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"I don't understand your nobles' ideas, they always go around in circles," Nightingale sighed.
"Well," Roland replied with a smile, "Except for me."
""The witch narrowed her eyes and stared at the prince for a long time, "Strange, why is this sentence also true?"
Three days later, Roland finally emptied the castle and the fortress library, and set off on the town ship with satisfaction.
As they approached the border town along the Redwater River, the scene on both sides of the river had changed. On the open space opposite the town that was burned by Anna, many people were busy dressing up. They should be the serfs who were transported to the town first. On the side close to the Desperate Mountains, many simple wooden sheds had been built, and there were people moving around in the sheds. Roland guessed that those people were the families of the serfs.
These people had been tied to the land for generations, and their children were also serfs. As they could not see hope, most of them lived a numb life. They worked not out of their inner desires, but out of the whips and noose in the hands of the slave owners. The low production efficiency was a huge waste of human resources.
There was no doubt that slavery was the enemy of industrialized production and was a system that must be abolished. But Roland did not intend to make them all free people with a wave of his hand, but to provide a channel for them to see the hope of being promoted to free people. Because there was a precedent for the masters to be kind and let the slaves escape from slavery, this compromise would not have much impact even if it was spread. At most, it would make other nobles feel that they were just good people.
When the time is right in the future, he will fully implement the abolition law, and the resistance will be much smaller.
The dock is crowded with sailboats. Obviously, this small dock can no longer bear such heavy transportation pressure. Fortunately, the Town has a shallow draft and can dock directly without a dock. It seems that expanding the dock also needs to be put on the schedule, Roland thought.
After the group returned to the castle, he did not care about rest. He immediately called Barov back to the office and asked him to report on the situation of receiving supplies.
The assistant minister was also prepared. He took out a roll of parchment from his pocket and spread it on the big wooden table.
"Your Highness, the things you brought back to the castle these days really scared me." Although he said so, the wrinkles on his face betrayed his mood. "Twelve apprentices tossed all night to count all kinds of coins, a total of more than 14,000 gold dragons, Your Highness, this is equivalent to the annual income of an ordinary town."
The Duke probably spent more than 20 years accumulating these gold dragons, Roland thought, from the plunder, plunder and exploitation of the people in the West. He had to turn them into food, steel and machines as soon as possible. "What about those gems, jewelry, and handicrafts?"
"I haven't had time to convert them, but the conservative estimate is around 10,000 gold royals. If they are sent to the royal capital for auction, the price will be higher. Now they are all stored in the basement of your castle," Barov paused, "but in this case, the room originally used to store food will not be enough. I suggest you expand the castle area and build a warehouse to store other supplies."
"What about the people who are sent here? Have they been classified and counted?" Roland asked.
"Yes, please look below," the assistant minister pointed to the bottom of the scroll, "Currently, a total of 1,100 people have been sent to the border town. Most of them are serfs, who have been resettled outside the town as you requested. Thirty-five craftsmen have been assigned to Karl's command, and their residences are concentrated in the new civilized area," Barov said the difficult term, "But Your Highness, is this okay? I remember you originally prepared it for the witches."
"The guards I sent out to spread the gossip have not returned yet. This matter is progressing slower than I thought. Let the houses be used by the craftsmen and their families first, and we can build them later." In Roland's plan, the border town would be completely renovated, and the wooden houses and mud-built bungalows would be converted into brick houses, leaving wide streets instead of the current alleys where most alleys are only wide enough for two people to walk side by side.
"Yes," Barov nodded. "Your Highness, I heard that cattle and sheep will be transported there.
" "Well, but not now. I specifically asked them to send them a few days later, together with the herders. To the west of the city wall, there is a grassland between the Forest of Despair and the Mountains of Despair. It should be a good pasture. First, blow two gaps in the city wall for people to pass through. After all, it is only useful during the Demonic Month."
Now that he has people and money, the bottleneck that has temporarily stopped the development of Border Town has disappeared. Roland can finally let go and show his talents.
He called the guards outside the door and ordered: "Go and find Karl from the Administration Office. I guess if he is not in the mine, he must be in the wooden shed area outside the town."
Half an hour later, Karl walked into the office, bowed and saluted, saying: "Your Highness."
It has been nearly half a year since I first met this member of the Stonemason Association. After being recruited into the Border Town City Hall, he can be regarded as the busiest official in the past six months. He presided over the construction of the city wall, the model house community and the wooden shed temporary residence area. At the age of 35, his temples were now covered with a few strands of silver, and his skin had darkened a little, but his spirits were much better than when he first met him, and his voice was full of energy.
