Succubus' Manor

Dirty and noisy urban area, a family is pouring sewage on the street, yesterday a locust plague passed, the whole urban area is in a state of disarray, there are still a few locusts lost on the street, people are squatting numbly on the street, waiting to get a job Opportunity.

Even if it's just half a piece of black bread a day to carry goods, no matter how dirty or tiring, they can bear it.

There are locust plagues every year, and every year people hope that there will be no locust plagues this year.

No one knows when the locusts will come, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, the only hope is that the locusts will come again after the wheat is harvested.

But this year, there are more locusts than in previous years, and they are fierce. All the fields outside the city are not spared. The slaves and farmers can only pick up the little grains left on the ground.

This grain of wheat is not enough for the entire city to consume. There is no tax payment for next year, and many families are planning to leave to seek refuge with relatives.

Emma's family was going to join their aunt. Emma's aunt originally lived in the city, and lived in a poor area like them. She worried about food and taxes every year. After selling all the valuable things at home, they followed The eldest son, who was a servant in a noble estate, was gone.

Before leaving, I told them.

Their relationship is very good, because they live close to each other, so they often help each other.

Emma has already reached the age of marriage this year, but because the family of the boy who pursued her is poor and cannot afford the money for marriage, she just "left over".

After pouring out the sewage, Emma returned home, and her parents were packing up the few things left in the house.

"Emma, ​​go and pack your things!" My mother squatted on the ground and yelled, she was very busy, and the things at home usually seemed to be few, but when I really wanted to pack them up, there were a lot of "trash" that I didn't want to leave behind. .

Emma hurried back to her room. When she was very young, her family was also rich. She still remembered that she had a beautiful blanket when she was a child. It was bought by her mother from a merchant at a big price. Many friends came to play and showed off their beautiful blankets to them.

But gradually, there were fewer and fewer friends, and they either became slaves or went to other places.

And their family has also fallen from a wealthy area in the city to a poor area. Her beautiful blanket was sold by her mother at a very low price, in exchange for food that they can eat for a month.

And she gradually changed from a little girl held by her parents to a disliked waste.

Because she can't go out to work like a boy, she can't carry goods, and the lord's castle doesn't need new maids.

She is also not outstanding in appearance, so she cannot be the lover of rich or noble people.

She didn't know whether her parents loved her or hated her.

If you say you despise her, why give her a separate room under such circumstances?

If you say you love her, why do you often say that she is useless?

Emma wept silently while packing up her few things.

How much she wanted to go back to when she was a child, she was a carefree little girl, every day she only had to worry about how many friends would come to play with her tomorrow, and how she would entertain them.

That afternoon, their family set off, leaving the city where they had lived all their lives.

And they only had a vague idea of ​​the destination. When Emma's aunt left, she only said that it was a manor behind the northern hillside.

They don't have any means of transportation. Emma and her parents take turns pulling the scooter and walking towards the unknown future.

Perhaps they will be buried in the belly of the beast on the road.

Perhaps they would starve to death if they never reached their destination.

Or more likely that even if they got there, there would be no Emma's aunt there, the lord would not take them in, and they would be banished to die around their hopeful destination.

But in any case, this is a decision made by her parents after careful consideration.

They stole away in the dark and told no one, not even their closest neighbours.

It was Emma's turn to pull the scooter in front. She put the straw rope made by herself on her shoulders and dragged it with difficulty. Her parents pushed hard from behind. Emma's forehead was covered with sweat, and she was in a daze looked up at the sun.

Great Holy Spirit...why don't you come and save us?

Are we not religious enough?

They finally stopped when night fell, Emma's father lit a fire, and they finally ate their first meal of the day - wild vegetables and wild fruits picked along the road, cooked in clay pots for a while, and then devoured I ate it in my stomach.

But wild vegetables and wild fruits did not make them feel full.

But more hungry.

The family took turns to watch the night. Emma's father used to go out with a caravan to do business when she was a child, so he knew that in the wild, a night watch was necessary.

They don't know how many days they walked, maybe it was very long, maybe it was very short.

Emma has lost the ability to think, she can only walk around numbly, pull the cart numbly, and push the cart numbly.

Every time she felt that she was about to fall, she persisted.

Compared with her, her parents are in a worse state.

Because the main labor force pulling the cart is Emma's father.

The silent man was still clinging to the straw rope when he fell.

The numb Emma finally couldn't help crying after her father's fainting.

