The Natural Empire of the Oceanic Dragon

"I see."

Attilan remembered that he didn't seem to have seen a single yak-person in the mountains between Water Cellar Town and Halfling Forest Town, so how far did Fisher's envoy have to travel to find these yak-people?

"Well done. It turns out that giving you the Hexi area to manage was the right decision. In just four short months, you've managed to recruit so many people."

Fisher said with some embarrassment:

"I still haven't done well enough. If I had realized in time that the defensive strength of Earth Fort Town was insufficient, and transferred some of the manpower from Great Horn Town to Earth Fort Town, our losses wouldn't have been so great."

Attilan slowly shook his head and said:

"That's not your fault. Great Horn Town now has 30,000 mu of farmland planted with wheat and black beans, 30,000 mu of pasture, and nearly 100,000 mu of mountain land planted with various fruit trees."

"Taking care of these crops requires skilled workers. These newly recruited yak-people, centaurs, and werewolves all need time to learn how to take care of the farmland, orchards, and breeding farms."

"Compared to labor, I think they are better at fighting, right?"

Fisher nodded. He also discovered this problem. Compared to his fishmen, the centaurs learned to work more slowly, and the minotaurs were much worse than the centaurs.

They are still more suitable for physical labor, such as carrying buckets of water up the mountain to irrigate fruit trees. They can only be responsible for carrying, and the irrigation can only be done by fishmen and kobolds.

If you let the minotaurs do it, they will directly irrigate an entire wooden bucket of water to one tree.

It takes a lot of time to observe and learn before the minotaurs can figure out how much water a fruit tree should be watered.

As for more delicate work such as pollination and fruit thinning, forget about the minotaurs.

In fact, in Fisher's mind, Earth Fort Town is still a front line. Compared to developing Earth Fort Town, Fisher values Water Cellar Town more, even though the soil environment of Water Cellar Town is much harsher than that of Earth Fort Town.

But Water Cellar Town has no defense pressure, and there is no need to worry about the grain grown being destroyed by the enemy. When the land in Water Cellar Town grows into a grassland, Fisher will move the rabbit farm in Earth Fort Town to Water Cellar Town.

Integrate a larger fur processing factory, rabbit skin and sheepskin are used to make clothes, and pigskin is used to make leather armor. He has already recruited several dwarf craftsmen who are good at making leather armor with ale.

Attilan would naturally not use such precious grain as wheat to brew wine. Didn't the half-goat people always say that wheat bran was for the minotaurs to eat? Attilan is a harsh monarch.

Later, Attilan really thought of a use for wheat bran: brewing wine!

Compared with brewing wine with whole wheat, the beer brewed with wheat bran has a unique flavor. Of course, this is inseparable from the help of the Wine Woman, and this is how the 500,000 catties of wheat bran harvested in the past few months began to be brewed into beer.

These beers were sent to the Dwarf Kingdom for trading. Attilan no longer needed to exchange grain for the dwarves' iron armor and weapons. These beers allowed all the warriors to have a set of iron armor belonging to them.

One thousand sets of centaur iron armor, one thousand sets of minotaur iron armor, and one thousand sets of fishman iron armor. These three thousand sets of iron armor did not use up the consumption quota exchanged for beer.

After the ale was transported to the dwarven city, the dwarves immediately began to forge new iron armor. One hand held beer, and the other held a hammer. The dwarves began to forge iron in full swing.

There is no need to eat, as long as there is ale, it is enough.

Don't underestimate the dwarves' flushed faces. The quality of the equipment forged by the drunken dwarves is even higher. Of course, the price of high-quality iron armor will naturally increase accordingly.

Attilan originally thought that the dwarves would not be able to supply his huge demand in a short time, but he did not expect that after a large amount of ale poured into the dwarven city, the dwarves' enthusiasm for forging iron immediately increased.

The dwarves may usually forge iron slowly, but after drinking wine, the efficiency of the dwarves' forging iron will at least double, and the first batch of iron armor can be sent this month.

"Has the dwarves' iron armor arrived?"

"The dwarves' original plan was to forge five hundred sets of each race in the first batch after three days and transport them together. Before I left, I asked people to notify the dwarves and let them send the forged iron armor as quickly as possible."

