Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest
Chapter 111 - 15: Equal Status for Registered Inhabitants

Chapter 111: Chapter 15: Equal Status for Registered Inhabitants

Roman regained his senses and suppressed the instincts of his body.

The only fault of a young body is that the desires are too intense; some impulses are hard to suppress.

When the lower body controls the upper body, the lower body becomes the upper body.

It’s like being hung upside down.

Therefore, Roman would not, under any circumstances, allow the lower body to direct the development plans of Sige Town, otherwise the brewing consequences would be disastrous, the scene was simply unbearable to watch.

He believed that having desires was a good thing—who among the youth doesn’t have desires? But...

Damn this lower half!

Why can’t it prioritize appropriately!

Sleeping with women counts for nothing!

A true man should "sleep with the earth"!

Now that his domain was poor and desolate, there was no room for the slightest slack; focusing all energy on the right path was the true way!

Labor in Sige Town was the scarcest resource.

He must, with all his energy, fully, over and over again, tirelessly throw himself into construction.

That afternoon, the laborers of Sige Town were surprised to find their lord—the esteemed Roman, once again joining their work.

Some were used to it, while others were sincerely anxious.

The effect was immediate; Roman’s presence on site improved the construction progress by ten percent.

As the chief engineer, he had marked out all the foundations with lime lines, defined construction standards, and now readjusted the manpower distribution for different posts. Division of labor was dynamic, needing constant adjustment based on actual circumstances. Roman made the workflow of everyone more rational and smooth.

But after supervising for only ten days, he had to leave due to other matters.

...

days after Roman arrived at Sige Town.

Seth faced a problem.

There was not enough parchment—in fact, there were not enough sheepskins.

Because Roman had ordered him to collect all the information regarding the population of Sige Town, including the number of people, gender, age, and so on.

This was a large-scale population census.

Not to mention collecting the data, just compiling it into volumes was an immense challenge.

It would require at least hundreds of sheepskins.

Even if ten tanners worked themselves to exhaustion, slaughtering all the sheep in the livestock shed, they couldn’t produce so much parchment.

This was a problem faced by everyone in that era.

The cost of paper was too high.

There was nothing more to say then, Roman put the task of papermaking on the agenda.

He assembled about ten people, instructing them to collect mulberry bark.

Papermaking was basic knowledge and was unlocked when the "Manufacturing" skill reached Level 2.

The process of making paper was not complicated, and the first batch of paper could be produced in no more than two months.

He had not had the time to deal with this before. When the population was less than two thousand, not even ten people could be spared; it was no joke because those were the very people that did the real work.

Any need was not as important as the most basic survival needs—education had to wait in line.

Now that the population had surpassed three thousand, a few hands could be freed up.

The spread of education used to be minor, but with paper, this area could be accelerated.

Roman planned to issue a literacy booklet to each of his warriors in the future, to have them learn to read and improve their military capability.

He would design a system of rewards and punishments, giving various rewards to a group of warriors who learned the most words, and increasing the training intensity for the group who learned the fewest words.

In any case, there had to be a bloom in either literature or physical ability!

Those warriors who excelled in both would receive more generous rewards from Roman.

Now, Sige Town had entered an initial stage of acceleration.

Every day saw the completion of thirty to forty brick houses.

And the blacksmiths and carpenters were also extremely busy, especially the carpenters, working from dawn to dusk.

Previously they had to build various ox carts and horse carts, now they had to make tables, chairs, benches, doors, windows, beds, and other pieces of furniture to meet the needs of using brick houses.

But this task was too vast.

Fortunately, the arrival of the new batch of slaves relieved Vic of a lot of pressure.

Roman’s requirement was singular—whoever dared to pile straw in the brick houses as beds, whoever dared to squat on the ground to eat, whoever dared to urinate or defecate anywhere, he would twist that person’s head off.

...

A month later.

Eight hundred standard brick houses stood towering before everyone.

With solid red walls, neatly overlapping grey tiles, and houses lined up in close formation, all that was left was some final finishing work yet to be completed.

