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

Chapter 201 Sense of Belonging

Roman has a lot of things to deal with every day.

The town of Sige is now developing wildly.

No one knows what the future holds.

Roman watched over them, guided them, and ensured that everyone was on the right path and avoided going astray.

Taking a detour means wasting time.

Development is of utmost urgency!
……

The woodworking factory employs more than 300 carpenters.

Ninety-five percent of them were apprentices last year. After a year of training and learning, they are now able to complete most of the manufacturing tasks.

Their secondary task was to continuously manufacture various types of furniture to fill the gaps in usage.

Tables, chairs, benches, and beds.

These pieces of furniture are a must.

Standardization and division of labor lead to extremely high efficiency.

Especially after the advent of the treadle lathe, every carpenter sat beside it to complete the cutting and processing, no longer relying on the cumbersome method of hand filing.

Some people were responsible for breaking down logs, some for planing table legs, some for planing bed legs, and some for planing tabletops and bed boards.

All the parts eventually come together to form a table and a bed.

The head of the woodworking factory, Vicki, led experienced carpenters and was responsible for the main task—producing various types of military equipment.

Currently, crossbows are no longer being considered; their components are too complex, there is a shortage of skilled workers, and the logistical requirements are too high, making large-scale deployment impossible.

The construction of a single longbow is both simple and complex—Roman made it using a simpler method.

However, making arrows is somewhat difficult.

With the advent of the lathe, a carpenter's apprentice could only produce thirty to fifty arrow shafts per day.

The output was extremely high.

However, Roman had used up more than 30,000 arrows in the last war, exhausting all the arrows he had accumulated in the past. Most of the arrows were wasted, and only more than 3,000 arrows were recovered after the war.

The daily training of the infantry battalion also resulted in wear and tear.

Future wars will require more arrows, and three hundred carpenters are simply not enough.

Roman also plundered a number of people, including skilled carpenters, and added a hundred novice apprentices, bringing the total to five hundred.

It is not difficult to train traditional skilled workers.

But new skilled workers have to start from scratch.

For example, oil press workers.

We still have about 200,000 jin of soybeans left from last year.

Of these, 150,000 jin were used as seeds, and Roman planned to use another 50,000 jin of beans to extract oil.

In the past, the cooking oil in Sig Town was all animal oil, and the soap brought by merchants was even more expensive, only available to the Origin Manor.

Roman wanted to keep his army clean and well-off, and ensure they had abundant material resources.

It shouldn't smell bad as soon as you get close.

How dignified!

Animal oils couldn't satisfy Roman's need for soap, so he had to turn to vegetable oils.

He's been incredibly busy these days, so he had to find a highly perceptive apostle and use the power of a low-quality sapphire to impart the knowledge of oil extraction to him.

In any case, it's all about physical exploitation, nothing more than tools and procedures. But after Roman gave him a hint, the apostle immediately understood.

This matter was relatively unimportant, so Roman turned to attend to other things.

Fabric and grain are goods that retain their value even better than metal currency.

It is summer.

It's time to give those idiots some social welfare!
……

"I need lots of cloth!"

"Isn't this enough?" Albert asked cautiously.

Albert, a fabric merchant.

He has a round face and a plump figure.

He came because of his reputation and ended up being received by Roman.

Because his ship carried various linen materials worth nearly a hundred gold coins. Some were flax, some were nettles and hemp.

The most abundant and most valuable material was flax; the fabric Albert brought was enough to weave a set of clothes for seven thousand people.

“Not enough! Linen, cotton, wool, I want as much as you can,” Roman said calmly.

Albert swallowed hard. He had heard that there was a tyrant in this land who was throwing money around, so he came to try his luck.

In hindsight, it wasn't just throwing money around; it was downright lavish spending.

That posture, that tone of voice, were so unrestrained, so captivating.

What do you need so much cloth for?

"This is none of your business. Can you meet my requirements?"

Even if it's impossible, it has to be possible!
This is clearly business delivered to our doorstep!
“The Rose Territory doesn’t produce that much flax, and the Rose Lord can’t possibly allow everyone to grow flax, which is inedible. Wool is fine, but cotton is a bit more difficult. We can’t grow cotton on this land, and some people still think cotton is sheep’s wool… Only in the Hot Summer Islands, the Amber Court and the Free Cities, and even further away in the Platinum Kingdom, can you find traces of this stuff.” Albert looked troubled.

"But... as you know... the world is in utter chaos right now..."

Roman suddenly asked, "How much more money do you want?"

"Five times!"

Roman stared at him, his crimson eyes intensely focused, his expression cold: "Merchant, don't play games with me, you'll regret it! I promise! I'll give you three times the price. I want not only cotton, but also seeds of other crops, the more varieties the better."

Albert felt the pressure and nodded with a troubled expression, but his inner joy remained undiminished.

……

After Albert left, Roman quickly found someone to sew the fabric into clothes and distribute them to everyone.

Roman was exceptionally generous when it came to welfare, giving it out generously and wishing he could provide everyone with a house, all the furniture, and a set of winter and summer clothes every year.

But what do the residents think about this?

The house is free, the furniture is free, and the clothes are free.

They were all gifts from the lord.

This means... these things are mine now? They've become my property?
This is different from free meals, where the food is eaten every day and then it's gone, and they'll get used to it.

But clothes and furniture are things that can be used for a long time, and the feeling of owning these things is very strong.

In the past, even after a month of hard work, they might not be able to afford a bed or a table.

What do you think property is?
Property is not just land and houses, but also the tables, chairs, benches, pots and pans in the house.

Even a pair of shoes is a valuable asset these days—old farmers don't wear shoes when they go to work in the fields; even if they have shoes, they don't wear them.

Roman bestowed those things upon them, and they regarded them as precious personal property.

From now on, they will not only be fighting for Roman, but also for protecting their own property.

When you have nothing, you find something that belongs to you in unfamiliar land—that's the foundation of a sense of belonging!

……

While Roman was focused on oil pressing and textiles.

The summer planting task is basically over.

Ten thousand mu of winter wheat and five thousand mu of spring wheat were planted, with an average of two thousand jin of peat and manure raked into each mu to improve the soil, and various crops were planted.

A bumper harvest is expected in the fall.

But Roman didn't make them stop working.

This is pioneering!
Continue to reclaim wasteland and cultivate the land.

Plant pasture and vegetables.

Plant whatever you have, and plant as much as you can.

Because Roman was going to mass-produce troops, the original five thousand farmers now had about four thousand farmers farming – some of the new recruits were prisoners of war.

It essentially drained all the young labor force.

Nowadays, most farmers are over 25 years old.

It's extremely difficult to train someone like that to become a soldier.

But they are hardworking and have extremely rich experience in farming.

Once they've eaten and drunk their fill and gotten used to the rhythm, they can do a better job than anyone else.

This is a tremendous force that cannot be ignored; there's no reason to let them sit idle.

(End of this chapter)