Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest
Chapter 158 - 30: Why Not Eat Minced Meat?

Chapter 158: Chapter 30: Why Not Eat Minced Meat?

The fireplace at Origin Manor was very warm.

But the slaves lined up in the snow shivered slightly.

The food arrangement was in place, providing calories; for a time, the cold was not so unbearable.

On the first day, they were astonished to find that residents in Sige Town ate three meals a day!

That was the kind of treatment only nobles could enjoy!

If after being captured and brought here, they were filled with fear and trepidation,

But now, most of the fear had evaporated into thin air.

What they had feared did not happen.

There was no sleeping in cold, damp animal sheds, no digging for grass roots and wild vegetables in the snow, even no beatings;

They could sleep in brick houses, each person had a living space of no less than eight square meters, without any shared area, everyone received a thin but finely stitched woolen sweater, and the beds were layered with a thick spread of wheat straw, plus their own clothes, sleeping in the straw pile would not wake them from the cold:

The food every day was also rich and delicious, breakfast was bean porridge and bread, lunch was stewed vegetables with soybeans and two roasted flatbreads.

Dinner was even more outrageous.

It was actually soybean stewed chicken with a serving of meat pie!

Although the bowl was mostly filled with beans, with only two pieces of chicken, it had enough salt and the meat soup was delicious; it was a rarity indeed!

They settled down very quickly.

Even the slaves who had thoughts of escaping, faced with this situation, would think twice.

What they had now was only the fear of the future.

Mainly because they were unwilling to believe in the concept of manna from heaven, especially meat pies without having done any work, since their harsh life had taught them otherwise.

They lined up in batches in front of the Lord’s manor, waiting for arrangements of the future.

One slave after another entered the manor’s hall and came out quickly.

The soldiers prohibited them from whispering, to queue up properly, otherwise they would be punished with a baton.

...

"Name?"

"Peter Brown."

"Age?"

"23 years old."

"What did you do before?"

"I lived in Doug Village."

"I’m not asking where you live! I’m asking what you did before! What work! Understand?!"

Nillie couldn’t control her emotions and slammed the table!

Since she became a registrar, communicating with this group of slaves had worn out all her patience.

Now Nillie finally understood why Roman often lost his temper with them, not resting until he had called them idiots eight times a day.

She lived in Sea Castle, where, although literacy rates were also very low, the residents’ quality was high, and they understood human speech.

Peter saw the beautiful lady with blue hair slamming the table across from him.

He was so frightened that he knelt and kowtowed.

"Lady, please have mercy. I... my father works by the oven..."

"And you?"

"I also help my father with work... making bread... he’s right behind me in line..."

Nillie suppressed the urge to hit someone, her slender right hand holding the pencil, and scribbled ’Baker’ in the occupation column.

She casually threw the copied identity material onto the ground, telling Peter to pick it up and keep it safe.

Nillie’s voice was laden with heavy fatigue.

"Next."

...

After a full three days of work,

Roman finally registered the identity information of this batch of people.

Those with occupational skills were sent to do their respective jobs.

Those without occupational skills would either farm or become soldiers.

Children under the age of fifteen came to Origin Manor to study.

Roman’s need for labor was never enough.

But before that, a new problem presented itself.

There was not enough reserve grain in Sige Town!

Originally, it was enough to sustain more than four thousand people in Sige Town until the next spring, especially since Roman had also purchased over a hundred thousand pounds of grain and vegetables in the autumn.

But the sudden addition of more than five thousand mouths had doubled the food consumption.

In this situation, Roman still followed the policy of three full meals a day.

Each person needed one and a half pounds of mixed grain and grain foods, one and a half pounds of vegetables, and half an ounce of meat a day.

This meant that Sige Town had to consume thirty thousand pounds of food every day.

If it was all converted to finer grains like wheat and rice, certainly not as much would be needed.

But mixed grains had lower energy content compared to finer grains, so more had to be consumed.

There was not much wheat left in storage, just enough for Origin Manor and the military camp.

However, there were five hundred thousand pounds of soybeans in the grain storage.

Left over from the autumn harvest, not much had been consumed in the winter.

As a result, the proportion of soybeans in each meal had to increase significantly, even becoming the main food.

But soybeans were a mixed grain because they could not be eaten in large quantities without causing indigestion.

Making them into soy products could help digestion.

But how could Roman ask the grand kitchen to make soy products? Their workload was already heavy, and adding a few more steps meant needing even more hands.

There were plenty of soybeans.

Need more hands? Wishful thinking.

To this day, the grand kitchen simply soaked the soybeans overnight and then directly cooked them into porridge or soup, or ground them into soy milk using a millstone.

They did what was convenient.

As for tofu, a complex and labor-intensive soy product, forget about it.

Moreover, even if soybeans were the staple food, it wouldn’t change the imminent crisis of food shortage facing Sige Town in just over a month.

...

Managing to experience a food shortage even with farming, Roman felt he had some kind of talent.

The population of Sige Town was growing too fast.

At the very least, before the summer harvest, Roman was confronted with this crisis.

And this time, he couldn’t continue to buy grain.

A heavy snowfall had blanketed Sige Town a few days ago; the ice and snow had not yet melted, but strictly speaking, Sige Town was now welcoming early spring.

