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

Chapter 215 The Second Autumn Harvest

"Build the road! Build the road right now!"

Late autumn has just begun.

Roman is focusing on infrastructure development.

The autumn harvest is imminent, but the roads for infrastructure construction have not yet been completed.

The roads are 150 kilometers long, connecting every settlement and dividing tens of thousands of acres of farmland into numerous square blocks, creating a highly regular and orderly layout.

Roman is somewhat obsessive-compulsive and understands the importance of planning.

If your initial planning is flawed, you'll end up losing a lot of hair later on.

Laying a solid foundation has always been Roman's pursuit.

He took advantage of the large map's perspective to rationally design residential areas and farmland, with roads also included in the planning.

When the salt road was first built, the lime road used sand, stone, soil and grass as its main structure.

Sometimes, they would use local materials, such as silt, to fill the gaps, because the construction schedule was too tight.

The quality was naturally terrible. After only half a year, the road cracked, and it was quite normal for some sections to split in two.

This time, Roman had very high requirements for the road surface quality.

In early autumn, he specially established a road-paving team, which gathered a total of three thousand laborers.

The road structure is as follows:

A flat pit was dug out. The lower layer was made of larger crushed stones as the roadbed, the middle layer was made of crushed stone and gravel, and the upper layer was paved with hard stone slabs and sealed with lime.

With a three-layer structure and a total thickness of 60 centimeters, it is of extremely high quality, stable and sturdy, and will not have any problems even after 20 years of exposure to wind and sun.

Roman specifically built drainage ditches and trenches to divert water and prevent rainwater erosion.

Then came large-scale mining of stone quarries.

In his mind, with a hammer and chisel, quarrying stone should be very simple.

After all, with a bit of hammering and tapping, a large, flat stone will emerge.

This is no exaggeration at all.

The stonemasons of that era were very capable; otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to build those towering castles. Their stone quarrying skills were highly refined.

The results showed that the efficiency was very low.

Because Roman also had a hundred or so stonemasons under his command.

He sent a thousand men directly to the quarry to become stonemason apprentices.

However, apprentices need time to learn the craft, so the road paving speed did not meet expectations.

Nearly two months have passed.

The construction period is still not over; only three-quarters of the project has been completed so far.

On average, one person's daily efficiency is not even enough to pave one meter of road.

Roman was completely baffled.

On one hand, they sent Green and Aaron out to continue trying to recruit players.

On the other hand, I had to personally supervise and adjust the allocation of personnel to ensure that this infrastructure project was completed before the autumn harvest.

……

With the lord personally overseeing the project, the road-paving efficiency increased by 30% to 50%, and it was almost finished by the middle of the month.

Welcome the autumn harvest!

The autumn harvest in Origin City is everyone's business.

It also concerns the residents of the Kande territory—Roman has plundered another four or five thousand people and forced them to work.

Farmers are no strangers to farm work.

The only unfamiliar thing is the production volume.

Of course, in Roman's view, these yields were still very low.

The total area is 16,000 mu, of which 12,000 mu are soybeans and the other 4,000 mu are peas.

However, the average yield of soybeans per mu is only 140 jin.

Because some land was only recently reclaimed this year, it lowered the average. Some fertile land can yield 200 jin per mu, but the yield of wasteland is less than 100 jin per mu, with huge fluctuations. Even if Roman fertilizes 2,000 jin per mu, it won't be enough.

In comparison, peas have a higher yield, with a yield of nearly 170 jin per mu.

A total of more than 2.3 million jin of soybean grain reserves.

This was still a bumper harvest.

Moreover, Roman planted even more vegetables this year, and harvested approximately two million kilograms of various vegetables this autumn alone.

We definitely can't finish it in a short period of time.

However, some vegetables are easy to store and can be stored for two months without any problem.

Making them into pickles and kimchi can help them get through the whole winter. The pigs, sheep, and chickens at the farm are also ready for market, and the members of the breeding department are slaughtering so many animals every day that their hands are sore, providing the kitchen with the freshest meat.

At this joyous harvest ceremony.

Roman sent someone to inform them that the celebration was about to begin.

There was no other way; last year there were only a few thousand people. Roman stood on the high platform, where everyone could see him, making him the center of attention.

But now it's truly the focus of everyone's attention. With a total population of 27,000 to 28,000, it's impossible to gather them all together; it's a veritable sea of ​​people.

Therefore, five or six locations were set up for the celebration alone.

This time it only lasted two days.

Autumn planting is about to begin.

A total of more than 20,000 mu of winter wheat were planted.

These are all plots of land that have been well managed this year. Although they are not exactly mature land, they have still yielded positive results.

In addition, manpower was arranged to burn the wasteland and cultivate it deeply, in an effort to reclaim several thousand acres of vegetable fields, all of which were planted with vegetables that could survive the winter, with radishes and lettuce being the top choices.

Winter is just around the corner.

Farmers raced against time, plowing and harrowing the fields, and sowing wheat seeds, peat, and manure together.

More than two months later, Roman began to worry about his expeditionary force again.

Dick took all the veterans and elite soldiers with him.

He observed the Apostle interface every day, and last month he saw the interface of the seven Apostles suddenly dim.

He guessed that they had encountered a small battle, but it should not have been large-scale or particularly fierce, and that Dick, Dota, and the others were unharmed.

Even so, this made him nervous, fearing that a larger war might follow.

Sometimes he feels anxious and restless during the day and tosses and turns at night, but he is always calm and composed in front of outsiders.

Roman is by no means a person who is controlled by others.

In summary, the root cause of our anxiety is a lack of strength.

It's a fear of insufficient firepower.

Roman began targeting the weapons.

Various types of furniture can be made by apprentices.

The skilled carpenters crafted various weapons for Roman.

Crossbows are among the more cost-effective items.

An archer can master its use after just two days of practice.

Even an untrained farmer can master the use of crossbows in just ten days to half a month.

Although Roman felt that this was only a transitional weapon.

It will be phased out in three to five years at the latest.

However, at this stage, crossbows are still a type of weapon that can quickly improve combat effectiveness.

This is a turbulent time.

There's no guarantee that another large-scale battle won't break out next year.

With manpower readily available today, there's no reason not to mass-produce crossbows.

Roman set a target for Vickery, the head of the woodworking factory, to produce three thousand crossbows of varying specifications by the end of the year.

He wants both heavy and light crossbows.

It wasn't all distributed to the army; it was also distributed to farmers.

Compared to the grueling training of the army, the intensity of a farmer's labor is negligible.

In fact, their task seems arduous.

However, compared to the past, the situation has actually improved.

Every day, we would eat breakfast first, then go to our respective places to do our own things. At lunchtime, we would rest and eat, and then work until evening to eat and go home. We even had some free time to stroll around the market near the dock.

This lifestyle is very regular, and once you get used to it, it's easy to squeeze out time for it.

Because Roman was focused on the big picture, how could he possibly exploit all the workers to the point of exhaustion?

That's unrealistic, because it's simply impossible to supervise everyone.

Collective labor is highly efficient, so it also has a very high tolerance for error. For example, if you have 3,000 people this month to reclaim 5,000 acres of wasteland, you must see results.

As long as the work quality meets the standards and there are no overdue deadlines, it's not a big deal if someone takes leave or occasionally slacks off.

But you don't want to work?
Don't blame the master for being ruthless.

Unless there are objective factors, every lazy person should be beaten to death, and those who are not beaten to death should be hung up.

(End of this chapter)