He thought for a moment and decided to ignore those people.

Now that things have come to this, let's farm first.

Pirates, dragons, witches, the Church, dukes, kings, any force is fine.

When the enemy comes, the general will stop it, and when the water comes, the earth will cover it.

Of the more than 12,000 troops Roman sent out, 9,000 returned in the end, of which more than 2,000 were disabled and had to retire.

Neither the three major knights of the Church nor the shield guards of Sinnoh made them surrender.

Roman was most afraid that his army would be annihilated.

Annihilation was to destroy the main force in an organized manner, which meant that the captain, squadron leader, and squad leader of a battalion were all killed in battle.

But the popularization of plate armor greatly increased their survival rate. It was impossible to be destroyed in an organized manner.

The shield guards of Sinnoh were very strong. Jet threw a black powder explosive pack in their faces. As long as the latter raised the Austrian steel shield, they would be blown away at most, and it was impossible to die directly.

The thousand-jin mountain copper armor can be said to be as immovable as a mountain and as powerful as thunder.

But Roman's heavy armored brigade was not a good guy either.

The shield guards wore such heavy armor, how could they break through a shield of fifty or sixty kilograms inlaid with fine steel?

What is the so-called shield wall? It is a sea of ​​people. Like sardines in a can, they were shoulder to shoulder and unable to move. They could only squeeze forward - it was the opposite of tug-of-war, a group of people fighting each other.

But full-scale confrontation would make them tired. Even if the shield guards were at least level three knights, they still needed to rest.

Roman's heavy armored brigade had 1,000 people, and the shield guards had at most 200 people.

The rest of the brigade was similar, and the enemy did not have the ability to kill with one blow. Even in the most brutal and chaotic battlefield, it was possible to maintain the organization, with few casualties.

Unless Jet, Dick and other senior officers deliberately sent a brigade to the most dangerous place and did not replace them, they would be wiped out.

...

"Rest for ten days and then come back." Roman said to Jet.

This expedition was too difficult. The lower-level soldiers might not know that they were fighting against the main force of the Holy See, but Jet and others really went with the mentality of burning everything together.

Because there were too many variables.

Can they be rescued? Are there any reinforcements? What if they were trapped? What if the enemy was too strong?

Even Roman was a little confused.

When they came back, Roman gave them ten days of vacation directly - of course, it was a rotation. Soldiers who did not go to war had one day off per month, and they had ten days off this month.

There were other material rewards and pensions.

You can be poor in anything but military pay!

"Yes." A rare smile appeared on Jet's indifferent face. He was exhausted these days and it was time to take a break.

Roman seemed to remember something and said, "By the way, tell me more about the role of black gunpowder on the battlefield."

"It's okay against ordinary troops, and it works best without armor, but it's not ideal against knights or shield guards." Jet shook his head and said.

He saw that the entire battlefield was filled with thick white smoke, and every time it was thrown out, there would be a violent explosion. The Vatican Army called this explosive "the breath of the devil" and "the breath of hell".

Whenever the army was under too much pressure, he would throw out hundreds of kilograms of explosive packs to force the enemy back and relieve the pressure.

But that's all.

Roman thought to himself: Do primitive firearms have any effect on the shield guards?

The answer is that they have no effect at all.

Unless there are higher-level firearms, or just cannons. However, however.

The mobility of that group of special units is too fast!

The shield guards are okay, their marching speed is slow, and they are not much better than the heavy armored brigade, but the Jingtao Knights are outrageous, wearing hundreds of kilograms of dark blue armor and coming and going freely, heavy cavalry playing as light cavalry, killing people on the battlefield.

Unless there is firepower coverage, dozens or hundreds of artillery fires at the same time...

But the cost of Roman transporting these artillery and ammunition to the battlefield is equivalent to forging tens of millions of farm tools, and this is not a joke.

It's not as good as farming, really not as good as farming.

As Jet said, black gunpowder is amazing against unarmored units, and the fragments cause great damage.

But the foundation of the expedition knights is plate armor - they are the lowest level of nobles.

As long as they don't get too close, the fragmentation damage is unlikely to hurt the knights, not to mention the damage released by black gunpowder - the power is too low, a few kilograms will have this effect, if it is less than half a kilogram... the main ingredient of fireworks is black gunpowder, which can only be used to fry fish.

It is very powerful against miscellaneous troops... However, a well-organized plate armor battalion standing here has the same deterrent power as black gunpowder for ordinary troops.

So, even without black gunpowder, Roman can still annihilate the enemy!

...

After watching Jet and other generals leave, Roman returned to the Castle of Plenty and began to plan future deployments.

He didn't ask for much, just to protect this little piece of land.

"Alas."

"What are you sighing about?" Sana appeared from behind Roman and said with a smile.

Roman looked at her in surprise, "Why didn't you go back?"

For now, his soldiers are basically registered in Origin City. As soon as they come back, they rush to reunite with their families. Those who are not married quickly find a wife. Of course, it's not only the wife who can reunite, but also the brothers and sisters, but Kao has also returned to Origin City.

"You said you would give me a ten-day vacation." She stared at him, her expression like a little killer whale. Roman noticed that she had small tiger teeth, shallow and pointed, and a little cute.

He was in power, busy with affairs, and had no energy to pay attention to the people around him, not to mention that Sana had been sent to the army by him for two years. They could only see each other occasionally. She worked hard for him and played a great role with her sisters on the battlefield of Black Castle.

Roman's eyes softened a little. He sat on the desk in the hall and said, "Then go and do what you love."

She squeezed over with a smile and sat on Roman's thigh. Through her clothes, he could feel her wheat-colored, agile but tight skin, which was stretched tightly and her buttocks were full of elasticity, giving her a feeling of a wild girl.

"Roman, then I will stay here with you."

She embraced the person she had been thinking about day and night with her arms, sniffed gently, and carefully and greedily inhaled the smells that made her dream into her body, and her body seemed to be heating up.

Roman felt that she was too clingy. She was obviously a sports girl and was very active, but why did she act like a sloth when she saw him? He couldn't do anything.

"You said Princess White Steel went to Oak Territory?" he chatted.

"Yes, that princess is super charming!" Sana leaned on his chest like a kitten. She saw with her own eyes the man's heroic figure, brave and fearless, with sharp eyes, clearer than the north wind.

"Lord Oak only recognized her as the next King of Black Iron, while Lord Fury and Lord Cracked Armor supported His Majesty Io's second prince to become the King of Black Iron. Everyone knows that the second prince is a puppet of the Church, but Princess White Steel said that Lord Oak is sincere to her."

Should we say that loyal dogs never bark? Roman thought to himself, Duke Oak has the style of a king, and so does the King of Iceland.

The King of Iceland knew that he and the Black Iron Royal Family were allies, so he gave him hundreds of thousands of kilograms of wool business and made his position clear.

But the Grand Duke of Border Guard guards a gap in the entire land, which is an enclave of the Black Iron Land. It is normal for him to be a self-employed mercenary.

The Duke of Oak is still willing to support Iotashina, and this determination is admirable.

At least Roman can't do it. He has done his best to send the Black Iron King away. Don't expect him to find a new boss for himself.

Iotashina knows his thoughts and knows that he is unwilling to marry, so she has to go to Oak Territory to be the Black Iron King.

The previous plot design is terrible, and it is exposed. Wait for me to find time to modify the previous text. Please forgive me, sir.