"Don't cry!" Mother asked Emma to drag her husband to the tree and let him rest against the tree trunk.

They fed him what little water was left.

They failed to find water all the way, and it never rained.

After waiting for a long time, Emma's father finally woke up, but he could no longer pull the cart, so the main person who pulled the cart became Emma's mother.

"Mom, let me do it." Emma took the straw rope from her mother's shoulders, and the straw rope was about to be fumbled, but fortunately they were in the woods, and when they were resting, they found a suitable book and peeled off the bark. Alternative straw ropes.

Emma became the main force in the family.

She no longer complained of being tired or suffering, and kept silent, like a hard-working cow, walking forward step by step.

One afternoon, when Emma was looking for water nearby, she walked through a small forest and stood on a hillside. She saw the manor below the hillside—a manor even bigger than she expected!There is a small river not far from the manor, and there are a few people by the river, who seem to be fishing.

And there is no wheat in the fields of the manor, but there are many fields that do not even have straw.

Is that wasteland?Emma was a little strange.

There are many people walking around on the bank of the field. They look very good, stronger than the people in the city, and you can tell from their physique that they live a good life. There are also women walking around, holding rattan baskets in their arms. It's full of green things, it seems to be wild vegetables, but it doesn't seem to be.

Everyone is busy.

Emma's eye sockets were a little hot.

She is not afraid of being busy, what she is afraid of is not even having the chance to be busy.

"Mom! Dad! We are here!" Emma, ​​who was already so tired that she was about to faint, burst out with unprecedented vitality at this time. She ran like a gust of wind, and the pain from the blisters on the soles of her feet was no longer felt.

She pulled up the cart and looked for a way down the hill.

After days of trekking, overwhelmed by tides of despair and anguish, the Emma family finally reached the only hope they had left everything to hold on to, Emma stood outside the fence of the manor, she did not know when She began to cry, and when she set foot on this land, she was already sobbing.

And her parents were lying on the ground, their foreheads pressed against the wet soil, and their shoulders kept shaking.

They went through layers of checkpoints and finally came to the last one.

—Is Emma's aunt here?Can the lord here accept them?

"Wandering here?" Chi Yan was a little surprised. There were basically no strangers here. After the robbers were wiped out, this area can be regarded as almost deserted. There are many forests and wild animals here, and even his territory. Every night there must be a vigil and torches lit.

The butler shook his head: "One family said they were relatives."

Chi Yan thought for a while: "Since they're here, let them live with their relatives, but they won't be allowed to leave the territory for at least a year."

Now Chi Yan also has a brain, and he is no longer obsessed with farming and construction. He also knows that people's hearts are unpredictable. For safety, he should think more.

Butler: "But they are not strong laborers."

The housekeeper is a little disgusted. If you are a strong laborer, you can do more work. Whether it is blacksmithing, land reclamation, or farming, you are a good hand. There is only one woman and a pair of parents in that family. The parents are sick and the daughter is also thin. If they became a handful of bones, they would be driven into the woods. It is estimated that no wild beast would spend that time preying on them.

The butler is a complete pragmatist, especially when he looks at slaves and civilians from the perspective of the ruling class.

So there is little empathy for slaves and commoners.

Now there are many jobs in the territory for the common people to choose from, renting land to cultivate themselves, this is the choice of most common people.

But if you don't want to farm, you can also choose weaving, spinning and blacksmithing.

In short, as long as you have hands and feet, it is not a problem at all if you want to earn enough food through labor.

During this period of time, Chi Yan either went to the blacksmith room or the weaving room. Although the efficiency was very low, there was indeed output every day, and the output of sugar was the largest. These sugars were all made by Chi Yan. Crush and pack into jars.

If Kleist and the others open a trade route when they return, the sugar and cloth can be turned into money and the items they need.

Moreover, most of the merchants still barter. After all, the money in each lord's jurisdiction is slightly different.

For example, copper coins, copper coins in different territories have different copper content and weight. Although there is no strict measurement tool, you can feel it when you get started.

So barter is the safest.

Moreover, merchants have a lot of resources, and they can exchange for more things that cannot be bought in the market.

Pig iron, for example, was bought from a bold merchant.

I don't know where I found such a courageous businessman.

However, pig iron is running out soon, and if you can't find iron ore, it is absolutely not enough to buy pig iron from merchants by chance.

Chi Yan sighed leisurely.

He needs to find iron ore, copper, coal, and sulfur.

