Chapter 129: Inspection

Jia Zhengjin stepped out of the residential building and first took a glance at the open space within the city.

Under Zhuoma’s direction, the kobold craftsmen were constructing houses according to his design. Wolf and Carl were assisting nearby, and the group was working with great enthusiasm. Jia Zhengjin decided not to disturb them and moved on to inspect other areas.

The mine inside the city walls had been mostly exhausted. At this moment, the villager miners were wielding iron pickaxes for the final extraction, while others used crude carts and shoulder poles to transport the ore to the storage zone.

"Lord Keen!" Seeing Jia Zhengjin approach, the miners stopped their work. "Once this area is fully excavated, will we be sent to work in a new mine?"

Jia Zhengjin paid the villagers a wage for mining, a rarity in this land. In most other cities or nations, miners were either forced or semi-forced laborers—defeated soldiers driven into the pits or citizens pressed into service as a form of corvée labor. For them, a full belly was a luxury.

Here, however, the miners were well-fed with meat and fish daily, and they received a gold coin every two months—a tremendous benefit. They feared losing their jobs, knowing full well that the kobold miners hired by Lord Keen would work themselves to the bone for nothing more than a bit of meat. Hiring the villagers was merely an act of charity to support those who knew only how to mine.

Fearing that their good days would come to an end once the mine was emptied, they looked to him with concern.

Jia Zhengjin understood their anxieties and smiled. "Do not worry, everyone. Minerals are the one thing the Beast Forest does not lack! I will soon expand the city walls, which will encompass even more mining areas. You need not worry about anything; there will be plenty of mining work for you!"

Upon hearing this, the miners erupted into joyful cheers. Shouting, "Long live Lord Keen!" they returned to their work with even greater vigor.

Leaving the mines, he walked toward the farmland.

Led by Bolint, the villagers were busy sowing seeds and harvesting crops. With short growth cycles, they could plant whatever they desired without much concern. Many families now had enough vegetables and fruits, so they had begun growing cotton-like plants. They would take the harvested "cotton" fruit home to their wives and daughters, who used rudimentary hand-operated looms to weave them into common cloth.

However, these weaving techniques were ancient and inefficient; a single bolt of cloth often took half a month to a month to complete.

Unfortunately, Jia Zhengjin had not yet unlocked the technology research institute, or he could have produced a weaving machine. With a loom, a bolt of cloth could be finished in less than a day, vastly improving efficiency.

As he was thinking this, an elderly villager approached him. "Lord Keen!"

"Hello there!" Jia Zhengjin was quite polite toward the elderly.

"Oh, I am getting on in years, and my back just can't take it anymore," the old man sighed, rubbing his back. "Even though you have provided us with such wonderful farmland, I find myself unable to keep up with the watering. I am truly sorry!"

"Do you not have any other family?" Jia Zhengjin asked; he had yet to fully learn the names of all thousand villagers.

"Alas! I only have a five-year-old granddaughter, and she is of no help," the old man lamented.

"And her parents?"

"Dead! They were devoured by beasts a long time ago while gathering wild fruits on the outskirts of the Beast Forest," the old man said, tears welling in his eyes.

"My condolences," Jia Zhengjin offered, finding no other words of comfort.

Other villagers working in the fields noticed him and began to gather around to offer their greetings. Old Harlin, Amber’s father, looked at the poor old man and said, "Old Albato here has it rough. While we try to help him carry water from time to time, we cannot do it indefinitely, as we all have our own fields to tend."

"Hmm, I hadn't considered that," Jia Zhengjin pondered. "How about I arrange for some kobolds to assist?"

"Lord Keen, we would be delighted to have the kobolds' help," Bolint replied. "But they only follow your direct commands. I fear that when it comes to the actual tasks, they might cause more trouble than they solve."

Jia Zhengjin found his father-in-law's point reasonable. "Then, perhaps I could have the town guards help out during their spare time after training?"

"That won't do either," Old Harlin countered. "The town guards are responsible for the safety of our city; they need proper rest after their training. Actually, I believe that if we could solve the water issue, everything else would fall into place. Right now, the most exhausting part for everyone is having to haul water from the river. Those of us with strength can manage, but for many who are physically weaker like Albato, it is truly grueling."

"That’s right!"
"Hauling water is the most tiring part!"
The villagers chimed in, all in agreement.

"Hauling water?" Jia Zhengjin’s mind raced, and a sudden inspiration struck him.

Although he hadn't unlocked machine tools to produce precise parts like faucets or pipes, finding a substitute didn't seem too difficult. He remembered an exotic plant near the city resembling bamboo, which the locals called "hollow-wood." It was very similar to bamboo—hollow in the center and quite sturdy.

He immediately announced, "Those of you with strength, grab a stone axe from the public warehouse and follow me outside the city! I will help you build a water diversion system!"

"Yes!" Hearing this, the villagers were eager to help. The stronger ones ran to the warehouse to grab their stone axes and gathered before Jia Zhengjin.

He led the villagers outside the city and found a spot where the hollow-wood grew in abundance. He directed them to chop it down, and with many hands, they soon collected a large quantity of the material and carried it back into the city.

Following his memory, Jia Zhengjin had them split all the hollow-wood lengthwise into semi-circular troughs. He then directed them to carry these troughs to a waterfall on the river at a higher elevation, constantly adjusting and securing them, connecting the segments one by one all the way down to the farmland.

The water from the waterfall flowed into the troughs, winding its way down through the hollow wooden channels until it finally emptied into the fields.

Jia Zhengjin had everyone use stone shovels to dig a large pond at that location for water storage. This way, the villagers would no longer need to struggle down to the river and haul heavy buckets back up.