Chapter 3: Numerous questions

Chapter 3: Countless Questions
Carefully locking the warehouse and keeping the iron bars close, Owen went to the open space in front of the castle, where three longhouses were built against the earthen wall, where the soldiers lived on weekdays.

The longhouse built by round wood is very solid, on top of it, bark and hay are spread, enough to protect from wind and rain.

As for the inside, since there were no windows, it was a bit dark, but for the cold climate of the north, keeping warm was the most important thing.

There is a well on one side of the longhouse, and a hayloft that is used as a kitchen, a big pot set up there, and half a pocket of food, obviously the soldiers eat and live here on weekdays.

Because of the lack of manpower, every day two soldiers are responsible for guarding the gate, two patrols in the castle, the remaining four rest, as for training, think of training once, want to train every day can not be done, because not enough to eat, no physical strength to force the training will be dead.

Owen came, four soldiers are leaning against the wall in the sun under the long house, after all, this hell of a place is the only thing to do.

Several of the soldiers were in their prime, a little stronger than the serfs because of the food provided by the castle, at least they wouldn’t be able to count how many ribs they had at a glance.

“Come out with me.” Not daring to go out alone, Owen called out to the four soldiers.

To say that the only good thing about this world is that the rights of nobles are really big, don’t look at Owen’s life is so miserable, these four soldiers are still loyal, in order to defend his rights, even at the risk of their lives, which makes him a little bit don’t know what to say, after all, he is the beneficiary.

The four soldiers immediately put on their leather armor and picked up their spears after hearing the lord’s order, two in front and two behind, chest out and head up escorting Owen out of the castle.

Leather armor and spear has seven layers of new, is when HYDRA II bite the bullet through the HERRY Chamber of Commerce to buy, which not only exhausted the territory’s little savings, but also owed a lot, in order to arm the territory’s only thirty soldiers.

Thirty soldiers is not small, counting the serfs, the territory at any time can pull out more than a hundred people to fight, but unfortunately, the last time the wolf plague led to the death of the soldiers in the forefront of the majority of casualties, so that some of the bottom of Owen’s lack of energy.

The power of the nobles comes from the land and the force, just have the land but not the force can’t, Owen is having a headache about this matter, after all, eight soldiers can’t provide him with enough security.

The problem is that the HYDRA family’s background is a glance to the end, no money, no one, the territory of the serfs work is not bad, when the soldiers are much worse, so Owen has no way to replenish the soldiers at a time.

Soldiers can not be anyone, usually choose free farmers, because they have a certain degree of freedom and wealth, in order to ensure that they can always have these, they will desperately defend the rights of the lord, otherwise, once the change of the lord, they will lose everything.

But Hydra family’s territory doesn’t have any lords at all, that is, the so-called free farmers, they are all serfs with no personal freedom, most of them are displaced people who lost their land, there are also criminals and speculators, after following the pioneering group to this place, in order to survive, they sold everything they had.

Because of a lifetime of struggle in hunger, resulting in the eyes of these serfs have no spirit, in addition to numbness in the eyes, there is only the fear of the lord and soldiers, as for communication, Owen tried, their vocabulary is poor to let a person speechless, a lot of serfs will only twenty or thirty words, because their monotonous life will almost only be used to these, and then more than their understanding of the scope of the.

There is a kind of feeling like saying coke computer to the primitive tribesmen in Africa, they simply can’t understand what you mean.

Almost like animals living serfs, only know obedient soldiers, Owen heart has been burned glass gunpowder cement conception of the absolute, because unless he himself will do everything, otherwise in the case of a helper are not, any project is a five-year plan to start, not to mention that these things Owen can not figure out the theory and the process, after all, who would be a serious person to go to learn the soil method of refining these things.

Thinking about these bad things, Owen continued his rounds, focusing on the farmland. The land in the northern part of the country is a bit barren, and the grasses are all in clumps in the east and clumps in the west, seldom forming patches, so even if the year is busy all the way to the end, the harvests are not much, and it is barely enough to keep the people in the territory from starving to death.

In fact, if not for the current number of soldiers is too small, in the busy farming season, the soldiers are also to work in the field, completely off the scale of the soldiers can only afford to feed the big nobles, not the Hydra family such a minuscule border nobles in the Northland can be compared to.

Not far from the castle, Owen found countless problems.

He had never farmed, but he had never raised pigs.
The farmland here is not the square he is familiar with is just, perhaps popular round farmland, but there is no ridge, there is no ridge, the so-called spring plowing is to use a stone knife to simply clean down the bushes, and then use a sharp wooden stick to tie a hole in the ground, throw two or three seeds inside, and then cover the soil to prevent being eaten by the birds.

With the butt think also know this kind of planting method is how to sleep, so far Hydra territory people did not all starve to death, really God bless.

Owen’s face is green for a while white for a while, but he also has no way to do this, because really let him do it, is not as good as these pits burying the soil serfs, because he does not even know when to plant, when to harvest, the consequences of haphazard command he can not afford, as long as there is no harvest for a year, he will have to take all the people of the territory to the begging for food.

After wandering around the castle, there was finally a news that I don’t know whether to count as good or not.

Although the Hydra family is not good, but the territory is very vast, the average person just rely on walking, around the territory of a circle almost a day or two time, but unfortunately the land is not fertile enough, there is no specialties, manpower is also insufficient, the territory is big and what is the use of it, can not be effectively developed.

Increasing the population of a territory is not an easy task. The best approach is to rely on the natural reproduction of the territorial residents. Such residents are more loyal and form the foundation of those great nobilities with a legacy of over a hundred years. With such a population, they can choose to listen to the emperor’s words or ignore them as they please.

Less than twenty years on the change of three generations of Hydra family of course does not have this capital, to have him will still worry about it.

As for the other way is to buy serfs or take in stragglers.

Serfs are not expensive, because many of them are desperate stragglers, basically give mouths to feed on the willingness to sell themselves into slavery.

The problem is that their bodies are so worn out that even good food and drink won’t make up for it, not to mention that no lord would do that.

And the latter is too much uncertainty, because many stragglers are often masked as robbers, and will become a destabilizing factor in the territory if they are taken in at will.

Countless problems pressed on Owen’s heart, so after returning to the old castle, he cried silently in his room, not even dare to make a sound, because now he only has a layer of noble shell, once broken, what is the difference between him and those serfs, a soldier can easily kill him, and then take away everything, not to mention that his grandpa’s family is afraid of HYDRA family’s thoughts, so Under the situation of internal trouble and external trouble, even he, a traveler with a middle-aged soul, could not bear the pressure and fell into a collapse.

If life has given him anything, it is that as long as there is no courage to face death, then stand up and carry the pressure to continue to walk, even if the head can not lift up, the waist is also bent, but the walk still have to walk, because even if you stop, no one will pity you, not to mention pulling you a hand.

(End of chapter)