Wooden fort in the valley, in a single-courtyard hut.

Art sat on the chair in the middle of the room and wiped the knight's sword on the table with a greased linen, the fine lines on the dark gray sword were still so clear, but the dark red blood stains were deeper, and these blood marks were soaked into the sword body and could never be erased.

The oil-soaked linen restored the knight's sword to its metallic luster, and Art put the wiped sword into its scabbard, then sorted out the white fir in the wooden box, and the red Holy Cross shirt could not stand the test of time, and the pure white color began to turn gray and yellow.

After fighting nervously for more than half a year, Art's spirit was highly concentrated every day, returning to the valley wooden fort, after entering this single-courtyard hut, Art felt extremely relaxed, after sorting out his belongings, Art felt sleepy, put away the wooden box and lay on the bed after a while, and then snoring......

…………

On the evening of the triumphant return of the army, a lively feast was held in the wooden fort of the valley, which was held without internal or external troubles, so that the people ate a lot of food and drank a lot of wine.

In charge of the wooden castle room was Ron's mother Emma, and the army's baggage officer, Spencer, had also led several army officers to help in the room these days.

Emma, a woman who was once emaciated and weak after living in the wooden castle for more than a year, actually began to gain weight, and now in the valley wooden fort, Emma's family is the richest, Scott is the steward of the wooden castle, receiving the salary of the battle team leader, Ron is the captain of the sentry cavalry, the squad leader treatment, Emma is in charge of the wooden castle room, she and Camille's daily food is provided by the wooden castle, and the family hardly spends a penny for eating and drinking, Moreover, in her spare time, this industrious woman often took the women and children in the wooden castle up to the mountains to pick wild fruits to make fruit wine and preserved fruits, and then sold the wine and preserved fruits she made at home to soldiers and peasants who had nothing to spend.

Over the years, her family's house has changed from a thatched house to a wooden house, and it has become the only place in the entire wooden castle where you can spend money. At first, Cooper was worried that Emma would not distinguish between public and private, and used the food and materials in the wooden fort to make fruit wine, but after a long time, Cooper found that this woman did not have these small actions, so he agreed to sell some wine and preserved fruits in the wooden fort, and even after batches of materials were continuously transported back to the wooden fort from the battlefield with the army, Cooper obtained the consent of Art, and directly allocated a batch of salt, cooking utensils, daily life utensils and a small amount of agricultural tools to the woman, so that she could use these things to exchange money and grain from the soldiers and farmers and then return them to the wooden fort. Of course, Emma will also earn some small money from it.

Gradually, Emma's house became a grocery store in the wooden fort, and in addition to the paid soldiers (peasant soldiers), the farmers who were the first to be allocated to the farmland to harvest grain occasionally came here to exchange their grain for iron pots, cooking utensils, pottery, wooden bowls, salt and other goods, or to rent some shovels, axes and other agricultural tools and iron.

"Camille, don't be greedy, go and bring your father and brother a bowl of hot soup and tell them not to drink too much." Emma scooped two bowls of broth from a large clay pot and handed it to Camille for her husband and son, who were exchanging glasses with the officers and soldiers.

Camille had a rib of lamb stripped of meat in his mouth, and a bowl of broth in each hand as he walked towards Scott and Ron, who were in a big mess at a long table in the open space of the wooden castle.

The granddaughter of the old carpenter, Bud, and the two children of Giles, holding wooden bowls of minced porridge, stood beside the long wooden table, chewing on a few shredded bones that had been given to them by the kind soldiers.

Around the bonfire at the end of the long table, several soldiers who were good at singing and dancing writhed their sturdy bodies in the enthusiastic cheers, and roared noisy songs in their mouths.

On the other side of the bonfire, a small bonfire was lit alone near the courtyard, and Art was raising his neck with Angus Odobaszak and others to pour the fruit wine in the glass, and their faces were even more ruddy in the light of the bonfire......

