Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest-Chapter 400 - 4: Why Are You Venturing So Deep into the Bot Lane?

Chapter 400: Chapter 4: Why Are You Venturing So Deep into the Bot Lane?

Ed and a group of soldiers were pulling carts along a road beside the fields.

Originally, this road was just two ruts through a thicket of weeds, rough and meandering, with weeds on both sides that could reach waist high, making for terrible conditions.

Now, it had improved greatly, the road was flat and offered a clear view.

Every day, people could be seen carrying scythes and hoes, barefoot on the firm road, to clear weeds from the fields—most of these figures were women. Tens of thousands of women tended to over two hundred thousand acres of land, while the men were tasked with even heavier labor.

Some wild weeds, after intensive cultivation and exposure to the sun, had died in large numbers, but others still took root and sprouted like pests, stealthily stealing nutrients from the crops.

Weeds cleared today, grown back tomorrow, no matter how much you hoe, they never seem to vanish, it’s enough to itch at one’s teeth with frustration.

Farmers are an extremely tenacious and patient group; their animosity towards the land is also the most enduring. Clenching their teeth, day after day, year after year, they battled the desolate earth through the generations.

Ed encountered an obstacle; his group collided head-on with a convoy that had come to plant cotton seeds.

The cotton seeds were well prepared, soaked in water and mixed with wood ash. Alongside the road was plowed land.

About a hundred farming women gathered densely around, conversing with an instructor from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Alerted by someone, the instructor turned his head to see a group of soldiers in military uniforms pulling a cart their way, led by a Squad Leader with several steel medals on his shoulder, clearly awarded by Lord Roman himself, an obvious sign of a battle-hardened veteran.

The instructor hurried over, first greeted Ed, and then, like a traffic police, energetically waved his arms, continuously ushering the group of farming women and their carts to the side.

The stone road was five meters wide, and each of their carts was two meters wide. The agriculture instructor untied the reins and took the oxen to the end of the fields to push the carts, which took quite a while before finally squeezing out enough space for them to pass.

"Thank you for your cooperation!" Ed raised his right fist high and gave a crisp military salute.

"It’s you who should be thanked, the lords have worked hard," the agriculture instructor returned the salute hurriedly, his gesture not quite standard.

With that, they parted ways.

The wheels of the carts rumbled.

The instructor from the Ministry of Agriculture stood by the roadside. He turned to the farming women and said, "Let’s get back to what we were discussing before, you’re all safe, the fighting has nothing to do with you... Yes, it has nothing to do with your men either. Focus on farming, you saw those people just now, they are the Lord’s soldiers, leave matters of the battlefield to them. Shut your mouth! You lot of shrews don’t trust our Lord? Just do what you’re supposed to do, hurry up and plant these few hundred acres of cotton. If you ask me, this land won’t be spoiled, whoever dares touch this land, I’ll fight them to the death..."

...

It took Ed some time, but he finally made it to the thirteenth Squad’s new compound.

He had already inspected the place before; last year, it was only a rough outline with the foundation laid, but this year it had been rapidly completed. In front of each brick house was posted the names of the soldiers, and the same layout and style as before lessened the sense of unfamiliarity.

The thirteenth Squad’s Intelligent You Lun had been waiting eagerly, having moved in half a month prior. Seeing those familiar faces arrive, he warmly welcomed them.

Ed asked, "Have you finished checking?"

"Yes," You Lun replied. "Each room has a full set of tables, chairs, and benches, not a single pot or ladle is missing, and His Highness even added two extra sets of woolen blankets in each room, saying that the winters in Fertile City are cold, they are presents for us."

If nothing went wrong, they would spend the next several decades here.

"There’s a kiln brick factory in the north, but brickmaking is too exhausting, our families can’t handle it, they won’t go even for money. To the east, there’s a piece of public land belonging to another settlement; Lord Roman drew more than a hundred men from that settlement to serve as Military Servants. Those lands will fall behind in cultivation, so when the time comes, people from our thirteenth Squad will go help with the farming..." You Lun rambled on about the squad’s future plans.

