Riding and Slashing

Chapter 105 Food Crisis
Sometimes the problem is like cockroaches, when you find one, it means there are many in the house...  

It's not just Mai Xiangling who is facing a food crisis—Fletcher Village and Ralph's side are also short of food.

Ralph would be short of food, which had been considered before.

Ralph's knight leader is now not under the jurisdiction of Fort Yongshield, but under the jurisdiction of Leon.In other words, Baron Leon was his superior consul.

But Ralph is not a knight under Leon, he has no loyalty relationship with Leon, they are just allies and subordinates.

This is like Rainier's Alderge, which should belong to White Hart Castle geographically, but his superior consul is the Duke of Alfwan, and Rainier himself is a lion knight who is loyal to the king.

Ralph is the Knight Commander of the Horn Call Rangers, and he has to manage the lives of the Rangers.

His garrison currently has more than 300 Rangers.Of course, this is not all the rangers of the Horn Call Ranger Regiment, just the part that has no property of its own.

Originally, Ralph would take them to farm and graze for self-sufficiency, but his land was a new one, and there was no time to sow seeds last season.Raising horses is not a big problem, but people's food reserves are running out.

Earl Auden is gone, and his territory is no longer under the management of Fort Yongdun, so Fort Yongdun will naturally not supply him with food.

However, it is said that food can always be bought with money, and there will definitely be a surplus in Castle Valor, and the lord is indeed not short of money.

But Ralph went to ask, and the current manager of Fort Valor, Baron Leofric, dared not sell it—he was just a escrow lord, and he only had half of the food he could call the shots.

Half of his agricultural tax is only enough for him to support the army, and the other half he has to transport to the Countess and Joanna who live in Kewen Village. There is indeed no surplus food.

This may be the deal that Baron Leofric and the countess had negotiated at the beginning. Baron Leofric led troops to guard Fort Yongshield, and assumed the responsibility and risk of resisting the Jatu people, so as to obtain half of the income of Fort Yongshield. .

It's like being the tenant of the countess mother and daughter, but it's true that both parties get what they need.

But Li Ang really didn't expect them to have such a deal.

At first, they thought they were exchanging territories - although Kewen is a village in name, it has a large population and is very rich. The income of the territory should not be lower than that of the border fortress of Fort Yongshield, and it is safer.

But unexpectedly, the countess did not give up the right to rule Yongshield Castle, but used the lease method.

Considering that the Countess left Joanna in her hometown of Kewen Village, Joanna was not allowed to go to Ibien, Lehman's fief, or Qicha Fortress.The lord realized that Oden's death would probably bring about more chain reactions...

Fort Valiant couldn't buy food, so Ralph had to ask Charles for help. As a result, the gap on Charles' side was even bigger...

Charles has sent a report in the past few days, and Fletcher's agricultural tax can have about [-] pounds of grain.

Since he just took office, in order to win over the hearts of the people, Charles only collected [-]% of the tax.In fact, this is a great benevolent person who can be praised by the villagers. Earl Auden received [-]% of his income back then.

Originally, the food was surplus food, which could be used to subsidize Ralph, but unexpectedly, after a perfect revenge, Baron Hereward temporarily left most of the sentries in Fletcher Village.

This does not mean that the horn calls the ranger group to serve Leon. Hereward just asks the sergeants to investigate and protect Charles, the son of the former grand master.

This was a pleasant surprise, but it was also a trouble—six hundred sentries, sixty thousand pounds of food would not be enough...

But who made the lord want to show off his wealth and say that he could buy Changhe Town?

Of course, the lord is actually wishing that the Horn summoned the ranger group to eat his food and spend his money. He thought that Fort Valor could sell food, but he never thought that the Countess would rent it out.

After all, if you eat someone's food, you have to work for someone else.As long as it is around Changhe Town and does not belong to the civil war among local nobles, the lord can dispatch sentries.

Of course, they won't do it if they are too far away from Changhe Town—the credo of the Horn Call Ranger Group is to defend Changhe Town, not to fight for power.

Many sentinels have their own properties, but they are not in Fletcher, but in various places in Changhe Town.

