Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest
Chapter 130 - 2: Squeeze in and There Will Be Room

Chapter 130: Chapter 2: Squeeze in and There Will Be Room

Harvesting grass may be simple, but chopping it and storing it in pits is not.

Lax had forged hundreds of Choppers for Roman on this account.

By now, they probably had stored over a million pounds of silage.

In a few days, the grass might take on the taint of autumn, and its nutritional value would decline. While dry grass could also be stored as hay, the effect was not as good as that of silage.

To date, the silage feed’s enormous gap had only been half filled.

The previously planted soybeans, soybean pods, and leaves were also turning yellow, entering their mature phase soon.

Soybeans have a proper harvest period; one cannot harvest too early or too late—it must be done swiftly within a specific timeframe; otherwise, the yield would be affected.

There were far too many impending tasks.

In the past, those calves and horses could help compensate for the shortage of manpower, but since the large-scale production of paper, Roman had significantly increased their learning intensity, leaving no time for the children in the manor to do any work.

The teachers were Hans, Geman, Nillie, and some literate Sea Castle slaves. Sometimes Roman himself would teach them, letting them recognize letters and memorize words on paper.

He hoped to teach a group of kids to read and write sooner rather than later—his demands were truly not high.

Moreover, they couldn’t be allowed to do the grass chopping work, for the risk of cutting off a finger was no joking matter.

Roman could only proceed with his plans step by step.

Regardless, the autumn harvest work could not be delayed; he was prepared to make manpower available from the coal mining, iron smelting, and steel-stirring sectors.

Now, there was an excess capacity of steel; creating mere farm tools and weapons did not require so much metal, nor could the blacksmith shed handle it.

As long as the mining and iron smelting work was paused, there would be plenty of manpower available.

Manpower was like cleavage; squeeze a bit, and it appears.

The idea of progressing equally on all fronts was originally unrealistic—unless Morry had not shown up.

"524 slaves."

This was the number of slaves Morry had brought this time.

"I might not come here for a long time next time, I hope you can understand."

Morry was somewhat troubled.

The Black Iron Kingdom was at peace all year round, its trade routes fairly stable.

Whatever Roman wanted, Morry could find through his connections and network.

Only slaves were the rarest commodity.

Such were predominantly produced in chaotic regions, and procuring them was too fraught with danger; it was manageable in the short term, but disaster was inevitable eventually.

Scar Head was the somewhat reliable slave trader he had found after much inquiry everywhere.

He had a contract with Roman to deliver 300 slaves every month, and for this, Morry went to great lengths, fearing that Scar Head might prove unreliable or encounter problems midway, which would diminish Roman’s trust in him.

He planned to spend his later years here.

Fortunately, the first two times had gone smoothly.

But not this time; Scar Head had gone to attend the Pirate Conference, so it was up to his merchant ships to complete the task.

Morry had even given up the wool business. Each bag of wool weighed about 300 pounds and took up more space than the same weight in slaves; the total weight of over 20,000 pounds comprised some seventy to eighty bags.

The purchase price for a bag of wool was one Gold Coin, and the selling price was two Gold Coins, its transportation profits being much higher than the slave trade, nearly doubling.

This time, the slaves he had acquired were not purchased from the nobles, but from Scar Head.

So the quality was somewhat inferior, fetching not so great prices, just slightly more than one silver coin.

All added up, it came to just over sixty Gold Coins. Even if Roman’s purchase price was generous, Morry couldn’t really ask for seventy Gold Coins—that would be absurd, incomparable to the wool trade.

But to Roman, the value of these people far exceeded that of the wool.

Roman could understand Morry’s concerns.

Pirate feasts meant most pirates would cease their looting activities, and visiting Ice Island would likely be fruitless.

The pirates would not keep a large number of slaves, as capturing slaves was essentially a profitless transaction for them, and they would only select a few slaves for their daily needs.

If they couldn’t sell them, they would either release them or kill them; some slaves would be taken back to Igo Land aboard the North Ice Warship, to be sold to the nobles and lords there.

If one wanted to purchase in large quantities, then the only options were Northern Land or the Eastern Plateau.

And this required more time to search.

But the problem was that winter was approaching, which made it difficult for trade.

Roman nodded, "You’ve done well these days; the number of slaves you’ve brought has also exceeded my expectations. If it’s late next time, that’s alright."

In this period, just because of Morry, more than twelve hundred slaves had come to Sige Town.

This greatly alleviated the manpower shortage in Sige Town and even helped him complete the primal accumulation of people—this was extremely difficult, and Roman even devised the "Spring Plan" for this purpose.

This time he had brought over five hundred people, even fulfilling the quota agreed for the next month.

Morry’s dedicated performance made Roman hold him in high regard.

Although a contract was set, he didn’t actually expect Morry to deliver three hundred slaves every month, but Morry toughed it out.

This task was indeed heavy.

Not to mention mere merchants, even those earls and lords wouldn’t boast about it.

No other reason, long trade routes were fragile without enough troops and manpower, relying solely on merchant ships for transport was very dangerous, and stability was extremely poor.

Even the vessels of the King of Ice Island could suffer piracy; nothing was impossible.

Once a Pirate King emerged, in the foreseeable future, many inland commercial routes would be heavily disrupted, that was a dead certainty.

By next year at the latest, merchants would face hard times.

"I will do my utmost to ensure the quantity of slaves."

"Yes, rest here for a few days," Roman assured him. "I have some authority here, and no one here can threaten your safety."

Morry sensed the underlying intent in his words; this was his second promise, different from his attitude when signing the contract, which slightly eased his heart, realizing he had truly gained his friendship.

Roman didn’t accompany Morry for long, leaving him free to explore.

He soon left the estate.

The sound of boots treading was a light, rapid tap, as graceful as a cheetah, as majestic as a tiger, casually riding away.

These days, Roman had called over a hundred soldiers to capture wild horses on the grasslands, sensing the danger from humans, the horses would flee upon sight, and Roman had to chase them across the prairies to leash them.

This task was nearly complete, with only a few wild horses scattered and untraceable.

He had received news from Morry, so he made a temporary return trip.

This task would end today.

The days of chasing had become somewhat monotonous for Roman.

Though galloping across the prairie was exhilarating, life on horseback wasn’t something the average person could endure.

Around dusk, Roman rode a white horse, returning alone along the salt road, leading another fairly large wild horse back to the stables, and any remaining wild horses that weren’t found would just remain unfound.

In total, 264 wild horses, separated by gender, were enclosed in two separate stables.

Some wild horses were restless, others continuously stamped the ground with their hooves, while some bowed their heads to graze.

Roman was quite pleased with this sight.

This batch of wild horses consisted of studs, mares, old horses, and quite a few foals.

This meant they could begin breeding, and they couldn’t allow them to mate randomly from now on.

Yaki was a highlander herdsman; he should understand some.

If not, no matter, he would teach him how.