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

Chapter 169 Military Reorganization
It's the 403th day since Roman arrived in Sig.

The vegetables planted last fall are ready for harvest.

Cabbage and turnips are the first to ripen.

The benefits of overwintering vegetables include avoiding pests, increasing land utilization, and improving soil quality.

However, the downsides are that they are easily damaged by frost, resulting in low yields and small size.

The yield of these two vegetables is about 300 jin per mu.

While it's quite considerable, it's rather low compared to the effort Roman put into this vegetable garden.

After all, this land had been burned, deeply cultivated, and fertilized.

If we use prepared rehmannia instead of raw rehmannia, this process can easily increase the yield to over 800 jin.

Compared to staple foods, vegetables have a much higher yield per acre.

Because vegetables are grown more densely and are larger in size, the downside is that they are very low in carbohydrates and calories, so they can only be used as a side dish.

Eating vegetables can only fill your stomach in the short term.

The harsh reality is that many farmers often don't even have enough vegetables to eat.

Roman brought about a thousand children to this field to harvest vegetables.

This can be considered a three-day spring outing.

Let these calves and horses do some work and relax.

These children had all done farm work before, so their movements were not clumsy, and harvesting vegetables was not difficult.

The thousand-acre vegetable field yielded a total of 300,000 jin of vegetables.

The Ministry of Agriculture failed to complete the task of cultivating 10,000 mu of wasteland, and only managed to reclaim 7,000 mu.

After the vegetables were harvested, Roman sent them back to the field to cultivate the land.

Roman told them to plant another round of crops here.

In total, 5,000 mu of land were planted with spring wheat, 1,000 mu of land were used for vegetable cultivation, and 4,000 mu of reclaimed wasteland were added.

The remaining 3,000 mu of wasteland will be used to grow various vegetables.

For example, spinach, cabbage, tomatoes, and lettuce.

Spring vegetables have a very short growth cycle and can be harvested in one or two months.

Then we can plant soybeans to accumulate nutrients and improve the soil.

In about ten days, the first batch of pigs, sheep and chickens from the farm will be ready for market. With these vegetables, it should be enough to last until summer.

……

At this point in time, Dadi Business Network recovered at an extremely rapid pace.

After resting for most of the winter, the merchants also embarked on their business journeys.

Some merchant ships arrived at the dock in Sig Town, but there were far fewer than last year.

Roman learned from merchants who came to Sig Town that an army with banners fluttering and the emblem of the Flower of Salt had appeared upstream and was warmly received by Count Kant.

“It’s the Geirand family.” Seth learned of this from the merchants and reported it to Roman.

"how many people?"

"I estimate there are about a thousand people."

Roman waved his hand, "Don't worry about them, let's talk about it after everyone arrives."

"Any news about Morey?" he asked.

Seth shook his head.

Traffic was congested and information was scarce.

These days, let alone a mere merchant, even the death of a nobleman wouldn't cause much of a stir.

Roman was waiting for Morey to send him slaves, but the latter remained silent, which left him somewhat frustrated.

“Let’s conduct another round of recruitment,” Roman said. “This time… we’ll recruit eight hundred men.”

The land reclamation project ended ahead of schedule.

He had originally planned to plant for a few more days.

But the tree may wish to be still, but the wind will not cease.

You can only choose one: the plow or the sword.

Farming is never a smooth process.

Roman thought to himself.

If that's the case, then farmers who cultivate the land must be the people who live the most prosperous lives.

But everyone knows that's not the case.

Roman wanted to increase the size of the army to two thousand men.

He arranged this matter with a militaristic and aggressive attitude.

There is no shortage of young and middle-aged laborers nowadays.

The population structure of Sig is very healthy.

There is no shortage of food, and we can certainly afford to feed them.

To be honest, what is the most important thing about expanding the military?
manpower!

Roman purchased a total of over 2,600 slaves last year. Most of them came from Daken and Morey, with a smaller number coming from slaves brought by independent merchants.

Slavery meant labor, and there were virtually no elderly people.

