plumnovel #181 - Ground state peat
#181 - Ground state peat
After visiting the polder and fishery, Queen Gadaki warmly invited Horn to stay for dinner.
Seeing Queen Gadaki's enthusiasm, Horn felt it would be impolite to refuse, so he stayed and had a simple meal, tasting the local specialty, fish porridge.
However, this kind of scalding hot boiled food is mostly only available to the Queen's family and some female warriors.
When sitting in the Queen's thatched palace and looking out, Horn didn't see much smoke from cooking fires.
In the shimmering white light of the lake, two rows of thatched huts and mud houses were nestled on the marsh island, and from time to time curious beastmen children would come out of the houses, curiously peering towards Horn.
Most of them eat raw fish and rice cakes directly, both adults and children alike.
But after a moment's thought, Horn understood.
Similar to their seasonal agricultural and hunting activities, the relatively humid swamp probably only has reeds and similar plants that can be used as fuel.
To survive the cold winter, they have to save some reeds and firewood for the winter.
You know, although the swamp has dense vegetation, that doesn't mean all plants can be used as fuel.
Many plants contain too much moisture and cannot be used as fuel, and are difficult to extract.
As for the trees on the nearby mountains, they can be used, but the problem is that transportation is difficult, and they may be attacked by giant spiders or monsters if they are not careful.
After confirming with the Queen next to him, Horn's thoughts were basically confirmed, and he learned another important piece of information.
That is, the reason why those brine wells failed to produce enough salt was not because of insufficient brine production, but because of insufficient fuel.
Due to the humid air, most of the time, they can only use the boiling salt method to produce crude salt, resulting in insufficient fuel.
Without fuel, the pottery workshop project may not even be launched.
After taking a batch of medicinal herbs and fresh fish from the Gadaki Kingdom, Horn hurriedly returned to the camp.
After handing the fresh fish to Madland and asking him to prepare dinner, Horn immediately summoned the high-level members present and began to inform them of the information he had just learned.
The aroma of fish porridge wafted through the camp, enveloping the cold wind, and blowing on people, it was surprisingly warm and intoxicating.
But the high-level members who arrived did not feel relaxed at all, but instead frowned.
Thomas, who had just arrived, asked Horn: "Your Majesty, in fact, I have seen that if potato roots are planted in the nearby mountains, it will be no problem to get through a winter, and there should be no food shortage."
"It's enough for most ordinary people," Horn explained to Thomas, "but it's not enough for the military system."
Before the invention of clockwork rifles in the quasi-modern era, it is foreseeable that for a long time, they will have to use heavy clockwork rifles to fight against the knights.
Horn had investigated and talked with Jeschka, Hakuto, and some mercenary prisoners about this point before.
So far, the infantry phalanx that can contend with the knight charge is the Dunjar Phalanx.
The reason why the Dunjar Phalanx can resist and even to some extent fight against knights is because the ordinary infantry on the outer layer of the spear phalanx is replaced by plate-armored mercenaries holding heavy iron spears.
Most of these mercenaries have three or four stages of breathing technique strength, except that they have no horses and do not know extraordinary martial arts. With the blessing of the monks, they are almost like small knights.
When they put on plate armor, pick up super-long spears, and cooperate with wagon fort tactics and heavy archers, they often beat the knights of the Leia Kingdom until they have no temper.
In the Windmill Land War, the Dunjar Phalanx forced the knights to abandon their original reckless charging methods and re-picked up the cavalry phalanx that had been abandoned for a long time.
The Dunjar Marshal was able to create this phalanx, in addition to his own wisdom, but also inseparable from the economic development after the Hundred Years' War.
After the war, with the establishment of the Flesh Throne, Nuoen, and the three overseas markets, cities began to spring up like mushrooms after a rain.
A large number of services, commodities, and handicrafts entered the daily life of the lords, and cheap grains, minerals, and spices from the three major markets entered the empire.
The nobles gradually changed their previous pessimistic attitude towards material life and abandoned the practice of entrusting happiness to the afterlife.
For this reason, the lords after the war gave up the increasingly heavy financial burden (including the maintenance of the infantry system) to meet the growing material needs.
This gave birth to a semi-professional mercenary system, and a large number of bankrupt armed farmers and even knights along the coast entered the mercenary system.
Through war, an expensive luxury service, mercenaries received high incomes and reinvested them in their own reinvestment and development.
As a result, outside the old military system, heavy-armored infantry with certain extraordinary powers, such as foot knights and even imperial servants, gradually appeared in the mercenary system.
If Horn's clockwork rifle wants to exert its maximum power, then he must have extraordinary infantry that can resist the front line, not asking for much, at least one or two stages are always needed.
"So, if our phalanx wants to resist the impact of the knights, we must make our spearmen and even holy gunners have a certain number of stages of breathing techniques.
We have no extraordinary martial arts, no blessings, and it is difficult to have potions and sophisticated extraordinary armor. At least at the level of breathing techniques, we still have a chance."
Analyze specific problems specifically. Before the clockwork rifle is improved to the point where it can defeat the knights before they rush into the army, Horn still has to rely on the old extraordinary system.
Or, from a certain level, as long as everyone is extraordinary, then everyone is not extraordinary, which to a certain extent disintegrates the extraordinary hegemony constructed by the empire and the church.
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Horn said to the people around him: "If soldiers want to practice breathing techniques, one egg a day, or even two to three ounces of meat, is essential, and it is best to match it with potions."
"I'll add one more point," Jeschka continued after getting Horn's nod, "In the process of training soldiers, especially extraordinary infantry, the consumption of salt is far beyond your imagination."
"Or we can help them cut down trees?"
"We didn't bring many axes at all." Speaking of this problem, Horn also had a headache. For a team of 25,000 people, he tried his best to bring supplies to ensure survival and military supplies.
He didn't carry too many tools like axes.
"Anyway, we have iron ingots, and many of the laborers have good blacksmithing skills. Just make them on site."
"Tell you a piece of bad news," Horn spread his hands, "There is no main material for softening potions here. Softening potions are used one less at a time. If you want to make axes, you can only rely on Jeanne to forge them.
We can include helping them cut down trees in the final approach, but that can only be a last resort."
Looking around at the Savior Army high-level members by the fire, Horn scratched his head and suddenly turned his gaze to Pasrik, it was obvious that he was the only one who looked calm and composed.
"Pasrik, do you have any ideas?"
"Who is Pasrik? I am Chrispa." Although everyone already knew that Pasrik was the high priest of the Roanne Party, Pasrik still gritted his teeth and refused to let go.
"Chrispa, do you have any ideas?"
Seeing that Horn complied with his statement, Pasrik coughed lightly: "In fact, the Blackbone Swamp is distributed with an extremely rich fuel reserve, but you just didn't find it."
"What?"
"In alchemy, there is a special alchemical product called base peat, which can be used as the base for many alchemical products. This peat is extracted from swamp soil.
However, this peat is almost the same as charcoal under normal circumstances. Extracting this thing also wastes the limited mana of the alchemists.
So under normal circumstances, unless this peat is needed as an alchemy base, alchemists would rather buy firewood and charcoal than painstakingly extract peat."
Pasrik pointed to the holy gunners holding clockwork rifles: "But they are different. Their mana is abundant, the speed of restoring mana is very fast, and there are many of them. There is no problem of waste and efficiency at all."
"You mean...a peat alchemy workshop?"