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

Chapter 51 Acceleration

Even though a large number of laborers have been freed from the land, they are still far from being able to handle many other tasks.

The new livestock shed is mainly a stone and wood structure, with a spacious and bright interior, a high ceiling to avoid feeling cramped, good ventilation, and consideration for future expansion.

Each requirement means more labor needs to be put into the livestock sheds.

There are stonemasons and bricklayers in Sigge Town. In this era, everyone can repair roofs and furniture, but not many people make a living from this craft.

There are only twenty or thirty people in the whole town who can be called construction workers. Some of them have built houses in Origin Manor and can barely be considered as colleagues of Roman, who has a natural body of civil engineering.

But there are still too few people.

Roman had no choice but to bring Aaron and Green over to build the livestock shed.

If used properly, the strength of a conquering knight can certainly be equivalent to that of four or five laborers.

Then there were about a hundred older children, all over ten years old.

They were able to eat to their hearts' content every noon. They ate at Origin Manor for more than a month and learned simple counting and literacy—at least they knew that 5 is bigger than 3, and what 7 and 8 meant.

The children have grown stronger and can do some light work, at least moving lighter pieces of wood and stones is no problem for them.

Because of a severe labor shortage, Roman had no choice but to use them as oxen and horses.

Finally, Roman also summoned the forty or so guards from Sig Town.

Aaron trained them in basic drills and marching every day, and with an ample supply of meat, the morale and spirit of these guards improved significantly.

Now they don't need to supervise those ignorant masses anymore, nor do they need to train them. They can come and work happily with these calves and horses!
In fact, after learning about the existence of the salt mine, the farmers worked very efficiently, and few of them slacked off.

Because they did the same thing every day, they developed a work habit and only needed to proceed step by step until they finally built the road to the salt mine.

Roman is currently unable to monitor the progress there.

He is now the chief engineer of the livestock sheds and is dedicated to building them.

The new greenhouse covers an area of ​​more than four acres. It is a stone and wood building that is 80 meters long and 30 meters wide, and is divided into two areas: living area and conservation area.

Its location was chosen between Sig Town and Origin Manor.

Two to three hundred people were involved in the construction, and Roman predicted that it would take half a month to complete the initial phase.

The new livestock sheds he designed were nominally more scientific, cleaner, and more hygienic, but these conditions were actually quite easy to meet.

In simple terms, the walls were made of stone and yellow clay, reaching a height of two meters. Multiple windows were left for ventilation. An umbrella-shaped roof frame was constructed using logs, with a large number of load-bearing timbers to distribute the overall weight. The roof was then covered with a large amount of dead branches, bark, and clay, and finally, a thick layer of thatch was laid on top.

Thatch comes from the reeds on the other side of the swamp, and there is an abundance of it. It is also the most common building material in Sige Town.

Bundle them up, with large leaves stacked in layers like fish scales, which helps with drainage. If you lay them half a meter thick, they won't leak even in heavy rain. The main problem is strong winds, which can easily blow the thatch away.

However, Sige Town is located in a basin, backed by mountains, so the wind is not strong and there is no concern about this issue.

……

[Construction Experience +1]

[Construction Experience +1]

[Construction Experience +1]

These days, Roman has been so busy that he has no time to pay attention to the increase of experience points. A tall building starts from the ground up. Without a foundation, no matter how high the skill level is, it is useless. He even points and tells these cattle and horses in his dreams.

Construction was fraught with difficulties. For instance, when building the framework, most of the instructions were incomprehensible to these ignorant people, nearly driving him to the brink of madness. He almost wished he could manually upgrade their brains.

Roman had no choice but to climb up and teach her personally, climbing up and down every day to build hundreds of wooden beams by hand.

The construction technology in Sigge Town is quite backward. Even the livestock sheds are built in a dilapidated and loose manner, requiring repairs every six months, which wastes labor.

His livestock shed is quite sturdy and durable, requiring no major repairs for four or five years.

This livestock shed, which can hold at least four or five hundred head of livestock, is basically the largest building in the entire town of Sige.

From a distance, it appears even more grand and spacious than Roman's Origin Manor.

On the tenth day of construction, when the basic framework of the roof beams was completed, Sais approached him. "Sir, the road over at the salt mine is now leveled."

"Road? What road?"

Overwhelmed with work, Roman asked a question instinctively.

Then he patted his head, extricating himself from the arduous construction work, and instructed the children to collect reeds and thatch and bundle them up to lay on the roof in a few days.

Roman rode his steed along that road deep into the wilderness.

Although there were some ups and downs, it was generally acceptable.

This 40-kilometer-long, three-to-four-meter-wide dirt road, which had not been reinforced or compacted, was finally completed after a month of construction.

This is thanks to the free lunches every day and the farmers' enthusiasm.

A speed of just over a thousand meters per day is hardly a miracle, because in most places all that's needed is to clear the vegetation and trees; impassable places like swamps and streams are ultimately a minority.

Moreover, Roman used 80% of the animal power in Sig Town for this purpose.

In previous years, these animals were only used to clear wasteland or till other land. Unless they were sick or pregnant, they would not have many days off throughout the year, just like the farmers who worked all day long.

For a moment, it was impossible to say whether the farmer or the ox or horse was more of an ox or horse.

……

Roman came to the salt mine to inspect the work. They had been excavating large chunks of rock salt crystals recently, but the road was not yet completed, so they could not transport them out on a large scale.

The rock salt is of very high purity and can be used directly as salt blocks.

If it's not processed, it won't fetch a good price, and you can't eat this kind of coarse salt for a long time; it's easy to get sick.

Therefore, these people are still unable to finish their work.

They were going to build a salt processing plant here so that Roman could make a lot of profits.

The costs are nothing more than fuel and labor; the former is worthless, and the latter is worthless as well.

Roman was exhausted these past few days. The heavy labor and pressure had robbed him of his composure as a nobleman, and he hadn't smiled for days.

But this was good news, which eased his mood.

Even if we can't transfer these people out, we can still move on to the next phase of work.

Roman addressed everyone present, saying loudly, "If you can take a piece of rock salt home today, I will give you more salt in the future."

The farmers had anticipated receiving the lord's favor, but they were still overjoyed.

It's like a corporate slave finally getting their payday.

Everyone erupted in cheers, and many farmers were even moved to tears.

Roman understood their feelings. If it were him, having only occasionally tasted salt since childhood and mostly eating bland bread and soup, he would also be unable to control his emotions upon suddenly hearing that there would be seasonings from now on and that he could taste salt.

The process of purifying salt is not complicated, and can even be described as very simple. Once the [Gathering] skill is upgraded to level 2, you will have the basic knowledge in this area, and salt production methods already existed in this era.

Roman reserved two hundred people here to do this work, to build the saltworks.

There also needs to be people to calcine limestone and collect lime, clay, and sand.

This dirt road will soon become full of potholes, which will greatly delay transportation efficiency.

Again.

If a workman wants to be good, he must first sharpen his weapon.

If the road is to be used for a long time, road reinforcement is unavoidable, and this process may take longer than leveling the road.

Roman values ​​this salt mine highly, as it will be a pillar of income for the town of Sig in the future.

This means that the economic development of Sige Town can accelerate dramatically.

(End of this chapter)