The roads were orderly and the houses stately, divided into eight residential areas, each with 100 houses scattered about, resembling nearby small villages.

Each house also had been assigned a number.

Everyone had to live according to these numbers and were not allowed to change their addresses at will.

Roman had Jimmy take on a dual role as the director of town residents, and had also arranged for ten handpicked, seed player One Star and Two Star Angel Envoys, forming the grassroots skeleton.

It didn’t matter if some people were illiterate, they could learn later!

They must learn!

Anyone who didn’t learn would have their legs broken!

In addition, there were five former stewards from Sige Town who acted as assistant units.

It was just a pity that paper hadn’t been manufactured yet, preventing immediate recording of everyone’s data.

But Roman wasn’t in a rush, this matter wasn’t that important. The current advantage was that with house numbers, future management and accounting costs could be greatly reduced.

Resources could be concentrated for use, efficiency improved, and waste in the process avoided.

For instance, how would Roman’s little clerk have checked the households in the past?

There were too many places to go, those thatch houses were scattered and disorganized. Even with a good memory, it was impossible to remember them all.

But now, one only needed to follow the map.

With concentrated living, dozens of horse-drawn carriages carried them to various places every morning, working alongside cattle and horses, greatly saving on the physical effort and time taken to get to work.

After all the brick houses were constructed, Roman recruited fifty more soldiers, gave everyone three days off to quickly move and tidy up their new houses, and even to improve their efficiency, he was willing to lend them the large livestock.

...

During the construction of the brick houses, the 300 slaves promised by Morry arrived on schedule, speeding up construction.

The slave trader responsible for the transport was named Scarhead.

He was a brawny, bald man with a face full of meat and a luxuriantly hairy body, with a narrow scar of more than ten centimeters on the back of his head.

Such dangerous elements often had fitting nicknames.

Scarhead arrived at Origin Manor, bringing his message to the lord here.

"Did Morry say that to you?"

A sycophantic smile squeezed onto Scarhead’s face, "The son of Selin promised that as long as I bring the people here, you would satisfy some of my small requests."

The son of Selin gave him ten thousand jin of salt as an advance payment—a generous gesture indeed.

That deposit was enough to purchase these slaves at a fair price, covering the transportation costs as well.

But according to Morry, after bringing the slaves here, he would get another payment.

Scarhead considered reneging on the deal.

The agreement with Morry had no coercive power. He could easily take the money and not do the job, turning around to sell the slaves to someone else.

The so-called win-win was to sell the same batch of slaves twice; there was no need to go inland to sell them twice, lest it be a trap.

He used to be a pirate moonlighting as a mercenary, but now he was a slave trader.

The former could renege on agreements with impunity—if an enemy offered twice the price, he could even turn around and chop off his employer’s head with no regard for reputation.

But business required a view to long-term interests.

Thus, he chose to head south, fortunately without any setbacks.

The lords’ rule on land was limited to the land, their ships not as nimble or swift as the North Ice Ships. Although he ventured deep alone, Scarhead felt nothing to be afraid of.

They were not on a plundering mission.

Because this pertained to subsequent slave transports, Roman went to check out the slaves Scarhead had brought.

On the docks.

The North Ice Ship, modified for transportation, had a narrower hull, its advantage being light and nimble; despite being disguised, it still looked aggressively imposing.

They rowed upstream, coming from the Bro River, avoiding detours, and saving a good many days of effort.

Roman frowned, looking at the motley crew that could only be said to be worse than the slaves Daken had brought.

"How many?" Roman tilted his chin slightly.

"Did not count, maybe more than four hundred, started out with more than five hundred."

When Roman received the response, his fingers twitched, with an urge to chop someone, he turned his head and looked sharply at Scarhead, his eyes terrifyingly focused.

"You didn’t take good care of them? These are my slaves, and you have caused me losses?!"

Scarhead instantly retracted his obsequious smile, while two North Sea Warriors behind him tightly gripped their war axes.