During this lean period, where to purchase a large quantity of grain?

Last time when food was bought, it was because the population of Sige Town was less than two thousand, and since it was already a month or two into spring, Roman managed to scrape by purchasing grain from all over, just enough to last till the summer harvest.

But this time the population had exceeded ten thousand.

The needed grain had quadrupled, which did not mean that the difficulty of procurement had increased fourfold, but rather tenfold, even twentyfold!

Fortunately, after a year’s development, Roman had established some foundations. Although not exactly stable, at the very least they were as solid as a rock.

So he didn’t worry much about the crisis of food shortage.

No grain to eat, why not eat minced meat?

The breeding farm he built in the autumn, after a whole winter of silage feeding, would be ready for mass slaughter in two months.

In fact, four or five qualified pigs and sheep were already being slaughtered daily now—some were bred earlier and thus slaughtered earlier.

According to Yaki’s observations, the castrated pigs could average a weight of 130 pounds, and the castrated sheep could grow to sixty or seventy pounds.

But for efficiency’s sake, pigs could be slaughtered at 120 pounds, sheep at 50 pounds, without waiting for them to mature fully.

Such a quantity of meat, combined with coarse grain vegetables, would be enough to last until the summer harvest.

Just leave some sows for breeding, ewes for milking, and hens for laying eggs.

In any production industry, investment always pays off.

Throughout the winter, Roman solely invested a total of seven hundred laborers in these three breeding farms and one livestock shed.

Even while actively preparing for raiding plans, these people were steadfast in their positions.

The workload was so heavy that it called for additional manpower.

In winter, Roman could neither divert these workers nor could he spare anyone to help with pig breeding.

The breeding supervisor Yaki never slacked off, hobbling back and forth between the breeding farm and the livestock shed, managing firmly to hold on, strictly adhering to the knowledge Roman had poured into him.

And, naturally, the benefits were quite significant.

There was no longer a need to purchase piglets from the outside world; in the future, there would be more and more of them.

The dairy maids could fetch eight hundred pounds of sheep’s milk from the sheep shed each day, and including the cow’s milk from the livestock shed, there was well over a thousand pounds in total.

The egg production from the chicken coop was also substantial, with four to five hundred eggs being collected daily.

These high-nutrition supplements supplied half to the students of Origin Manor and the other half to the soldiers in the barracks.

The saying ’the kids’ eating habits bankrupt the father’ wasn’t unfounded.

If adult laborers only needed three pounds of grain a day.

Then these growing children needed four pounds of staple and supplementary food every day.

And, naturally, Roman treated them exceedingly well.

Not being afraid of eating to fullness, but of not being able to eat at all.

Other farmers had to wait for the harvest festival to get unlimited supplies of food, but for these kids, it was practically a daily festivity.

Of course, their meals were certainly not as rich as during the festival times.

Now, with the addition of about five hundred minors from Kant Territory, Roman also planned to train them into a fundamental ruling force.

Just waiting till the pigs, sheep, and chickens were ready for slaughter—

Everything would start to improve!

...

On this day, Roman said to the old deacon, "Seth, I’m going on a winter hunt, help Jimmy arrange their posts will you? Pick out a batch of new soldiers first."

Allocating labor was originally Roman’s job.

No one could match his strategic vision, high prestige, and strong execution, but now he didn’t have the time to sort out those trivial matters.

As for why he was personally going on the winter hunt...

What if the soldiers got lost in the wilderness?

Roman could only lead them, look after them, to avoid non-combat casualties.

He would have to leave these domestic affairs to Seth.

Seth was in charge of finances, and after settling the accounts with the ship owners, he wouldn’t have much else to do.

Nillie was not adept at handling affairs, nor were any of the Conquest Knights skilled in domestic tasks.

Only he was most familiar with all aspects of Sige Town, had the most experience in handling affairs, and was capable of doing whatever was needed.

Roman said he would wait for the breeding to finish, but he couldn’t wait.

He could not let those fools actually consider beans as their meal!

He liked pushing people, and he didn’t expect others to do what he himself couldn’t.

Like the first time he piled up manure, he nearly threw up his lunch, and then immediately provided compensation to those working on the compost from Moor.

All beans on the dining table, to be eaten for more than a month.

Perhaps they could endure it, but Roman couldn’t.

Roman knew he had a sort of mental aversion, probably a remnant from a time of prosperity, somewhat of an obsession.

If the food supply could be improved, then it should be.

Moreover, the reserves of meat at the barracks were running low.

Over the winter, Roman had trained six hundred professional soldiers, each consuming a pound of meat daily just for their dietary needs, subjected to high-intensity physical training, their nutrition needed to be maxed out.

But before the livestock from the breeding farm were ready for slaughter, the army mainly relied on game meat secured from autumn hunting sprees.

And now, that meat was almost all consumed.

May as well go hunting again.

After settling all the population, Roman turned his eyes toward the Black Barbarian Land.

Since the wild beasts were going to die sooner or later, they might as well be reborn sooner.

That way, when they are reincarnated as humans, they could be born right in his era of rule, continuing to serve as social sustenance for him, wouldn’t that be perfect?