Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence

Chapter 145: Chapter 86: Crisis of the Harvest Season

The new intelligence revealed a lot about the surrounding forces.

Firstly, there’s the Sweet Kiss Order in Greenfield Village, a less conspicuous village and quite distant from the Hesse Territory.

If they don’t exist naturally, it means they fall under the domain of another Pioneer Lord.

Su Li wanted to burn this village to the ground, but it would undoubtedly lead to conflicts with the surrounding lords.

After settling in the territory for several months, it seemed time to conquer outward.

Matters concerning the purification of Chaos Demons inevitably result in conflict and war.

For in this world, the so-called purification isn’t about using holy water to cleanse the evil from peasants; after all, such powerful tools don’t exist. Even if they did, the greedy nobles would never waste such valuable items on lowly, filthy peasants.

In this world, purification often means that when Knights discover Chaos Corruption, they burn everything associated with the demons in the village to ashes, including farmers, houses, and all things present in the village.

The Sadistic Desire Demon, Shire, appeared for only a few minutes, and Chaos Corruption spread across all Knights, igniting the brothel business for many days.

If a remote village is corrupted by Chaos, it means that by the time the Knights find them, it’s already too late.

Thus, Knights would not allow anyone possibly exposed to Chaos Corruption to remain.

Of course, this exacerbated the distrust of nobles among the peasants, for well-known reasons. Imperial peasants always tend to internally resolve issues and band together to conceal the problem’s existence from the lord because the noble lords always resort to the most brutal, simplest ways to address peasant-caused issues.

For the lower-class people, this facade of peace is a reasonable choice for protecting themselves under tyranny, but it also creates an illusion in the ruling class’s eyes that the peasants are a happy, content, unambitious bunch living peacefully... garbage, since most nobles are indoctrinated with this mindset from a young age.

So when a peasant rebellion occurs, the nobles conduct a very bloody suppression, and the rebelling peasants will hold a desperate resistance (though it hardly works): from the peasants’ perspective, rebellion is an act of desperation when all hope is lost;

but from the nobles’ viewpoint, they’ve never heard of any issues among the peasants in their territory, and thus can’t comprehend the reason for the rebellion, attributing it naturally to greed and ingratitude.

It’s hard to discern which side is right or wrong in this hopeless world, where despair is all-encompassing for everyone. Nobles must ensure that Chaos Corruption is eradicated, allowing no possible omissions. A woman’s compassion and false hope often mean a more tragic outcome.

And the lower classes, to survive, naturally won’t expose their problems. Just like the Battle of Chibi, although the plague had already appeared in Cao’s army, the lower soldiers did not dare report it, leading to a widespread outbreak.

Under the form of this world, Greenfield Village’s situation has already completely rotted away, but their Lord is likely unaware of what’s happening there.

Moreover, the Sadistic Demon and its followers would pay sufficient taxes to maintain the peace and harmony of the entire village.

In the eyes of the Lord, they are simply a group of villagers living a happy, content life, not realizing they’ve already descended into chaos, engaging in all sorts of disorderly acts with Great Horned Beasts, Barbarians, and Mutants.

Of course, to those wise lords, this is an important reference for judging whether Chaos Corruption has appeared in the territory.

If everyone in a village begins to farm diligently, pays all nineteen taxes on time and in full, and maintains a positive and harmonious atmosphere, it goes without saying that Chaos Corruption is rampant, and very likely a Sado disciple controls it.

However, most lords are foolish and far from wise, so if Knights suddenly burn a village corrupted by Chaos, it often means disputes, conflicts, or even war.

Unless the one burning the village is a prestigious, illustrious Divine Chosen Knight, Legendary Knight.

Hesse Territory has no Divine Chosen Knight, so he could only ask the renowned Flying Horse Knight Fastrick to give it a try.

So, after finishing his meal, he instructed the High-level Attendant Chief, Hilude, ”Arrange for a team of Knights to follow Fastrick to the village southeast of Mirror Swamp, where a Sado Order is lurking. Have Fastrick purify the Chaos Corruption there.”

The Chaos Corruption here was very severe, with people already mating with half-beastmen.

Even the Sun Goddess could not stand it, bestowing Divine Grace. Whichever force could purify here would have a team of Sun Goddess immigrant believers, guided by the Divine Spirit, settle in that territory. Hesse Territory naturally wanted to seize this Divine Grace.

Sun Goddess’s immigrant believers are quite different from the peasant rioters; they possess higher qualifications and are more loyal and pious.

In a comparison, peasant rioters belong to those most mediocre of gray quality, despised by most territories as trash, and even when caught, directly thrown into slave camps to be consumed like beasts of burden.

