Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest-Chapter 265 - 1: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend

Boom!!

The thunderous sound of an explosion echoed through the valley.

Crash!

The hard solid rocks, due to intense vibrations and reflected shockwaves, split into various sizes of rock fragments.

Some of the rocks slid down like a landslide.

By the time the dust settled and the aftershocks dissipated,

mining workers swarmed up to the pile of rubble, broke the larger rock gold into smaller pieces, and packed them into their baskets.

Each basket could hold nearly a hundred pounds of rock gold, and one could carry up to three thousand pounds of rock gold in a day.

The basket carriers transported the rock gold to the processing plant, where through crushing, grinding, selecting, and smelting, one could obtain a relatively pure gold bar.

As for the metallurgical process, it all depended on the goldsmith’s experience.

Roman oversaw the whole process, so there were not many issues.

He had been here for over a month, and during this time, he had carried out five trial explosions, blasting out over ten thousand tons of rock gold.

It sounded like a lot.

But it was only a small gap of about a hundred meters long, twenty meters wide, and two to three meters thick that Roman had blasted along the vein.

For a vein, it was essentially just like peeling off a layer.

Such hard yet brittle rocks could not withstand the impact of black gunpowder explosions.

Compared to this, the metallurgical process was still somewhat unfamiliar.

Mining for gold did not yield just gold, but also various by-products.

Roman highly valued the sealed crystal balls included among them.

Perhaps it was because gold mines were relatively rare in nature that the probability of finding crystal balls had also increased considerably.

Inside, there were high-quality resources like rubies, jades, and diamonds.

In the end, it boiled down to one thing—

Mining was exhilarating!

...

Exciting as it was,

the output from metallurgy was far from enough to meet Roman’s needs.

After all, this was just the beginning.

So, he increased the labor force to boost the gold output.

He siphoned off a thousand families from Origin City.

He aimed to build a town next to this gold mine as soon as possible.

As long as the gold mine could be mined, they would live here indefinitely.

These people were not farmers; they were salaried workers.

These gold mine workers received five copper coins each month, and there was significant compensation in case of death—mining was never without casualties.

But death was inevitable.

All one could do was establish rules and standardize production processes to minimize the probability of accidents.

Roman would also regularly transport all sorts of living materials here, just like in Coal Iron Town, which did not engage in agricultural production and relied entirely on supplies from Origin City.

Of course, this place was not completely isolated.

Every month, they had four days off to go to Origin City to buy things.

Compared to their production value, what they could receive was just a drop in the bucket.

So Roman was not stingy with money.

However, the increase in resources also brought its own troubles.

If he wanted to pass on the complete knowledge and skills of blasting, mining, and metallurgy, he could not teach just one person.

The knowledge was too great, too advanced; it could be overwhelming.

For these management positions, it was better for each person to be responsible for one area and teach it in segments.

But what limited Roman now was not the blue gemstones.

Rather, it was a lack of potential envoys.

An envoy in their forties or fifties, and another in their early twenties.

The former had no potential.

Of course, if Roman were given a smart and clever envoy nearing fifteen or sixteen, both the former and the latter would lack potential.

Everything was relative.

Therefore, Roman started preparing for the seventh recruitment event.

To provide as many options as possible.

This seventh recruitment, Roman was to personally recruit five hundred Angel Envoys.

Things were not like before, relying on checking in to accumulate resources.

Now he directly used Magic Stones to exchange for draw resources.

When strength was great, bricks flew!

With one scoop of my shovel, there should be a few gold pieces at the least.

While Roman was preparing for this,

he received some news.

Someone in Origin City sought an audience with the River Valley King.

The visitor was somewhat unusual.

Seth could not decide and could only inform Roman.

Upon hearing of this, Roman did not delay and immediately made his way back to Origin City.

...

The next day.

After a night’s rest, Roman met with the petitioner.

It was the fellow known as Scarhead.

From the start to the end of the Pirate Conference and up to the Pirate King’s large-scale invasion of land,

it had been more than a year since Roman had last seen this Slave Trader who was originally a pirate.

Although, they had not met many times.

Right as Scarhead entered the manor hall, he said to Roman with a servile face, "Lord Roman... Oh, no, you should now be addressed as the River Valley King."

Roman sat in his chair, his fingers interlaced and resting on his abdomen.

He slightly raised his chin, haughty and complacent, and indifferently said, "Having seen the King, why do you not kneel?"

Scarhead was slightly stunned, recalling the times when they had spoken and laughed freely.

Time had passed, and things were no longer as before.

He remained an insignificant Slave Trader, while the latter had already ascended to a throne.

His family had fallen into despair.

Scarhead was stunned again and after some thought, he still knelt on one knee, "Greetings to you, respected River Valley King Your Highness."

"Hmm." A faint nasal sound arose.

Scarhead felt quite uncomfortable, but having received a response, he still got up and said,

"I’ve come to offer you a major business deal!"

Seth had already explained the specific details to him, but the negotiation still had to be conducted personally by both parties.

Roman said, "Speak."

"Your favorite slave business." Scarhead revealed his mouthful of yellow teeth, "What do you think?"

Roman spoke, "I received quite a number of people last year, you should have heard, so I no longer have an urgent need for slaves..."

Scarhead’s heart sank.

Then he heard Roman say, "So, how many people are you going to bring me this time?"

His mood was extremely conflicted, and he did not wish to dally with formalities any longer, extending five fingers directly—four on his right hand and one on his left.

"Tens of thousands of slaves!" Scarhead anxiously awaited the River Valley King’s response.

Roman paused for a moment before saying, "What do you want? Do you still want salt? I can offer you a hundred times the salt."

"No no no! You misunderstand," Scarhead first waved his hand, then cautiously said,

"I’m not here for salt this time... Actually, I represent Pirate King Alex, coming to establish a cooperation with you..."

"Humph, Pirate King Alex? You’re quite bold indeed." Roman snorted lightly.

Cooperation?

Do you know who I am?

Lord Conqueror!

War Hand!

With mighty blows!

All evil will be brought to justice!

Hanging the emissary of the Pirate King here would not be doing my titles injustice.

Of course, Roman felt that Scarhead was not really a formal emissary of the Pirate King, guessing he was just bluffing.

But he did not know the exact scheme.

"Compared to you, it is still insignificant, your ability to lead four thousand elite soldiers to break ten thousand enemies is also widely known in the North—this is also why the Pirate King hopes to establish a partnership with you."

Underlying meaning in Scarhead’s words: We both are enemies of Gael, and the enemy of an enemy is a friend.