With one more piece of fertile land, Hudson's original territorial construction plan was directly pushed to the ground up. Mining development is important, as is food self-sufficiency.

Without maintenance, there is little hope for this season's harvest, but the next season cannot continue to be wasted.

Whatever you plant behind you will need a lot of labor. If more than 20,000 acres of land are to be reclaimed with the existing productive forces, at least seven or eight hundred strong laborers must be equipped.

This is still based on the fact that there are enough livestock, and it cannot be done without four or five hundred horses/oxen.

Mining is a labor-intensive industry, and a large amount of labor is required from a series of links in the middle of "charcoal burning, mining, mineral processing, smelting, and continuous casting".

Without enough young and strong labor input, it is difficult to restore the previous production capacity in a short period of time.

As the main source of income of the territory, the production of the mining area must be guaranteed first, and there is simply no surplus young and strong labor force that can be invested in land cultivation.

For the elderly, weak, women and children with a weaker labor force, it is necessary to double the manpower input. Considering that the number of livestock in the territory is seriously insufficient, and the gap needs to be filled by manpower, the actual labor required must be even more.

With a solid knowledge of mathematics, Hudson quickly came to the conclusion that the territory was severely underpopulated.

Not to mention the expansion of production capacity, just resuming the previous production, the labor force in the territory is far from enough.

Now it depends on how many people can fool his subordinates to come, there is really a serious shortage of labor, so we can only find a way when the time comes.

After all, at this juncture, even if you want to buy slaves, the southeastern provinces are out of stock!

The lords of Wright and Wyton are all in short supply, and the war has already begun.

Before the territory was determined, the price of young and strong slaves in the southeastern provinces had increased by one-third compared with before. At this time, I'm afraid it has risen to the sky.

Hudson, who is not rich in pockets, even if he wants to be the wronged leader, does not have this qualification. There weren't enough funds to buy slaves before, and now they can't afford it.

A portion of the lords were sent to the newly acquired land to recultivate, and the army's patrols were expanded, and Hudson's focus returned to the mines.

Simple barracks have been preliminarily erected. Although the living conditions are still simple, they have finally gotten rid of the embarrassing situation of "the sky is the quilt and the earth is the seat".

There is already a lot of charcoal in stock, and the mine is almost cleared. Despite the devastation of the rebels, the Salam Mountains are dominated by shallow mines.

The best places are able to carry out open-pit mining directly. In the vicinity, the mine cave extends for a few tens of meters at most.

Mining technology is at this level, mining ore buried in deep areas, that is, in Krypton. Although the iron ore income is good, it has not made the lords crazy enough to give up the festival.

If they come across a high-purity gold and silver ore, or a more valuable magic crystal ore, the miners can only pray to the Lord of Dawn for protection.

The territory is seriously short of labor, and when he encounters a conscientious Hudson lord, he will naturally not play the idea of deep mines, even if the ore deep underground is of higher purity.

At the strong request of the lord, the iron-smelting workers who completed the preliminary preparations began the first smelting after the war.

Watching the iron ore mined by the workers and the charcoal thrown into the clay furnace, the fire began to be lit and dried.

The bellows on the side replaced the alchemy blower and began to work. It can be seen that the workers are very nervous about this new thing.

As if a bystander, Hudson only glanced at it from a distance for a few moments before leaving the smelter.

The original iron-smelting process, coupled with charcoal with a low burning temperature, the quality of the smelted pig iron is not up to standard, which is almost an inevitable result.

No miracle happened, the iron taken out of the furnace was very loose, like an ant's nest, with large and small holes, and Hudson didn't bother to complain about the low purity.

However, the interest of the workers was very high, and it was clear that the pig iron they usually smelted was about the same level as this one.

I don't have to say, continue to the next round of processes, hammering-calcination-hammering-calcination-hammering-hammering......

After a few hours of repeated tossing and turning, the iron was almost solidified, and the workers put it in the water to quench it.

Inferior pig iron is processed and formed, according to the past practice, this thing can already be traded on the market, and the price is not low.

According to the fineness of pig iron, according to the market price before the war, each pound of pig iron can be sold for about 30~55 copper coins.

As for what to post-process, that's the blacksmiths' business. Anyway, the previous lord, Viscount Alphonse, never provided after-sales service, nor did he care what customers did with it.

Looking at the sample in front of him, Hudson extinguished his mind of mass production immediately. There is no doubt that these pig irons in front of you are inferior.

If you want to improve your quality, you can only go through continuous tempering and burning. I didn't continue to process because it was not cost-effective to continue forging.

After all, charcoal is used, and under the existing process, even if it is tempered a hundred times, the strength is difficult to meet the standard of making weapons.

According to the original production model, it was profitable to sell pig iron, but the profits were far less profitable than Hudson expected.

It seems that the price of pig iron is not low, but it cannot stand the low production capacity of the mining area. According to the recollections of the workers, at the peak of the Salam mine there were more than 4,000 workers.

But according to Hudson's understanding, Viscount Alphonse, the largest pig iron supplier in the southeastern province, shipped a measly less than 180,000 pounds a month.

Even if it is used for its own use, the per capita daily iron production is only about 1.5 pounds, and the efficiency is so low that there is nothing to say.

Considering that charcoal needs to be purchased part, and the miners consume a lot of heavy physical labor, they need more nutritional supplements, plus taxes, infrastructure and equipment maintenance costs, and the estimated profit is about 50%.

Considering that most of the pig iron produced in the territory is of low quality, and the large-scale wholesale price is discounted, the unified calculation is calculated according to the selling price of 25 copper coins per pound, and the monthly income of 180,000 pounds of shipments is about 3,000 gold coins, and the income is about 1,500 gold coins.

It seems that this income is very good, and it can also rank among the many baronies in the kingdom, but it is far less profitable than Hudson expected.

In order to obtain higher profits, it is imperative to improve the smelting process and increase the production capacity and pig iron quality.

Without the support of the industrial system, high-tech technology would certainly not have to be thought of, and only traditional craftsmanship was available for Hudson.

Many people are familiar with blast furnace ironmaking, but it is not simple to operate.

Luckily, Hudson liked to run around and had personally come into contact with many blast furnace ruins to get a general idea of the blast furnace ironmaking process.

Following the gourd to draw the scoop, the blast furnace did not come out, but first taught the workers to fire the kiln bricks.

Commanding his craftsmen, he tossed back and forth for more than half a month, and after many failures, Hudson made the first brick.

Perhaps it was because the fire control was not in place, or the soil quality was not up to standard, or perhaps the workers did not understand Hudson's words well, and the quality of the kiln bricks was indescribable.

Most of the kiln bricks have cracks, and only a few of them are barely usable.

Directing the workers to try to build the blast furnace, Hudson felt only physically and mentally exhausted. Climbing the technology tree is really not something ordinary people can do.

A set of the simplest primitive iron-smelting process is so cumbersome to copy. If you change the advanced technology that needs supporting industries, then you still have it?