It was easy for Roman to select one-fifth of these slaves to become soldiers.

Secondly, he captured over seven hundred of Count Conde's conscripted soldiers, most of whom were able-bodied men who enlisted immediately.

Whether or not they can be successfully brainwashed and made to fight for him in the end depends on Roman's methods.

Finally, the villages they raided also had young men of marriageable age who were abducted with their families, so their loyalty could be guaranteed.

Therefore, there is an ample supply of soldiers.

Requiring a group of able-bodied young men to work elsewhere is tantamount to a decrease in productivity—that's all the consequence.

Roman therefore wanted to set up a logistics department of 100 people to be responsible for the army's food.

In the past, military meals were delivered in wooden buckets and by horse-drawn carts, with the food being brought over by the kitchen staff.

From now on, we will have to be self-sufficient and take turns doing laundry and cooking.

Roman himself was appointed as the Minister of Logistics, and he attached great importance to this matter.

So for the next few days, Roman focused wholeheartedly on building up the army.

The logistics department's sole responsibility is to operate quickly and efficiently, handling daily meals, weapons distribution, and military supplies.

Secondly, the military also needs to be reorganized.

Previously, there were only 600 people, which made command and training very convenient.

Now that the number of soldiers has more than tripled, it's time to organize them into more sophisticated combat units.

Roman's planned army structure was very simple.

A team of 12 people is formed, and the team leader is in charge of command.

Five squads make up a company, which consists of 60 people in total, and the highest commander is the company commander.

Five companies make up a battalion. The total number of personnel is 300. The highest commander is the battalion commander.

Roman now has four infantry battalions, which is 1,200 light infantrymen.

The first captain was Aaron.

The second battalion commander was Green.

The third captain is Nathan.

The fourth captain was Kao.

There are other types of troops as well.

The unit consisted of 400 heavily armed personnel, under the command of Jeter.

Two hundred archers, commanded by Dick.

Fifty scouts and fifty cavalrymen were under the command of Dota, whose rank was equivalent to that of a battalion commander.

The cavalry's horses came from warhorses, packhorses, and a small number of tamed wild horses captured from the territory of Kant.

Remove those special units,

Roman entrusted important responsibilities to the soldiers and apostles who received second-class and third-class merits, directly promoting them to squad leaders or company commanders.

Once the military units are clearly defined.

Each squad, company, and battalion began grueling training day and night.

Veteran soldiers lead new recruits, practicing drills in the morning, physical training in the afternoon, and learning alphabet words and conducting ideological education in the evening.

It was like training to the bone, pushing the intensity to the limit.

Following Roman's instructions, the blacksmith had long since stopped forging farm tools and began to focus all his efforts on forging weapons.

The woodworking factory was also constantly producing longbows and arrows.

Swords gleaming with a cold light; enormous spears, easily four or five meters long; heavy shields of exaggerated width and length; massive steel axes with handles two meters long…

When you grasp such a brutal and heavy weapon, your genes will control you to wield it.

This is what is meant by "possessing a sharp weapon, one's murderous intent arises spontaneously."

Don't underestimate the belligerence of humankind.

People farm because they have no other choice, not because they're afraid to fight.

Roman provided his army with excellent equipment.

For example, for heavily armored troops, the cost of a single shield is one gold coin, and that's just the cost price, which is extremely high.

But there was no way around it; the Conqueror Knights were the most terrifying armed unit of this era.

Even a dense array of spears might not be able to stop the charge of the conquering knights.

The impact was so terrifying that any hesitation would send the person and spear flying backwards.

The magic steel armor was impervious to swords and spears, and the rabble scattered as soon as they charged.

This is, after all, a fantastical world with high biological potential, and warhorses bred through special methods are several levels above ordinary wild horses in terms of physical fitness.

When an 800-pound warhorse carrying a 600-pound load charges at you at a speed of at least tens of meters per second—

A modern car can send you flying, and a knight in shining armor can send you flying just as far, not to mention the knight might be wielding a lance.

Roman believed that only well-trained heavy infantry could withstand that impact.

(End of this chapter)