The Natural Empire of the Oceanic Dragon

Last time, the grain that Atilan forced to ripen included a thousand mu of wheat, which yielded 300,000 jin of wheat flour after harvesting, and a thousand mu of black beans, which yielded 150,000 jin of black beans after harvesting.

Of course, these grains still contain moisture, and the weight of the grain will definitely decrease after drying.

Atilan's control over the life energy field is not yet sufficient, otherwise, even if he forces the grain to ripen, he can actually double the grain yield.

The wheat yield per mu in the wasteland farmland should be less than two hundred, and the black bean yield per mu is just over one hundred. He used the residual life energy in his body after the breakthrough to force ripening, which slightly increased the yield, about 20% for wheat and 40% for black beans.

Now there are a total of 20,000 mu of farmland, 10,000 mu planted with black beans, and the 10,000 mu of pasture only needs to have its root system preserved for composting, and they can continue to grow. They can be harvested three or four times a year, with a yield of up to three or four thousand jin.

By the way, he also forced 2,000 mu of pasture to ripen, with a yield of 800 jin per mu, making a total of 1.6 million jin of pasture. Combined with 450,000 jin of grain, it is completely enough to eat.

There are still 6,000 mu of black beans planted earlier, and the maturity period is this month, which is another 700,000 to 800,000 jin of black beans, just in time for training troops.

Moreover, sand rabbits, after being raised by the gnolls, have become a scourge in the wasteland, because a team of gnolls neglected their duties and allowed hundreds of pregnant sand rabbits to escape from a breeding point.

These fools also concealed the news, because at that time, the scale of sand rabbit breeding had expanded to more than a dozen points, each breeding point having hundreds or thousands of sand rabbits.

A sand rabbit only needs to be raised for three months before it can be eaten, because the first three months of a rabbit's life are a period of rapid growth. Although a sand rabbit can only grow to be a little over three jin in three months, it is enough.

Now, it can stably provide Atilan with more than a thousand sand rabbits a month, which adds up to 3,000 jin of meat. Although it is not much, mixing it into the communal stew can still allow the dependents to eat a little bit of meat.

Sand sheep are not so fast, it takes about eight months to better prepare them for slaughter.

In addition to the sand rabbits in Earth Fort Town, the fastest-growing farm animal is the chicken.

The eggs laid by the wild chickens captured at the beginning, and the hatched chicks have now begun to lay eggs. The stable supply of chicken now can reach four to five thousand jin a month.

Those five hundred mu of carrots are also about to mature. After they mature, continue to expand the planting scale and make carrots a staple food as well.

This batch of grain will be used to train elite warriors and exchange for iron armor and weapons with the dwarves. The grain six months later will be used as military rations. At that time, Atilan can lead a large army to the south.

A mere few thousand jackalweirds, even if he only has two hundred minotaurs, two hundred centaurs, but friends who often lead troops know how big the difference is between armored soldiers and unarmored soldiers.

One against ten is really not an exaggeration.

One hundred sets of minotaur iron armor, one hundred sets of centaur iron armor, and other soldiers can only be equipped with rattan armor and rattan shields. There is really not so much grain to buy equipment from the dwarves.

You can always trust the quality of dwarven iron equipment, but the price always makes people's hearts ache.

The northwest corner of the wasteland borders the mountains where the dwarves live. The jackalweirds mostly invaded the halfling towns from the remaining veins of these mountains. Atilan plans to establish a small town at the foot of the mountains.

Using the nearly 5,000 mu of wasteland that has not yet been reclaimed nearby to grow grain, and about 1,000 mu of mountain land that can be reclaimed to grow vegetables, and exchange them for weapons with the dwarves.

The biggest problem in this place is not the barren land, but the lack of water.

It's too dry, and Atilan's water element crystal is intended to be used here!

He has already inquired about the nearby terrain in advance, and asked the gnolls to dig open the mountain to prepare an underground reservoir, because the reservoir has a certain drop in altitude compared to the wasteland in the mountains.

It is only necessary to open the sluice gate to release water when irrigation of farmland is needed, and it can flow into the ditches through the karez wells excavated by the gnolls.

The gnolls must continue to excavate similar water storage cellars. Although there are no rivers here, there is still a small amount of rainfall, but the rainfall will evaporate quickly.

Therefore, underground water cellars need to be excavated to prevent direct sunlight from evaporating the water vapor.

The arid environment means that the grain yield here will not be too high.

But it is not that there is no way to solve it, it's just that the amount of work will not be small.

Relying on only six hundred gnolls cannot do it, it may take sixty thousand gnolls!

According to Atilan's understanding, the area controlled by the dwarves is actually only the production area of various ores.

The dwarves have not included areas like the snow-capped mountains further west into their sphere of influence.

But every year, snow water melting from the snow-capped mountains flows eastward, bringing infinite vitality to this continent. A tributary of the snow-capped mountains flows through the halfling town, making the land of the three halfling towns fertile.

