Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest

Roman knew the essence of war.

Since ancient times, the essence of war has been the production and delivery capabilities of strategic resources.

There's no need to elaborate on resource input; the transport power of carts and trains is on a different level, as is mobilization.

However, Roman lacked the means to lay tracks or build steam engines. Even if he could, without five or six years of effort, it would still be impossible; moreover, it would require an enormous investment of time and energy.

Roman was keenly aware that his two cities, with a population of over twenty thousand, were still in the agricultural phase, where most people could only farm and build houses and had not yet laid the foundation for entering the early industrial phase.

His ability to stay ahead of nobles and kings of his time was due to military reform, redesigning his governance system, offering advanced technology, and continuously improving per capita productivity.

In the classical era, the production of arrow shafts and weapons was a long-term process requiring many years of continuous output to stockpile the materials needed for a war. Consumables, including food, could not be produced more quickly once used up.

However, for Roman, higher crop yields per acre and more efficient production processes endowed the valley with strong sustainable combat capabilities.

The River Valley's resource generation capability was incredibly fast; before one batch of arrows was used up, the next batch was already produced.

Yet, transportation capability was too low; no matter how much was produced, if it couldn't be transported out, it was all in vain and couldn't support foreign warfare.

Throughout the history of human development, even in modern society, water transport remains the cheapest and most convenient means of transportation.

With these ships, Roman no longer needed to rely on the dozens of worn-out longships purchased from pirates in the past—those longships were only suitable for business, not military action, and it was normal for them to leak someday.

Nillie had also devoted a tremendous amount of effort to these new ships, growing them in secret.

The situation in the Black Iron Land was turbulent, with various forces caught between pirates and the Church Court, back and forth. Even if Sea Castle was an independent territory, it couldn't stay untouched; there were rumors outside that Nillie had ambiguous relations with the River Valley, drawing the Church Court's hostility, albeit their main force was on the Northern Front and couldn't spare time.

Moreover, Sea Castle was not easily bullied; after all, it was a vast territory, surrounded by the sea on three sides, easy to defend and hard to attack.

Nillie shut her gates, closed the door, and built ships, without favoring anyone, managing to hold on for now.

The reason it was only for now was that Sea Castle's people were eating seafood and fish every day, severely lacking carbohydrates and fats.

There wasn't a single solution to this.

This year's drought was extraordinary; the land was so dry it smoked, with only two insignificant autumn rains, followed by heavy snow in winter, affecting everyone adversely. Even nobles had to tighten their belts as grain couldn't be procured.

Roman, however, had stockpiled a large amount of food and fodder, with ample granaries, but couldn't transport them over, which was no help.

There was no choice but to make Nillie endure a bit more hardship.

Sea Castle wasn't without benefits; Roman promised to activate more of the Sea Castle bloodline, allowing this ancient Secret Power to return to Sea Castle and restore its past glory.

Roman had no objections to this.

After all, as Angel Envoys, cultivating the Deep Sea ones was another option.

As the Heavenly Destiny, Roman could elevate the capabilities of the Angel Envoys from a higher dimension, either by improving panel Attributes, honing combat instincts, or imparting Skill Magic.

Roman's initial intent in learning spells was to master Silver Moon Magic and form the Silver Moon Knights.

In reality, though, even without being Silver Moon Knights, Roman's Angel Envoys could also master magic.

If resources were sufficient, Roman could transform all his Angel Envoys into full plate-armored killing machines, proficient in both close and ranged combat.

Even if resources were insufficient, he could selectively teach certain practical spells to grant Angel Envoys greater mobility and functionality.

This was the foundation of Roman's courage to combat the Deity Knights.

...

Ever since Roman first entered the Ghost Dream, he seemed to have established a mysterious connection with the Netherworld.

During this period, he had repeatedly entered that deep, dark illusionary world.

Roman realized it followed a pattern.

In fact, he was quite busy.

Handling heavy political duties during the day, and then entering [Battlefield Simulation] at night.

The so-called [Battlefield Simulation] was putting him and his Angel Envoys into past battlefields, reliving life-and-death trials repeatedly.

Currently, not all Angel Envoys were battle-hardened soldiers; out of the three to four thousand Angel Envoys in the army, only those who had experienced at least ten major battles could be called battle-hardened—either they were killed and left the battlefield midway or fought through to the end.

The more often they experienced the battlefield in dreams, the more the Angel Envoys grew in the real world.

The benefits of doing this were undeniable.

Veteran soldiers had high combat literacy and were difficult to lose in numbers, which made the entire River Valley troops elite, unmatched on the front battlefield.

This was entirely thanks to the battle experiences Roman led them through in simulations.

They almost did it every night, sometimes treating dungeon runs as sleeping. Even after joyous times with Shasta and Margaret, sometimes he would still run a few dungeons.

But now, the situation was different.

The change might truly have occurred after Roman mastered the [Meditation] spell.

When he genuinely slept, without taking the Angel Envoys into dungeons, he would automatically enter the Ghost Dream state.

Sometimes, the Ghost Dream would give him some hints, like bizarre sights, footsteps in the darkness, or certain deep and terrifying auras…

At other times, it would offer no information, just leaving him in a dead and cold dark world.

Theoretically, the Ghost Dream was a deep dream, accompanied by a strong sense of suffocation for the dreamer, as if sleeping in the damp, cold deep sea, waking up gasping for breath as they surfaced, but Roman felt no discomfort.

Shasta also found this puzzling, attributing it to the uniqueness of Kings.

After all, she felt that His Majesty Iaos wouldn't be on the verge of life and death when having Ghost Dreams.

Over time, Roman gained some basic understanding of the Netherworld.

The Netherworld was a unique dimension; it was said that before the shadow tide submerged the Netherworld, it would coldly project everything in the material world. Scholars and Astrologers could more easily predict the future.

According to Margaret, the real world couldn't interfere with it.

Yet Roman had seen Conquest Knights composed of phantoms and steel, and the shadows of Dragons, vibrant and lively within the Netherworld. The battlefields of the Dragon Clan and gods corresponded exactly to the wars in the real world.

But Margaret also told him that those phantoms originally came from the Netherworld.

Conquest Knights, Court Witches, extraordinary metals—who dared to assert that their transcendent power came from the real world?

Shasta immediately pointed out that before her Thunder teacher passed away, he dared claim a witch's power came from within.

This sharp and incisive remark hit Margaret's point. She remained silent for a long time, and the topic was left unresolved.

However, Roman found Margaret's theory worth pondering.