"After Lista leads people to advance westward, they can complete the armament in Great Horn Town and then advance to Earth Fort Town. Compared with the soldiers under my command, the minotaurs under his command need those iron armors more."

Lista likes to lead the army to directly attack the enemy's line. The minotaurs under his command do need iron armor, and rattan armor is not enough to support such high-intensity combat.

Compared to the dwarves' casting skills that have been researched for hundreds of years, Attilan has only studied rattan armor for a year intermittently, and the defense is not enough at all.

The reason why it takes the dwarves so long to forge iron armor is not that the dwarves are not strong enough, but that they need to integrate their dwarven secret magic into the iron armor, so that the originally ordinary iron armor can be more solid.

This is a process of transforming ordinary metal into magical metal.

Even if it is just an ordinary iron armor at the beginning, if it can be continuously maintained and optimized with the dwarves' secret skills, when the adventurer is old and passes the armor to his grandson.

It is more likely to upgrade the original armor with materials and gold coins at a familiar dwarven blacksmith. If it is only ten barrels of ale, it is impossible for the dwarves to painstakingly integrate the power of the earth into the iron block.

It will only allow the buyer to increase the price, and then the dwarves will take out his treasured magic metal to add to the armor.

But the reward given by Attilan was too great: 100,000 catties of high-strength ale!

It can allow all the dwarves in the Dwarf Kingdom to drink their fill and drink their fill at once. In the past, the dwarves only regarded the Atlantis Kingdom as a good partner.

Now it is different. The Dwarf King is already planning to have a meeting with Attilan to discuss how the two kingdoms will carry out in-depth cooperation next.

For the Dwarf King, the easiest way to manage the Dwarf Kingdom is to give them enough ale, so that the dwarves will not cause trouble and stay in the mines to mine and forge iron in the city with peace of mind.

Attilan did say that he could provide 100,000 catties of ale for this transaction, but his brewing workshop can only produce 1,000 catties of ale a day even if it is fully activated.

The main reason is that brewing is a delicate job, and brewing requires a lot of distiller's yeast. Making distiller's yeast is the most time-consuming step in the brewing process.

It wasn't so exaggerated originally, but who made Attilan's consultant the best brewer in the forest? The Wine Woman has quality requirements for the wine that comes out of her hands.

Don't think that dwarves can drink anything as long as it's alcohol. They have standards for the quality of their ale!

What the Dwarf King values isn't just Atilan's ability to steadily produce large quantities of ale, but more importantly, the quality of the ale is very good!

Actually, the production of ale isn't limited to just 1,000 jin, but Atilan is considering the limited amount of wheat bran. He believes it's more important to consistently provide ale to the dwarves.

Every seven days, a team from Great Horn Town transports the ale to Water Cellar Town, where a dwarven team is already waiting to transport the ale back.

Ale can be brewed at a rate of 1,000 jin per day, but dwarven iron armor takes a fixed amount of time to forge, which is why there's a scheduled delivery time.

Besides the 10,000 jin of ale Fisher brought as a deposit on his first business trip, the ale transported every seven days is also a deposit. In a month, only 30,000 jin of ale have been transported.

Normally, armor forging requires half the payment as a deposit.

The dwarves starting work before getting paid is already a favor due to the ale.

Fisher frowned slightly and asked:

"Dragon Lord, I actually think that if we wait another month for the dwarves to finish making the second batch of iron armor, the berries we planted will have matured, although collecting them will be a bit troublesome."

"But after a month, they can be brewed into berry wine. I asked my dwarven friend, and they can actually accept both ale and fruit wine, as long as the taste isn't as soft as elven wine."

"Of course, the purchase price will definitely be lower than ale, but it will definitely be enough to equip the rest of our attacking forces."

Atilan waved his hand and said:

"You also know that dwarves have requirements for the strength of alcohol. Otherwise, our wheat bran could be used to brew millions of jin of ale, instead of just producing 100,000 jin to sell to the dwarves."

The ale that Atilan sells to the dwarves can be said to be a mix of beer and white wine, satisfying the taste of beer and the strength of white wine, which is why it's so popular with the dwarves.