People are willing to station at the border to protect the village, so they have to let people eat,

So Charles said that the gap is quite large-fort Yongshield does not sell food, and they have nowhere else to buy it on the border.

Calculating carefully, including the seeds to be used in the next season, Mai Xiangling needs to replenish [-] pounds of grain, and Fletcher Village and Ralph's side are similar.

That's a shortfall of 30 pounds of grain.

In other words, it is almost equivalent to half of the agricultural tax in Fort Yongshield...

With such a large food gap, where can we make up for it?
The merchants have recently exhausted their own reserves due to human trafficking, and there is no way to provide supplies for Mai Xiangling.

Moreover, most businessmen do not want to do grain business for the time being.

After all, all the food in Pende Continent is in the hands of noble lords, and those big nobles are not as easy to deal with as Lord Li Ang.

However, unprocessed food has low profit, high risk, and requires a lot of manpower, and the cost and loss are high...

Therefore, merchants in the food business are basically middlemen and second-hand dealers. They are more willing to deal in processed foods, such as bacon, bread, sausages and the like.

But after Mai Xiangling's "Gourmet World" is created, businessmen definitely don't need to go to Mai Xiangling to take their own humiliation...

Besides, merchants are merchants after all, no matter how good the relationship with the lord is, it is impossible to completely disregard their own interests.The businessmen who were the most obedient before were all selected by the lord to open entertainment places in various places.

If you want merchants to go to the border to provide supplies, it will only work if you launch a large-scale war and ensure the safety of the caravan.

Then you can only find nearby towns to purchase.

Money is of course no problem, but can the nearby villages and towns buy so much?

The largest villages and towns around Fletcher are Changhe Township and Erminede Village under its jurisdiction.But these two places are now under the control of Grand Duke Alma, and it is said that his son is still in charge.

And Charles is the son of Auden, and Li Ang himself has conflicts with Alma. This relationship, it would be good if there is no fight, and I am afraid that there is no way to talk about buying food...

As for the surrounding area of ​​Changhe Town, there are indeed many other scattered small villages.But those are small knights who only live in a hundred or so people, and they won't even be marked on the map.

This kind of small place does not produce much, and it has to pay taxes to the superior lord, so it is estimated that there is very little surplus food.

As for the village of Trublen near Mai Xiangling, Rainier led thousands of bandits to occupy it for a while at the beginning of the year, and now there are probably not many people there.

Wait... The lord's eyes light up...

Trubrun!

Recently, I was training and attending classes, so I actually ignored this place!
The people in this village must have been harmed by Rainier, but the wheat field is not necessarily...

The grain planted in Trubrun last year should still be there, but the people are gone, maybe there will be a lot of surplus grain!
"Sarah, who is the current lord of Trubrun?"

The lord came to the spirit.

Sarah didn't know that she had been busy with military training recently and hadn't traveled far for a long time. Now she felt that she was almost unable to be a foreign affairs officer—how could there be a foreign affairs officer in Tmall's territory.

However, for some reason, she enjoyed the feeling of abusing recruits...

But fortunately, Amy, who has been collecting information, knows.

"Teacher, Trubrun is the territory of Mrs. Bella's family, the widow of Duke Elfwan. I haven't heard of changing the fief recently... Maybe no one cares about it."

No one cares?
It turned out that it was no wonder that Rainier was able to safely and boldly let a large number of bandits gather there.

Since no one cares, then this is a treasure land of geomantic omen!

I originally planned to buy it, but now it seems that it may be a zero yuan purchase!

"Come on, let's go see if the food in Trubrun is ready..."

Bringing a large number of subordinates, the lord rushed to Trubrun, a hundred miles away.

Except for the security patrol, he took all the one hundred soldiers in his hand.

The reason why they brought so many people was not because they were worried that there would be bandits entrenched, but because they were stationed in the past to occupy the territory-if Trublen was really left alone, it would be the same as the nature of Alderge at the beginning!

The village was destroyed by bandits, no one lived there, and the lord gave up protection, so it was considered a land of no man, and it could be occupied first.

