Chapter 103 Food Crisis
Sometimes, problems are like cockroaches. When you find one, it means there are many in your home...
It's not just McShane Country that's facing a food crisis - Fletcher Village and Ralph's place are also short of food.
Ralph would be short of food, which had been taken into account before.
Ralph's knight territory is no longer under the jurisdiction of Brave Shield Castle, but under the jurisdiction of Leon. In other words, Baron Leon is his superior governor.
But Ralph was not a knight under Leon. There was no loyalty relationship between him and Leon. They were just allies and superiors.
This is just like Rainier's Eridage, who should belong to White Hart Castle based on geographical location, but his superior governor is Duke Elfwan, and Rainier himself is a Lion Knight loyal to the king.
Ralph is the Knight Commander of the Horn of Call Rangers, and he is in charge of the rangers' lives.
There are currently more than 300 rangers in his garrison. Of course, these are not all the rangers of the Horn Call Rangers, but only those who do not have their own industries.
Originally, Ralph would have led them to farm and graze to be self-sufficient, but his territory was newly built and he had not had time to sow seeds last season. Raising horses was not a big problem, but the food reserves for people were running out.
Count Oden is gone, and his territory is no longer managed by Yongdun Castle, so Yongdun Castle naturally will not supply him with food.
However, as the saying goes, money can always buy food, and Brave Shield Castle will definitely have a surplus, and the lord is indeed not short of money.
But Ralph went to ask, and the current manager of Brave Shield Castle, Baron Leofric, didn't dare to sell it - he was just a caretaker lord, and he could only decide half of the grain.
Half of the agricultural tax that belonged to him was only enough to support the army, and he had to deliver the other half to the Countess and Joanna who lived in the village of Kwen. There was indeed no surplus food.
This may be the deal that Baron Leofric and the Countess had agreed upon. Baron Leofric would lead his troops to guard Brave Shield Fort and bear the responsibility and risk of resisting the Jatu people, in exchange for half of the profits of Brave Shield Fort.
It was like becoming a tenant of the Countess and her daughter, but it was indeed a win-win for both parties.
But Leon really didn't expect that they would have such a deal.
I originally thought they were exchanging territories - although Kwen is nominally a village, it has a large population and is very wealthy. The territory income should not be lower than that of the border fortress of Brave Shield, and it is also safer.
But unexpectedly, the Countess did not give up the right to rule over Brave Shield Castle, but instead leased it.
Considering that the Countess left Joanna in her hometown of Kwen Village and did not let her go to Lehman's fiefdom Ibion or Qicha Fortress, the Lord realized that Oden's death would probably bring more chain reactions...
Brave Shield Castle couldn't buy food, so Ralph had to ask Charles for help, but Charles's shortage was even greater...
Charles sent out reports in the past few days, and Fletcher's agricultural tax can be about 60,000 pounds of grain.
Since he had just taken office, in order to win the hearts of the people, Charles only collected 40% of the taxes. In fact, this was a great benefactor that the villagers praised, as Earl Oden had collected 50% at the beginning.
Originally, these grains were surplus food and could be used to subsidize Ralph, but unexpectedly, after a perfect revenge, Baron Hereward temporarily left most of the sentinels in Fletcher Village to garrison.
This does not mean that the Horn Summoning Rangers is to pledge allegiance to Leon. Hereward only asked the soldiers to observe and protect Charles, the son of the former Grand Master.
This was a pleasant surprise, but it was also a problem - six hundred sentinels and sixty thousand pounds of food were not enough...
But who made the lord show off his wealth and say he could buy Changhe Town?
Of course, the lord actually hoped that the Horn of the Rangers would all eat his food and spend his money. He thought that Brave Shield Castle could sell food and never thought that the Countess would rent it out.
After all, if you eat someone's food, you have to work for that person. As long as it is around Changhe Town and it is not a civil war among local nobles, the lord can dispatch sentinels.
Of course, they would not go too far away from Changhe Town - the creed of the Horn Summoning Rangers is to defend Changhe Town, not to fight for power.
