Volume 3 Chapter 38 The farmers of two different countries
The Stantine Duchy wasn’t as cold as the Lampuri Kingdom in winter, rather it was much more refreshing once the temperature dropped and it was no longer as hot and moist.
In this season each year, because they didn’t need to worry about hurricanes and tsunamis, Swain Wein would leave his large manor outside Wein City to head to a manor by the sea to spend the winter.
But it was different this year. This year head Wein only stayed by the sea for two days before bringing his subordinates and maids to the sea, heading twenty kilometers northeast, arriving at a large plain.
Seeing the vast lands and the people working in them controlling the agricultural magic machines, head Wein couldn’t help feeling emotional.
The people from the Lampuri Kingdom were more industrious compared to the people of the duchy. The Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s over a thousand hired workers had just arrived half a month ago and they were working every dawn since dawn, only stopping when the sun set.
With their hard work, this patch of desolate land that no one cared about in the beginning, in just half a month, it was looking like it would be reclaimed and could be cultivated soon.
Every time he saw this, head Wein couldn’t help being secretly happy.
This hundred thousand hectares of land in his hand wasn’t worth a cent, but after renting it to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, not only would they pay three hundred thousand gold coins in rent each year, they would also give him 30% of the yearly crops.
This was equal to him sitting there doing nothing all year and earning three hundred thousand gold coins and 30% of the crops.
According to the estimates of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s chairman Xu, once this land was reclaimed, it could produce at least a hundred thousand tons of rice each year. 30% of that was thirty thousand tons.
It had to be known, in last year, he had received just over twenty thousand tons of grain from all his territories.
Thinking of this, head Wein couldn’t help praising his own brilliance.
Then thinking about how the Frestech Chamber of Commerce promised to open a canned fruit factory and a rubber processing factory, as well as building roads all over the land, connecting his territory, head Wein was ecstatic.
Let all those short sighted fools down self die from regret! See how I, Swain Wein can see into the future. As long as I cooperate with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, my territory will far surpass the territory of you bastards to the south!
Head Wein looked over the busy land before him and then a vein suddenly popped up on his forehead, as a trace of anger filled his face.
In his line of sight, not everyone was busy working in the land. There were quite a few people lazing off, only pushing the agricultural magic machine in their hand occasionally.
Seeing these people slacking off, head Wein gave a cold snort. He picked up a leather whip from a subordinate and walked over to the closest person. Before that person could react, the whip had already come down.
That person was stunned before a look of fear flashed on his face, but he didn’t dare dodge at all. He just hugged his head and ducked down, as he waited for the leather whip to fall down.
“Pa.”
The leather whip fell onto the back of that person and with a crisp sound, that person’s clothing was ripped. A bloody mark appeared on his back, showing just how strong head Wein had whipped him.
The sound attracted everyone’s attention. The people from Banta City looked at head Wein’s actions in a daze and they revealed an unwilling look, but no one said a thing.
They were citizens even in the Lampuri Kingdom, so they had seen nobles oppressing commoners before.
If this was Banta City, they might have resisted, but this was the Stantine Duchy, so they wouldn’t interfere in the business of others.
“Pa, pa, pa.”
The whip fell onto the back of that person again and again, as head Wein kept cursing him.
“Damn, you piece of trash! It was rare enough for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to hire you to come work here, that means your luck is good, but you actually dare to be lazy! Do you believe I won’t beat you to death? Ah?”
After a while, the person’s back was covered in bloody marks. Even when the whip came down, drops of blood came off it, making the scene very hard to look at.
That person on the ground had already gone limp, like he was about to faint when there was a shout from afar.
“Stop!”
Head Wein angrily turned around, who dared to stop him from teaching this trash a lesson?
After a while, the anger on his face turned into a smile and he threw away the whip as he came forward.
“Chairman Cantona, good morning. Are you still busy getting them to work?”
Seeing the change in head Wein’s expression, Cantona anger came up, but he couldn’t release it. After pausing, he swallowed back his anger and forced himself to reveal a smile to head Wein.
“Ah, I was in the middle of it. Head Wein, this is…..” Cantona pointed at the person who was twitching on the ground.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just saw this fellow who was lazing off and I was teaching him a lesson for you.” Head Wein replied with a smile while kicking that person on the ground, “This damn trash, it was hard enough for him to find some good work, but he won’t do it properly. Don’t you think he should die?”
