For the Barony of the Valley, summer brings not only hot weather, but also a daily hustle and bustle.

The winter wheat sown last winter was ready for harvest, and when the weather was fine, Scott, the commissioner, instructed the farmers to harvest grain in the fields.

Farmers who had not yet subleased their land or whose families had not planted winter wheat were also sent to the wheat fields to harvest grain with their sickles. In return for their hard work, the employer would serve them food for the day and load them with a pound of rye bread to take home after dinner.

In the village of the southern valley of Mubao, the civil affairs party led by Cooper is accompanying the lord Yate to inspect the territory.

The village of Gujian has become the second most affluent settlement to the Mubao, inhabited by the first people, who not only rented the most fertile land, but also paid many of their relatives in the army or in the civil service. Even if there is no one to pay for it, the cooked land they rent can barely make ends meet.

The village is no longer the simple shack area it used to be, and many farmers have built new houses on the original site, although most of them are only grass-roofed wooden houses, but they are more luxurious than the previous shacks. Even the poorer farmers have at least renovated their shacks.

There are mills, barns, barns, bakeries, blacksmiths, and more. Although the so-called blacksmith shop was nothing more than a gray-bearded old man with his little apprentice repairing farm tools, beating sickles, and mending iron pots for the peasants, in exchange for some food to survive; Although the so-called mill had only one stone mill propelled by manpower; Although the bakery was just a side hustle for Lawrence's wife......

Although the sparrow is small, it also has all five organs.

“...... Dear lord, as you can see, we have all the basics here, but there is only a small chapel missing, even if it is just a small wooden house, and it is very inconvenient for the villagers to run to the wooden castle church every service, so the villagers have asked me to ask you to allow us to build a small church ourselves. A middle-aged man following behind him said respectfully to Art, who was patrolling the outer village.

This middle-aged man was the newly appointed head of the village of Valley, named Ruben, about thirty years old, and had been a frontier patrol under Art. This hapless fellow lost the ball of his foot in the battle to retake Alsburg two years ago, and after being wounded and retired from the patrol, he was resettled in the valley and became a crippled ordinary farmer.

This middle-aged man was down-to-earth and hardworking, he begged the old carpenter Bud to make him a fake foot to put on his leg, and then he relied on two feet, one real and one false, and worked hard every day, and in the past two years, life was not bad, and he also had some prestige in the village.

After the valley became a barony, the civil magistrate selected a reliable person to be the head of each of the three villages to manage the daily affairs of the village, and Reuben was chosen by Cooper because of his military background and hard work.

Art also had a good impression of this "veteran" of the Frontier Patrol period, and when he heard Ruben mention his request to build a church in the village, he replied after a little thought: "Reuben, your request is not excessive, and I cannot refuse the faithful's request to be blessed by God." ”

Art then turned to Cooper and said, "Cooper, when you go back, you will consult with Father Hamish to see if you can build a chapel in each of my villages, which is not too big, and can accommodate a dozen or so people to worship and pray." ”

"Sir, there are not too many problems in building a chapel, but what we lack is not a chapel, but the priest who presides over the chapel, and the people have asked for this more than once before, but we can't build a new church because there are no clergy." Cooper replied reluctantly.

Art didn't want to bring in too many clergy in the valley, and Hamish and Robert were able to admit that Art had absolute power over the clergy in the barony of the valley, but no one else could guarantee it, so he never asked the church in Tignets to increase the clergy.

However, as the number of people in the realm continues to increase, this will be an unavoidable problem.

"Cooper, you have ordered that each village should build a small church first, remember, the church in the village should not be too big. As for the church priests, I have already consulted with Father Hamish that he will select some of the most devout and suitable believers from the valley to receive theological education in the parish schools, and after the completion of theological education, Father Hamish will confer on them the office of deacon and assist Father Hamish in the management of the churches. ”

"But the deacon does not have the right to confirm, to hear confessions, to preside, to anoint the sick."