Many sentinels have their own businesses, but not in Fletcher, but in various places in Changhe Town.
If people are willing to stay at the border to protect the village, they have to be fed.
So Charles said the gap was quite large - if Brave Shield Castle didn't sell food, they would have nowhere else to buy it on the border.
If you calculate carefully, including the seeds needed for the next season, Wheat Ridge will need to replenish 100,000 pounds of food, and Fletcher Village and Ralph's side will need about the same amount.
That's a shortfall of 300,000 pounds of food.
That is about half of the agricultural tax of Brave Shield Castle...
Where can we fill such a huge food gap?
In order to traffic in human beings, the merchants have recently exhausted their own reserves and are unable to provide supplies to Maixiangling.
Moreover, most merchants do not want to do grain business for the time being.
After all, all the food in the continent of Pendor is in the hands of the noble lords, and those nobles are not as easy to deal with as Lord Leon.
Unprocessed food has low profits, high risks, and requires a lot of manpower, with high costs and losses...
Therefore, merchants doing food business are basically middlemen and second-hand dealers. They prefer to deal in processed foods, such as bacon, bread, sausages and the like.
But after Mai Xiang Ling's "World of Food" was created, merchants definitely didn't need to go to Mai Xiang Ling to humiliate themselves...
Besides, merchants are merchants after all. Even if they have a good relationship with the lord, they can't completely ignore their own interests. The most obedient merchants in the past were selected by the lord to open entertainment venues in various places.
If you want to ask merchants to go to the border to provide supplies, it is only possible to launch a large-scale war and ensure the safety of the caravans.
Then we can only purchase from nearby towns.
Money is certainly no problem, but can you buy so much in the nearby villages and towns?
The largest towns around Fletcher are Long River Town and Erminede Village, but these two places are now under the control of Grand Duke Alma, and it is said that his son is still in charge.
Charles is Oden's son, and Leon himself has conflicts with Alma. It's good enough that they don't fight. I'm afraid there's no way to talk about buying grain...
As for the surrounding areas of Changhe Town, there are indeed many other scattered small villages, but they are small knight territories with only a hundred or so people living there, and they are not even marked on the map.
This kind of small place does not produce much and has to pay taxes to the higher-level lords, so it is estimated that there is rarely any surplus food.
The village of Trubrunn near Maixiangling was occupied by Rainier and thousands of bandits at the beginning of the year, and now there are probably only a few people left.
Wait... the Lord's eyes lit up...
Trubrun!
I've been busy with training and classes recently, and I actually neglected this place!
The people in this village must have been harmed by Rainier, but the wheat fields may not be harmed...
The food that Truburun planted last year should still be there, but now that the people are gone, there might be plenty of surplus food!
"Sarah, who is the current lord of Troublen?"
The lord is in high spirits.
Sarah didn't know that she had been busy with military training recently and hadn't been away from home for a long time. She now felt that she could no longer be a foreign affairs officer - there was no such thing as a foreign affairs officer who stayed in the territory all day long.
But, for some reason, she really enjoyed the feeling of abusing the new recruits...
But fortunately, Amy, who had been collecting intelligence, knew about it.
"Teacher, Trubrunn is the territory of Lady Bella's family, the widow of Duke Elfwan. I haven't heard of any changes to the fiefdom recently... It's possible that no one is in charge anymore."
No one cares?
So that's why. No wonder Rainier was so confident and bold to allow so many bandits to gather there.
Since no one is in charge, this is a Feng Shui treasure land!
I was originally
"Let's go and see if the food in Trubrunn is ready..."
Accompanied by a large group of his men, the lord headed for Trubrunn, a hundred miles away.
In addition to the security patrol, he brought all the one hundred soldiers he had.
The reason for bringing so many people was not because we were worried that there were still bandits entrenched there, but to garrison and occupy the territory - if there was really no one in charge of Trubrunn, it would be the same as what happened in Eldaig!
The village was destroyed by bandits, no one lives there, and the lord has given up protecting it. So it can be considered as unowned land and can be occupied first.
