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Resets Weekly! [Monday]
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The next day, Ulyan took two men to Isonpol and didn't come back until two full days later.
When he returned, there were a few more people and two horses trailing behind him.
Ulyan excitedly introduced them to Valery, "These two are craftsmen from the Petukhov family. They've come to help us build a water mill and a sawmill."
"Hello, masters." Seeing his senior colleagues, Valery rubbed his shiny bald head and greeted them with a simple and honest smile.
"I'll leave these two masters to you. Take a few more people and give them a good hand!" Ulyan said as he winked at Valery.
Valery got the message right away. Wasn't it just asking him to sponge off the craftsmen's skills? He was no stranger to this.
He got all his skills this way.
No one knew how Ulyan had negotiated with Rigolav. Not only did he secure material aid, but Rigolav also agreed to a bunch of his extra requests.
Before leaving, he not only borrowed two craftsmen from the Petukhov family but also secretly led two horses away under the cover of Romon.
Although these two horses weren't up to the standard of warhorses, they could still be considered excellent riding horses, adequate for daily use.
The Western Watchtower was nearly thirty li from River Bend. If it came to the point when they needed to call for help, going on foot to send a message would obviously be too slow.
Moreover, a Pioneer Knight was still a knight. How could a knight do without a horse!
No horse? That's just an infantryman!
The two riding horses were carefully locked up in the newly built stable by the militiamen. After the donkeys, kobold cubs, marmots, and one-horned wild boars, they became the new additions to the River Bend zoo.
The newly built stable and the blacksmith shop were located on the left and right sides, right next to the stone wall of the lord's mansion, and each had a small door leading to the mansion.
After all, livestock and ironware were strategic resources for a small village territory.
Ulyan had long intended to build a water-powered sawmill on the other side of River Bend. Even if it could only drive one saw blade, it would at least be equivalent to the workload of twenty people.
If there had been a sawmill from the start, not to mention the lord's mansion, the main frames of the villagers' wooden houses could have been completed.
Ulyan could even have built a few watchtowers in advance and transformed the River Bend Settlement Camp into a small military camp.
Unfortunately, in such a desolate place, outstanding craftsmen and blacksmiths were high-tech and sophisticated professions. Either they were vassals of lords at all levels or small citizens with assets. No one was willing to tag along with him into the wilderness.
Leo had of course also proposed harnessing water power, but talk is cheap, isn't it?
Even Valery, who knew the most about it, didn't dare to guarantee that a water-powered saw could be put into use once it was built.
It took Valery and five or six people a week to build a small iron-smelting blast furnace, and it collapsed twice before they finally got it right.
If they were to research a water-powered saw on their own, wouldn't it take eight or ten young and strong men to spend a month or two tinkering with it, and they would also have to bear the risk of failure?
Everyone had a brain, but unfortunately, they didn't have the know-how.
As for why it was on the other side of the river, it was because the area opposite River Bend was closer to the pine forest. The treated logs could be directly tossed into the water and sent to the settlement camp side or downstream.
Most importantly, the opposite side was the erosion bank, where the river was deeper and the current was stronger.
On the peninsula side, it was the deposition bank. The river was too shallow and the current was gentle. The eddy formed by the river bend could even occasionally push small boats upstream.
Not to mention a waterwheel, even a small fishing boat with an extremely shallow draft couldn't dock.
For this reason, in order to load and unload ores and goods for small fishing boats, the settlement camp had to build a ten - meter - long plank road stretching into the river.
In addition to the sawmill, Ulyan also requested the craftsmen to build a mill.
The technical requirements for a water mill were much less demanding than those for a water saw. For experienced craftsmen, it was just a matter of making one more waterwheel and a few bearings.
Once the mill was built, the village women in the settlement camp wouldn't have to grind wheat by hand anymore. The large amount of spare time saved could be spent on opening up wasteland, spinning, weaving, and tanning.
After arranging the craftsmen, Ulyan quietly pointed at a thin young man he had brought back and sighed with a sigh to Rusev, "Do you still remember the old John's family?"
"Old John? That old guy is here?" Rusev knocked his pipe heavily.
"He didn't come. He's gone." Ulyan said expressionlessly, "That whole big family is gone. Only his grandson, Harry, is left."
Rusev suddenly fell silent. The words "Good riddance!" got stuck in his throat.
Old John was a refugee who fled to Ulyan's village after the neighboring village was destroyed. His family had a large number of members and good living conditions. If not a small landowner, he was at least a well - off peasant.
A family of over ten people followed Ulyan's convoy for over a hundred li, then they started clamoring to break up. They settled in a small town in front of Varanger City together with a few other families from the same village.
As it happened, just a few days after the convoy left, the attack by the Beast Race followed right after.
The whole small town was massacred. Only Harry, the little grandson of old John's family, managed to escape.
Fortunately, Harry still remembered the destination of the exploration convoy. He followed the tide of displaced persons all the way to Isonpol and had been staying outside the city for seven or eight days.
Surely, he wasn't the only one in this situation.
During this trip to the city, Ulyan deliberately walked around the displaced persons' camp a few times to make preparations for the River Bend Territory to accept displaced persons and expand its strength in the future.
As a result, he saw Harry who was on the verge of starvation at a glance.
"He's also a poor lad. How could I just watch him starve to death? So I brought him back."
This young man, who used to be as strong as Leo, was now emaciated and his eyes were dull.
"Feed him some good meals first to let him recover."
The rest of the villagers also didn't mean to mock Harry. Two village women took care of changing his tattered clothes caked with black mud and brought him food.
Looking at the wheat cake in his hand and the thick soup with floating oil droplets, Harry, who had just escaped death, began to doubt the authenticity of what was in front of him.
In his imagination, following Ulyan to the exploration camp, he would be lucky to just have some chaff and thin gruel and get a few mouthfuls of antler cassava (a kind of special cassava) to survive.
How come, just two months later, the people in River Bend Settlement Camp were eating solid food?
During the two days when Ulyan was away, through the big mouths of several old men like Rusev, the news that "Olivia rejected Knight Romon for Leo" spread like wildfire in the village.
What sort of news could there be in a remote wilderness settlement camp?
Eighty percent of the new happenings were caused by Leo.
When several of Olivia's best friends heard about it, they were indignant and came up to persuade her to change her mind one by one.
Knight Romon, wearing beautiful armor, with great poise and a handsome appearance, was the dream lover of these village belles.
He was from the city, from the upper class, and a real noble young master.
Others would dream of having him. Why'd you reject him!
As for Leo... He took a backseat for the time being!
At this very moment, Leo, whom they were secretly criticizing, was standing not far away, carrying a large manure fork and staring absent-mindedly at the manure pile at his feet.
Right at this time, he was only wearing a tattered linen tunic with no sleeves. He was dirty all over, as if he had just escaped from a prison cell.
His short blond hair still glistened brightly in the sunlight.
Most of his well-built and strong muscles were on display. Even the parts covered by the thin tunic had well-defined lines.
Olivia watched with great amusement as several of her sisters gulped down their saliva while variously badmouthing Leo.