Chapter 177 The Ox and the Bent Plow
The carriage made its way to the outskirts of the city.
Henry got off the carriage and saw Tess walking on the side, carrying a baseball bat. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, keeping her distance from Ellie. She was scared by Ellie's tickling, and the places where she was tickled were unspeakable.
Ellie hummed an unknown tune, stealing glances at Tess, thinking triumphant, 'Let this bosomy cow show off. Now you know how powerful I am.'
Willow, blushing, walked with her head down, her heart racing as Henry was closer to her than ever before.
Henry shook his head with a smile, surveying the flat land, where was ideal for greenhouse farming. There was a plenty of plastic film in the castle's warehouse.
It took him days to transport them from Earth, enough for a dozen or so large greenhouses.
Henry planned to use a greenhouse technology from Earth. After Henry's modifications, it would become a semi-enclosed wall greenhouse technology.
The greenhouse had a slanted roof, with three tall and one short mud walls, the short one facing the sun, covered with plastic film and equipped with coal stoves for insulation, reducing the need for plastic film.
It was a simple yet effective design, with the only challenge being the construction of the mud walls.
In the warm spring of the following year, when the greenhouse was not needed, the mud walls could be easily dismantled, and other crops could be planted.
Most importantly, during snowy winters, the frozen mud walls were sturdy and wouldn't collapse, as long as the snow was regularly cleared.
"Ellie, come here!" Henry called Ellie, his 'secretary'.
"Yes, Henry!" Ellie immediately took out her notebook and stood obediently by Henry's side.
"This piece of land, and that one over there..." Henry pointed out the locations for the greenhouses, ending with, "That's all for now. The blueprints are in the second drawer on the left side of the desk. You can arrange for the construction to begin."
"Understood!" Ellie nodded repeatedly, knowing she would handle these tasks.
In the distance, the sound of hooves was accompanied by the lowing of cattle.
Henry turned to see a team member of the War Wolf Battle Squad pulling a carriage, with a cow wearing a nose ring following behind.
"Excellent!" Henry nodded in satisfaction. Once the cow had a nose ring, it would be a docile and strong ox. There were three in Eldoria, all bought from Hyratos.
The order for the nose rings was given by Henry before his trip to Hyratos, this time to test the Research Department's top-secret No. 20 project — the bent plow!
Tess curiously asked, "Henry, what is this for?"
"It's for plowing and land reclamation!" Henry chuckled, casting a curious glance at Tess's horns.
"What's up?" Tess touched her horns and asked, "Is there something on them?"
"No!" Henry shrugged, realizing he had overthought it.
Would the bovine orc worry about the cattle? Or consider them as their own kind? It was like asking if humans would care about monkeys or consider them as equals. Of course not, monkeys and humans were different, just as the bovine orc and cattle had no connection.
The plow ox was brought before Henry, and the bent plow was carefully unloaded by the War Wolf Battle Squad.
Henry let out a sigh of relief. The bent plow and the plow ox were the first steps in his land reclamation project.
The wheat needed deep plowing for the ears to grow full. Henry took off his robe, and Willow immediately stepped forward to take it, revealing a T-shirt underneath.
Following the records in the information from Earth, Henry hung the bent plow on the restless plow ox.
To the astonishment of the onlookers, Henry drove the plow ox into the field, clumsily operated the bent plow, and left everyone in awe.
The plow quickly turned over large chunks of soil, and in no time, a vast expanse of land was plowed.
Henry gently tugged the rope tied to the nose ring, and the plow ox slowly came to a stop. Then he removed the bent plow to let the ox rest.
"I didn't expect it to work so well!" Henry stretched his stiff limbs, feeling a bit nervous about his first attempt at plowing.
"Henry, this is amazing!" Willow was the first to rush up, excitedly grabbing Henry's arm and shouting, "What is this? How can it easily turn over such large chunks of soil?"
"It's called a bent plow. Next spring, everyone can use this to plow the fields; we can also open up more uncultivated land, and we won't have to buy wheat from outside next year." Henry laughed.
Moreover, Henry would also bring improved wheat seeds from Earth and create a rice paddy, as he had promised the catgirl.
"That's fantastic." Willow knew how hard it was for commoners to farm, especially land reclamation, due to the lack of good tools.
"Henry, we must protect these oxen and establish regulations to protect them. No one should slaughter them!" Ellie said seriously, immediately recognizing the importance of the plow oxen.
"Yes! That's for sure!" Henry thought of the ancient dynasties on Earth, which had established laws to protect plow oxen.
"Amazing!" Tess patted the plow ox's back.
"Let the research department start mass-producing bent plows." Henry said softly, looking across the Serene River, where if the wasteland was turned into farmland, it would be a great granary.
"Yes!" Ellie nodded and immediately took out a special notebook from her backpack to write down the orders.
The War Wolf Battle Squad then took the box containing the orders, drove the plow oxen, and carried the bent plows back to the research department.
The War Wolf Battle Squad were all from commoner backgrounds and understood the importance of the bent plow, which could be said to be a divine tool for the commoners.
So, on the way, they showed off their military crossbows to keep safe.
"Let's go to the bamboo forest." Henry then got on the carriage.
The bamboo here was different from that on Earth, and he wanted to investigate and see if there was a kind of bamboo that he wanted.
Eldoria's water supply system also needed an upgrade. After all, as the population of Eldoria grew, water would become scarce.
At the beginning of renovating Eldoria, the water supply should be improved so that everyone didn't have to squeeze around a few wells.
