Warlord: King of All Clans

After the autumn harvest, the ground in the north began to be covered with a thin layer of frost, and the ground became harder and harder.

In previous years, wealthy families with livestock or the manors of knight lords could still cultivate the land using horse-drawn heavy plows and plant some cold-resistant crops during the cold winter.

But those poor peasants who only had a small shovel or even no iron tools could only compete for land with large wild beasts coming down the mountain to find food before winter, just to dig some wild roots or search for food such as pine nuts, acorns, and chestnuts.

Things are very different now. The cheap iron farm tools from Hewan are sold in boatloads. Three bags of wheat can be exchanged for a plowshare, and two bags of wheat can be exchanged for an iron hoe.

These iron tools were incredibly cheap, and many small lords would even purchase farm tools from the river bend and then melt them into swords in their own small blacksmith shops.

But they soon discovered that it was more cost-effective to purchase high-quality swords directly from Hewan.

In addition to the hematite in the Gnoll Valley, the Gnoll sniffers running around the mountains and fields have found two more iron mines suitable for mining.

In fact, they discovered more iron ore veins, but with the productivity of that era, the veins that were less than 50 meters below the surface basically lost their mining value.

There are many abandoned iron mines at the foot of the Grand Barrier Mountains and in the Buck Mountains. All of them were abandoned after the surface veins were mined out.

In fact, the iron ore they dug away was just the tip of the iceberg of the entire vein.

Whether it is a newly discovered mineral vein or an abandoned mine, it has been revitalized with the cooperation of River Bay Mining and the Kobold miners.

Cartloads of high-quality ore were sent to Hewan, then turned into various ironware and exported abroad.

Cheap iron tools and the large influx of cattle and horses from the west and north made agriculture along the Anzeno River more prosperous. Farmers in many places were reclaiming wasteland despite the cold wind.

In the western part of the Tarhan tribe adjacent to the river bend, the climate is relatively warm.

The great barrier to the north blocks out the north wind, and the cold wind blowing from the north cannot cross the Borok Mountains.

The defenders of Buck Fortress have already changed into autumn clothes, and only the werewolf warriors serving on the city walls are still wearing only a special chain mail.

The population here gradually grew. In addition to the residential area inside Buck Fort, a large number of people gathered on both sides of the fort.

Today, thousands of people gathered in the North Range outside Buck's Fort, staring at the steep rock walls ahead.

After waiting for more than an hour, the stone wall suddenly collapsed, revealing a huge tunnel, and Freya's marmot head crawled out from it.

At this time, Freya turned into an earth bear again. Her body was stronger than a steam locomotive. Her front paws were one meter long. Her sharp claws could easily scratch the stone wall and scrape off the solid rock like snow cakes.

When they saw her appear, everyone cheered, and the kobold pyrotechnicians next to them quickly lit the firework tubes in front of them.

The Buck Tunnel, which took a month to build, was successfully completed!

The tunnel survey and design team consists of sixteen members.

There were 300 laborers and 40 horse-drawn carriages to transport the gravel in the tunnel.

Tunnel digging crew one!

It took Freya a month to dig through the mountain north of Buck Fortress and dug a three-kilometer-long tunnel, successfully connecting the two places.

The tunnel is spacious enough to accommodate two parallel tracks, and its height is tailored to the needs of the River Bend steam locomotive.

Because she was worried about the collapse of the tunnel, Freya rebuilt the excavation technology in the atrium before starting the work. After the work started, she did not dig randomly like before, but refined it piece by piece.

This is a big business undertaken by the Earldom of Riverbend this year. Faced with the growing demand for fuel stone in the Riverbend industry, the Talhan family is finally willing to spend a large sum of money to hire Riverbend's engineering team to build a 100-kilometer-long track from Buck Fortress directly to the fuel stone mine controlled by the family.

The Talhan tribe's burning rock mine is actually an open-pit coal mine in the grassland. Now, with the help of Hewan Mining, the mining volume has increased tenfold, but the backward transportation has severely restricted the trade between the two regions.

The road from the coal mine to Fort Buck was almost a quagmire due to the trampling of thousands of coal carts, and traffic would be blocked once it rained.

Although there is little rain in the northern part of the Western Territory all year round, if it rains for one or two days, the fuel stone in the river bend will be in short supply for half a month.

Rio said that Hewan Road Administration was willing to give a 50% discount and build a track for the Tarhan tribe. If the Tarhan tribe had no money to pay, they could use the shares of the Yanshi mine as collateral.

The Tarhan tribe, which had swallowed up the Yuezhong tribe, was now wealthy and powerful, but it also needed more support from the Hewan armor and ammunition, so it simply agreed to the deal.

Buck Fortress is located on the mountain pass, hundreds of meters higher than the other two places, and the terrain is quite steep.

The Baiyi Track and the Westland Track are difficult to connect, so Freya proposed digging a tunnel from the side to bypass Buck Fortress.

A freight station will be set up at the exit of the tunnel, specifically for receiving coal from the west.

In fact, coal mines have also been discovered in the territory of the Earldom of River Bay, but unfortunately they are either located in deep mountains or of poor quality, far inferior to the open-pit coal mines of the Tarhan tribe.

After digging through the mountain, Freya also had to participate in the construction of ditches in the tunnel. The mortal craftsmen wanted to dig two drainage ditches along both sides of the tunnel, which would take at least two to three years to complete.

But this did not stop her from going to Leo to take credit, "Where's Leo?"

Agata was also among the crowd. She took advantage of her vacation to come to Buck Fortress to see her husband, Knight Solovy.

By the beginning of next spring, Knight Solovy will end his post as the commander of the Buck Fortress garrison. Then the couple will no longer have to be separated by the entire River Bay Territory.

Stroking the giant marmot, Agata explained, "Leo went to the West."

Freya's face immediately wrinkled, and she was about to throw a tantrum, "Woo woo woo! He didn't even wait for me!"

Agata quickly grabbed her neck hair. She was bigger than an elephant, and if she started to throw a tantrum, everyone around her would be in trouble.

"But he left his share of egg tarts for you too!"

Upon hearing this, Freya immediately felt that Leo was still a good friend, so she happily shrank her body, put Agatha on her back, and was ready to carry her to eat delicious food.

Because of the major project of the Western Border Track, Leo led a team to the Western Border for a field investigation for the first time.

Buck's Fortress had been in his hands for more than two years, and this was his first time setting foot in the West.

On the vast grassland, four Pegasus flew through the air. Weir felt that the air here was not too cold, so she took off her hood and looked down.

At their feet was a convoy of hundreds of people, and riding in the front was Leo, Count of River Bay.