Chapter 222: Food and Morale

‘It seems the biggest crisis has passed,’ George thought to himself as he sank into his soft mattress. ‘But I wonder what those guys will try to do next.’

The situation in the territory, which had already started to improve, finally fully shed its old burdens after a period of continued hard work. Although the scars of the past still remained, the power of time would eventually smooth everything out.

People always bury painful and sad memories deep inside their hearts, layer by layer, to avoid thinking about them often. Then, they face the new future with optimism and smiles.

Of course, the main reason was the increasing number of caravans and the rising trade. A huge amount of wealth flowed through Bolerum Territory, creating new wealth as it entered and left. In other words, because of the rapid growth of transit trade, the tertiary industry in the territory was expanding like a balloon connected to a tap. At the same time, the proportion of the population involved in this industry was growing day by day.

But George couldn’t help but think of what Qin Keqing said to Wang Xifeng in a dream when she died in Chapter 13 of Dream of the Red Chamber: “If you think prosperity will never end and do not plan for the future, it is not a long-term strategy. Soon, something very exciting will happen, like fire adding oil to a blazing fire or flowers on brocade. But remember, this is just a moment of prosperity and a short time of joy. Never forget the old saying that ‘a grand feast must end.’ If you do not plan ahead now, you will only regret it when the time comes.”

The tertiary industry cannot truly create wealth; it is just a redistributor, an amplifier, and an optimizer of wealth. Like a lubricant, it smooths the operation of the entire economic machine. On one hand, it makes wealth creation better and greatly stimulates and leads the speed of economic action. But in the end, it is built on top of the primary and secondary industries, just like a castle on the sand that cannot withstand the waves.

‘Do not look at the current prosperity. Wait until the war starts. No, we do not even need to start the war yet. Just during the tense period before the battle, many trade routes will be affected. If the number of caravans passing through our Bolerum Territory can be half of what it is now, I will be smiling in my sleep. At that time, it will be a wartime system. We can ignore things like tax drops. But what about the large number of unemployed people? We cannot put everyone into the army! Even a production and construction brigade needs projects!’ When this major worry felt like a mountain pressing down on him, various bad scenarios kept popping into George’s mind.

The Kingdom of Lucia and the cult organization allied with them were like a sharp sword hanging over George and his men. As long as this sword remained sheathed, George, as the Acting Lord, had to stay extremely alert and handle everything carefully. At the same time, with the strength of Bolerum Territory, they could not launch an effective counterattack against the Kingdom of Lucia.

This situation, where they could only take hits without being able to fight back effectively, made the Knights in the territory very angry. Unfortunately, George and his team had no intelligence network inside the Kingdom of Lucia. Even if they wanted to retaliate, it was like a fox trying to catch a hedgehog—there was no way to start.

Causing trouble is also a technical job! You need to know what high-value targets the enemy has at a specific location. At the same time, you must plan the entire process of infiltration, attack, and retreat. After all, George’s team was not some “Kamikaze Special Forces” team that specialized in doing losing deals where they would never return.

As for the Val Knights, although they had the ability to cause chaos in the enemy’s capital, according to the existing written rules on the Continent, this was absolutely crossing the line. Even after the war started, this “human nuclear bomb” was not allowed to attack enemy personnel below the Black Lead Rank when attacking the enemy’s homeland. Of course, if they were defending, there were not such big restrictions. If they attacked a fortress guarded by a Legend Knight, they could only blame their bad luck.

There was another reason: the enemy used methods similar to hiring killers. This gave them room to deny responsibility. Unfortunately, Bolerum Territory had no such support. If they fought bare-handed, they might fall into an unfavorable position in public opinion. This was clearly a losing deal, and George was unwilling to do it.

‘You need to be strong yourself if you want to forge iron!’ George thought. ‘If our territory’s network of connections were stronger, maybe we could find other ways. The key problem is still intelligence. Just like this time, the warning about the upcoming attack came from those Adventurers! And even the process of them getting that information was an accident. If we had not been so lucky, the damage to our territory this time would have been much worse than now.’ Thinking this, George finally made up his mind: ‘Since I have a free hand now, it looks like I should speed up the cooperation with the Temple of the Lord of Justice. Maybe we can get some intelligence from there.’

Before, George had been making preparations for a comprehensive defense, so the cooperation with the Temple of the Lord of Justice had been progressing slowly. In the days before the attack, when the Adventurer Group warned him, George had already felt the lack of intelligence. However, busy dealing with the possible attack, he had no time or manpower to arrange the next steps.

