Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest -
Chapter 214 - 19: Amateur Troupe
Chapter 214: Chapter 19: Amateur Troupe
Just as Roman was engrossed in overseeing various production tasks,
merchants brought in new news.
"The Oak Family’s hereditary legacy has been stolen, and it is said to be the work of a witch,"
Roman was stunned upon hearing this news,
and fell deep in thought.
Thinking was of no use.
How had that thing been lost?
The Fury was the strongest, Oak next, and Riptide the weakest.
The three Dukes each safeguarded a Divine Artifact, considering it as the legacy of their families.
The Three Divine Artifacts originated from the Conqueror.
And the Grand Duke of Black Iron’s confidence in facing off against the Church Court lay in their respective family legacies.
No one dares to confront a Grand Duke of Black Iron who possesses the family legacy.
And now it’s lost?
It’s as if someone stole a nation’s nuclear bomb, and yet the witch’s name is somehow involved.
Roman found it quite amusing, but he quickly sank back into contemplation.
{"If it’s true... then the problem is serious."}
The Grand Duke of Oak was a duke who guarded the frontier, rarely interacting with other nobles, and was blunt with other dukes, his family style somewhat akin to that of Lord Guan.
Put simply, the relations were scant, marriages rare, and rather aloof.
He was not as renowned as the Grand Duke of Fury for being the strongest, nor was he as prominent as Riptide, and was rather low-key, so Roman knew very little about the Oak Family.
According to the Conqueror Order, when the three Dukes convene with their family legacies, it signifies a time to change the destiny of the Human Clan.
But without the family legacy, can the Grand Duke of Oak still be considered a Black Iron Duke?
Of course, he can!
Yet Roman felt there was something fishy about it.
He recalled the night Alster was assassinated; surely the family legacy was not with him, otherwise, Alster would not have met with misfortune.
Did Gael inherit it?
Roman’s rational mind believed that Gael undoubtedly inherited it.
But emotionally, he felt that it was very likely that Gael did not receive the family legacy.
This conjecture stemmed solely from his intuition.
It was implausible that Alster had just passed on the family legacy to Gael, and then turned around to be assassinated; the situation seemed highly suspicious.
The incident of the Moya Family should have made him wary, arranging contingencies was paramount, and it was incomprehensible to Roman why Alster would fall, being a Black Iron Duke after all.
{"If Gael really didn’t inherit it..."}
{"Then that means... among the three Dukes... two are without their family legacies."}
That was indeed a severe matter.
But Roman viewed these events as a spectator might.
These happenings one after another meant for sure tumultuous changes at the top echelons of power.
But currently, his position was too low, and information too sparse, to piece together the full picture of these events.
{"But these matters are related!" Roman thought.}
{"Shasta once let slip that the witches’ circumstances would soon change, and now they’re facing opposition from the Black Iron Duke, this surely isn’t the outcome the witches were hoping for."}
However, the Grand Duke of Oak, having lost the family legacy, appeared quite composed.
Despite the uproar this caused, the Grand Duke of Oak posted a calm bounty notice and then made no significant moves.
He also did not respond to the joint effort of Fury and Riptide to uphold the Conqueror Order, at most offering verbal support.
The reason was that he, too, was maintaining the Conqueror Order—the Oak Family’s legion could not leave the Bar Mountain Range and had to guard the Nether Sea.
Just as the Grand Duke of Fury needed to confront the Church Court and Divine Mysterious, it was also an order set by the Conqueror.
"It doesn’t matter anymore."
...
Another five days passed.
It was the latter part of the midsummer month.
This year’s planting of Spring Wheat could also be harvested.
The yield was very low, which had Roman furrowing his brow.
Only five thousand acres of Spring Wheat had been planted, and the sparse growth made the harvesting rather easy.
The yield was about six hundred thousand catties.
That was only around one hundred and ten catties per acre.
But he had sown twenty catties of wheat seed per acre.
Still, there was that saying, plant a few more cycles and all will be well.
