Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest
Chapter 88 - 22: Summer Plowing

Chapter 88: Chapter 22: Summer Plowing

Gwivelle and Sanna quickly left.

The forest regained its past tranquility.

The child wouldn’t come too often, as she needed to save up a certain amount of white bread before visiting. Moreover, the journey was long and rugged, a great challenge for a girl of just over ten years old.

She thought she was sneaking away behind Roman’s back.

But they all knew, it was Roman who permitted her to come.

How could the disappearance of a Witch for half a day not raise concern?

They silently accepted Gwivelle’s kindness.

She was simply repaying the grace they had shown her in the past.

But those two years were enough to let Gwivelle repay them without regret for half their lifetimes, perhaps only stopping once the youngest of them, Jet, had died in the mountains.

Just as when the great thief Bo Ge passed away, the Witch of Calamity cried so bitterly. Every time she went to the mountain, after meeting them, she would also spend time at Bo Ge’s grave.

Another two days passed.

The supplies Gwivelle had brought were all consumed by Dick, Galin, and Jet.

They resumed their past lives.

Every day, they survived by hunting and gathering.

That day, Jet left his dwelling with a broken sword in hand.

Dick met him and sensed something unusual about this deserter.

"Are you going down the mountain?"

Jet’s expression was indifferent, as if accustomed to life and death.

He didn’t explain but simply nodded slightly.

The phrase, "Why can’t what Roman is supposed to do be what I should do too?" had been echoing in his head for days.

He didn’t believe in miracles, but what if they were real? He had heard Gwivelle speak of those changes and had witnessed her transformation himself—why not try to believe? After all, it was free.

Dick felt somewhat relieved for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint.

"Then go take a look."

...

Jet walked out from the forest behind him.

It was as if he had left a familiar, cool, and gentle world and entered another hot and uneasy one that was strange to him.

The midsummer sun was particularly dazzling.

The gradually rising temperature was difficult for him to adapt to.

Looking at the roads extending in all directions before him,

Jet didn’t know which way to go.

After standing for a moment, he walked straight ahead.

Half an hour later, he passed by various lands and saw many cattle and draft horses back and forth in the fields.

Two large beasts side by side pulled the heavy iron plow; the plow blade split open the soil, bringing out most of the weeds, tree roots, and stones, creating an extremely deep and long furrow.

The plow blade accumulated large amounts of black soil along the way, like scraping cream, and at the end of the cultivation, the accumulated black soil formed a mound serving as the land boundary.

From a bird’s-eye view, it looked like neatly aligned wide noodles, creating a distinctive and unusual appearance.

Busy!

That was Jet’s first impression.

All the farmers were busily engaged in summer plowing, and the main crop they were sowing was soybeans.

He didn’t understand the use of the strange heavy plow, but he could see all the farmers’ faces brimming with joy and fervor, a stark contrast to their former numb and dull expressions.

Despite working under the scorching sun just as before, their spirits were entirely different.

Many farmers also noticed the out-of-place Jet.

Mainly because amidst the busyness, they saw a man clad in broken armor, carrying a rotten sword, strolling leisurely, obviously out of place.

But they had heavy cultivation tasks and no time to care about other matters.

The Lord had assigned tasks to each of them.

This summer’s plowing required an additional four thousand acres to be turned over, which, along with the previous two thousand acres, totaled six thousand acres.

It was a communal labor, with practically all available hands participating, even those from the Salt Mine had a group temporarily drafted in.

They were divided into six cultivation teams. Each team was about two hundred people strong and was responsible for a thousand acres of land.

A manager appointed personally by the Lord was in charge.

If the cultivation task wasn’t completed within the deadline, the entire team would be punished, both the ordinary farmers and the manager alike, receiving fifty lashes before being hanged for an entire day.

What’s more, their Lord also led one of the cultivation teams.

This meant that if the Lord didn’t complete the task, he would also suffer the same punishment—first, the whipping! Then, the hanging! For an entire day!

This pressure suddenly fell on the farmers under the Lord’s command.

Some of them were sweating profusely, giving it everything they had.

They were terrified that the Lord would be whipped because they worked too slowly.

Of course, any farmer with a bit of experience could calculate that, based on the cultivation task and the time given, they could complete the task on time if they worked a bit harder.

Farming is a labor with a vast difference between the upper and lower limits of productivity.

The heaviest step involves clearing out tree roots, rocks, grass roots, and other debris from the soil.

Striving for perfection is one kind of labor.

Skimping on the job is another kind of labor.

Ultimately, the more meticulously a task is done, the more time and energy it consumes.

According to the law of diminishing marginal returns, assume perfect land can yield 100 pounds of grain.

Land that is less perfect can only yield 70 pounds.

But to increase this yield by 30 pounds, to make the land perfect, might require twice the labor force. If there aren’t enough hands, the only option is to extend the labor time.

Given the shortage of labor, it’s only logical to do things less meticulously.

This was a fact Roman had to acknowledge.

If you set such heavy tasks, you can’t blame others for cutting corners.

Of course, there were very few who really dared to be lazy.

The vision of a bountiful harvest was still vivid in their minds, and now, without needing Roman to explain, the farmers understood the benefits of this way of farming.

The more they invested now, the more they would harvest in the future.

Most of the farmers felt they understood everything. Without needing urging, they competed with each other to get the work done.

Working on a full stomach now, compared to the past when they worked hungry, their work efficiency was completely different.

They were eager to see the yield of this round of soybeans and to conclusively determine the relationship between labor and production, as anxious as a groom eager for his bride.

As Jet walked along, he consistently felt something was amiss.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

He thought it might be due to the change in the farmers’ spirits.

But he quickly discovered that wasn’t it.

He saw the farmers cooperating in their work.

Those tilling the land, those raking it, those weeding, those moving rocks and tree roots—they didn’t rely on human strength to move them, but instead used horse-drawn carts to clean out all the debris from the soil.

Later, he thought it was the agricultural tools in the farmers’ hands that caused the strange feeling.

The sound of steel striking stone was very crisp.

One glance and he knew, it had to be high-quality steel!

It required skilled blacksmiths putting in great effort, shaped by hundreds of hammer strikes.

But the problem was, this was a processing technique for weapons and armor—why was it being applied to farming tools?

Would any other Nobles spend so much cost to forge farming tools?

Do you have any idea how expensive steel is?

How many blacksmiths would it take working themselves to death to produce so many tools?

Finally, when Jet saw the figure at the edge of the field, directing all the farmers in coordinated labor,

Jet finally realized the source of the unusual feeling.

It was as if a scattered pile of sand had been gathered by an invisible hand, turning into a sturdy and sharp heavy plow.

With the momentum of breaking through all resistance,

It fell with a crash!

And split open the earth!