Two Thousand Mu of Land

As the morning chill dispersed beneath the rising sun, Romain arrived at Sigg Town.

The townspeople had long been waiting before the common land.

Romain had no intention of lecturing them today.

When he saw the reverent expressions and submissive gazes of the residents, he knew they had yielded.

The more ignorant they were, the more firmly they had to be restrained. Otherwise, things could easily go wrong.

Romain dismounted and had Mol bring out part of this year's grain seed.

He intended to plant spring wheat, continuing Sigg Town's usual planting practices.

Each mu of land normally required fifteen to twenty jin of seed, but Romain intended to increase the sowing rate to more than thirty jin.

Spring wheat had to be planted this way. The amount of seed had to be increased, or the yield would not be high.

In his previous life, one mu of land could be sown with fifty jin of seed and yield a thousand jin, because the mature farmland was fertile, the fertilizer plentiful, and the climate suitable.

That was out of the question in this era.

Romain had raised Planting to Level 2, unlocking a great deal of basic agricultural knowledge. He knew the most common method of selecting seeds was soaking them in salt water.

But under Sigg Town's conditions, even salt was a luxury. Using salt water to select seeds was impossible—at least until he found a Salt Mine.

So Romain had no choice but to toss mud into wooden barrels and dissolve it in water, producing the same effect as salt water. The drawback was that it required constant stirring.

After adjusting the ratio of mud to water, he found two farmers to take turns stirring it.

His method merely provided a standard model for others to follow.

Since there were too many seeds to soak, one wooden barrel was nowhere near enough. Ideally, they needed to build a huge pool.

Yet this baffling practice left the onlookers deeply bewildered.

Romain did not explain. When Mol edged closer and cautiously asked why, Romain gave him this answer.

"Don't ask why. You are not worthy of knowing. You are merely farming tools, and farming tools do not need to understand why their master swings them this way!"

Romain believed that before results appeared, any explanation was unnecessary.

Was he, a Lord, supposed to painstakingly explain scientific farming to a group of ignorant medieval peasants?

Romain's expression was remarkably calm, and his crimson eyes held an intense focus. Mol began sweating again. He realized he had no resistance at all against this seemingly quiet yet exceedingly domineering Lord.

Romain made estimates based on Sigg Town's harvest records.

The total area of farmland cultivated by all residents of Sigg Town and its villages last year was over ten thousand mu, and the figure left Romain somewhat stunned.

Just carrying out the preliminary calculations nearly fried his brain.

Much of it consisted of scattered plots, separated by uncultivable areas such as forests, grasslands, slopes, and marshes.

Of course, not all of those plots were truly farmland. Some had never been tended at all and had merely been scattered with mixed grain seeds.

From Romain's perspective, did what Sigg Town's residents considered "farmland" even deserve to be called farmland?

Don't insult farmland!

They were clearly just vast stretches of wasteland!

Before the soil was improved, they possessed no real productive value whatsoever.

Based on Tale of Survival's mapping of real-world land, Romain planned to mark out two thousand mu of fertile land, which would conveniently correspond to Sigg Town's population of nearly two thousand people.

This would be a rectangular plot roughly 1.3 kilometers long and 1 kilometer wide.

This was a large-scale collective planting effort. The seeds alone weighed sixty thousand jin.

Then he mobilized everyone else to collect all the excrement they could find in and around Sigg Town.

While estimating the farmland, Romain had once concluded that the total amount of land ever cultivated by Sigg Town's residents had likely reached more than thirty thousand mu. Even forty thousand mu was not impossible.

Because the land's fertility was limited, the fields planted this year would not be planted next year. They had to lie fallow, waiting several years for their fertility to naturally recover before planting could resume.

This was also why Sigg Town had established villages elsewhere. The land was vast and the population sparse, and simply traveling took up enormous amounts of time each day. A single settlement could not accommodate a large population.

Otherwise, remaining in one place for years and draining the soil's fertility would be like getting blasted by a Destruction Mushroom. The consequences would be catastrophic.

Romain intended to ferment the excrement into fertilizer to improve the soil, abandoning most of the wasteland and turning a small portion of virgin land into mature farmland.

There would be an enormous future demand for fertilizer. Even gathering all the excrement in the entire town might not be enough.

So Romain also had them collect rotting thatch, straw stalks, dead grass, silt—anything that could decompose was thrown in.

There were many methods of natural composting, but even the quickest took half a month.

There was an enormous amount of preparation before farming began. Or rather, farming itself was a tedious and lengthy undertaking.

At the very least, sowing was out of the question before the manure fertilizer was finished.

To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools.

Romain intended to spend no less than twenty days and no more than thirty days completing the preparations for the spring plowing.

If he did not intervene, could Sigg Town's farmers truly prepare all ten thousand mu of land within a month?

One had to remember that the Lord's manor was now an additional factor—meaning there was another exploiter. Sigg Town's farmers bore an even heavier burden. If they did not urgently increase their harvest by another ten percent, people would starve to death this year under the high taxes.

And so, aside from the farmers selecting seeds, most of the laborers were driven off to gather manure.

Romain did not do much, yet more than half the morning passed in the blink of an eye.

Romain looked at the sun, then called Mol over again.

He said to Mol, "Find eighty farm women and prepare sufficient rations for everyone, including the slaves. Each person is to receive half a jin of dry provisions, three finger-joint-thick slices of bread, a bowl of oatmeal and mixed vegetable soup, and plenty of clean water boiled over a fire. This is the lunch I will eat as well, and I will not permit anyone to skim from these rations!"

Mol was instantly dumbfounded.

Listen to what you're saying. Does that sound human?

Where are we supposed to get those rations?

What do you mean, this is the lunch you'll eat too?

If you, Noble Lord, are eating this, then what am I supposed to eat?

What are those farmers supposed to eat?

Are you trying to rebel?

Mol wanted to speak but held back. Under Romain's gaze, he had no choice but to nod.

Though Sigg Town's farmers went hungry every day, Sigg Town was not actually short of food.

As the Agricultural Officer, Mol sold off surplus grain every year. Otherwise, where would he get the money to buy Draft Cattle? Did they think primitive accumulation through agriculture came without fleecing someone?

Romain would not ask about this matter, and Mol did not dare mention it.

This was the tacit understanding between them. All previous accounts were wiped clean.

Being too fat was not a good thing either. Mol needed to lose some weight, or Romain could only help him slim down manually. One session would be enough to remove the weight of a pig's head.

Romain had roughly calculated it. Counting both adult men and women, there were around one thousand to twelve hundred farmers and slaves capable of labor. This figure excluded children under fifteen and elderly people unable to move.

Romain gestured with his hands and added, "From now on, there will be a meal like this every day at noon, and no one is allowed to go home. If there are children or elderly people at home who cannot walk, bring them out to eat. Then hand all the children over to those eighty farm women to look after. This will be done every day from now on. Inform everyone as soon as possible."