The think tank mainly handled military work and living affairs.

Their soldiers were professional soldiers – unless absolutely necessary, they did not farm. Military training was their everything. However, their idle families were expected to fulfill community service duties.

This had always been the way in Origin City, and Fertile City was no exception—no one was exempt from working.

But the obedience within the military was high; a little hardship didn’t matter, as long as everyone was suffering, it meant no one was suffering.

You Lun then led them to receive thirty gold coins for relocation expenses and spent the money on a large amount of salted meat, flour, brown rice, beer, and other supplies from a department store in Fertile City. After transporting them back, the wives got busy preparing a lavish dinner with these ingredients, and everyone drank till they were thoroughly inebriated.

They would have to return to their posts after three days.

...

That day, Ed received a notice for a military meeting.

He handed over the routine training tasks to the five Squadron Leaders and went to the meeting room with You Lun.

In the meeting room, they learned that the Black Iron Army was marching toward Fertile City from four different routes.

The northern route followed Black Iron Avenue, through the Mire Marshes and Hot Summer Islands, with an army of three hundred thousand.

The wilderness area, sandwiched between the middle and northern routes, was a secondary road taken by a motley force of three hundred thousand from various big and small Nobles.

The central route passed through Lion Territory, with Earl Makor and Earl Filin leading five hundred thousand troops.

The southern route encompassed the Bro River waterway, with Beast Carter and others from Provence leading two hundred thousand.

In total, an army of one million three hundred thousand.

Ed and a group of Squad Leaders fell silent upon hearing the report.

Who are they trying to scare?

The real number had to be halved, and even that might be an understatement. The combination of combatants and logistical personnel could, at most, reach a third of that figure.

Everyone present felt the pressure.

Even if it was only a third, that was still more than all the forces combined in the Battle of the Kings.

The White Steel Princess, a figure of high status, said, "Carter and those from Provence are taking the waterway; they have ships for transportation and can march quickly along the riverbank, faster than the forces from Lion Territory and Black Iron Avenue..."

In theory, the Black Iron Army should have progressed on four fronts, steadily and methodically, until they could join forces and strike directly at Fertile City.

But as it stands.

The southern route was a bit too hasty, now only thirty kilometers from Fertile City.

The wilderness area was too slow, noticeably behind the other armies due to the rugged roads, still over a hundred kilometers away.

The northern route was fifty kilometers away and could march into Fertile City within two days.

The central route had the most troops, claiming to be an army of five hundred thousand, now stationed in Lion Territory, maintaining a steady advance and about seventy to eighty kilometers away.

Tashina didn’t know the specific deployment of the Black Iron Army, but the current situation clearly violated a major military taboo—why venture so deep into the southern route?

Jet asked, "Is this information accurate?"

"I have seen it with my own eyes," the Beast Witch said.

It was impossible to hide the marching routes of the four armies.

"Our chance has come. The best defense is offense," Tashina said incisively, pointing at the map. "Carter and those from Provence are coming by waterway, and they’ve not yet set up camp. We should take this opportunity to break them."

"But the enemy coming from Black Iron Avenue won’t likely give us that chance," Roman looked towards the northern troop line.

Black Iron Avenue was built for the purpose of marching armies quickly; it was wide and allowed for rapid movement.

If Fertile City left to attack the southern troupe, as soon as the northern forces got word, they would march at full speed.

The White Steel Princess said, "With our five thousand elite warriors, the military support from Apple Town, and my own troops, we have enough to handle Beast and Provence!

"Moreover, Lord Roman, you have rebuilt the fortresses of Baron Lester and Shane Territory, each garrisoned with five hundred men. If these two fortresses deploy troops, they could flank Black Iron Avenue. I don’t believe those mercenaries and islanders would risk acting recklessly."