The military strength of the Northguard Castle had changed a lot. There were only seventy-one Barbarian warriors in the beginning, but now, there were a total of one hundred and eighty-six, including the security team and the new recruits.
Thirty security team, forty new recruits, forty new recruits, and five scouts who had just finished their training. Together with the Barbarian Guards, this was Suhlen's military strength.
The population of the Northguard Castle had exceeded two thousand people. Of course, seventy percent of them were Suhlen's serfs. Even the refugees had to work for Suhlen to survive.
Because of the trade, there would be a few caravans coming to the Northguard Castle every month. The sugar from the Northguard Castle was very popular in the northern provinces. Because of the sugar, the high quality rum had successfully opened up a market among the nobles. It had been almost four months since Suhlen came to the Northguard Castle. This small town deep in the northern wastelands had gained some fame among the nobles.
As long as nothing unexpected happened, Suhlen would become a real landed noble. By then, many nobles would come to curry favor with him. After all, a rising landed noble could enfeoff a large number of low-ranked nobles.
Suhlen had never thought of accepting those nobles' allegiance. Those nobles would surely fail. He had no intention of enfeoffing them. He was busy harvesting food now.
It had been more than three months since the first piece of farmland had been cultivated. The first batch of potatoes had matured after about a hundred days. The remaining potatoes would also mature in the next half a month.
As long as there was a good harvest of potatoes this year, Suhlen's territory would not suffer from a famine even if they stopped planting potatoes in the next few years.
Of course, from next year onwards, Suhlen would reduce the number of potatoes planted and switch to wheat and other crops. After all, he did not want to keep eating potatoes, noodles, steamed buns, and scallion pancakes. Weren't they delicious? Why would he eat potatoes when he had the money? He planned to slowly try all the different delicacies from his previous life.
The first batch of land cultivated in the Northguard Castle was a good paddy field. The soil was quite fertile. Although there was no fertilizer, the yield of potatoes was still quite good.
Arriving at the first batch of potato fields, Suhlen randomly selected a few pieces of farmland, and then let the serfs begin to harvest the grain.
"Monseigneur, I've arranged for people to take care of the land you've allocated." A servant came to Suhlen's side and said.
Suhlen looked around and found that the serfs were ready. He nodded and said, "Let's start."
"Begin!" A soldier with a loud voice shouted from the side. Along with his order, the serfs in the specially selected fields began to harvest potatoes with various tools.
The soft soil was turned over. He grabbed the vine and pulled it out forcefully. Strings of potatoes were pulled out from the soil. After shaking off the soil, the potatoes, which were at least the size of a fist, were arranged into a string. It looked very pleasing, and a string of potatoes weighed a few kilograms.
The vines of the potatoes were removed, and the fruits were thrown into the bamboo basket at the side. The potatoes in each plot of land were placed together to be weighed. This was done to maximize the estimation of the yield per mu of land. Although there were still errors, the difference was not big. Through this, the yield of potatoes this year could be roughly estimated.
One mu of land was not big, and these serfs were very fast. They all wanted to leave a good impression in front of Suhlen. As long as Suhlen was happy and rewarded them with a few points, they would be able to get their freedom faster and then have their own land. These people were very satisfied.
Soon, the potatoes in the vicinity of one mu of land were harvested. Suhlen asked people to weigh the potatoes. After the soil was sifted off, the potatoes in the baskets were weighed. The potatoes produced in each plot of land were weighed and marked one by one.
Potatoes were a crop widely planted in this world. The staple food of most civilians was potatoes. Who asked this crop to be easy to grow and have a high yield? Only a small amount of land would grow crops such as rice and wheat, which were usually used to pay taxes. Moreover, rice and wheat were basically used as daily food by nobles or big merchants.
The taxes in this world were not low, because the taxes in various places were set by the lords. The benevolent ones were fine, but the greedy ones would collect all kinds of taxes, such as catching fish in the river, cutting firewood in the mountains, and paying a poll tax every year. In short, all kinds of taxes were collected from clothing, food, housing, and transportation.
Every year, when farming, the nobles' land had to be cultivated first before they could plant their own fields. Every week, they had to work for the lords for three days. If it were not for potatoes, half of the civilians in this world would have starved to death.
About half an hour later, the yield of potatoes in these plots of land was calculated. Among them, the yield of potatoes in the largest plot of land was 303 kilograms, and the yield of potatoes in the smallest plot of land was 254 kilograms.
The yield of 200 kilograms was not too high. Because it was a new plot of land, the yield in the first year would be lower. Next year, when there was fertilizer, the yield would be higher. Even with the current yield, the yield of these plots of land was enough to feed tens of thousands of people. Potatoes could be planted three times a year, so for a long time, he did not have to worry about food.
After the food problem was solved, Suhlen could increase the number of people brought in. At least 300,000 mu of land could be cultivated in Northtown Castle, enough to feed fifty to sixty thousand people. Right now, only about 10,000 mu of land had been cultivated. He did not want to leave those plots of land empty.
Northtown Castle was located in a remote area, but if it were not so remote, it would not be his turn to cultivate this land. It would have been occupied by others long ago, so there was nothing to complain about. If Suhlen wanted people, he could only rely on the trade caravans to bring in refugees every time, or buy slaves from Calt City himself.
However, both of these methods required a lot of money, and the results were slow. Unless Suhlen was confident that he could get a recruitment order every once in a while, this was the best way.
As for the drows, Suhlen also wanted to recruit them. The drows were also a powerful race, and compared to the obvious shortcomings of the barbarians, the drows had almost no shortcomings. Of course, if they did not believe in the Dark Maiden, Suhlen would not have dared to accept them.
Except for the drows who believed in the Dark Maiden, in Suhlen's opinion, nine out of ten drows were mentally ill. They plotted all kinds of schemes and murders every day. If they had the time, they might as well practice their riding skills.
So far, Suhlen still did not take the initiative to get in touch with the drows. After experiencing the escape and finally settling down, the drows were actually very sensitive and insecure. They had lived in an environment of mutual deception for a long time, which made it difficult for them to trust others. The best way for Suhlen now was to express some kindness to them, but not to get too close to them.
In fact, Suhlen had already treated the drows as meat in his mouth. Those drows who lived in the Underworld all year round could not adapt to the environment of the Northern Wilderness. One could not imagine how cold the winter in the Northern Wilderness was without experiencing it.
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