…………

After a feast, Art drank so much wine that he did not wake up until the sun rose the next day.

Out of the cabin, Ron had already prepared the saddles for a few people in the stables of the courtyard, and Angus was also on the side to clean the hooves of his horses and comb their sideburns.

"Sergeant Major, you're not drunk?" Art said to Angus at the stables as he fastened the sword belt around his waist.

"Why didn't you get drunk, it's just that you said yesterday that you were going to take me to the valley to inspect today, so you got up early, but I didn't expect you to sleep for so long, and I had to follow Ron to clean up the war horse when I was bored." Angus replied.

Now Art was a little ashamed, he was really relaxed last night, drank too much ale and beer, so he slept soundly until noon, Art rubbed his hands embarrassedly, and said, "That's what I made you two wait for a long time, Ron, call Cooper and your father, and we'll go to the valley." ”

"Sir, the old butler and my father rode the green mule to the valley in the morning, and the sergeant major and I stayed to wait for you." Ron replied.

"Alright, let's go too!"

Ron took out one of his riding horses and handed the reins to Art, then he pulled out two other normal riding horses from the stable, and the three of them mounted their horses and ran towards the valley to the south......

Although the road was not wide and inconvenient to gallop on, it took the three of them less than an hour to reach the valley outside the mouth of the canyon.

As soon as he got out of the mouth of the canyon, Angus's eyes lit up, a river rushing out of the canyon divided a large area of the valley into two pieces, and the banks of the river near the mouth of the valley were all leveled and ripe, and dozens of farmers were plowing the fertile soil on the land after the snow had melted, making the final preparations before spring ploughing.

On the gentle slope on the right side of the valley mouth, more than a dozen thatched huts are surrounded by a fence of miscellaneous trees and branches, and several peasant women and children are carrying wooden buckets to fetch water from the river below the gentle slope to cook at home, and the roofs of several thatched huts are covered with gray-white cooking smoke.

The peasant woman who fetched water saw the three Yaters coming out of the valley, and quickly ran back to the gentle slope to inform Scott and Cooper, and soon Cooper and Scott Lynn came out of the fence to meet the Arters who came to inspect.

"Sir, you're here, I guess you're almost there, I've asked Lawrence's wife to prepare food for you, and we'll go to the valley when you've had lunch." Cooper greeted him and took the reins from Art's hand, and led the three of them into the settlement on a gentle slope.

Walking into the fence, the first thing that catches your eye is two wooden-walled thatched-roof houses, which have been rebuilt from the first two large shacks, one of which is inhabited by about 20 displaced people who have just been transferred to the valley, and the other is a public house in the valley that doubles as a storehouse; On both sides of the two wooden-walled thatched-roof houses are a dozen or so small thatched huts built spontaneously by the first batch of farmers who had surplus grain in the past few months, especially after the autumn harvest last year, these thatched huts were built under the guidance of the old carpenter Bud, although the shacks are small and the structure is very simple, but they are built quite carefully, very strong and durable; In the open space in the middle of the settlement was a barn and a small man's house, in which the rations of the new homeless people (captives and laborers) in the grain were stored, and in the hut there was a deep barrel cauldron and several stacks of clay plates and wooden bowls; On the innermost side of the settlement, there is a livestock shed and a farm tool house, where more than a dozen oxen and horses and green mules and donkeys are kept in the valley, and the farm tool house on the side is also full of ploughshares, shovels, flails, hoes, sickles and other agricultural tools. Inside the wall, against the peak, there are several thatched huts in progress.

Cooper, who accompanied Art, introduced: "Master, these livestock and farm tools belong to the wooden fort, and the first batch of farmers who harvested grain used these farm tools and livestock needed to pay a certain amount of grain as a tax, but the rent tax was very low and within the farmers' affordability. The new farmers were temporarily free to use the equipment until they harvested the grain, but what they had reclaimed also needed to be distributed by the wooden forts. Now most of the landed farmers have built their own huts, and they all manage their own food, our house only provides food for the new farmers, and now the house and barn are managed by Lawrence's wife, who occasionally helps in the house. ”

"Lawrence went out with the caravan, and his wife was also working in the house, so who would cultivate his family's land?" Art asked.