Although Ms. Bella, the "old pregnant woman", certainly did not intend to "abandon" this village, it was obvious that she could not take care of it for a while...
Even if someone comes to ask for it back in the future, we can harvest this season's grain first.
Even in modern rural areas, this kind of thing is very common - if all the family members go out to work and there is no one to take care of the crops in the fields, then the neighbors will definitely "help" with the harvest.
How can you not take advantage of a bargain?
…
Trubrunn was indeed unattended, and not even a dog could be seen at the entrance of the village.
There is indeed wheat in the fields, and it has already formed ears of wheat, with some even ripening ahead of schedule.
But the growth is not good because the fields are overgrown with weeds and many birds are already here.
But after entering the center of the village, the lord's mood of taking advantage collapsed at once.
The village was littered with black and brown corpses, and the sky was filled with mosquitoes and flies that couldn't be driven away.
The corpses were devoid of flesh and blood, and were in countless pieces, obviously having been eaten by animals.
The silent village is made up of houses covered with cobwebs, which looks somewhat eerie even in the daytime.
In this kind of environment, no one will continue to live here. Even if there were still people in the village, they would leave, and passers-by would not stay here.
Leon and Amy both frowned. They had no idea of the situation a hundred miles away and had never expected that the situation here would be so tragic.
The lord had no cavalry before, and the patrol team's patrol range was only a few dozen miles around Maixiang Territory. It would be difficult to change shifts if the area was farther away, and the specific situation outside the territory by a hundred miles was difficult to detect.
This is also the cruelty of this era.
One hundred miles was a very long distance for people at that time. If it was not deliberately publicized, things that happened a hundred miles away would often remain unknown for months.
But Li Ang still didn't quite understand.
It is understandable that Lady Bella may be controlled by Duke Alma and is unable to manage this place.
But Alma probably didn't know the situation here, otherwise he wouldn't have gone so far without sending anyone to manage it.
This is not a small village. Judging from the number of houses, this village once had at least several hundred people living in it... It is not possible to ignore it.
If Alma really didn't know what was going on here - then what was Lehman going to do?
Leiman had passed through this village with the Lion Knights. He discovered the traces of the bandits here and naturally saw the situation here.
But he never mentioned the tragic situation here, as if he didn't care at all about the deaths of so many people.
What he told Leon after he had the Lion Knights kill the bandits was that he thought the bandits were charging at him.
This doesn't make sense.
Most people would definitely tell Li Ang that these bandits killed a village of civilians and they must die.
But Lehman apparently did not inform the king or the Duke of Alma of the situation here, so what did he mean?
Maybe in his eyes, civilians are not considered human beings at all?
But even so, we must always talk about the situation. Even if we regard human life as worthless, we will not keep silent about it.
But the current situation is that obviously no one knows that the village has been massacred, otherwise they would not even have left the corpses unburied.
Why did Lehman keep silent?
This village...wasn't it harmed by Rainier's thousand bandits?
Is Rayman really searching for heretics with the Lion Knights?
Forget it. No matter what, I should consider my own affairs first. Food is important.
"Cover your mouths and noses, brothers, and clean up these corpses first..."
Li Ang began to instruct his men to work, and then gave Amy a face covering scarf: "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."
It is actually very quick to clear out a small village with hundreds of people.
In just one day, the village was no longer dilapidated and terrifying.
Incense sticks were lit in various parts of the village to drive away mosquitoes and flies, the roads were cleared, and the bodies were buried in the wilderness outside the village.
With fireworks, there is life and people will feel more excited.
However, on this day, after Leon and Amy carefully checked the condition of the farmland, they found that the results were not optimistic.
No one has taken care of this place for a long time, and the wheat fields are in very bad condition. All in all, we can only harvest about 50,000 to 60,000 pounds, which is far from enough.
There is still a gap of 250,000 pounds.
But right now, the only places most likely to buy so much food are Changhe Town and Kwen Village - other places are either too far away or do not have so much surplus food to buy.