Although Ms. Bella, an 'old pregnant woman', definitely did not 'abandon' this village on purpose, but it is obvious that she will not take care of it for a while...

Even if someone comes to ask for it back in the future, anyway, this season's grain can be harvested first.

Even in modern rural areas, this kind of thing is very common - all the family members have gone out to work, and the crops in the field are left unattended, so the neighbors will definitely 'help' harvest.

How can I not take advantage of it.

……

Trubrun was really deserted, not even a dog could be seen at the entrance of the village.

There is indeed wheat in the farmland, which has already produced ears, and some of them have even matured ahead of schedule.

But the growth is not good, because the field is overgrown with weeds, and many birds have already stayed here.

After entering the center of the village, the lord's mood of taking advantage suddenly collapsed.

There are black and brown corpses everywhere in the village, and the sky is full of mosquitoes and flies, which cannot be dispelled.

Those bones had no flesh and blood, and they were too mutilated to count. They were obviously eaten by animals.

Houses full of spider webs formed a silent village, even in the daytime, it looked a bit eerie.

In this kind of environment, no one will live there anymore, even if there are still people in the village, they will leave, and those who pass by will not stay here.

Both Li Ang and Amy frowned. They didn't know the situation a hundred miles away, and they didn't expect such a miserable situation here.

The lord did not have cavalry before, and the patrol range of the patrol team was only a few dozen miles around Mai Xiangling. It would be difficult to change shifts any farther away. It is difficult to detect the specific situation of the territory hundreds of miles away.

This is also the cruelty of this era.

One hundred miles is already a very long distance for people at this time.If it is not for deliberate publicity, what happens a hundred miles away is often difficult to be known for several months.

But Li Ang still didn't understand.

Mrs. Bella may be controlled by the Duke of Alma, and she is incapable of managing this place, which is understandable.

But Alma probably didn't know the situation here, otherwise it wouldn't have been so long without sending someone to manage it.

This is not a small village. Judging by the number of houses, there used to be at least several hundred people living in this village... It is not impossible to ignore it.

If Alma really doesn't know what's going on here——what is Lehman going to do?
Lehman had brought the Lion Riders through this village at the beginning. He found the bandits here, so he also saw the situation here.

But he never mentioned the tragic situation here, as if he didn't care about the death of so many people.

After he asked the Lion Knights to kill those bandits, what he told Li Ang was that he thought the bandits were charging towards him.

This is not reasonable.

Most people would definitely tell Li Ang that these gangsters killed a village of civilians, and they must die.

But Lehman apparently didn't tell the king or Duke of Alma what was going on here either, so what did he mean?

Maybe in his eyes, civilians are not human at all?
But even so, it is always necessary to talk about the situation, even if people's lives are regarded as trivial, they will not stop talking about them.

But in the current situation, it is obvious that no one knows that the village was slaughtered here, otherwise the bones would not be restrained.

Why did Lehman keep silent?

This village... Wasn't it harmed by Rainier's thousand bandits?

Is Lehman really searching for heresy with the Knights of the Lion?

Forget it, no matter what, think about your own affairs first, food is important.

"Cover your mouth and nose, brothers, clean up these bones first..."

Li Ang began to order his subordinates to work, and then gave Amy a face covering: "Amy, plant my flag at the entrance of the village. Since no one is in charge here, I will take care of it from now on."

Bringing hundreds of people and trying to clean up a small village is actually very fast.

In just one day, the village was no longer dilapidated and terrifying.

Smoke piles were lit all over the village to disperse mosquitoes and flies, roads were cleared, and the bones were buried in the wilderness outside the village.

With fireworks, there will be vitality, and people will be inspired a lot.

However, during this day, after Li Ang and Amy carefully checked the conditions of the farmland, they found that the results were not optimistic.

It has been left unattended for too long, and the condition of the wheat fields is very bad. All together, they can collect [-] to [-] pounds, which is far from enough.

There is still a shortfall of 25 pounds.

But right now, the only places that are most likely to buy so much grain are Changhe Town and Kewen Village—other places are either too far away, or there is not so much surplus grain to buy.