If you don’t plant, the land will never improve.
Take it slow.
The five thousand acres were once again being cultivated with a diversity of crops.
During this time, Roman and people like Jimmy finally managed to register the five to six thousand new inhabitants.
Time to swell the ranks!
...
There were about thirteen hundred old soldiers now.
Which meant that an additional seventeen hundred recruits were needed.
After the initial period of adaptation and hearing about the benefits of being a soldier, they mostly showed no resistance.
Both the Heavy Equipment and Archers needed to be expanded.
After these rounds of battles, Roman finally saw the true value of archers.
In this era, long-range suppression was violently effective and seemingly unsolvable.
It also greatly exaggerated the demoralization of the enemy troops.
If it weren’t for Conquest Knights being the bane of archers, Roman would have wanted to transform all the Infantry into archer units...
It wasn’t impossible.
Professional archers were difficult to train.
But amateur archers, they were much easier to train.
Spending a mere half an hour each day, taking turns to shoot thirty arrows to maintain their touch, after all, having an extra skill never hurt anyone.
But the result of the rapid recruitment was that logistics were utterly hopeless.
During warfare, there were Military Servants to take care of everything, specifically a logistical team Roman had drawn up.
In the last bloody battle with the Nobles’ alliance forces, Roman had pulled two thousand farmers to serve as Military Servants, responsible for transporting supplies, caring for the wounded, and other trivial matters.
At that time, the development of Sige Town was completely stalled.
Of course, it only lasted for those five or six days, and production was quickly restored.
There was service during war, but not during peacetime.
Cooking squads, medical teams, weapon maintenance, and even laundry were troublesome tasks.
So, should the training intensity be reduced?
Nonsense!
The military was a place that valued efficiency.
Roman formed a cooking squad and personally taught them how to cook, totaling two hundred people.
He would make soap on a large scale periodically.
Everyone had ten minutes for meals, plus twenty minutes for bathing and laundry—since bathhouses needed cleaning up, so Roman didn’t build those.
Instead, he had the soldiers bathe and wash their clothes in the river.
A bunch of grown men, naked as the day they were born, bathing in the winding river, turning it murky every day, regardless of winter or summer, while they washed their clothes at the same time.
Anyone who went over time was punished.
During their training, time was squeezed in for maintaining their respective weapons.
For example, after archery practice, archers would perform light equipment cross-country running for three kilometers, rubbing oil and wax onto their bows simultaneously.
Spear bearers had to wipe their shafts and tips with oil-soaked canvas, familiarizing themselves with the weight and balance.
During drill training, everyone held their spears level and marched in step quickly.
Anyone who broke the formation or couldn’t hold their spear steady would have to face Jet’s Sword Whip.
High welfare led to heavy exploitation!
But with enough exploitation came adaptation.
After all, the Human Clan was a species with a strong ability to adapt.
Old soldiers leading new recruits in training, although the numbers differed slightly, rounded up, it was almost one-on-one.
With the old soldiers setting an example, and hands-on guidance, the recruits managed to hang on.
First, adapt to the military camp atmosphere and fast pace.
Grind, Grind, and Grind again!
It was like three thousand rusty gears piled together, but given enough operation time, they would gradually secrete their own lubricant and then adapt to each other’s shapes.
A perfect fit, inseparable from one another.
This wasn’t far-fetched at all—environment shapes people, doesn’t it?
Yet now, the whole training process felt like a makeshift operation thrown together haphazardly.
The training was unstandardized,
The reward and punishment system was lax,
The squad leaders were in an exploratory phase,
Old soldiers wearily trained the clueless new recruits,
While the recruits’ ears were filled with confusing, rushed instructions.
Hasty,
Chaotic,
Not knowing who I am,
Not knowing what I’m doing,
Standing every day,
Running every day,
Riddled with gaps.
But somehow, against all odds, it hadn’t collapsed and stumbled along, operating in an unimaginably functional way!
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