"If you need these ceremonies, just ask Father Hamish, and now that the improvised carriageway from the wooden castle to the valley has been built, I will equip the wooden castle church with a two-wheeled donkey cart, and Father Hamish will easily come to the valley to ......."

............

After inspecting the village of Valeland, Art and his party continued south, following the newly constructed carriageway, passing Kutim and the newly built village to the south, and came to the gentle slope that stood at the bend of the river six miles from the village of Valeland.

It was the southernmost point of the Barony of the Valley, a small horse farm built on a large flat land on the north side of the gentle slope, with no fences around it, and near the gentle slope there was a small wooden house for the wranglers {herdsmen}, next to the wooden house was a row of very simple stables, in which fifteen military horses were snorting and eating forage.

On the south side of the gentle slope, the river turns and narrows abruptly, increasing the speed of the river in vain.

Along the riverbank, a row of three large wooden houses has been built, and a large group of people are installing several hydraulic hammers and waterwheels in place along the river.

That's right, this is the workshop area planned by Art, and two water-driven hammers for the weapon {blacksmith} workshop and a waterwheel mill for the mill have already arrived here.

Weaponsmith Dim and Craftsman Luka are instructing the war slaves {prisoners} under the construction officer's command to install the hydraulic equipment step by step.

Diem and Luca are now fully accustomed to life in the valley, and because of their status as craftsmen and their exquisite skills, they are the most popular and respected people here, so after more than a year, they have enjoyed it a little.

After the promotion of the valley civil administration, the original head of the craftsman's workshop, old Bard, felt that he was unable to be in charge of the entire valley workshop, and took the initiative to resign, and Art retained the salary of the old Bard's steward, promoted the Swabian craftsmen Dim and Luca to industrial lieutenants, and promoted the clerk Neil to the steward, and the three of them specifically managed the affairs of the entire valley's artisan workshop.

Art looked at the shirtless men who were carrying heavy equipment to the river with wooden poles, and asked the construction adjutant Gehr, "Gehr, are all war slaves and prisoners who built the workshop area?"

Gehr stepped forward and replied: "My lord, after receiving the urgent task you assigned, we transferred all the war slaves who were responsible for the creation here, but after several selections by the army, we only had thirty-three war slaves and prisoners left, and even the six peasant soldiers guarding the war slaves personally went into battle to help, but there was still a shortage of manpower."

"So with the consent of the old housekeeper, we recruited more than 30 landless people from the nearest newly built village to help build the workshop area, providing them with two meals a day, and taking a pound of grain with them at the end of the day, just as if they were hired to harvest grain."

"Are there any signs of escape or resistance from the war slaves?" Art asked.

Geer replied: "Last year, when the Beiguan Military Fort was built, there were two guys who couldn't stand the hard work, and they stole food and tried to escape, but we caught and beheaded, and no one dared to run away since then, and I also planted eyes and ears among the war slaves, and any wind and grass will be detected by us......"

"Excellent! However, we can't blindly suppress these people, don't talk about those prisoners, but those war slaves who were captured by the war should be treated a little kinder, as long as they are people who work hard and accept reform, we must also give them a certain dignity, and do not lack their food supplies on weekdays, after all, these people may still enter the army. ”

But if there are those who do not repent, or even those who still have bad intentions, they will be punished severely. If anyone dares to openly disobey or rebel and abscond, they will be killed directly! ”

"Yes!" Gehr replied loudly.

Art relented and walked towards the first workshop cabin.

This is the Weapons Workshop, the largest wooden house in the entire Workshop District, with two stoves, blowers, and three special anvils, and the weaponsmith Dim is adjusting the water-driven hammers that the craftsmen have installed on the large anvils.

The walls around the hut are covered with a variety of tools, from hammers, punches, chisels, files, chisels, tongs to charcoal firewood.

Seeing Art enter the house, Dim pulled over to Art, bowed down, and said, "Honorable Baron, welcome to the weapons workshop."

Art bent down slightly, smiling in return.