But if you think about it a little bit, you will know that it is impossible for so many minerals to exist in his territory at the same time.

If there is, then the probability is probably the same as winning the first prize in the lottery and becoming the richest man in the world.

Before Chi Yan crossed over, the lottery winner with the highest prize money in the world won 110 billion yuan, which seems a lot, but became the richest man in the world?no way.

"Hey..." Chi Yan sighed again.

He also wants to be a rich man who has nothing to do and shouts that he doesn't want to earn so much money!

Give him a chance, he can show off his wealth so that everyone wants to beat him up!

After Chi Yan had been idle for a few days, he decided to start standardizing the health regulations in the territory.

After all, in this period, the average life expectancy is not high. Apart from newborns who are prone to premature death and war issues, the most important thing is environmental issues. Germs and viruses can enter the human body through human hands and food at any time.

And people's hygiene awareness is very worrying!

It's fine if you don't take a bath, it's fine if you defecate anywhere, even if Chi Yan ordered them to take a bath at least once a month, they didn't wash carefully, they didn't know how to wash their hands, and they could eat with bare hands just after work.

And even if there are chopsticks, they are only used when eating hot dishes.

Chi Yan knew that when the Black Death broke out in the Middle Ages, all kinds of treatment methods were used, such as smearing the whole body with urine, bloodletting, etc., but the large-scale outbreak of the Black Death was inseparable from the hygienic environment.

Chi Yan locked himself in his study and wrote out what he felt was the most necessary hygienic norms during this period.

After all, the conditions are limited, and it can only be implemented under the existing conditions.

Sometimes the butler would go to the study to serve Chi Yan.

The butler was also one of the few literate people in the territory, and sometimes Chi Yan would ask the butler to give him advice.

"It's a pity that there is no cement." Chi Yan said to himself, feeling very regretful.

It would be great if lime could be found, but lime is not rare, and merchants should sell it, but the price is very expensive, and not many people buy it.

Clay or yellow mud is fine, and it can be used to pave roads and walls after mixing evenly, but the loss is relatively large, and the cost performance without cement is high. Moreover, the termite nests nearby have not recovered, so we can wait until next year to find more. Lots of termite nests.

Chi Yan is not going to move this year, he wants to give the termites time to recuperate.

To termites, Chi Yan was definitely a cruel person.

Soon, the slaves and the civilians formed two cleaning teams. They cleaned the territory complicatedly every day, burned the dead wild animals near the territory, and supervised that everyone wash their hands before and after eating.

And you must take a bath carefully. Chi Yan asked people to use the little clay left to build a special bathing room. It was very large, but there was only one. Before the day of bathing, people had to use the stove on one side of the room. Take a bath with good water, then go to the other side of the room where the charcoal is burning for a while, then change into clean clothes and leave.

What is better this year than previous years is that they have woven cloth. In this winter, everyone in the territory can get a set of linen clothes. As long as the linen clothes are well woven, they are very warm. Apart from being uncomfortable to wear, they are durable. It is washable, anti-corrosion, and not easy to damage. A well-made linen garment can be worn for a long time.

But clothes need to be cut and sewn. Chi Yan didn't have time to find a tailor and ask him to measure the sizes of the people in the territory one by one.

The best way is to make "one size fits all", which may be larger for some people and smaller for others, but as long as you do it according to the average value of a race, you can ensure that everyone can wear it.

The problem now is finding those who can sew clothes.

Dwarves can't do it, almost all of them are weaving and spinning, and their speed is the fastest. Chi Yan can't separate people from them, and neither can goblins, probably because of the speech before Dahe left. In the ears of the goblins, the enthusiasm of this group was greatly encouraged, making them feel that since they cannot do better than the dwarves in weaving and spinning, they must surpass the dwarves in blacksmithing.

So the goblins are now almost rushing to forge iron, and experimenting with various experiments to see how to forge steel better.

The tauren... are obsessed with land reclamation and can't extricate themselves.

Then only the human race and Lamir, the bare commander of the elves in the territory, are left.

Since disposing of the manure, Ramir has worked as a handyman here and there, but often makes day trips, and now he spins yarn.

But to be honest, there is not much difference between him and him.

"That's it, cut the cloth into this shape." Chi Yan is not worried about wasting cloth, after all, he won't be selling cloth for a while, but sugar. The clothes he described have sewn belts on the left and right, connected to the clothes You don't have to worry about losing it, and you don't have to make a whole belt.

