Reform Prioritizes Needs

After receiving authorization from Zul'jin, Zul'ra immediately took up his post. His first step was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current situation in Zul'Aman. He knew that any reform must be built upon necessity; reforming based on mere imagination would not only fail to achieve progress but would instead exacerbate the situation.

All reforms are conducted according to need, and the greatest need in Zul'Aman at present is food. The top priority is to develop agriculture. Zul'ra is no stranger to this, as he was the one who originally brought vegetable cultivation techniques to Zul'Aman.

In the face of food shortages, the Forest Trolls inherited Zul'ra's vegetable cultivation techniques well and promoted them vigorously. Even so, there was still not enough food to go around due to the blockade by the Alliance and the concentration of Zul'Aman's population.

Zul'ra had Malacrass instruct the priests to roughly tally the population. Zul'Aman currently has at least twenty thousand people. While such a number might seem small compared to a large town in the Celestial Empire on Earth, it is a significant population for the trolls.

Most of the twenty thousand-plus people in Zul'Aman were originally from the Amani and Darkpine Tribe villages scattered throughout the Darkwood. Due to the failure of the war and the retaliation of the Alliance, they were forced to migrate into Zul'Aman. With so many mouths gathered together, Zul'Aman's food supply naturally became strained.

Although food was tight, fortunately, there was the catch from the sea and the promotion of vegetable cultivation. While Zul'Aman faced a food crisis, the daily vegetable broth kept them alive, though many struggled to get their fill.

To solve the problem of hunger, the sources of food must be increased, and agriculture must be established. However, the surroundings of Zul'Aman are steep mountains. The only suitable land for planting is at Battleaxe Ridge, but that area is blockaded by the Alliance, making it difficult even to send out scouts.

After some investigation, Zul'ra decided to reclaim land directly in the mountains, leveling slopes and depressions to create terraced fields. However, this required a large amount of labor and sufficient farming tools, which in turn required smelting technology.

Among those who returned from studying in Zandalar were craftsmen who had learned casting techniques. The deep mountains of Zul'Aman produce varying amounts of copper, iron, silver, tin, coal, rock salt, and obsidian. Zul'jin enticed the local Kobold to help with mining, and the raw materials were sufficient to supply the forging of farming tools.

After investigating and summarizing with Haimuxi and other professionals, Zul'ra reported to Zul'jin. After receiving his instructions, he began to mobilize manpower to smelt axes, hammers, hoes, shovels, and plows for land reclamation. Of course, this reclamation was not done haphazardly; trees of economic value had to be protected.

Bamboo, oak, ash, and others that provide raw materials for weapons; chestnuts, breadfruit, jujube, and banana trees that provide food; and some medicinal herbs—all required careful protection. Weeds and wild wood were to be cleared, either burned into ash for fertilizer or transported back to Zul'Aman for construction or furniture.

Zandalar's farmland is primarily based on lake-side cultivation, as they do not lack water sources. However, this cannot be done in Zul'Aman. The terraced fields Zul'ra created had to account for water storage and ensure a proper irrigation system.

After working for more than half a month, the trolls used their farming tools to carve out patches of terraced fields. They suffered quite a bit in the process, as the mountains of Zul'Aman are home to bears, Raptor, and Lynx. Such reclamation naturally disturbed these beasts.

The beasts not only disrupted the reclamation but would inevitably damage the crops later. After driving them away several times, Zul'ra remembered the Bee Gu he had refined. He simply had the Bee Queen build a nest in the reclaimed area. The swarm could not only help drive away the beasts but could also cultivate a field of flowers for honey production later.

After the terraced fields were prepared, Zul'ra raced against time to plant some crops before autumn, including seeds for wheat, rice, and corn brought back from Zandalar. Of course, these were not all for eating, but for cultivating more seeds.

Zandalar's agriculture began fifteen thousand years ago. Before the Ancient Kalimdor Continent shattered, they had collected crops from all over. Zul'ra and the other eighty-two people did not just take a trip to Zandalar; they brought back many seeds of related crops and plants.

The large-scale planting formed by the terraced fields, combined with the crop seeds and knowledge from Zandalar, slowly put Zul'Aman's agriculture on the right track. The crops harvested before winter slightly eased the food crisis, and those crops from Zandalar grew successfully, providing seeds for large-scale sowing in the coming spring.

Having finished most of the agricultural matters, Zul'ra turned his attention to weapon forging. He made a trip to the Kobold mines in the deep mountains of Zul'Aman, hoping they would provide more ore. The Kobold, in turn, demanded more candles, food, and a guarantee that the trolls would not harm them.

Zul'ra agreed to the Kobold's demands and successfully exchanged them for enough ore. Upon returning to Zul'Aman, he began preparing to forge weapons and armor. These were not like farming tools; farming tools could be made from pig iron, but blades required steel.

Refining steel is much more troublesome than refining pig iron. Not only are there more steps in the smelting process, but the process itself is far more complex. Furthermore, whether in smelting, casting, or forging, besides the experience and skill of the craftsmen, some special auxiliary materials, fluxes, and quenching liquid formulas are required.

Although the craftsmen of Zul'Aman learned forging and smelting techniques from Zandalar, Zandalar had kept their secrets regarding fluxes and quenching liquids. However, Zul'ra had made preparations in this regard; he had used his abilities and connections in Zandalar to steal a great deal of technical information, including the formulas the craftsmen had not learned.

The materials required for the formulas were not complex, mainly consisting of some herbs and animal fats. Zul'ra had also brought back seeds or seedlings of those special herbs from Zandalar. Those plants did not reject the soil of Zul'Aman and grew even faster than grain, yielding a harvest before winter.

Numerous preparations were soon in place. Under the operation of the craftsmen, special clay was stacked into high furnaces with unique structural shapes. Pig iron, auxiliary materials, and charcoal were placed into the furnace, while wrought iron plates were placed at the furnace mouth. Then, the fire was lit, and priests capable of manipulating wind elements helped blow in the flux to raise the flame temperature.

When the pig iron melted into liquid in the flames and the wrought iron plates were about to melt, the craftsmen would brave the high heat to lift the wrought iron plates with iron tongs and stir them into the molten pig iron. This ensured that the various elements in the pig iron and wrought iron were evenly distributed, while the high temperature removed impurities from the molten iron, turning it into a furnace of molten steel.

Once the steel was refined, its quality varied. The craftsmen would use their experience to distinguish the superior steel, then proceed to forge and quench it. Once the weapon was forged into shape, it could be ground to an edge, fitted with a hilt, and sheathed for use.

Of course, refined weapons could also undergo detailed adjustments, polishing, or even differential hardening to adjust the hardness of the edge and the body. However, Zandalar lacked these techniques, as Zandalar's weapons were mostly crude and designed for use with immense arm strength; the quality of a weapon was only related to its material. The weapon used by the King of Zandalar, Rastakhan, was a Serpent Sword forged from Elementium Steel that had fallen from the sky.