"Thank you, Mr. Diem, for your hard work." Art also showed great respect to the Swabian weaponsmith with his skills.

"That's what I'm supposed to do. Lord Baron, the main part of this weapon workshop has been completed, and the commissioning of the water drive hammer and forging equipment is now underway, and the water drive hammer that Mr. Salter bought from outside does not match the size of the original forging hammer anvil in the valley craftsman's workshop, and I am trying to restructure it. ”

"How long will it take to start crafting weapons and armor?"

Dim thought for a moment, then looked up and replied, "It can be up and running in a week, but this weapon workshop has just been built, and there will definitely be various problems in the initial stage, so the workshop may be shut down for maintenance. At present, in addition to me and Luca, there are five weapon {iron} craftsmen and six laborers in the weapon workshop, and after entering the normal track, they should be able to make more than ten sets of weapons {swords, hammers, axes and spears} or a simple half-body plate armor and a nose guard iron helmet, and when they become proficient, they should be able to make more weapons and armor. ”

"It's okay, the initial run-in is a must."

Dim didn't understand the meaning of the word "run-in", but he understood what Art meant, "Lord Baron, once this hydraulic hammer workshop is built, we will be able to make that kind of half-body plate armor in batches. There are so many parts of the full-body plate that we don't have enough craftsmen, but we can try it. In addition, we can make the swords, axes, spears and arrows you need according to the needs of your army. ”

"However, you need to have your caravan provide the weapon workshop with plenty of raw raw materials, and the pig iron used to forge weapons is best sold from the eastern border of Swabia, where pig iron is more suitable for making weapon armor."

The main business of the weapon workshop is to make weapons and armor for the army, and the current weapons and armor of the Yate army only have two channels, either through the battlefield or by going out to buy.

The battlefield capture is full of uncertainties, not to mention whether the battle can be won, and even if the battle is won, the captured weapons and armor are of different shapes, good and bad. Most of the weapons and armor that are purchased outside the home are expensive and in unstable supply.

Now that the territory has an energy-producing weapon workshop, the army's armament problem can be solved halfway.

In addition to the main business, the workshop will make iron tools such as ploughshares, iron hoes, and sickles for the civil administration, and these iron tools will be bought for the people and even sold out of the caravan to earn some money to maintain the daily operation of the workshop.

After chatting with the craftsmen and craftsmen in the weapons workshop, Art then went on to inspect the weaving workshops, distilleries, and mills downstream of the weapons workshop.

The establishment of a textile workshop was not the ultimate goal of Arte, in his vision, this textile workshop was only to lay the foundation for the mass production of "paper products" in the future, because he found that many tools and processes in the textile workshop could be used to produce "paper products" after a little improvement, so Artery overrode the public opinion, introduced the textile workshop that was not suitable for the valley into the workshop area, and let the caravan buy raw materials from outside to recruit craftsmen to start running production, anyway, whether it is an army or a lord, cloth and clothing are needed.

The brewery is also a key workshop cultivated by Yate, which mainly produces beer and wine in the early stage. The raw materials of beer are very abundant, after all, the valley can produce a large amount of high-quality wheat for beer processing, and the brewing technology of beer is also relatively mature, as long as there are enough hops, a skilled brewer with three or five laborers can brew five or six hundred pounds of beer a day, and beer absolutely does not have to worry about sales, the beer produced by the brewery is absolutely impossible to pass the Beiguan Military Fort;

Wine production has to be put to the back burner, because the valley has only been planted last winter on the gentle slopes of loose sandy soil on both sides of the valley, and grapes cannot be purchased from outside, so it is necessary to wait until the grapes in the territory are mass-produced.

Yate also envisions making distilled spirits in the future.

To the south of the brewery is a hydraulic mill under construction, which will be the largest when completed.

At present, Art is shy in his pocket, and his subordinates lack mature and reliable workshop talents, so these four small workshops have been established in the workshop area for the time being, and after the expansion of the army is completed and the civil strife that is about to be set off, Art will expand it again......