"Last year, Lawrence's family was given five miles of land by the river, and before Lawrence was busy with chores in the wooden castle, and now he is out with the caravan, so I arranged for four farmers to help them cultivate the land, and Lawrence also has his own salary for working in the wooden castle, so he also gave those farmers some hard-earned money." Scott explained.

Art thought for a while, and said to Scott: "Needless to say, the old butler will need him to take care of everything in the valley in the future, and he will not have time to cultivate the land next to the wooden castle, so I have already told him not to give him land for the time being." Scott, you, like Lawrence, will help me take care of the valley in the future, and your family will be supported by the wooden castle, and your salary will not be less, so you will also make concessions when allocating the land, and I will give you a symbolic acre of land, but you don't have to live on the land, so leave the land to the farmers who specialize in farming, how about it? ”

"My lord, the old butler has told me and Lawrence about this matter, and we are both willing, as long as we can keep our wives and children from going hungry, we will all obey your arrangement." The Scott family was already the wealthiest burghers in the valley, and now Ron was by Art's side, serving as the steward of the castle himself, and Emma and Camille were also paying for food in the castle, so there was really no need to live on the land.

What Art was most satisfied with was that these stewards were quite obedient to their arrangements.

"Sir, the food is ready, you can go and eat." Ron ran over and said.

At noon, the Artists ate some food in the settlement of the valley, and after a short rest, they inspected the cooked land that had been harvested once in the valley and the newly reclaimed wasteland, led by Cooper and Scott.

"My lord, since you set out on the expedition for more than half a year, we organized farmers to reclaim another 200 acres of land, the newly opened land is mainly along the river's two sides of the wasteland that is easy to irrigate, and the wasteland a little far away from the river can be reclaimed to grow some fruits and vegetables and pasture black beans when the food is sufficient in the future, fruits and vegetables can be made into dishes and fruit wine, and pasture grass black beans can be used to raise military horses and livestock." Scott said.

Art bent down and grabbed a handful of soil and rubbed it in his hand a few times, the soil was dark black, and there were a few earthworms writhing in it, Art threw the black soil in his hand, turned to a few stewards and said: "You decide the matter of farming, the important thing is to be able to satisfy the food of the people in the valley, and the farmers must give priority to the arable land allocated to the army, and you can control the rest of the things." Art only set a general tone for the valley, and the rest of the matter was arranged by Cooper and a few stewards.

"Master, I think we can adjust the amount of land allocated after we have opened up enough wasteland, and the fertility of these lands will decrease after a year or two of cultivation, so we need to carry out rotational ploughing and rest, and the amount of land allocated to each farmer also needs to increase; In addition, if you want to increase food production, you need to find ways to divert water from the river into the arable land on both sides, especially the arable land that is further away from the river...... "Cooper proposed a two-nursery farming method to maintain the fertility of the land.

"It's a bit more difficult to divert water for irrigation, and I think we can dig wells in the arable land and dig irrigation wells every 50 acres of land away from the river." Scott said.

"You can try digging wells first, these tasks are done by the tenants of the farmland around the wells, and if you don't have enough manpower, you can send captive laborers to help......"

After an afternoon of inspection, Yate inspected the cultivated land in the valley and had a brief conversation with the farmers working in the field, encouraging everyone to work hard, produce more food, and live a prosperous life as soon as possible......

In the evening, Art did not eat in the valley, and rushed back to the wooden castle with the four of Coober Angus.

"Ron, you take someone to the border outpost tomorrow, tell Simon to settle the outpost and go back to the valley wooden fort, and when the caravan returns in two days, we will gather everyone to discuss the future development of the valley......"

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