You were made to farm, and now you're the emperor of an empire?

Chapter 13 Two Thousand Mu of Land
As the morning chill dissipated with the rising sun, Roman arrived in Sig.

The people had been waiting in front of the commons for a long time.

Roman didn't intend to give a lecture today.

When he saw the residents' awe-inspiring expressions and submissive eyes, he knew they had submitted.

The more ignorant they are, the more forceful we must be in restraining them, otherwise things could easily go wrong.

Roman dismounted and told Moore to move some of this year's grain crops out of the fields.

He planned to plant spring wheat, continuing the planting tradition of Sige Town.

Each acre requires about 15 to 20 jin of seeds, but Roman aims to increase the sowing rate to over 30 jin.

This is essential for spring wheat; the sowing rate must be increased, otherwise the yield will not be high.

In my past life, one mu of land could yield 50 jin of seeds, with a yield of 1,000 jin per mu, because the cultivated land was fertile, with sufficient fertilizer and a suitable climate.

Forget about it in this era.

Roman upgraded his [Planting] skill to level 2, unlocking a wealth of basic agricultural knowledge, including the fact that the most common seed screening method involves soaking the seeds in salt water.

But in Sig Town, salt is a luxury, so using salt water for seed selection is impossible—at least not until he finds a salt mine.

So Roman had no choice but to throw mud into the barrel, dissolve it in the water, and achieve the same effect as salt water, the downside being that it required constant stirring.

After adjusting the mud-water ratio, two farmers were hired to take turns stirring the mud.

His approach was simply to provide a standard template and have others follow his method.

Because there are too many seeds to soak, one wooden bucket is far from enough; it would be best to build a huge pool.

This perplexing approach left onlookers quite astonished.

Roman didn't explain, but when Mohr leaned closer and cautiously asked why, this was the answer Roman gave.

"Don't ask why. You don't deserve to know. You're just farm tools. Farm tools don't need to understand why their masters swing them like that!"

Roman believed that any explanation was superfluous before any effect was observed.

As a lord, is he now going to waste his time and effort explaining scientific farming to a group of ignorant medieval peasants?
Roman's expression was remarkably calm, his crimson eyes intensely focused. Mor began to sweat again. He realized he was utterly powerless against this seemingly calm yet domineering lord.

……

Roman made inferences based on the harvest data from Sig Town.

The total cultivated land area of ​​all residents in Sige Town and its villages last year was approximately 10,000 mu (about 667 hectares), a figure that left Roman somewhat stunned.

Just doing the initial calculations almost blew Roman's mind out of him.

Many of these are scattered farmlands, separated by forests, grasslands, hillsides, swamps, and other areas unsuitable for cultivation.

Of course, not all of those farmlands were cultivated; some were uncultivated and simply sown with seeds of miscellaneous grains.

From Roman's perspective, can what the residents of Sigge consider "farmland" really be called farmland?

Stop insulting farmland!
Those were clearly large tracts of wasteland!
Before soil improvement, it has no real effective output value.

Based on the mapping of real land in "The Tale of Life and Death", Roman plans to designate a fertile land of 2000 acres, which will correspond to the nearly 2,000 people in Sige Town.

This is a rectangular piece of land, approximately 1.3 kilometers long and 1 kilometer wide.

This was a large-scale collective planting movement, with 60,000 jin of seeds alone. Then he mobilized everyone else to collect all the manure that could be found in Sige Town and the surrounding area.

When Roman was estimating the arable land, he once thought that the total land cultivated by all the residents of Sige Town was very likely to be more than 30,000 mu, and even 40,000 mu was not impossible.

Because the soil fertility is limited, the land planted this year will not be cultivated next year and will be left fallow until the soil fertility naturally recovers in a few years so that it can be planted again.

This is why the town of Sige established villages elsewhere; the land is vast and sparsely populated, and traveling alone would take a considerable amount of time. A single settlement could not accommodate such a large population.

Otherwise, staying in one place for a long time will deplete the soil's fertility, which is equivalent to being bombed by a Destroyer Mushroom and will have a devastating effect.

Roman planned to use manure to ferment fertilizer to improve the soil, abandoning most of the wasteland and turning a small portion of the raw land into cultivated land.

The demand for fertilizer will be enormous in the future; even if all the manure in the town were collected, it might not be enough.

So Roman also had to collect rotten thatch, straw, withered grass, silt, basically anything that could decompose, and throw it in.

There are many ways to compost naturally, but the shortest time is at least half a month.

There is a great deal of preparation work to be done before farming, or rather, farming itself is a tedious and lengthy process.

Don't even think about sowing seeds until the manure is made.

A worker must first sharpen his tools if he wants to do well.

Roman plans to complete the preparations for spring plowing in a minimum of 20 days and a maximum of 30 days.

If he hadn't intervened, could the farmers in Sige Town have cleared all 10,000 acres of land in a month?

It's important to understand that with the addition of the lord's manor—which means there's another exploiter—the burden on the farmers of Sig Town has become even heavier. If they don't quickly increase their harvest by 10%, some will starve to death this year under the high taxes.

Thus, apart from the farmers who were sifting seeds, most of the labor force was driven to collect manure.

Roman didn't do much, but before he knew it, most of the morning had passed.

Roman glanced at the sun and then called Mohr over.

He said to Moore, “You must find 80 peasant women and prepare enough food for everyone, including the slaves. Each person should have half a pound of dry rations, three slices of bread the thickness of a finger joint, a bowl of oatmeal and vegetable soup, and plenty of clean water boiled over a fire. This is my lunch too, and I will not allow anyone to withhold this ration!”

Morton was stunned.

Listen to what you're saying, is that even human language?
Where did the food rations come from?
What do you mean by "you also need to eat lunch"?
If even noble lords like you eat this, what am I supposed to eat?
What are you going to feed those farmers?
Are you planning a rebellion?

Mohr hesitated, but under Roman's gaze, he had no choice but to nod.

Although the farmers in Sigge Town go hungry every day, the town itself is not short of food.

As the agricultural officer, Moor would sell off surplus grain every year, otherwise he wouldn't have the money to buy oxen. Do you think that relying solely on agriculture to achieve primitive accumulation would depend on harvesting someone else's crops?

Roman wouldn't get involved in this matter, and Mohr wouldn't dare to say anything either.

This is an unspoken understanding between them; past grievances are wiped clean.

It's not a good thing that Mo'er is too fat; he should lose weight. Otherwise, Roman will have to help him lose weight manually, which would take as much weight as a pig's head in one go.

He had roughly calculated that, including both adult men and women, there were about 1,100 to 1,200 able-bodied farmers and slaves. This number was derived after excluding children under 15 and the elderly who could not move.

Roman gestured and said, "From now on, there will be a meal like this every day at noon, and no one is allowed to go home. If you have children or elderly people at home who can't walk, bring them out to eat, and then leave all the children in the care of the 80 farm women who cook. Do this every day from now on, and you should inform everyone about this as soon as possible."

(End of this chapter)