The sewing of trousers is also very simple. Chi Yan first asks someone to make a thin board into a tailoring board, and just cut the clothes according to the board. You don't have to worry about big deviations, and you don't have to teach people repeatedly.

The housekeeper once again admired Yu Chi Yan's fantastic idea: "If the businessmen know about this method you came up with, they will definitely earn a lot of money."

Use the cutting board to know how much cloth to use, so that you can reduce the waste of cloth and make more clothes.

And civilians also need to buy cloth. When they find that buying cloth is not as cost-effective as buying ready-made clothes, and they can wear them when they go back and change them, they will definitely compete to buy ready-made clothes. There is a huge profit margin in this.

Maybe the nobles don't like it, but the number of commoners is obviously much higher than that of the nobles.

Chi Yan corrected: "I didn't think of it, and I heard it from others before."

The housekeeper thought that Chi Yan was being modest, and a person of noble character like Chi Yan was so modest and polite.

The manpower became more tense.

Chi Yan rubbed his temples, feeling a little headache.

The housekeeper is like a roundworm in Chi Yan's stomach. Once Chi Yan shows a worried expression, he will know why Chi Yan is worried. At this time, the housekeeper said: "I have a way, my lord."

Chi Yan quickly looked at the butler: "What way?"

Steward: "We don't need to buy slaves, and we don't need to spend money, as long as the common people in the territory now find their relatives, just like the family of three who defected here before."

Chi Yan blinked: "Will the local lord agree to release people?"

The butler smiled: "My lord, don't worry, as long as you give him a jar of sugar and take away some commoners, and you're not rich, the local nobles won't care."

"That's right." Chi Yan nodded.

In the eyes of most nobles, commoners and slaves are not equal to them.

The combined lives of civilians and slaves are not as good as one of his fingers.

This time, Chi Yan sent Albert and Carl out. They had the documents to prove that they were knights. Knights were basically the nobles' reserves, and they could talk and exchange conditions with the nobles on a relatively equal basis.

Albert and Karl have been idle in the castle for a long time. Although life is good, they are also boring, especially now that everyone in the territory is very motivated, it seems that the two of them have nothing to do.

Of course they are very happy with such a showy task.

And this time they go out to ride a horse each, and they can bring sugar.

In addition, Chi Yan also gave them some money so that they would not be looked down upon because of their lack of money when they went to other people's territories. After all, Albert and Carl went out to represent Chi Yan's face.

Even the stingy housekeeper agrees that they should be allowed to bring more money.

"What if they were robbed and killed because they brought too much money?" Chi Yan was a little worried.

The butler said flatly, "My lord, they are knights. It is a disgrace for knights to die because of robbery. It also proves that they are not capable enough to be knights. Knights should die on the battlefield."

Chi Yan: "..."

Chi Yan found Albert and Carl and told them about it himself.

"You will take my letter with my seal on it, and you can throw away other things, but this is not acceptable." Chi Yan said, "I will also give you some money, but it is best not to let people see you when you use it." How much money do you have?"

Chi Yan said seriously: "You divide the money, put less on one person, put more on the other, and when money is needed, let the person with less money spend it, understand?"

Albert said quickly: "My lord, you don't have to worry about us, we have weapons, and there are no robbers around."

It is a good thing for Albert and Carl to be able to go out this time.

They haven't had any chance to prove themselves for so long.

The status of knights gave them a sense of self-esteem and superiority higher than ordinary people. Now this self-esteem and sense of superiority are about to be blown to pieces, so they urgently need to prove themselves.

Carl also patted his chest and assured Chi Yan: "My lord, we will definitely fulfill your order and bring him back."

Chi Yan: "Don't be brave, run away if you feel dangerous, running away is not a shameful thing."

Both Albert and Carl promised, but judging from their looks, they would definitely not take this sentence to heart.

The addresses of these people were told to Albert and Karl by the civilians, and Karl recorded them on the parchment, so that it would be convenient to find people after entering the city.

Many civilians were overjoyed.

They thought they would never see their relatives again.

"Great! I miss my brother a lot, and thinking about the locust plague, I'm still worried about how he will get through this winter."

"And my sister! I haven't seen her for a long time, and I'm worried about her."

There was an admiration in everyone's heart——

"Your Excellency is too kind and gentle. He has compassion, but he has not inherited any tyranny."

They can come here.

That's great.

Probably spent their life's luck.