LIGHTNOVELONLINE Volume-2: Chapter-18: More Improvements
The Country of Eruchea:-
After having lunch, Harry gave them another 10 rounds as punishment for running away.
He also spent an hour teaching them various other daily exercises and routines that they would have to follow every day.
He then went back to his office in the palace and wrote down the ranking system for the army.
Harry went for a structure similar to most armies from Earth based on whatever he remembered along with a bit of advice from his system. And since he had only 10 years, he went for a much more simplified structure.
The ranks he made were:
- Private
- Sergeant
- Warrant Officer
- Lieutenant
- Captain (Currently 50 soldiers of this rank)
- Major
- Lieutenant Colonel
- Colonel
- Brigadier General
- Major General
- Lieutenant General
- General (Currently 1 soldier of this rank aside from Harry himself)
These were posted in the now called “Military Barracks” in that order only, which also happened to be the order of seniority.
He had also planned to conduct a physical as well as a written examination for the soldiers to fill in any remaining positions.
Though it wouldn’t fill everything, it would still majorly reduce the insane level of pressure that Harry had thrown on his new General’s shoulders.
Now, Harry moved over to his next task.
He needed to fix up the agriculture situation of his country before the sowing season ended.
Looking at the endless list of problems he had to deal with, Harry started wondering how the place had survived all these years.
But all Harry could do right now was to fix up everything as soon as possible before his 10-year time limit ran out.
He went through the papers kept on the desk.
‘Oh! These guys are still using animal hides!?
Just how bad can this place get!?
Once I’m done with all this farming work, I’m so making some paper!
Thank god I followed that Bookworm series! At least I know how to make some important stuff…’
The farmlands had the usual problem that you would find in most fantasy worlds.
Due to the presence of real gods, they left the soil health part to those gods without ever checking if they would do it or not.
And most of the times, the gods just pressed the ignore button.
Due to the rare occasions when they did help or provided the reason for not helping, it became common to declare that any land that the gods didn’t bless with fertility was cursed and had to be discarded.
And the gods took advantage of it and started slacking off in their help.
As a result, most of the arable land in the country had been abandoned, leaving only a very small amount for the farmers to work on.
But the worst part was that a lot of the so-called “cursed” land had recovered. It had regained nutrients and some parts even had forests growing.
But due to their superstitions, the new forests were declared as cursed as well and no one even bothered to check up on the land.
And now, people had filed many complaints to their new king about exorcising those pieces of cursed land or getting blessings for the remaining land.
‘All right! First thing’s first, I need to teach them the concept of manure. Fertilisers will come in much later.
Next on the list would have to be some dictatorial measures. Considering how strong their belief in all those useless superstitions is, I’ll need to force some people to grow crops on at least some of that abandoned land.
Normally, I’d need to go bring a priest or someone and pay them to “dispel” the so-called curse. But I’m in no mood to waste money on some stupid priest to fix something that’s not even broken in the first place!’
Just as Harry was thinking about how to get the people to farm on all that abandoned land, Harry remembered one crucial piece of information.
‘Wait, this is a medieval sort of era! There must be slaves and stuff in this kingdom, right?’
[That is correct, host. The agricultural sector of most countries on Etheldor is mainly dominated by slaves. That being said, the gods have decided that one of the tasks that the host also needs to accomplish for the first mission is to abolish slavery in the host’s territory.]
‘Oh great! Now I got people to put on all that vacant land.
And as for that abolition of slavery thing, I’ll just put the promotion to a free citizen as a reward for working on that land. How does that sound?’
[The host’s plan seems satisfactory enough to this system. However, the host must first announce that no more slaves will be there after the current ones. Failure to do so beforehand will lead to severe punishment.]
‘Now that I think about it, I don’t have enough time for proper manure formation.
I only got very little time before the summer sowing season begins and just making manure takes a few months!
I suppose I’ll just have to depend more on the so-called “cursed land” for this time’s harvest…’
With a plan ready, Harry now started moving towards the farming regions.
This time, due to the distance, Harry had to take a carriage.
‘Since I can’t make cars right now, I’ll need to make the roads better.
Otherwise, my poor bottom will get murdered by these damned carriage rides!’
By the time Harry arrived, it was around 5 in the evening.
The peasants and slaves had gotten the news of his arrival and had come out to welcome their new king.
After greeting them Harry quickly moved to in front of a nearby plot of a farm while the others followed him.
Seeing that everyone had gathered, Harry began his speech.
“Men of my country! It is you who form the backbone that keeps this country alive!
However, I recently got to know that all of you seem to be suffering greatly.
I have some solutions for that. Though I cannot guarantee that all of you would like those solutions too much.
However, I can assure you that if you follow my advice, nothing bad will happen. Only prosperity will be there, nothing else!
And once the prosperity comes, you will also start liking the things that I’m about to tell you now!”
Everyone present there kept eagerly listening to their king.
The situation was very dire on the farms.
The soil seemed to be rapidly losing its ability to sustain crops and people were thinking about abandoning even more land.
But they also knew that if they did abandon any more land, not just them, but the entire country would suffer the consequences.
And just when they were sitting in despair, they found out that the new king had heard their pleas and had decided to meet them in person.