After fighting off the attack, they had to face heavy and complex reconstruction work. This made the progress of cooperation much slower than the original plan. But to ensure the safety of the territory, George did not care about other things for now. The key was to build the framework first and then let the Temple of the Lord of Justice upgrade its church in Bolerum Territory to a higher level and send more Clergy. The rest was mostly paperwork, which could be done slowly without big problems.

With his decision made, George finally slept soundly. He needed to make the preliminary preparations to invite the Clergy of the Lord of Justice to move in by tomorrow.

The next morning, George signed the authorization document in his office. He allowed the Church of the Just Lord to expand the small church they originally had in Bolerum Territory into a medium-sized one.

At the same time, he wrote a personal letter to High Priest Virginia in Karada. In the letter, he explained the reasons for the slow progress before and promised to speed up the construction of the legal system in the territory in the coming period. He hoped that both sides would work together to build and improve this system as soon as possible.

A Temple of the Lord of Justice of medium size or larger would have more than five Priests of Red Iron Rank and at least three Paladins of the same level. Although from a combat strength perspective, they could not provide much help to a strong feudal military group like Bolerum Territory, their instant communication technology was somewhat similar to the World Wide Web before the world was crossed. It was perfect for passing messages.

Moreover, the Temples of the Lord of Justice were spread all over the Western Continent. Getting information from them should be much more convenient. Although they could not always provide free services to the territory, having this channel meant George was not afraid of paying the cost. What he feared was having money but no way to spend it!

Furthermore, the Evil Church Alliance that attacked Bolerum Territory could be considered the mortal enemy of the Church of the Just Lord. Since the Kingdom of Lucia could not fight directly, these groups were the best hired hands for the enemy. Just to deal with their enemy they had been fighting for a thousand years, the Church of the Just Lord would not stand idle. If this could make the Church of the Just Lord have a bad impression of the Kingdom of Lucia, it would really kill two birds with one stone.

Just as George was enthusiastically thinking about the next plan, Ives Barnett, who brought the authorization document, interrupted his thoughts. He clearly forced himself to give advice: “Lord, is this document too hasty? Although allowing the expansion of the Temple is not a big problem, the next step is making laws! On this issue, I hope you will reconsider. Letting those idealists get involved will cause trouble!”

As George’s close secretary, Ives Barnett understood the cooperation between the Territory and the Church of the Just Lord to some extent. He also seemed to have done some homework on this. Unfortunately, limited by the era and atmosphere of this world, his ideas could not keep up with George’s pace.

‘Law is a system of behavioral norms that reflects the will of the ruling class, formulated by the state and enforced by state coercive power. Without the violent maintenance by us rulers, those laws are just pieces of paper.’ Knowing the true nature of law, George stared at Ives Barnett sternly and said: “Look into my eyes. Those laws are ones we participated in making. So, when we make them, we will start from actual needs. In this long process, we will constantly improve them. No law is unchangeable. As long as it cannot adapt to the progress of the times, it should be replaced.”

Seeing Ives Barnett stunned by his words, George decided to give him a stronger dose: “Next, I will teach you how to use law to achieve great things. The first step to achieving great things is to issue policies. Since we have decided to govern according to law in the future, of course, we cannot break our own rules by breaking our promises. So, who will make the policies? Of course, we will! If you want to do something, make the corresponding laws, and then govern according to those laws. Anyone who does not follow these laws will be punished.”

Of course, whether Ives Barnett could hear George’s words and how much he could understand was his own business. George was not his mentor; he was just giving him some advice because he thought Ives was trying hard. Of course, there was also a reason to stop Ives from giving more advice.

Dazed by George’s words, Ives Barnett did not completely forget his task: “By the way, Lord, this is a document just sent from the port. They applied to build a new dock again.”

“A new dock? The last one was finished less than three months ago. Why so soon…” George suddenly thought of something. ‘Right! The number of merchant ships passing by has indeed increased a lot recently. If this trend continues, we might have big problems if we do not build a new dock soon. It is better to let the dock wait for the ships than to let the ships wait for the dock.’

Knowing he had made a big blunder, George openly admitted his mistake. He slapped his forehead with his left hand and said: “Damn it! Have I been too busy lately to notice such a big problem? The Port Authority did a good job this time. Baroman may look a bit fat, but he never touches oil that does not belong to him, and he is good at preparing for rainy days.”

‘Prepare for rainy days, prepare for rainy days. Speaking of preparing for rainy days, I seem to have thought of something.’ Suddenly having an inspiration, George said to Ives Barnett: “Put the next documents here. I need to think quietly about some things.”