It was true that the environment could quickly change a person. Half a year ago, he was a refugee of the Stonemasons who carefully hid himself and changed his appearance. Now, after having experienced project command and personally managing the project, his gestures had some of the demeanor of a superior. However, what Roland admired most was his willingness to give to others.
Roland smiled and nodded, "Come sit down at the table." He handed the sketches he had just drawn to the person opposite, "Take a look. I need you to build something new."
"This is a warehouse. Well, the bottom is elevated to effectively prevent moisture." Carl quickly scanned the first sketch, and when he turned to the second one, he looked at it for a long time, "This is a furnace."
"Yes, you need to build more than five kilns on the north slope of the mountain to calcine cement and burn clay bricks. Choose a more open place and consider the location of the material transportation channel and the yard. In the future, when the scale is larger, you will need to expand more kilns."
"Yes." He turned to the last sketch and frowned, "This seems to be a ditch. There is a roof and a retaining wall on it, which looks like a pool behind it. Your Highness, I don't quite understand."
Roland smiled, "This is a toilet, and it is also your top priority project."
"Toilet" Carl thought for a while, "Your Highness, where are you going to build it? There are commodes in your castle, and the servants will be responsible for handling these buckets regularly. Most villagers don't need such things, they can solve it directly outside the house. The same is true for serfs, just discharge into the Red River, and the river will take away the filth."
That's why we smelled a strong stench when we docked today. Roland shook his head and dispelled the unpleasant memories, "That's why we need to change this bad habit."
"Uh, bad habit" Carl didn't seem to understand.
For civilians who are used to urinating and defecating anywhere, they naturally don't understand how wonderful it would be to have a world where they can wander around without stepping on landmines, Roland complained in his heart. "Anyway, just follow the sketch. I have marked the approximate size, and I will use the length that was determined before. The location should be chosen near the wooden shed area, and at least four should be built, two by two. Except for the brick-built ditch in the middle, the sheds, roofs, and partitions outside are all made of wooden boards, which can save a lot of cement."
"Your Highness, you want to gather them together," Kalka paused, obviously he felt that it was an insult to the dignity of the royal family to discuss such filthy facts in front of Your Highness, "but what if they don't go in?"
"I will issue orders for them to obey. You can organize people to implement it."
"In that case, I will follow your will," he nodded, "Your Highness Roland, I have one more thing to report to you."
"You say."
"After the Stonemasons Guild was forced to disband, many people chose to leave the royal capital like me. I want to write a few letters to recruit those members of the Stonemasons Guild whose whereabouts I know to the border town. They each have their own strengths. For example, the furnace you mentioned, Losya is very good at it. Your Highness, I don't know..."
"That's absolutely fine," Roland said immediately. "We can recruit all of them to reorganize the Stonemasons' Guild. The remuneration will be calculated based on the time they have been in the Stonemasons' Guild. It's fine to include those with rich experience in the City Hall."
"Thank you for your generosity," Carl said with a bow.
After the stonemasons left, he began to write the management and deregistration system for serfs.
The population of the border town will soon usher in a peak period of growth. If it continues to rely on food imports, once a natural disaster occurs or the trade route is cut off, the town will be in a precarious situation. Therefore, in addition to industry, agriculture must also develop rapidly to achieve self-sufficiency in food production as soon as possible.
The prince believes that as long as a path to promotion is set up, these serfs will soon become active farmers. With the seeds improved by Ye Zi, the farmland beside the Chishui River will become a golden sea of wheat ears in summer.
The requirement for giving priority to the construction of toilets is also prepared to cooperate with the development of agriculture. After having people, land and seeds, the last link that needs to be filled is fertilizer.
Roland certainly knew that human and animal manure was very troublesome to use. The storage pool needed to be cleaned regularly, and it had to rely on manual composting, which was far less convenient than chemical fertilizer. But the chemical industry had no idea at all, so he had to use this pure natural organic fertilizer as a substitute. At least human and animal manure has been tested by time.
Until the 20th century, this traditional method of fertilization could still be seen in some rural areas.
However, people in the other world had very little knowledge of fertilizer. Most people thought that feces was a kind of filth. In addition to disgusting others, they never thought that it was actually very useful. Therefore, in the annual farming, farmers still adopted the three-wheel farming system, dividing a piece of arable land into three parts, which were rotated for spring sowing, autumn sowing and fallow, so as to avoid continuous farming and exhausting soil fertility.
Roland stretched himself. After arranging the development plan for Border Town, it was time to relax himself.