Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest-Chapter 237 - 6: Blast Through with Brute Force!

Early winter had arrived.

It was no longer possible to farm the land.

Roman felt it was alright.

Farming was the foundation of development, but it was not all there was to development.

This meant that farmers could take up other occupations.

The only downside was that commercial trade had begun to shrink again.

Because Roman had made a name for himself this year, there were still some merchants willing to trade with him during the winter.

At this time, the cloth merchant Albert came.

"You have really opened my eyes," Albert said, looking at the Thorny Iron Ring fluttering above the dock.

"Oh?"

"I heard that a mysterious ’River Valley King’ defeated the Riptide Family’s Shattered Archers on Buck High Land, just to rescue a merchant."

"I am the River Valley King."

Roman sat in his chair, leaning back, legs crossed, fingers interlinked and resting on his stomach, his expression indifferent.

He didn’t care about the outside world’s opinions.

Come one, come all, I’ll give you two punches!

"That is really..." Albert did not know what else to say.

Talking about rebellion with such confidence?

Even the flags have been changed!

He’s determined, that’s clear!

He knew Roman’s surname from the last business transaction, and that surname equated to credibility, the Black Iron Duke’s credibility was off the charts.

But now things were messed up.

Who would make up for his five ships of textile raw materials?

"So..."

"Too little," Roman said.

"What?"

"The goods you brought are too little!"

At this, Albert immediately put on his signature business smile, "This is a good twenty thousand catties of wool, plus the flax, nettles, and cotton I painstakingly acquired, enough to sew clothes for twenty thousand people."

The River Valley King said indifferently, "They’re just raw materials, they will shrink."

"Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to bring so much."

"Hmm, you have a point... Tell me, merchant, what do you wish to obtain here? I have no money right now, don’t expect me to pay you in gold coins."

"Do you produce iron here?"

"Oh? Yes, how much do you want?"

"What do you think this wool is worth?" Albert passed the buck back to Roman.

But Roman disliked bargaining, "Let’s go by the earlier market price then."

Albert immediately panicked, "No, no, no, you said before, give me three times the price."

"Just tell me, how much do you want?" Roman asked again.

Selling individually, one copper coin bought two catties of wool.

Wholesale from the farm, one copper coin got three catties of wool — the production was too large, it couldn’t be sold off by individual sales, hence the need to contact merchants, naturally lowering the price.

One gold coin bought three hundred catties of wool.

The market price was, three hundred catties of wool for thirty to fifty catties of iron ingots.

Large-scale sheep breeding only required a ranch and wool and mutton could be harvested in autumn.

That is to say, wool grew from the ground, it was a business without capital.

But steel wasn’t the same, iron refining involved too many human and material resources and the process was complicated.

Technology, population, economy, systems... these were all conditions that limited production.

The people on this piece of land were virtually half nomadic.

There was a shortage of iron!

And it was a severe shortage!

This year produced two thousand tons, this year one thousand five hundred wore out.

Rounding off, it equaled no progress.

Accumulating steel was too difficult.

The correct method was to first let some of the farmers stop farming and start iron refining to expand the steel production, obtain more iron farming tools, feed back into agriculture, forming a virtuous cycle.

The only standard to measure social development was technological advancement!

Spinning in place was equivalent to regression.

Of course, society’s experiences were always accumulating, bound to erupt over time.

Though it appeared that no technology development was occurring in this stagnant society led by Roman, invisibility did not equate to nonexistence.

The deadly silence on the surface was concealing the seeds of transformation, which might sprout decades or centuries later.

But he simply did not have the time to wait.

Throttle slammed!

Accelerate!

Accelerate fiercely!

...

Before, the Nobles could manage.

After all, a lack of iron merely meant a lack of iron; it had no impact on their quality of life.

But now it was clear that war was looming, and the major Nobles were all racing to arm themselves. Where could one even buy such strategic materials now?

The Earl of El from Thorny Iron Ring directly halted steel trades.

"I need 15,000 pounds of iron ingots," Albert hurriedly said.

Roman pondered for a moment.

Steel was a strategic material, and without any technological gaps, it was equivalent to the arms themselves.

That is to say, these arms sold by Roman might one day be used to attack Origin City.

15,000 pounds was equal to 15,000 spears, 7,000 swords, 250 full suits of plate armor for Conquest Knights.

In this age, it was certainly considered a major deal.

"That’s too much," Roman shook his head, "Merchant, you need to understand, just as your wool and flax are increasing in price, my steel is also going up."

Specifically, it was rising faster than the wool.

Albert looked embarrassed and clung to one last hope, "I’ve also brought a lot of crop seeds."

Roman’s interest piqued, "Which ones?"

"From the Rose Domain, grape seeds which you might have heard of— that delicious Rose Domain grape wine, excellent quality, both sweet and tart varieties. There’s also cotton, rice, sugar beets, leeks, sugarcane, cabbage, melons..." from Platinum Country.

Listening to him describe the qualities of those crops, Roman’s expression gradually became more intricate.

He cut off his description, "Alright, I will give you 10,000 pounds of steel, but I have a condition—you must collect more crop seeds for me,"

"I’ve brought a few thousand pounds of seeds; isn’t that enough? That filled half a ship."

"Not enough!" Roman stood up and declared.

After the deal was struck, dock workers unloaded the goods from the merchant ship and loaded 10,000 pounds of iron ingots onto it.

For Roman, that was just about ten days’ production of steel.

His stockpile of steel was more than ten times that amount, some even slightly rusty, nowhere near needing so much at this stage.

Albert was taken aback.

He had ended up getting the batch of iron ingots without having to wait—the worst he had expected was to take away all the ingots by next spring.

After all, everyone knew how difficult iron refining was.

Damn it, just how much does Origin City have in its iron ingot reserves?

He left in a muddle.

Meanwhile, Roman, eyes gleaming, opened those wooden boxes and eagerly sifting through the crop seeds, becoming more pleased the more he looked, unconsciously throwing light punches in excitement.

He called over the Agricultural Manager, Balrog. "Make sure to keep these well-preserved!"

"Yes, sir," the Steward respectfully replied.

After instructing Balrog on a better way to preserve those seeds, especially the rice and sugarcane, Roman began to lament that Albert had come too late.

Autumn had already ended.

Otherwise, he could have directly tried to see if this basin could cultivate sugarcane.

It was infuriating!

Roman channeled his frustration into motivation, continuing to develop Origin City.

Firstly, he massively recruited female textile workers, expanded the textile factory significantly, and quickly processed those raw textile materials to prepare for winter clothing benefits.

Secondly, the warehouse had just stored over a million pounds of soybeans.

No reason to just let them sit, might as well use them immediately.

And for this batch of soybeans, Roman had already planned their distribution.

First, extract oil from 300,000 pounds of soybeans.

Then, make tofu from a million pounds of soybeans.

In the past, they had lacked manpower, so everything had to be reserved and kept back.

Now with so much labor.

Now hold nothing back!

With sufficient manpower, throttle slammed! Powerfully blast forward!