However, the followers of the Sun Goddess are not such worthless people, they belong to talents, elite immigrants, where not only are the personnel of higher quality, but it’s also easy to find some elites among them.

These elites are literally at the elite level, such as Elite Knights and Elite Followers.

So, generally, territories happily accept Sun Goddess followers as immigrants and directly grant them the status of Free People.

Su Li is certainly willing to purify an area of chaos corruption, eliminate the risk of chaos spreading, and welcome a group of Sun Goddess followers as immigrants.

Hilude, upon hearing this, was a bit surprised and asked, ”My Lord, are we preparing for an external war?”

Su Li nodded and said, ”The harvest season has arrived, and abundance and plundering are inevitable. We not only need to plunder a large amount of wealth from other territories but also defend against other forces plundering us.”

”Are you referring to the Mountain People?” Hilude, sharp and insightful, immediately grasped the key point.

The geographical situation of the Hesse Territory is actually quite favorable. The threat in the Blood Pine Forest to the east has just been eradicated, the west is a vast power vacuum between major powers, and the south is the broad Mirror Swamp, so the only threat to the territory comes from the Mountain People to the north.

Su Li praised, ”That’s correct. With demons rampaging in the Gray Mountain Range, the local powers are likely unsettled. The Zani, already lacking in food, will undoubtedly come down the mountain to plunder.”

The Zani is the Empire’s generic term for Mountain People, roughly comparable to bumpkins, perhaps even lower.

After all, the most famous bumpkins within the Empire are the Half-Elves, carrying a strong rustic aura and a coarse demeanor. This is something even the Half-Elves themselves don’t deny.

These Zani, wearing horned helmets and exuding masculinity, do not fight like a well-trained army, nor do they always gather in a large tribal alliance to obey a chieftain, until they are forced to face a considerable force. Typically, a small group of raiders will ride ferocious Male Uros Bulls to launch raids.

Although the Mountain People are ultimately always repelled by the Duchy’s defending army, their cattle still trample every farm along the way, and the chaos caused by such invasions is invariably exploited by various local bandits, who seize every opportunity for robbery and plundering.

A Zani tribe of two hundred people already counts as sizable. If their invasions continue to fail year after year, they will organize into an alliance tribe to march south.

Su Li must also consider how to reduce their population.

After all, besides forming alliances, they have another choice, which is to have a population sparse enough that the bushes in the mountains are sufficient for grazing their Uros Bulls.

Hence, capturing their raiding population as much as possible with each descent is especially important.

While Su Li was considering which army to dispatch, Minister of Agriculture Vandar excitedly arrived at the manor.

His wrinkled old face was today creased up like a blossoming flower: ”My Lord, good news! Good news! Our territory’s wheat fields have achieved a huge harvest! We have already harvested an acre of wheat at the threshing ground, and we have harvested a full 190 pounds of wheat!”

pounds?

Su Li was also pleasantly surprised. This figure is already one-third higher than in the feudal era on Earth! Equivalent to about a quarter of the output of modern society with fertilizers.

Furthermore, considering the wheat fields with blood sacrifice produce ten times more, that is 1900 pounds per acre, the blood sacrifice wheat fields are 2 to 3 times higher than in modern society.

Su Li also temporarily set aside the matter of defense three days later and immediately, together with Hilude and Vandar, rode off to the east side of the territory to the farm.

Here, the endless wheat fields gently swayed in the breeze, waves of wheat rippling like a golden ocean. The heavy wheat ears drooped low, each grain full and solid, heralding a season of bountiful harvests.

This joy of harvest even infected the serfs in the fields, their faces radiating satisfaction and joy, wearing straw hats and wielding sickles, enthusiastically harvesting the wheat in the fields.

In the distance, Half-Elves cheerfully operating harvesters swiftly gathered wheat in the flat fields. These harvesters, pulled by Combat Rams, perfectly matched their characteristics, cutting down heads on the battlefield, and harvesting wheat in peacetime.

Under Su Li’s watchful gaze, they managed to harvest over thirty acres of wheat in less than an hour, matching the efficiency of dozens or even hundreds of serfs!

The more than four hundred acres of wheat fields here could likely be fully harvested in half a day.

Vandar, beaming with a smile, said, ”My Lord, the terrain here is flat, and the Half-Elves’ harvesters are very convenient. This is our first farm to complete harvesting. The serfs of the territory are primarily in the woodland farm area, where there are over a thousand acres of wheat fields, estimated to be finished by tonight. Once all the wheat is harvested, we can at least obtain 240,000 pounds of wheat!”