The banquet at the Hillwood Castle was very simple, nothing more than eating and drinking. Unlike some noble places where there was music and dancing, here there were only men who could not dance, so they could only focus on eating, drinking and bragging.

For this, Luo Ning paid a pig, six sheep, more than a dozen chickens and ducks, and an unknown number of fish.

Fortunately, the militiamen only took some food and went back home. If they had joined in, Roning would have been gone bankrupt.

Oh, by the way, Chahar has complained about the problem of alcohol in the castle more than once. Several barrels of sour beer have been drunk, and there are less than a hundred bottles of medium beer left.

The territory is in urgent need of a winemaker, otherwise, if there are more guests or more banquets, the castle will have to go out and buy wine.

Faced with Chahar's complaint, Luo Ning had no choice but to agree. It was a pity that he was not very interested in wine, otherwise he would have remembered this matter the last time he went to Muma City.

After the banquet, Luo Ning took several comfortable baths. He hadn't taken a serious bath in the past ten days since leaving Shanlin Town, so he felt so comfortable.

After changing into some soft clothes, Roning returned to the study and saw Irene sitting on a chair beside him, reading a book intently.

Luo Ning glanced at the title of the book, quickly walked over and closed the book, which scared Irene who was concentrating on reading.

But after seeing the person coming, Irene smiled in surprise, "Brother Luo Ning, you are done~"

"Well, it's over."

Luo Ning responded with a smile, and calmly took the book back and put it back on the bookshelf, "This book is not suitable for you. I will pick out a suitable one for you."

Although the plot of this novel, titled "Princess Fina's Secret Garden", is acceptable, the hero and heroine keep quarreling with each other, and the descriptions are quite in-depth, so it is not suitable for little girls.

Roning picked up a history book from the bookshelf and handed it to Irene. "Read this 'A Brief History of the Empire' to broaden your horizons."

"A Brief History of the Empire" records the events of the Orlant Empire, but unlike traditional history books, most of the records here are miscellaneous events of royal nobles, and even the quarrels between two great nobles are recorded.

Although there is not much valuable information, it is at least more suitable for girls to read than the knight novel just now.

Irene took the book doubtfully, her mind still on the previous book.

She asked in confusion: "Why is that book not suitable for me to read? Knight Ivan is fighting a duel for Princess Fina. Will he win?"

"Of course he wins, and in the end he lives with the princess forever."

Roning smiled and gave a spoiler, "Okay, Irene, Bella has prepared a room for you. She's waiting for you outside. Don't keep her waiting for too long."

Irene's attention was finally drawn back from the book. "Okay, good night, brother."

After saying that, he quickly left the study.

Luo Ning shook his head helplessly, and then began to review the documents submitted by Chahar and Wilson on the table.

This includes the production situation of each team, the autumn harvest results of each village, the grain statistics of Shanlin Town, etc.

He looked at the latter two in particular.

The total amount of barley harvested this time was about 830,000 kilograms, which is similar to previous years.

In addition to reserving seeds for the next year, based on the calculation that each person consumes one kilogram of staple food per day, it can support the people of Shanlin Town for nearly ten and a half months.

However, in reality, the staple food consumed by serfs was less than one kilogram, and other "black technologies" were often mixed in, and things like wild vegetables were considered good.

In other words, this amount of barley is more than enough to sustain the people of Shanlin Town until the next wheat and barley harvest, so they should have no problem getting through the year.

By the time fertilizers are available next year, planting techniques are promoted and a lot of new land is reclaimed, food will no longer be a problem.

After breakfast the next morning, Luo Ning began his inspection on his Treading Cloud Horse.

With his achievements and the attribute points accumulated from signing in in recent days, he has now entered the third-level extraordinary stage.

[Level]: 3-Advanced Knight (30/300); 3-Advanced Magician (0/400)

Looking at the entire Shanlin Town, Roning's strength is already ranked among the top three. Now he no longer needs any guards when he travels. At most, he can bring Chahar, who is in charge of the dung collection team, Galen, who runs errands, and Irene, who wants to tour Shanlin Town.

This base was planned when Roning established the manure collection team. The address was chosen to be in the woods near the pasture in the northwest, far away from the living area of ​​the residents and away from water sources.