After Ives Barnett closed the door and left, George immediately fell into deep thought: ‘Busy with reconstruction work these days, I almost forgot about war preparations. Now I need to think hard about what our army is still lacking.’

‘Improving military strength seems to have reached a bottleneck for now. To cross this step is not something that can be done overnight. It is also very difficult to improve equipment. To go one step further, we might even need Magic Items. This is really a headache!’ George started scratching his head. ‘Right! If it is difficult to improve military strength directly on the front, maybe we can look for ways on the side. For example, logistics! Food! And so on. Yes, logistics and food. There is an old Chinese saying: “Before the army moves, the grain must go first.” At the end of the 18th century, the French Emperor Napoleon, who led his army to fight everywhere, also said: “Morale comes from the soldiers’ food.” Right, let’s start from here.’

There were other convenient ways to feed people in this world. Whether it was the food-making magic of Priests or some magical items that provided food, although they could solve temporary emergencies, they could not supply large armies for a long time. Besides the high price, the most important point was that their taste was often terrible.

For example, George had seen a Magic Item called a magic picnic box that cost 2,500 Gold Coins. After activation, it contained enough food and water for 15 people or 5 horses for one day. But this food was bland and tasteless, and could not even be called nutritious. It was just for filling the stomach and maintaining human survival. The cheaper magical items were not only extremely rare but also tasted like chewing on a wooden board. In war, relying on such things to boost morale would only work if your soldiers were taste buds idiots.

In the following days, George spent most of his time buried in the workshop.

‘I remember that back in 1753, an engineer from Bavaria, Germany, got inspiration from a four-wheeled carriage and first mounted cooking utensils on a moving vehicle, creating the prototype of a modern field kitchen, and field cooking equipment began to be vehicle-mounted. But judging by the road conditions here, four-wheeled carriages probably cannot keep up with the army! We cannot just march and fight on trade routes. So, it would be better to change to a Chinese-style two-wheeled small cart design.’ George had his initial draft in his mind.

After modifying the blueprint in front of him, George looked at it again: “Yes, if we change it like this, it seems to have become the single-axle cooking carriage used by the Russian army during the Russo-Japanese War—good mobility, small size, simple operation, and widely used.”

‘If so, I will refer to others. It seems the one called the first-generation field kitchen was a single-axle trailer field kitchen developed by the Prussian army. It quickly spread across Europe due to advantages like easy deployment, simple operation, and good mobility. Its suspension, layout, and metal connections can be considered.’ As his thinking and memories deepened, one idea after another popped into George’s mind.

“It is said that in 1912, the Russian army simply installed an oven on a wheeled vehicle, moving with the troops. Soldiers ate delicious bread for the first time during combat. This kind of cooking van was widely used on the battlefield. But let’s leave that aside. Whether it was Black Bread or baguettes, their shelf life was very long. If paired with hot soup, the difference was not that big.” George immediately crossed out one of the ideas.

In fact, during World War I, Germany, Britain, France, the United States, and other armies used cooking vans as the main means of battlefield food support. Although their shapes and functions varied, they were almost all fueled by wood or coal, pulled by horses, with stoves and cooking utensils simply fixed on the carriage. In combat, they exposed shortcomings such as slow speed and low load capacity, failing to meet the army’s requirements. Although cooking vans were constantly improved later, there was no fundamental breakthrough in design philosophy.

After thinking it over and over, George actually got stuck: ‘Mobility is always a big problem! I remember the mobile stalls around the school when I was young were quite convenient!’

“Coal briquette stove! Yes, the coal briquette stove! Using this should solve the problem.” George could not help but think of the wisdom of the people of Tianchao!

The coal briquette stove usually had an iron sheet shell, with the stove made of refractory materials like ceramic bricks. Insulating materials such as furnace slag, asbestos, or perlite were filled between the two. Cast iron was used for the grate and stove cover, the air inlet and sealing cover, the smoke outlet, and the regulating valve. The result was simple and not heavy. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was the favorite of street food vendors.

The main fuel was made from a mixture of raw coal, carbonized sawdust, lime, red clay, charcoal powder, and other base materials. It had the advantages of wide raw material sources, low cost, convenience, simple production, and the goal of saving materials, time, energy, and money. It could fully and effectively utilize formed coal. In this world, although the flammable accelerants made of nitrates and potassium permanganate were missing, it was just that the smoke was thicker and there were more residues after burning.

“Why didn’t I think of coal briquettes earlier! This is a product that can be promoted on a large scale! If managed well, it might really be profitable!” George groaned among the piles of blueprints. It looked like he was regretting missing a great opportunity to make money!