Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest
Chapter 126 - 29: Silage

Chapter 126: Chapter 29: Silage

Having acquired a new batch of slaves, Roman provided them with an extraordinarily high standard of living, which maxed out their obedience.

Damn, it seemed that being a slave was better than not being one.

This allowed Roman to have even more manpower at his disposal.

He expedited the troop recruitment process.

By the 260th day,

the army size of Sige Town had grown to over 400 people.

Professional soldiers had an enormous consumption of food, especially meat, needing over ten thousand pounds each month.

Roman had no choice but to organize the army and once again embark on a large-scale hunting operation.

This time, it was not confined to the forest north of the estate.

The mountain forests, marshes, and rivers to the north, east, and west, all fell within the scope of the hunt.

Roman ordered dozens of fishing nets to be woven for drag-net fishing along the river.

With a complex network of waterways and a developed river system, the fishermen of Sige Town actually caught very little—the resources in the rivers were abundant.

This autumn group hunt lasted a week.

It brought Roman over a hundred thousand pounds of game and tens of thousands of pounds of various fish, including cod, trout, and a large number of lampreys.

Such methods could be described as draining the pond to get all the fish.

Although many young animals and pregnant females escaped the hunting circle, the game resources would undoubtedly be greatly reduced next year, and with two consecutive years, the damage to the natural ecology would be devastating—it would certainly not recover in less than a decade.

But Roman didn’t care, how could he allow wild beasts to live on land touched by humans?

He also planned to undertake major land development in the future, so if there was a reduction, so be it.

By the next year, the breeding farms would definitely be established.

Relying on hunting to satisfy the need for meat was purely wishful thinking.

The climate and soil of this land were exceptionally suitable for the development of animal husbandry.

The soil was moist, the climate mild and rainy, and there were plenty of grasslands. Nearly every noble’s territory had a pasture filled with juicy and abundant forage.

However, breeding was quite difficult.

...

Because an increase in the number of soldiers meant a decrease in available qualified labor.

Although the arrival of the slaves filled the gap somewhat, preventing Roman from being short of hands, the scarcity of young and strong workers remained a problem before him.

Young adult workers, women of childbearing age, boys and girls—only slaves of this age group were valuable.

If there was a large-scale acquisition of slaves, it was inevitable to get a mixed bag of good and bad.

Roman couldn’t expect the quantity of slaves to be high while also maintaining high quality; the difficulty of acquisition was too great. He would have to travel to numerous places or otherwise only be able to purchase conscripted soldiers who were not redeemed from the battlefield.

And this required connections and time.

Coincidentally, Roman lacked such resources.

He had been a lord for less than a year, had not yet gained a firm foothold, nor made a name for himself.

All the nobles in the land didn’t even know there was a lord named Roman in this rugged, wild corner.

Roman didn’t like making friends with nobles, nor was he aware of the intricacies of their interests; he had poor connections, and he couldn’t even recognize all of his own siblings.

Making a wide circle of friends was out of the question.

Those fools weren’t worthy of being his friends.

But as a result, Roman couldn’t transfer a population from familiar nobles to develop Sige Town.

He had to rely on merchants for trade to purchase some items.

Even the potential connection through salt and iron trade with Earl El of the Iron Tree Territory had been severed by his own hand.

Roman didn’t care; if there were nobles offering him assistance, that would actually bother him. Would he kill them or not?

The shortage of labor was a long-term issue.

Or rather, the more people there were, the greater the shortage, never enough at any time.

Sige Town now had a population of nearly four thousand.

But not all of these people were available for use; rather, they had to be evenly distributed across various fields.

Some weeded and farmed, some chopped wood and forged iron, some made salt, and some cared for young livestock...

Even more were building breeding farms, coal mining, and steel making and refining.

There had to be three hundred people in the mess camp area alone, mills, ovens, chopping wood, boiling water, delivering meals, serving meals, washing dishes, and incidentally caring for children under five.

Which task didn’t require manpower?

During the hottest part of summer, they had to boil tens of thousands of pounds of water every day to make herbal tea, with each laborer needing to drink ten pounds of herbal tea daily.

Faced with the burden of three meals a day, a shortage of manpower meant they would be overwhelmed and would only affect the collective’s productivity.

While it seemed they had numerous laborers, when divided amongst everyone, they were suddenly insufficient.

...

It was just about development, just about farming, just about animal husbandry—nothing formidable.

The purple clover and black oats that Roman planted alongside the riverbanks in summer could now be harvested.

The growth of the two thousand acres of pasture was excellent; the branches and leaves were full and succulent. Yielding a thousand pounds per acre was no problem, totaling over two million pounds of pasture that needed to be harvested quickly.

Now it was autumn, and the pasture would soon wither and fade.

By winter, it would probably be impossible to find fresh pasture anymore.

Livestock could only eat dry hay in winter; therefore, they would lose weight, including warhorses—even if fed with concentrated feed, it wouldn’t work.

But for breeding, feeding could not be short under any circumstances.

If they couldn’t eat fresh pasture and feed, and had to rely on fat to resist the cold, they’d definitely lose weight indeed.

Some herders would migrate to cope with the harsh winter and search for suitable pastures.

Those without the conditions for migration would slaughter a large number of livestock in autumn and winter to avoid waste.

But for farming families, this was not practical; peasants couldn’t afford to eat meat.

They would buy piglets and lambs in the spring or early summer, and by late autumn and winter, they would sell the mature livestock for grain or for a few copper coins or a silver coin, and then save up.