"Now I have 1,500 troops here, 700 minotaurs. Lista can bring 1,000 fishmen and 500 minotaurs. If we attack the gnolls with these forces without iron armor."

"Our losses may be relatively large, which will affect our future development. Dragon Lord, I don't think we can send troops now."

"You once taught me not to rashly lead troops into battle because of anger. Have you forgotten that now? I'm fine here, but after transferring so many troops from the East Riverlands."

"Lista's remaining forces are not enough to defend twice the area of land in the East Riverlands."

Atilan looked at Fisher with a gloomy face, took a deep breath, and then changed back to a smiling face.

"Fisher, you're right. I was impulsive this time. Even if we forcefully send troops now, we won't be able to eliminate the gnolls in one fell swoop. Instead, we'll let some of the gnolls escape."

"Especially the White Wolf King. I have a strong premonition that killing him won't be an easy task. We must have a complete plan."

"Fisher, what do you think?"

Fisher was also very nervous. He also saw Atilan's anger at the burning of Earth Fort Town, but he had to persuade him. This was his duty as a subject.

"The reason I brought these people here is to make the gnolls mistakenly estimate that our retaliatory force is only this much. When we really launch a full-scale attack next time."

"The gnolls, who have already been paralyzed, will naturally be wiped out by us in one fell swoop, just like they paralyzed us before. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye!"

Atilan also nodded. Not to mention that the gnolls don't know how many troops he can mobilize, even Atilan himself doesn't quite know how many troops he can mobilize at once if he doesn't care about local defense.

Rainforest Town is using food to lure tribes in the rainforest to join the kingdom. Recruited fishmen and snakemen are constantly joining, and even some lizardmen are joining, but there is a lack of an excellent town chief to guard it.

Atilan is training Saar to act as the town chief of Rainforest Town, managing the complex racial situation, and promoting the cultivation of various grains and fish farming suitable for wetlands.

For example, selecting suitable seeds for the next season from this season's wheat and black beans. This is the work that the old fishman is doing with Saar in Rainforest Town.

Although Lista travels back and forth between Rainforest Town and the Forward Base, he is not a qualified agricultural officer. He can only prevent the grain fields of Rainforest Town from being destroyed by the races of the rainforest.

Compared to joining Rainforest Town to farm, wild tribes actually want to rob the grain of Rainforest Town more.

Then Lista charged into the rainforest with an axe, drew a semicircle around Rainforest Town, and slaughtered all the tribes that had robbed grain without exception.

This is why people are constantly joining Rainforest Town. Wild rainforest tribes still tend to rely on a tribe with strong military power.

Lista only uses the snakemen, lizardmen, and minotaurs who joined later to farm. Even the fishmen must pass the old fishman's review before they can get the simplest obsidian spear.

Iron weapons must be rewarded after they have made certain achievements, such as leveling an acre of land by themselves and sowing black beans.

Then they can get a second obsidian short spear and a serrated sword.

After they have stayed for a certain period of time, such as when the black beans are ripe, or they have already agreed with the kingdom's concept of farming and eating, they can get iron spears and rattan armor.

Fisher doesn't agree to start the war so quickly because the kingdom has expanded its forces too much in a short period of time. These people have not yet fully identified with the kingdom.

It is impossible to put all the strength into the battle. More is to observe the wind direction, and once the situation is not right, they will immediately run away.

"First, count the military strength of each town, get a complete summary data for me, and then discuss when to send troops."

The work of counting the population is more complicated because the mathematical knowledge of this group of dependents is quite limited. This is also the reason why Atilan does not know the specific population number.

Fisher was able to know how many people he brought, thanks to Atilan's promotion of the ten-by-ten matrix.

When he saw the population data seven days later, the entire Dragon Capital was shocked.

"West Riverlands actually has 2,000 troops, 1,000 minotaurs, 800 kobolds, 500 fishmen, 200 snakemen, and 100 lizardmen?"

"East Riverlands also has 2,000 fishmen, 400 snakemen, 300 lizardmen, and 1,000 minotaurs?"

Atilan frowned and asked:

"Why are there 400 lizardmen, but I don't know anything about it? And why doesn't this report distinguish between combat personnel and the old, weak, women, and children?"