Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 127: The Iron Plow in the Mud and the Foster Colt

The cold wind, carrying icy rain and the stench of rotting water plants, scraped across the cracks in the stone tower's walls like a knife.

Otto stood in front of the blinds in the second-floor study, the damp, cold air penetrating his gray wool coat.

Outside the window, on the twelve-mile-long construction site of the log road, an old draft horse from Twin Rivers City had its front hooves deeply embedded in knee-deep icy mud.

No matter how the refugees in straw raincoats brandished their whips, the old horse could only breathe heavily in despair, finally letting out a mournful cry before its massive body crashed into the mud.

The head steward, Pollifer, stood on the edge of the swamp.

Instead of lamenting the loss of animal power, he beckoned to two butchers and refugees carrying boning knives.

"While the blood is still warm, skin the animals and tan them."

Pollifer's thin fingers pointed to the horse carcass in the mud, his dry voice piercing through the rain.

"The meat was too sour, so we chopped it up and cooked it into the paving group's wheat paste that night. All the bones were smashed and sent to the headquarters blast furnace to be burned into bone charcoal. Not a single scrap was allowed to remain in the mud."

A moment later, Pollifer walked into the study, reeking of mud.

Instead of giving his usual lengthy report, he simply threw a broken ironwood plow and a yellowed hay bill onto the mahogany table.

"The wooden plows, pieced together from scraps left over from the log road, were ruined after being soaked in the icy mud. Three of them broke in just one hour."

Pollifer's voice carried the coldness of a pragmatist.

"Furthermore, livestock are still dying. Adding to the losses of the past few days, our transport capacity has reached its limit. And..."

Pollifer's sunken cheeks twitched.

"Those twenty castrated warhorses sent from the West consume three times the amount of fine oats a draft horse would each day, yet they are only fit to stroll around the drill ground. They are good-for-nothings who eat for free."

Otto walked back to the head of the table and sat down, glancing at the broken wooden plow.

"Draft a letter and send it to Shili City."

Otto didn't touch the hay and fodder ledger; instead, he went straight to the source of the impasse.

"Tell Lord Jonas Brecken that Bluefork River is offering a 30% premium over the market price, to be paid in pure gold in cash. Purchase from him thirty thoroughbred stallions and large-framed mares in their breeding season."

"As long as he provides top-quality horses, the price of the pig iron lances supplied to him next month will be reduced by another 10%."

A knowing glint flashed in Pollifer's cloudy eyes.

The Brecken family is now bogged down in the war and desperately needs cash and cheap military equipment.

Otto used the dead gold coins lying idle in the secret room to break open the gates of the Stonehide Stable. This deal would not only get him the best horses in the Riverlands, but would also make Jonos think that Bluefork River was a righteous ally.

"There are excellent pastures on the outskirts of Willowwood City’s fir forests, where old Legg once kept twenty-five warhorses."

Otto continued to give orders.

"Imprison that area and designate it as a directly controlled stable, send fifteen of the best stallions there. Send ten veterans under Mude to keep a close watch on it."

"The remaining fifteen horses are too much for the pastures of Willowwood City to handle," Pollifer pointed out.

"Bring in Peggy and Piper's other sons."

Half an hour later, Garrett Page and his five second sons, including Lins Piper, entered the study. They were still covered in the mud from their drills on the training ground.

These five men were no longer as arrogant as when they first arrived; months of mud and whips had washed away their former flamboyance.

Seventeen-year-old William Charlton stood by the door, holding a scroll of parchment in his hand.

"Your families each have their own dry meadows that have been passed down through generations in their respective territories."

Otto looked at them.

"In a few days, I will bring back a batch of thoroughbreds. The remaining fifteen will be cared for by your fathers. Each family will receive three."

Several of the younger sons suddenly looked up. A flicker of instinctive surprise flashed in Garrett Page's previously wary eyes, which quickly turned into a calculating look.

"Bluefork River provides stallions. Your family provides fodder, stables, and guards day and night."

William unfolded the parchment book and coldly read out the rules.

"For every ten foals that live past one year old, the Hohenzollern family will take nine. The remaining one will belong to your family."

The study was quiet for a moment.

Lince Piper's breathing became heavy. As a member of a collateral branch of the Piper family, he was nominally a nobleman, but in reality, he couldn't even get a worthless horse.

He was frantically calculating in his mind: even if he only got one-tenth of the purebred horses in Stone Fence City, it would still be an astonishing private fortune over five years.

Having acquired his own warhorse, he even felt confident enough to challenge his eldest brother from the main family for the right to speak.

Greed, like a poisonous weed, took root and sprouted in the eyes of these second sons.

"But what if these horses die on your land, from disease, or are stolen?"

Otto pressed down the cold weight at the opportune moment.

"For every pig that dies, Steward Pollif will deduct fifty gold dragons from your family's monthly iron production bonus. If the iron isn't enough to cover the deduction, your farmland will have to compensate."

Garrett Page gritted his teeth. He knew this was poisoned wine; Blue Fork River had dumped all the costs and risks of raising the animals on them, and was now using the iron ore profits as leverage.

But with power and capital within his grasp, he had long since forgotten the dignity that belonged to the old aristocracy.

"The Peggy family is willing to take these three horses, sir."

Garrett was the first to kneel down on one knee, his voice revealing a ruthless edge born of assimilation.

"Even if my father himself went to sleep in the stable, these three horses wouldn't lose a single hair."

Lince Piper and the others hurriedly knelt down to agree. Otto looked at these teenagers, who were tightly bound by interests, and waved for them to step back and sign.

After his second sons left, Otto turned his gaze to the broken wooden plow on the table. The supply of blood for the warhorses was secured, but the immediate problem of feeding 3,700 people for spring planting remained critical.

"We don't need wood anymore."

Otto made a decision.

"Go find Dolan to adjust the mold for the hydraulic hammer. Use all that inferior pig iron slag from the bottom of the pit. Forge a pure pig iron plowshare and pickaxe weighing sixty pounds each."

Pollifer's eyes lit up slightly. He didn't refute it, but instead took the initiative to fill in the last link in this cruel machine.

"Pure iron plowshares are too heavy for human strength to pull. My lord, those Western castrated horses that graze on oats in the drill ground are perfect for being chained. They can't be used for breeding, but their skeletons are strong enough to pull through the hardest mud on the riverbank."

Otto remained noncommittal about the steward's pragmatism and continued to issue the code for land reclamation.

"The original family farming system was broken. All the refugees were organized into groups of 100 people each according to the Iron Oath Corps and went to work in the fields."

Otto's voice was cold and hard as iron.

"Dig up the roots in the front, drive the horses to plow the soil deeply in the middle, and level the soil and sow the seeds in the back."

"Set a fixed area for each group to cultivate. Those who exceed the limit will receive half a block of cheese for dinner. Those who fail to complete the task will have their entire group's rations halved."

"Some have fallen ill from the cold, which has slowed down the progress," Pollifer habitually confirmed the boundary.

"Let the group handle it themselves." Otto looked out the window at the cold rain.

Two days later, the first batch of heavy cast iron plowshares was transported to the outside of the flood control canal.

Those twenty tall and strong castrated horses from the western border were stripped of their dignity as warhorses and forcibly fitted with crude cast iron harnesses.

Accompanied by the cold commands of the formation, sharp iron plows carved deep, straight black furrows in the mud.

The one-eyed refugee gripped his whip tightly, staring intently at the churning, damp earth ahead, his hoarse shouts carrying far in the cold wind.