In fact, there is a large tributary of the snow-capped mountains. The melted snow water does not flow eastward, but flows directly into the sea to the west. This is really a waste!

If half of the water flow from these tributaries that enter the sea to the west could be diverted to the southwestern desert, then this area would be immersed in floods every year.

The Flame Maniacs, who were originally quietly fighting underground, would also come to the surface.

Atilan also needs to trick the druids into planting trees along this line in advance to avoid miscalculations and prevent the water flow from overflowing from the aqueducts, so as not to impact too much of the desert area.

After putting the water element into the water cellar, Atilan asked the gnolls to start leveling the soil along the karez well. Grain cannot be planted directly here yet. The soil is considered saline-alkali land and needs to be treated with alfalfa.

Then plant black beans, and I believe the yield here will be even more touching.

Then Atilan came to Great Horn Town to find Lista to inquire about the situation of the minotaurs and centaurs.

"Do you think that the experience of farming for the past six months has reduced the combat effectiveness of the minotaurs and centaurs?"

Lista shook his head. It wasn't a decrease, but he couldn't tell.

"I feel that it should have increased slightly. Although I have been continuously promoting everyone to eat grass, it may have made everyone more gentle, and we have been farming for half a year, and the battles we have experienced have indeed been less."

"Even if I organize everyone to practice combat skills from time to time, I feel that everyone is still rusty, but! There is a very important factor: everyone has been eating too well in the past six months."

"Their bodies have become a lot stronger. If they were to fight themselves six months ago, they should be able to win!"

It's good that the combat effectiveness hasn't decreased.

"After the black beans are harvested, summon all the minotaurs and centaurs for training. I need to select fifty elites from each group and let them wear the iron armor I purchased from the dwarves to fight!"

"What are the current numbers of minotaurs and centaurs?"

"Three hundred minotaurs, five hundred centaurs? About that many. Dragon Lord, you also know that our counting ability is not strong, and we don't know the exact number."

"Anyway, according to your method, ten people in a row, a total of ten rows, there are more than three minotaurs, and five centaurs, it should be that many."

Because the minotaurs can only count to ten, Atilan asked him to count the square formations. One square formation is one hundred people, ten square formations are one thousand people, and ten rows of square formations are ten thousand people.

Square formation training is actually not too difficult. The minotaurs only need to prepare nineteen people horizontally and vertically first, and then let other people stand facing these nineteen people to get a square formation.

This is a kind of obedience training, which can slightly cultivate a little discipline in the chaotic minotaurs and centaurs, making them more strategic in war.

The thing that Atilan was most exposed to was military training, and of course he had to start training the minotaurs and centaurs from simple military training.

Why doesn't he try more complicated training methods?

With such excellent soldiers as the minotaurs and centaurs, as long as they are trained in the ways recorded in military books such as the Jixiao Xinshu, they would be first-class elite soldiers in the world.

In theory, this is indeed the case, but reality is often very harsh.

It took half a year just to arrange the square formations. It seems that these minotaurs have finally learned to look forward and look left and right, and can form a good square formation.

Otherwise, Lista would not have been able to get such accurate numbers.

However, what made Atilan very puzzled was, how did the minotaurs gain a hundred more, and the centaurs even gained three hundred more?

"Where did so many minotaurs and centaurs come from?"

"They all came from the desert. Dragon Lord, didn't you send centaurs to the wasteland and desert to capture sand sheep and sand rabbits? They ran into tribes they knew before, and told their former friends about the abundance of food here."

"Although they all said, 'I only told you one person, you must not tell anyone else,' the number of tribes who knew about it became more and more. Hearing that Dragon Lord, you are recruiting warriors."

"They all came to join you."

Atilan asked curiously:

"I remember that most of the grain stored in Great Horn Town is pasture. Can they accept it?"

"Why not? They eat scorpions and lizards in the desert, or cacti, which prick their mouths. Alfalfa and other pastures are much better to eat."

"Why didn't you report it to me earlier? Suddenly recruiting so many minotaurs and centaurs puts pressure on our food supply again."

"Forget it, we need high-quality soldiers now. With these extra people, we will be more confident in attacking the jackalweird kingdom."

After Atilan's check, he was surprised to find that the number of minotaurs and centaurs who came to join him was even more than Lista said.

There are now 350 minotaurs, and more than 700 centaurs. It's not just five, it is estimated that Lista forgot to count the two hundred centaurs who were always grazing outside.

Because there have always been two hundred people grazing sand sheep outside, he thought there were only these five hundred centaurs who were reclaiming farmland.

Sure enough, the centaurs are like the wind, and the speed of information transmission is fast.

It is certainly not possible for so many centaurs to all serve as horse archers. The number of lancer cavalry must be the mainstream. At that time, they will charge into the jackalweird army formation together with the minotaurs.

The current premise is that the jackalweirds must have an army formation.

The minotaurs and centaurs under his command have been training for half a year, and they still can't form a complete army formation when stationary, let alone the chaotic jackalweirds.

Having more people is a good thing, but we have to worry about food again.