King
Chapter 71 - 71 70 Rationing System_1

71: Chapter 70, Rationing System_1 71: Chapter 70, Rationing System_1 A journey of over a hundred miles was strenuously dragged out by Hudson for nearly half a month, finally successfully reaching the entrusted land.

The team grew from over six hundred people at the start to more than three thousand at the end.

The increase of more than two thousand four hundred people was the fruit from this journey.

Sadly, the number of young and robust men was less than desirable.

Even if counting the fourteen or fifteen-year-old boys and men under forty, it still fell short of eight hundred.

Most of the remainder were the elderly, women, and children who were in relatively good health.

Those who were weak either perished in the prior famine or died along the way.

Of course, this definition of “old” adheres to the standards of the Continent of Aslante where people are considered middle-aged in their thirties, and are old in their forties.

To live until eighty or a hundred years old is only possible in noble houses.

The survival conditions for serfs are harsh; for those who can live to the age of sixty, it is akin to the scales of a giant dragon.

Humans are vulnerable in the face of disaster.

Even with Hudson deliberately slowing down their march, many people could not keep up.

To have saved so many people is already an achievement.

If Hudson hadn’t intervened, by the time the new Lord arrived, probably fewer than half of these people would have survived.

Settling down is very simple.

By allocating land, the serfs will build their houses by themselves.

Everyone is very proactive about such trivial matters, there’s no need for Master Hudson to worry.

After a quick survey, Hudson planned five settlements around the mine.

These were essentially at the original locations.

Distributing the refugees signified the completion of the grand task.

The cost was a reduction of forty carts.

Even with intentional restrictions, the consumption was enormous.

If allowance was given for eating freely, the consumption would likely be even greater.

No doubt, people would need to be sent back to Dardiel City to transport grain.

Otherwise, the small amount of food currently at hand would only be enough to last for twenty days at most.

Feeding over three thousand mouths, even with the best economy, would require a minimum of two to three thousand pounds of food each day.

With no need for the strenuous journey and with no heavy work, the ordinary serfs need only eat enough to feel satisfied.

If food is not enough, gather wild vegetables, tree leaves, and root plants to make up.

However, the soldiers can not be starved.

Hudson doesn’t want the much-needed older soldiers to go to waste again because of malnutrition.

Moreover, the heroes definitely deserve preferential treatment, right?

Although there’s no money for military pays, if the food is not enough to satisfy, who would risk their lives for Master Hudson?

Even if a lot of grain was accumulated during the war, the feeding of so many mouths still put pressure on Hudson.

After some easy calculations, Hudson realized that with the current food supply and consumption, it would only last for two to three months at most.

On top of that, most of that grain is still in storage in Dardiel city, with a noble knight from a hired clan watching it.

Transporting it is troublesome.

Given the limited number of carts, it would take at least two trips.

Although the war was over, there were still plenty of bandits.

For safety reasons, sending out an army squad to escort the grain is a necessity.

“Send out an order, from now on, the territory will implement a food rationing system, strict standards must be followed every day.

Gill, you are in charge of daily food disbursement, and I will inspect at random.

The specific standards are as follows.

Soldier: wild vegetables and rye bread one and a half pounds/daily, oats and other grains one pound/daily, salt 0.5 pounds/month, meat two pounds/month, random vegetables or dried vegetables soup.

(Note: 1 pound is about 1 lb, the food will swell when cooked, not equal to the original grain)

Officers, based on rank, get an increase of fifteen percent for each level, with no wild vegetables in the bread.

Youths 16 and up: inferior rye bread 0.8 pounds/daily, mixed grain of oats and beans 0.5 pounds/daily, salt 0.3 pounds/month, meat I 0.5 pounds/month, soup of vegetables as needed.

Healthy women, boys over ten, middle-aged men are all issued at the standard of eighty percent of youth; the remaining elderly, infirm, women, and children are issued at seventy percent of youth standards.

The army’s food is distributed to a 100-strong team for unified cooking, the serf’s rations are issued to families.

Thirty soldiers are stationed at each gathering point to maintain order.

Violators of the order will be demoted to slaves.”

So Hudson said solemnly.

The standard could not be lower.

In this era of scarcity of food, everyone eats a lot and gets hungry quickly.

Hudson deeply researched before setting these standards.

Even with rye bread, there are tiers.

The best is naturally Wholemeal rye bread; next is rye bread with wild vegetables, usually with one to three tenths of wild vegetables, the taste is acceptable.

Then comes rye bread with wild vegetables and tree leaves, generally with three to five tenths of such additions.

Unscrupulous individuals even add sawdust, tree bark, and sand to it.

It’s commonly known as inferior bread, the principle is as long as it doesn’t harm one’s health.

You can use it as a weapon in your hand, or it can hurt your foot if dropped on it.

Of course, Hudson is not that heartless, to add sawdust, tree bark, sand, and such.

However, wild vegetables and tree leaves are indispensable.

This was forced upon them by the scarcity of grain.

Only by implementing such a low standard can the current grain supply last for three months.