Over the past few days, the construction team has built a simple shed here. Although it looks rough, it can block rain and will not interfere with the organic fertilizer below that is in the decomposition stage.

Facing the lord coming to inspect the fertilizer base in person, the ten slaves who were turning the piles stood aside in fear and trepidation. Apart from greeting the lord at the beginning, they didn't know what to say.

However, the butler Galen kept urging Roning to leave this place as soon as possible. After all, as a nobleman, it was really beneath his status to come to this noisy place in person.

Irene had been holding her nose. If she hadn't seen that Brother Luo Ning hadn't left, she would have turned around and ran away.

The manure collection team has been picking up feces for so many days and transporting it all to this place. The smell is naturally very unpleasant. If possible, Roning would not want to come here.

But composting technology is still in its infancy and requires his personal guidance.

"Sir, according to your instructions, we have mixed useless hay, leaves, straw and other things with the manure and piled them together. Now we turn the manure piles every three days."

Chahar reported respectfully. He didn't like doing this job, but he still completed Roning's instructions meticulously.

Luo Ning looked at the dozen or so piles of organic fertilizer that were being decomposed in the fertilizer base and nodded slightly, "When composting, remember to spread hay on top to keep it moist."

Generally speaking, they need to prepare straw mats or cloth, but it is too wasteful to use these two things here, so it is okay to use hay for the time being.

He walked to a pile of manure and moved his hand a little closer. The temperature was still quite high, indicating that it was still in the fermentation stage.

In the absence of a catalyst, the natural fermentation process will last longer, about 1 to 3 months.

Once the temperature of the compost pile has stabilized and the odor has dissipated, the fertilizer can be used.

Luo Ning talked with Chahar and the members of the manure collection team about some problems encountered at work. Except for Chahar who could say something, most of the slaves did not dare to speak. Only a female slave named Masin asked a few questions.

I learned from Chahar that this woman is serious about her work, pays attention to details, and is as strong as men.

So Luo Ning appointed him as the second-in-charge of the fertilizer base and reported to Chahar, which reduced the burden on the housekeeper.

After all, it takes a lot of effort to store food in the castle, and then we have to coordinate the food distribution with the three villages outside.

People like Chahar who have good literacy and calculation skills will naturally play a greater role.

After inspecting the fertilizer base, Roning went to William's iron and wood workshop and Kales' blacksmith shop to check the production of iron and wood equipment and the forging of the curved plow.

This time, Roning brought back two carpenter slaves from Huitu Village. Mutar, who had better skills, was assigned to the ironwood workshop, mainly responsible for the production of ironwood hoes; the one with lesser skills was asked to help Kalles and his son make the plow body of the curved plow, and strive to build more curved plows for each village before the spring plowing.

In the next few days, Luo Ning inspected the situation of each production team while asking the political officer Wilson to organize farmers who were off-season to cut down trees in the north so as to open up a road to Qingzhu Village as soon as possible.

Roning did not need to pay these people for their work, but unlike before, in order to stimulate their enthusiasm, Roning allowed half of the wood mined to be taken home by the subjects to repair their houses or store dry firewood in preparation for the winter. He did not want any of his subjects to freeze to death in the winter.

In addition, Roning also went to Tom's mother Leah's tailor shop to observe her spinning wheel and loom, and made a modified design based on this, and asked Pierre to make a small spinning wheel for spinning silk according to the design.

As for looms, most of them are waist looms.

If Ronin wanted to build a foot-operated loom, he needed more detailed design and experiments. He simply explained the principles and simple structural diagram to William, Pierre and his slave Murta, and asked the latter to try it on their own first.

There are still many trivial matters in the territory. For example, if there are conflicts between some people in the territory, he needs to arrange people to mediate or judge them. If some men and women of marriageable age want to get married, they need Roning's approval, and they also need to collect marriage taxes...

Luo Ning directly waived the marriage tax, which was not conducive to population growth, and replaced it with a free day's work.

After being busy for several days, he finally made all the arrangements.

On October 8th, Luo Ning took a few guards, traveled light, and set out on the journey back to Wushan Fort in the early morning sunshine.

(End of this chapter)