Cantona’s face twitched, thinking that you nobles who only know how to humiliate your citizens should die.
But this was the other side’s domain, so Cantona suppressed the anger in his heart and said with a forced smile, “This…..head Wein, it is indeed his fault that he was being lazy, but you shouldn’t beat him to this point, right? Look at him now, how can he still keep working?”
“You’re worried about this?” Head Wein tilted his lips and disdainfully said, “This damn trash, there’s nothing wrong with killing him. If you’re worried about lacking people, it’s very simple, I’ll just grab a few more people for you.”
Cantona’s eyes twitched and he almost couldn’t help cursing him.
It was a good thing since the Cantona Chamber of Commerce was formed, he had become more experienced and had undergone many situations. Comparing it to the City Lord Manor, he could still endure.
“Head Wein, you can’t say it like that. He is in name an employee of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce who is helping them reclaim this land. So, strictly speaking, he is a member of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. Even if he is being lazy, how he is handled should be decided by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, don’t you think?”
Cantona knew that if he took out his Cantona Chamber of Commerce, head Wein wouldn’t have cared. So he could only emphasize that the local workers in name belonged to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
As expected, after hearing Cantona’s words, head Wein knit his brows in thought before saying with a nod, “Alright, since this trash has been given to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, chairman Xu should decide how to handle him. I indeed shouldn’t have meddled. But chairman Cantona, can you help me tell chairman Xu that he can take care of these trash as he wishes. Even if he wants to beat them all to death, there won’t be a single problem. He can handle them as he wishes, there’s no need to worry.”
Cantona was too lazy to be angry with him, he just nodded in agreement. Then he had two people drag off the unconscious unlucky fellow who was twitching on the ground away for medical care.
The other people scattered and the anger faded from head Wein’s face, as he laughed while pointing to the land in front and asking Cantona, “Chairman Cantona, with this speed, how long before this land will be reclaimed?”
“This…..If nothing unexpected happens, I think that we should be able to reclaim it in less than a month.” Cantona thought for a bit before replying, “If we can move a bit faster, we should be able to sow seeds by the beginning of next year. With the climate of your Stantine Duchy, we’ll be able to see our first harvest in the next spring.”
“Definitely, definitely.” Head Wein kept nodding, “Chairman Cantona, you can be assured. Our Stantine Duchy can’t compare to your Lampuri Kingdom, but we are stronger than your Lampuri Kingdom when it comes to farming. I won’t joke with you, the hundred thousand hectares of land I rented to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce are all good farmland. As long as you finish and throw some seeds down, you don’t even need to care and there will be crops growing in a few months, do you believe that?”
Cantona looked at head Wein. He really wanted to say, if the Stantine Duchy’s land was this good, why would you leave all this farmland here to waste away?
But thinking about how head Wein had just whipped someone, Cantona suppressed the question in his heart.
Actually, seeing that fellow being taught a lesson by head Wein, Cantona’s heart couldn’t take it, but there was a bit of satisfaction deep down.
Before arriving in the Stantine Duchy, when Xu Yi told Cantona about the Stantine Duchy, he already told him that the people of the Stantine Duchy were exceptionally lazy. So when opening the hundred thousand hectares of land, he shouldn’t rely on the five thousand people from the Stantine Duchy and give most of the work to the farmers from Banta City.
Cantona at first thought that Xu Yi was exaggerating because no matter what, the five thousand people recruited locally were much more than the people brought from Banta City. The main force for reclaiming this land should be the people of the Stantine Duchy.
But when Cantona arrived in the Stantine Duchy, he found that Xu Yi had underestimated the farmers of the Stantine Duchy.
Actually, the farmers that head Wein had delivered were even lazier than Cantona had imagined.
The farmers from Banta City started working as soon as the sun rose and only left when the sky became dark, taking only two hours in the middle to rest.
The people of the Stantine Duchy waited for the sun to be in the sky to start working and left as soon as the sun even came close to the horizon.
Moreover, they used all kinds of sly tricks while working to secretly laze off.
Cantona took some data and found that in the same day of work, a Banta City farmer could open up five to seven mu of land with agricultural magic machines and a Stantine Duchy farmer could only open up at most a single mu of land.
Although there was the fact that the Banta City farmers were more used to working with agricultural magic machines, they had already been here for half a month, so this can’t be considered the main reason.
So the summary was that the workers of the Stantine Duchy were just too lazy……