After obtaining Zul'jin's authorization, Zul'ra immediately took up his post. His first step was to gain a thorough understanding of Zul'Aman's current situation. After all, every reform had to be based on need. Reforms based on mere guesswork would not only fail to improve things, but could make the situation even worse.
Every reform had to address a need, and Zul'Aman's greatest need at present was food. Developing agriculture was the most urgent priority, and Zul'ra was no stranger to that. After all, he had been the one to bring vegetable-growing techniques to Zul'Aman in the first place.
With food in short supply, the Forest Trolls had readily adopted Zul'ra's gardening techniques and promoted them on a large scale. Even so, there still wasn't enough to eat. The Alliance had sealed off the outside world, and Zul'Aman's population had grown concentrated in one place.
Zul'ra had Malacrass ask the priests to make a rough estimate of the population. Zul'Aman currently had at least twenty thousand people. In China on Earth, that number wouldn't even fill a large town, but for the Trolls, it was no small population.
Most of the more than twenty thousand people in Zul'Aman had originally been members of the Amani Tribe and Darkpine Tribe, scattered among villages throughout Darkwood. After their defeat in the war and the Alliance's retaliation, they had been forced to move into Zul'Aman. With so many mouths gathered in one place, Zul'Aman's food supplies were naturally strained.
Although food was in short supply, there were fish from the sea, and the spread of vegetable-growing techniques helped. Zul'Aman had suffered a food shortage, but people could at least get by on vegetable soup each day and avoid starving to death, even if many couldn't eat their fill.
To solve the food problem, they had to increase their food supply. Agriculture was essential, but the land around Zul'Aman was now all steep and rugged. The suitable fields were in Battleaxe Ridge, which the Alliance had blockaded so thoroughly that even scouts could barely be sent out.
After inspecting the area, Zul'ra decided to clear land directly in the mountains, leveling the slopes and filling in hollows to create terraced fields. This would require a large labor force, as well as enough farming tools, which meant they needed smelting technology.
Among those who had returned from studying in Zandalar were craftsmen trained in metalworking. Meanwhile, the mountains around Zul'Aman contained varying amounts of copper, iron, silver, tin, coal, rock salt, obsidian, and other minerals. Zul'jin had enlisted Kobolds there to help with mining, so there were enough raw materials to make farming tools.
After investigating and compiling a report with Haimuxi and other specialists, Zul'ra reported his findings to Zul'jin. Once he had received approval, he began gathering workers to smelt axes, hammers, hoes, shovels, and plows for clearing the land. Of course, they couldn't clear the land indiscriminately. When felling trees, they had to protect valuable plants.
Bamboo, oak, ash, and other plants that could provide materials for weapons, as well as chestnuts, breadfruit, jujube trees, banana trees, and other sources of food, all had to be carefully preserved. Some medicinal herbs also needed protection. Weeds and useless trees, on the other hand, had to be cut down and cleared away. They could be burned into fertilizer or brought back to Zul'Aman to be made into buildings or furniture.
Zandalar's farmland was mostly created by reclaiming lakes. Water was plentiful there, but Zul'Aman couldn't do the same. The terraced fields Zul'ra was creating had to be designed to store water, with a reliable irrigation system.
After more than half a month of work, the Trolls' tools had carved out one terraced field after another. They had faced plenty of difficulties along the way. The mountains around Zul'Aman were home to bears, Raptors, lynxes, and other wild animals, and clearing the land naturally disturbed them.
The animals didn't just disrupt the work; they would likely damage the fields later, too. After driving them away several times, Zul'ra remembered the Bee Gu he had cultivated. He simply had the Bee Queen build a hive in the newly cleared land. The swarm could help drive away wild animals, and later they could plant a patch of flowers for the bees to make honey.
Once the terraces were ready, Zul'ra raced against time to plant some crops before autumn. These included seeds for wheat, rice, corn, and other crops brought back from Zandalar. Of course, they weren't all intended as food; some were meant to grow more seeds.
Zandalar's agriculture dated back fifteen thousand years. Before the ancient Kalimdor continent broke apart, its people had already collected crops from all over. The eighty-two people who had gone there with Zul'ra hadn't simply made a round trip; they had brought back seeds for all kinds of crops and plants.
The terraced fields, along with Zandalar's crop seeds and agricultural knowledge, gradually put Zul'Aman's agriculture on the right track. The crops harvested before winter eased the food crisis somewhat. The crops from Zandalar also grew successfully and produced seeds, ready to be sown on a large scale the following spring.
With most of the agricultural work done, Zul'ra turned his attention to forging weapons. He made a trip to the Kobold mines deep in the mountains around Zul'Aman, hoping they would supply more ore. The Kobolds, in turn, demanded more candles and food, as well as a guarantee that the Trolls wouldn't harm them.
Zul'ra agreed to the Kobolds' demands and successfully obtained enough ore. After returning to Zul'Aman, he began making preparations for weapons and armor. Unlike farming tools, which could be made from smelted pig iron, weapons had to be made from steel.
Steelmaking was much more troublesome than smelting pig iron. It involved more steps and a more complicated process. Whether smelting, casting, or forging, craftsmen needed not only experience and skill, but also special additives, flux, and quenching-fluid formulas.
Although Zul'Aman's craftsmen had learned forging and smelting techniques in Zandalar, the Zandalari had kept their flux and quenching-fluid recipes to themselves. Zul'ra, however, had prepared for this. Using his abilities and connections in Zandalar, he had stolen a great deal of technical information, including the formulas the craftsmen hadn't been taught.
The ingredients for the formulas weren't complicated; they mainly consisted of medicinal herbs and animal fats. Zul'ra had brought back seeds or cuttings of the special herbs from Zandalar. The plants adapted well to Zul'Aman's soil and grew even faster than grain. By winter, they had already harvested a large batch.
Soon, all the preparations were in place. The craftsmen piled up special clay to build a blast furnace with an unusual structure. They loaded pig iron, additives, and charcoal into the furnace, then placed a wrought-iron plate at its mouth. Once they lit the fire, priests who could control the wind element helped blow in the flux, raising the fire to an even higher temperature.
When the pig iron melted into liquid and the wrought-iron plate was close to melting, the craftsmen braved the heat and used iron tongs to lift the plate into the molten pig iron, stirring it so that the various elements in the pig iron and wrought iron were evenly distributed. At the same time, the high temperature drove impurities out of the molten iron, turning it into a furnace full of molten steel.
The steel they produced varied in quality. The craftsmen relied on their experience to judge which pieces were best, then hammered and quenched them. Once a weapon had been forged into shape, they could grind an edge onto it, attach a hilt, and fit it with a sheath.
Of course, a finely made weapon could also be adjusted or polished with care, or subjected to clay tempering to adjust the hardness of its edge and body. But the Zandalari had none of these techniques. Their weapons tended to be crude and were wielded with tremendous strength; a weapon's quality depended only on its materials. The weapon used by Rastakhan, King of Zandalar, was a Serpent Sword made from Elementium Steel that had fallen from the sky.
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