In fact, this is only theoretical.

The reason it can now implement a low standard is that the serfs are not engaged in high-intensity labor and their energy consumption is not significant.

Once production is resumed, consumption of food will increase drastically.

Miners definitely need to be well fed for work.

The women and children who plough the fields can also not be starved.

“Yes, sir!”

Gill answered calmly.

No one opposes the plan, as they are all devoted followers of Master Hudson, obedience is the key.

As long as they are not starved, it doesn’t matter what the standards are.

Baron Redman had promised to bring their families over, but that would only happen next year.

He wouldn’t bring people over beforehand without securing and setting up the infrastructure in the territory.

That would only add to the chaos.

Pausing, Hudson remembered his livestock.

He had sacrificed many in Dardiel City for rewarding the meritorious and hosting banquets, but he still had plenty left.

The warhorses were expensive.

Apart from the eight he kept for personal use, Hudson traded off the rest.

Among them a knight from his clan who helped look after the food and fodder in Dardiel City, he was hired by Hudson at the high price of a warhorse.

On the way to his territory, three sheep were injured.

Regretfully, Hudson had to put them out of their misery.

Now, the captured livestock amounted to twenty-eight cattle, a hundred and sixty-seven sheep, and a hundred and eighty-seven nags.

The nags managed to escape slaughter primarily because of their dry, unpalatable meat.

Now that the meaty feast is over, the slaughtering had to be halted.

Majority of the remaining sheep and cattle were female and needed to be kept for breeding.

Indeed, the credit for being able to save so many cattle and sheep actually goes to Little Bear.

With the idea of cutting back on meat but not on milk, Little Bear successfully saved his milk source from Hudson’s slaughter.

Voluntarily lowering the standard of taste was not Hudson’s breach of promise.

After that, Little Bear’s diet standard dropped from a sheep and thirty pounds of beef every day to the same amount of meat as Hudson and filling his belly with coarse grain.

Luckily, the Earth Bear is an omnivorous magical beast.

It was able to live well even on bamboo and leaves, not to mention coarse grains.

If he kept a gargantuan dragon with a bigger appetite, it might very well eat Hudson out of house and home.

“Tom, you are responsible for organizing the young and strong to build animal sheds.

The task must be completed before the rainy season arrives.

Allow the serfs with livestock breeding experience to volunteer.

If they take good care of the livestock, their food ration will be increased to eighty percent of that of a soldier.”

Livestock are more valuable than humans, this is not a joke.

No need to mention warhorses, their prices are always high.

Cattle, as the next best thing to magical beast meat at banquets, also weren’t cheap.

Depending on the breed and weight, they basically ranged from three to seven gold coins.

This was because in the Alpha Kingdom, people preferred to use horses for farming rather than cows.

Otherwise, the price of cattle would further increase.

A healthy adult male in the slave market could be bought for about five to six gold coins, still not as much as a prime beef.

The prices for children were only about one-third of that for adult males.

The elderly and weak were even cheaper, often left unchecked.

Females were oddly priced, mostly depending on their looks and talents.

The plain ones went for two or three gold coins, but the rare beauties at auctions could fetch thousands of gold coins.

Of course, there were exceptions for those with special status.

For example, elf girls usually started at four figures, often reaching five figures, sometimes even higher.

Special races among the Orcs could also fetch high prices, although nothing as exaggerated as the elves.

The main reason was the rarer the commodity, the more valuable it is.

Elves are not easy to deal with and live in the Elf Forest.

Slave traders would risk losing their lives trying to capture them.

Compared to the elves, Orcs were much easier to capture.

Earl Piers even had a group of Orc fox and cat girl dancers.

Harm was mutual.

Orcs often raided the Northern Border, and human slave hunters frequently ventured into Orc territories to capture high priced special races as slaves.

Being a major mine owner, Hudson was destined to deal with slaves.

Especially in a labor shortage, slaves were the main force in mining.

It was evident from the fact that Hudson had not disbanded his army.

He was determined to become an unscrupulous mine owner.

“Master, directly handing over the livestock to them could lead to accidents and huge losses.

Why don’t we have the soldiers responsible for looking after the livestock supervise them for now.

If they do a good job, we can fully hand over the responsibility to them later.”

Tom suggested nervously.

In the continent of Aslante, the gap between nobles and serfs was almost insurmountable.

According to the customs, it was always the nobles who gave orders and the serfs who executed them.

Serfs never had the opportunity to oppose.

If Hudson hadn’t frequently encouraged them to express their opinions, assuring no punishment for wrong ones, Tom wouldn’t dare to make a suggestion.

“Hm!”

“We should indeed be cautious.

Let’s do as you suggested.”

Hudson replied with a smile.

It’s rare to have a subordinate willing to think.

The suggestion was also reasonable, so naturally, it needed encouragement.

Despite having a certain foundation, when playing the game of creating new things, he encountered so many difficulties.

If he was starting from scratch, Hudson suspected he might have collapsed halfway out of the Novice Village.

…

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