At this point, even the farmers felt like they would make a deal with the devil to get their lands to get better.
The slaves felt like they would willingly give up their everything to whoever who can save them from dying.
So, when their king said that he had solutions, everyone decided to use them no matter how bad it might get.
Seeing their desperate expressions Harry felt really bad for them. These poor fellows must have suffered a lot when the previous king was here.
Harry now started explaining the concept of soil fertility to them along with the method to make and use manure.
At first, many people had expressions of disgust and fear on their faces.
How could they throw rotten trash into their farms? Wouldn’t that destroy any hope of growing any more crops?
But after considering their current situation, everyone decided to suck it up and follow their king.
Their lives and farms were already ruined. Doing what their king told and throwing rotten trash into their farms wouldn’t make it any worse.
Seeing this, Harry proceeded with revealing the “big bomb”, as he called it.
His plans to cultivate the so-called “Cursed Lands”!
However, unlike the previous solution, this one wasn’t received in a good way.
It could be seen from the faces of the peasants.
They could agree to throw any sort of trash into their fields. But working on the cursed lands was an entirely different matter for them.
There was no way that they were risking getting cursed!
No peasant seemed to be ready to work in those areas.
Even some of the slaves looked hesitant.
However, Harry’s next words changed that to a certain extent.
“I know that this sounds very bad.
I won’t force anyone to work there, especially any of you free peasants.
However, that land is needed for our growth. It cannot be left empty.
I know that any of you peasants won’t work on it no matter what.
That’s why I have designed a scheme for every slave who decides to work on the so-called cursed lands.
I know that this might sound very cruel right now but I can assure you that there will be only benefits for any slave who decides to join.
What benefits you might ask?
I am hereby declaring that any slave who decides to join in restoring the cursed lands by farming on them will be promoted to a free citizen!
Not only that, after their promotion, they will also receive proper prices for the crops they sell!
And any free citizen is free to decide if they want to continue farming or do some other job from the many jobs that I’ll be making soon in this country!
Aside from this, I also declare that no more slaves will be created in this country any longer! The only slaves that shall remain are the ones in front of me. But even you will only remain slaves until the summer harvest that is in a few months!
And anyone who is currently a free peasant and decides to work on those lands alongside the slaves will be given double prices for their crops!”
Hearing this, all slaves standing in front of Harry started cheering for him.
Even the peasants were quite shocked to hear such a thing.
All the slaves instantly agreed to Harry’s plans.
Those poor souls just wanted to not die and Harry had promised them a completely new and better life. How could they not agree with him?
The free peasants, on the other hand, didn’t have as great of a reaction.
Some of the people did agree, however, most refused.
This was still within Harry’s plans.
He couldn’t have the entire farming community abandon their original lands and work on new ones all of a sudden.
Now, all his agricultural problems seemed to be on the path to getting fixed.
Plus, even the slavery situation had been somewhat fixed.
Some amount of farmers would now work on the manure to improve the quality of nutrient-deficit lands while a large group of them would work to bring all the abandoned arable land back under cultivation.
And once his “little” experiment was over, slavery would also completely vanish from his kingdom.
This was like hitting three birds with one stone.
Before leaving Harry made some further announcements.
These were mainly about how he would be setting up schools in the future and what kind of jobs he planned on creating.
Though the people couldn’t understand many of the jobs that Harry told them about, they were still excited by the prospect of getting an education, something that was earlier reserved for nobility or energy users, as well as by the large variety of jobs that were spoken of.
Before leaving, Harry made one final announcement about how all the previous announcements would also be written on paper (the animal hides, of course) and be put up on notice boards all across the country.
As Harry left, he could hear the loud cheering coming from behind him.
It looked like he really did do something of a miracle for these people.
Now, next up on his list was making paper.
The quality of paper he could make right now wouldn’t be that great considering how he got his entire paper-making knowledge from anime and manga.
But it should at the very least be much better than the crude-looking animal skins that he was forced to write on.
It was already around 7 pm but Harry decided to visit the nearby lumberjacks before going back to the palace.
He figured that before proper commercialisation, the paper-making industry could start under the lumberjacks only.
When they saw the royal carriage arriving, they got quite surprised.
They had heard that the king was visiting the farmers due to the complaints filed by them. But they, the lumberjacks, had done nothing of that sort.
Also, the family that Harry was visiting was one of the smaller lumberjack families. So, they started thinking if they had somehow offended their new king in some way.
And when Harry saw their scared faces on arriving, he couldn’t help but laugh a little.
‘Must be quite a shocker for them that their king is personally visiting such a small and low-class family as theirs.
It’s probably going to take some time before the people here can get used to my way of working. But, unfortunately, I don’t have the time to let them slowly get used to it.’
“Guys, guys, no need to be so tensed about my visit!
I know that this wasn’t normal earlier, but just try to calm down and get used to it a little bit, okay?”
It took Harry a few minutes before everyone could properly calm down and come to terms with the fact that their king had personally visited them.
Then it took some more time for them to stop trying to overdo things to try to please him and listen to what Harry had to say.
“All right, now that we’re all calm, let’s talk about what I came here for.
What do you guys think of having exclusive rights to a completely new and revolutionary business?”