However, Changhe Town is controlled by Alma, so I’m afraid it’s not easy to talk about it by myself, so I can only let Amy go there to try it out—White Deer Castle also needs to buy food, and Amy is the general manager of the White Deer Castle Grain and Oil Company '.

The lord himself intends to go to Kewen Village first, hoping that the countess will be willing to sell half of the farm tax of Yongdun Castle to himself.

This has to be done quickly.

Fort Yongshield is the frontier after all, in order to prevent the Jatu people from going south to grab grain, they usually harvest in advance.

Since the loss of food during the transportation will be very large, the lord intends to settle the matter before Yongshidfort sends the grain to Kewen Village, so that Baron Leofric can send it directly from Yongshidburg to Fort Letcher, reduce the loss of road transshipment.

The lord is actually very reluctant to travel hundreds of miles to transport food.

Things like food are heavy and take up space, and transportation is very troublesome. After all, the carriages of this era do not have shock absorbing springs, and the maximum load is about [-] pounds at most-this must be a relatively high-quality carriage.

One hundred thousand pounds of grain requires hundreds of horse-drawn carts to transport.

But if you purchased [-] pounds of grain from a few hundred miles away, excluding the loss in the middle, it would be good to have [-] pounds when you ship it back.

Therefore, the amount of food that actually needs to be purchased is much larger than the original gap.

Dirt roads are very difficult these days. A heavy vehicle can easily get stuck in the mud if you are not careful. Small car accidents such as falling wheels or vehicle rollovers are actually not accidental in this era, but everyday...

Moreover, food is afraid of water, fire, and dirt. It must be protected from being soaked by rain or other accidental losses on the road, and the transportation journey will be very slow.

Not only that, people along the way also consume horse chews, and they have to prepare enough horse feed to prevent the horses from going on strike halfway.

Do you find it troublesome to listen to?

It's not over yet...

Bandits are everywhere in Pendor Continent. Rainier recruited thousands of bandits within a month. One can imagine the overall security level of this continent.

And things like food are very easy to be robbed.

After all, the gangsters also want to eat...

And the harvest season happened to be the time when bandits robbed frequently.

Naturally, the bandits would not attack the castles of the great lords, and the grain convoy on the road was their easiest target.

In April and May in Pendor, or from September to October, the danger level of the food convoy near the Long River Forest is probably only lower than that of transporting Noldor elf girls...

Therefore, if you can avoid long-distance transportation, you must try to avoid it, especially the kind of goods that are heavy and take up space and are not easy to store. At the beginning, Leslie only dared to sell coconut wine and handicrafts with a relatively high unit price.

All the infantry were temporarily placed in Trubrunn to stay behind, and the lord took away the pro-guard and all the cavalry units-in fact, there were only 40 people.

Klose escorted Amy to Changhe Town with his personal guards.

And the lord rushed to Kewen Village with the cavalry.

The main reason for bringing the cavalry is because the footsteps are fast. When I came to Kewen, I just talked about business and didn't need to transport food, so there was no need to bring too many people for the time being.

And if Changhe Town is willing to sell grain, it can be transported directly to Maixiangling through the Ayer River by water, which is also the least expensive transportation method in this era.

……

Along the Tongtian River, Li Ang hurried to Kewen Village.

Kewen is a village under Changhe Town, located in the upper reaches of Tongtian River, more than 300 miles west of Changhe Town.

This is also the jurisdiction farthest from Changhe Town.

With the continuous expansion of Changhe Town over the years, Kewen has now become a relatively safe hinterland, gradually developing into a large village with a population of no less than 7000.

A village with this kind of population is considered a big town in Pender, almost catching up with the population of White Hart Castle.

But after entering Kewen Village, it seems that there is an illusion of sparsely populated.

Because it is not the kind of bustling and lively village where everyone gathers together.

There are many farms in Kewen Village, but they are very sparse and spread over a wide range.In addition to the hilly area, along the way, there are often only a few families that can be seen at the same location at the same time.

In fact, this is what most villages in Pendor Continent look like, completely different from those villages east of Changhe Town that have been developed for less than a hundred years.

It can be explained in one word - the land is vast and the population is sparse.

(End of this chapter)