How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony-Chapter 110: Internal (1)

Early November 1598.

The end of autumn is approaching.

As the weather gets colder, fishing conditions worsen and the sea becomes dangerous. Fishermen finish their sailing for the year and rest at home. They probably won't go out on their boats until around February next year.

Instead, ships loaded with Shine Muscat and various grapes set sail for England.

The cold late autumn sea is both an environment conducive to freezing people to death and good for maintaining the freshness of fruit.

At the same time, it was also the end of the season for sowing crops that would grow throughout winter.

With the medieval three-field system still in place, wheat and rye sowing was ending in some places while barley and lentil harvests were finishing in others. One-third of the land lies fallow.

...If my fertilizer had truly been 'unlimited,' I could have eliminated such fallow fields, but even if I spread fertilizer everywhere, even reducing grape farming, the amount was woefully insufficient.

I'm starting to feel the limits of what can be accomplished with resource cheats.

If it's like this with a population of around 50,000, what will happen when the population grows to 500,000 or 5 million?

Well, that could be considered the distant future, but it took just 10 years for our community to grow from only about 30 people to this size. Later on... hmm...

Anyway.

Now that it's a relatively leisurely season, I find myself lost in idle thoughts.

Read lat𝙚st chapters at fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓ Only.

Of course, by "leisurely," I mean compared to September and October when I had to worry about grape farming in various areas, clearing undeveloped land, and various other issues.

I'm still busy.

Testing new plows and rotaries for tractors (rotary is equipment mainly used to break up and level clumped soil after plowing).

"Ha, hahaha! Nemo! Look! I have once again rescued Moorish slaves from Spanish oppression and tyranny!"

"...Well done, Lord Drake."

Drake is anxiously dealing with blocked routes near Florida and just acting crazy by recklessly engaging with the Spanish fleet. Along with that, we're also preparing homes for the liberated slaves.

Before we knew it, the food problem was gradually improving. The cycle for manufacturing tractors is also getting shorter.

The food issue was now somewhat resolved.

However, food was just one part of our problems.

Just one part of the chain of problems that arose since we started accepting large-scale refugees.

No, let's look at the bigger picture.

What caused these large-scale refugees in the first place?

Why are we accepting liberated slaves?

The fundamental reason why we're struggling to support the growing population and somehow stabilize the suddenly unstable community atmosphere...

'It's Spain.'

As I've read several times in the catalog, England is just one of Spain's many enemies.

They are facing countless enemies in France, the Netherlands, the Mediterranean, Italy, and disturbances in the colonies are just part of the fronts they're dealing with.

Later on, Britain will dominate the world and its descendant, America, will rule the world, so they do their best to embellish the history of this period... but the essence doesn't change.

Spain is the world's strongest country, and England is still on the periphery.

England defeated the Spanish Armada at the Battle of Calais? Broke Spain's Atlantic hegemony? That's just historical distortion by the British.

The Spanish Empire could restore similar forces multiple times within just a few years.

We are hostile to such an empire.

More precisely, to the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which is like the right leg of that empire. To the Florida colony belonging to that Viceroyalty of New Spain.

We were on the verge of being crushed just because the Spanish Empire slightly flexed its toes in Florida.

So, we need to organize internally first.

Before projecting power toward Florida in earnest, we need to firmly secure our community so it doesn't collapse first.

"Mr. Hewett?"

"Yes, did you call for me?"

"Let's implement a roll call system and control nighttime traffic. We need to prepare for potential internal instability."

"I'll leave such a message with the assembly for now. Since not many people are active at night anyway, there won't be complaints."

"Good. Manteo?"

"Please speak."

"There might still be unresolved tribal conflicts. Please collect various rumors, and especially prepare a list of persons of interest who might harbor dissatisfaction with the community."

"It's a task that's difficult to complete in just a few days... but I can do it."

Yes. Above all, the most concerning issue is internal problems.

More than anything else, many of our community members are intertwined in relationships of gratitude and resentment, so if we don't properly control that, problems might arise.

We loosely control unexpected possibilities and eliminate any potential risk factors.

And in addition to that...

"Manteo? And there's one more thing."

"What is it?"

"Please thoroughly monitor the liberated Africans. There might be spies among them."

"Of course."

"Walter?"

"Yes, Nemo."

"For the time being, let's reduce the amount of information exposed about our settlement while maintaining exchanges with England."

"Understood. What do you think about planting some false information appropriately?"

"...That's a good idea."

We don't neglect surveillance against external threats either. We eliminate even the slightest possibility of Spanish people learning about us and infiltrating us.

Finally.

"Eleanor?"

"Yes! I'm here!"

"Please organize a list of all the manpower that can fight and all the weapons we have in case of a possible Spanish invasion."

"Ah, understood!"

"Vicente?"

"Did you call for me?"

"Check the status of coastal batteries and strengthen coastal guards and surveillance. Now that we've strengthened Florida to that extent, we don't know how the enemy will respond."

"I will follow your instructions!"

We've prepared our battle lines enough to fight against enemy invasions.

I'm not sure if enemies would actually invade a settlement with tens of thousands of people, but still, we've never experienced an invasion before. (Except Vicente.)

Rusting spears and swords have been resharpened. Lexan shields have been distributed to every household near the coast.

We've checked the management status of gunpowder. We continued firearms training with muskets.

We've blocked all variables.

We've prepared for all possibilities.

If they stab us insidiously from behind, we'll block from behind.

If they boldly attack from the front, we'll confront them from the front.

We guard the left and right before they attempt a flanking maneuver.

Whatever that enormous and great empire called Spain does, we've prepared countermeasures.

We will never fall.

We will repel any attack from them.

We will surely survive...

"Nemo! Good heavens!"

"Walter? Why have you returned so early? Your stay in London hasn't even been a week..."

"The King of Spain is dead!"

"...What?"

Uh... oh...

I hurriedly returned home and opened the catalog.

'Philip II (1527-1598): Known as the "Paper King," he was a monarch who achieved the golden age of the Spanish Empire and made significant contributions to establishing Spain as a modern nation-state...'

"..."

Philip II is dead.

And as if by magic, news from the Spanish Empire suddenly stopped.

I turned to the next page of the catalog.

'Philip III (1578-1621)'

Description.

'During the reign of Philip III, known as the worst incompetent ruler of the Spanish Empire, the empire...'

"..."

And, surprisingly.

The Spanish Empire fell silent.

==

"Ah, did my father handle all this volume of work alone?"

"Yes. The late king always weighed the paperwork like this to measure his daily workload..."

Thud!

"...that's how he measured it."

"..."