Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest-Chapter 55 - 24 Anyway, they are all cattle and horses

55: Chapter 24: Anyway, they are all cattle and horses

55 -24: Anyway, they are all cattle and horses

Roman furrowed his brows slightly.

The situation was becoming increasingly unstable.

The plateau and Wandong neighbored the Black Iron Kingdom.

But one was in the north, and the other was on the east.

Their people had actually gathered together and were sold to Sige Town.

The premonition was growing stronger.

War was about to break out!

“Wow…”

At that moment, a weak cry from an infant in the crowd attracted Roman’s attention.

He saw a gaunt, white-haired woman frantically covering the child’s mouth with her hand, pressing down hard, but as the infant struggled violently, it was futile; the sounds grew weaker.

Roman’s frown deepened.

He broke the silence, “Take your hand off!”

The female slave looked up at him, and through the disheveled white hair on her forehead, she saw the young, heroic lord with a serene expression and intense gaze, like that of a hawk.

Under the influence of that look, the woman gradually relaxed her hand.

The infant, only seven or eight months old, nearly suffocated, and erupted into violent coughing and loud crying that swirled above the crowd.

Hearing this miserable crying, a feeling of genetic discomfort surged sharply from everyone’s heart, causing a moment of apprehension among all those present.

Roman ignored the reaction of the slaves and said to Daken, “Come with me.”

Then, he turned to the side to Aaron and said, “Aaron, you take care of these people.”

Aaron merely nodded, knowing what Roman wanted him to do.

And Daken began to feel at ease.

It seemed that the lord had accepted this batch of goods; he just didn’t know how many Gold Coins he could get as compensation.

However, Roman had no intention of paying Daken in Gold Coins—he had no cash at the moment.

He led Daken to the storehouse at Origin Manor.

“You have two choices, one is to accept the 10 Gold Coins I offer you, the other is to take these 4000 pounds of rock salt.”

Daken stared at the thousands of pounds of rock salt in the storehouse.

He was stunned for a good while, then his eyes lit up, and he declared decisively, “I’ll take the rock salt!”

Only a fool would choose Gold Coins!

He was striking it rich!

He really was striking it rich!

4000 pounds of rock salt at no cost, if all were sold, could net him at least fifteen or sixteen Gold Coins.

He hadn’t invested a penny, just needed to rely on transportation and trade to make a clean profit of fifteen or sixteen Gold Coins!

Who could have imagined!

“Your place here…” Daken looked at Roman with eager eyes.

Roman gestured and said, “Sige Town will produce salt from now on.

Come here to purchase in the future.

The export duty is just one copper coin per hundred pounds.”

Such an offer was quite astonishing.

Hearing the words “produce salt,” Daken immediately dismissed all previous partners from his mind.

He bowed deeply and said, “Honorable Lord Roman, from now on, I am your most loyal collaborator!”

Roman was completely immune to the merchant’s flattery and continued, “You can also trade slaves for rock salt, even children are acceptable to me…

If you can please me, I’ll give you a favorable price.”

Daken left excitedly.

These less than two hundred inferior slaves could exchange for 4000 pounds of salt; he dared not imagine how much a higher quality of slaves could garner.

Initially feeling cheated by the slave trader, it now appeared not as a deception but rather as a pie falling from the sky.

From this point onward, all slave traders were like brothers to me!

With this thought in mind, Daken directed his men, loaded with 4000 pounds of rock salt, and they sailed away from Sige Town.

…

Limited by the difficulty of mining rock salt and primitive technology,

even though Roman had deployed 200 laborers at the Salt Mine.

After days of mining, they had only managed to refine these thousands of pounds of fine salt.

It was the result of their working themselves to death.

It simply did not reach the production capacity Roman had hoped for.

There was no helping it; the group of salt miners didn’t even have a single Cross Pickaxe, due to the scarcity of metal tools, mostly relying on wooden tools for mining, and large chunks of rock salt had to be smashed with stones, under such rudimentary conditions, one couldn’t ask for too much.

“There will be bread, and there will be milk.

Just get through the initial tough phase.”

Roman returned to the livestock shed area, filled with confidence.

Then, he received news that Aaron had found the exact number of slaves to be 195 people, not 188.

Aaron was initially puzzled,

but he quickly realized that the children under the age of five were not counted in the numbers by Daken, probably thinking they wouldn’t live long.

For Roman, this was an unexpected joy.

He didn’t believe that these children could only eat and not work.

On the contrary, he thought that these children, yet untainted by the era, held tremendous potential.

It was now afternoon, past lunchtime.

But at Roman’s command, the 80 farm women, who were originally responsible for preparing Sige Town’s communal lunch, became busy again, preparing meals for these slaves, at the same standard as everyone else’s lunch.

Each of these women was in charge of feeding more than twenty people; with division of labor and cooperation, the efficiency was only faster, and they could also casually take care of those elderly and children who couldn’t walk.

This was not the key point.

The key issue was the food stocks Roman had previously ordered were running low.

Now only sixty to seventy thousand pounds remained, which would last about another twenty days.

But these two hundred people also posed no small burden.

Roman had previously used Moor’s treasury to purchase food twice, amounting to 100,000 pounds and 50,000 pounds, nearly emptying Moor’s savings.

This Agricultural Officer might have to live off his salary this year.

Fortunately, finding the Salt Mine had revitalized all difficulties, allowing Roman to continue accelerating forward.

Roman planned to have Sige Town’s merchants use salt to exchange for food.

On the market, 1 pound of salt was equivalent to 17 pounds of wheat, but the market was a big pit, and after going through various hands along the way, getting about 10 pounds of wheat in return was pretty good.

Of course, if they exchanged for oats, legumes, or vegetables, they would get much more, about twenty pounds or so wasn’t a problem.

Without the carrot of a “free lunch”, Roman really didn’t know how else to motivate this bunch of dumb donkeys to follow him forward.

He needed to establish his authority and correctness; he just had to get through this phase.

He absolutely had to foster in these dumb donkeys an instinct to obey his every command!

Let these dumb donkeys know that whatever he says goes, he is right, he is their only heavenly mandate to obey!

This was a rather long taming process, but Roman was patient and confident.

Aaron walked towards Roman and asked, “Roman, where do you plan to accommodate these people?”

200 people was not a small number, basically one-tenth of the entire population of Sige Town.

Roman replied, “Didn’t we just finish building the livestock shed?

Let them temporarily live with the cattle and horses.”

After all, they were all cattle and horses.

Aaron glanced back at the livestock shed and nodded.

The more than one hundred livestock wouldn’t occupy all the space, and adding two hundred people wouldn’t seem crowded.

Just lay down some straw, and it would be a comfortable large bunkhouse.

There was no need to fuss so much over slaves.