However, Changhe Town was controlled by Alma, and it would be difficult to negotiate if he went there himself. He could only let Amy go and give it a try - Bailubao also needed to buy food, and Amy was the "General Manager of Bailubao Grain and Oil Company".
The lord himself plans to go to Kwen Village first, hoping that the Countess will be willing to sell half of the agricultural tax from Yongdun Castle to him.
We need to hurry up on this matter.
After all, Yongdun Fort is on the border, and in order to prevent the Jatu people from coming south to steal food, they usually harvest in advance.
Since the loss of grain during transportation would be very great, the lord planned to settle the matter before Brave Shield Castle sent the grain to Kwen Village, so that Baron Leofric could send it directly from Brave Shield Castle to Fletcher, reducing the loss during transportation.
The lord was actually very reluctant to travel hundreds of miles to transport food.
Food is heavy and takes up space, making it very difficult to transport. After all, horse-drawn carriages of this era did not have shock-absorbing springs, and their maximum load capacity was only about one thousand pounds - and this was for carriages of relatively good quality.
It would take hundreds of horse-drawn wagons to transport a hundred thousand pounds of grain.
But if you purchase 100,000 pounds of food from hundreds of miles away, after deducting the loss in transit, it would be good if you could get 60,000 pounds when you bring it back.
Therefore, the actual amount of food that needs to be purchased is much larger than the original gap.
The muddy roads these days are very difficult to drive on, and heavy vehicles can easily get stuck in mud pits if they are not careful. "Minor car accidents" such as wheels falling off or vehicles rolling over are not actually accidents these days, but daily occurrences...
Moreover, food is afraid of water, fire and dirt, and must be protected from being soaked by rain or other unexpected damage along the way, so the transportation journey will be very slow.
Not only that, the people along the way also have to consume the horse's fodder, and they have to prepare enough horse feed to prevent the horses from going on strike halfway.
Does it sound troublesome?
This is not over yet...
There are bandits everywhere in the continent of Pendor. Rainier recruited thousands of bandits within a month. You can imagine the overall security level of this continent.
Food is something that is very easy to be robbed.
After all, the gangsters also need to eat...
The harvest season happens to be the time when bandits frequently rob people.
The bandits naturally would not attack the castles of the great lords; the grain convoys on the road were their easiest targets.
In April and May, or September and October in Pendor, the danger level of a grain transport caravan near the Long River Forest is probably only lower than that of transporting Noldor elf maidens...
Therefore, long-distance transportation should be avoided as much as possible, especially for goods that are heavy, take up space, and are difficult to store. In the beginning, Leslie only dared to sell coconut wine and handicrafts with relatively high unit prices.
The lord temporarily placed all the infantrymen in Trubrunn, and took away the guards and all the cavalry troops - in fact, there were only forty people.
Klose and his personal guards escorted Amy to Changhe Town.
The lord led the cavalry to the village of Kwen.
The main reason for bringing cavalry is because they are fast. We are only going to Kwen to discuss business and do not need to transport food, so there is no need to bring too many people for the time being.
If Changhe Town is willing to sell grain, it can be transported directly to Maixiangling by water via the Aiel River. This is also the least expensive mode of transportation in this era.
…
Along the Tongtian River, Li Ang quickly rushed to Kewen Village.
Kewen is a village under the jurisdiction of 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, Kwen has now become a relatively safe hinterland and has gradually developed into a large village with a population of no less than 7,000.
A village with this kind of population is considered a big town in Pendor, almost catching up with the population of White Hart Castle.
But after entering Kwen Village, it seems that there are fewer people.
Because it is not the kind of prosperous and lively village where everyone gathers together.
There are many farms in Kwen Village, but they are sparsely distributed over a wide area. In addition, it is a hilly area, so along the way, you can often only see a few families at the same time and in the same place.
In fact, this is what most villages in the continent of Pande look like, which is completely different from the villages east of Changhe Town that have been developed for less than a hundred years.
One word can explain it - vast land and sparse population.
