Chapter 1162: New Village Planning, Advance Promises

In Xia Duo's planning, a relatively concentrated natural village must have at least one hundred households, so that after forming a full-time patrol and hunting team, the remaining people can still complete the task of tilling the entire village's land during the sowing season.

The forest territory is not safe, or rather, this world and this era are not safe.

With the current population of Daxia Territory, it would be divided into nearly twenty natural villages!

With the construction of new villages and the dispersal of the population, the Territory Guard cannot look after all the villages at all times.

Therefore, the villages also need to have a certain amount of self-defense armed force; otherwise, a few wandering Orcs could easily wipe out an entire village.

This situation will continue for a long time, until the surrounding environment is completely stabilized.

……

In the conference room, Xia Duo listened with interest as everyone discussed, but the focus of the discussion soon veered from new village construction to the land grant schedule.

"The current arable land in the territory and the subsequent pace of development are not enough to support such an aggressive land grant plan. I think we can slow it down a little; we must never use land on paper to fool people!"

The person speaking was the Chief Official of the Logistics Department, Kaide, who was also among the first batch of territory residents to follow Xia Duo to develop the Green Pearl Forest.

Logically speaking, he also had a share in the recent land grant quotas; after all, the land only corresponded to the number of people, and it was the same whether it was distributed early or late, only that there might be a few more Gold Coins if it were late.

But considering that the territory's arable land was insufficient, he took the initiative to request a late distribution before Xia Duo had even proposed that territory officials receive theirs late.

Of course, it was only himself, and he did not ask others to be the same as him.

And now, he was refuting the proposal of Jiake, the Chief Official of the Settlement Department, regarding granting the land on paper to the residents first and fulfilling it later once the development was completed.

"How is this fooling people?"

Hearing Kaide say this about him, Jiake's dissatisfaction was almost written on his face, and his voice rose slightly; if not for the fact that the Lord was also present, he would have even been ready to start cursing!

"Kaide, by saying that, do you think the territory will not honor those lands granted in advance in the future?"

This was a bit serious, and Kaide immediately stood up and looked at Xia Duo, "Lord, Kaide absolutely does not have such thoughts. I have absolute faith in the credibility of the territory and the Lord!"

"Then why do you still oppose it?" Jiake retorted.

"I, I—"

Kaide was speechless for a moment.

Before coming to Daxia Territory, he was just an ordinary farmer in Savile Territory, while Jiake had operated a fairly large leather shop; although it went bankrupt later, he could be considered to have seen the "world," and in all aspects, he was still quite seasoned compared to Kaide.

But Kaide also had an advantage that Jiake could not compare with, which was that Kaide always placed himself in the position of an ordinary farmer and did not change because of his current status.

It was precisely this point that determined he would speak for the more ordinary residents; although he could not refute Jiake's rebuttal, he felt vaguely in his heart that doing so was inappropriate, and he believed the Lord would also support him.

"Laidun, what is your take on this situation?" Xia Duo looked at Laidun, who was standing to his lower right.

Laidun pondered for a moment and replied, "My Lord, the territory will not make promises that cannot be fulfilled!"

Was this supporting Jiake then?

Xia Duo was thoughtful. Having spent so much time together, Laidun was no longer like he was at the beginning, only knowing how to execute orders simply and crudely; instead, he had his own understanding, capable of both putting forward different opinions and handling problems in a roundabout way.

In a word, Laidun had become mature!

This also made Xia Duo trust him more, but right now, Laidun's decision could not be called wrong, but it was somewhat lacking in consideration.

At present, the residents' trust in Daxia Territory and Daxia Order was indeed relatively high, but this trust was mostly built on the recent land grant actions; only when they actually received the land and got the Gold Coins would people believe it!

If the undeveloped land on paper were used to grant to the residents, although Xia Duo believed the territory would certainly not break its word and the residents might also be very trusting, as long as it was not fulfilled for a single day, there would always be hesitation in their hearts.

Trust can be worn away!

And if the time for fulfillment was too long, in case something went wrong in the middle, even if it were compensated double in the future, that would be a stain that would be difficult to wash away for a lifetime.

Especially since this kind of breach of faith at the official policy level was much more serious than the private illegal and undisciplined behavior of an individual official!

And on the other hand.

Daxia Order was social order, influenced and constrained by the human heart; if the human heart was unstable, the Order Force would change, and the Order Cycle would also be affected.

Although Xia Duo's current research on Order Force was more like a hobby, from a long-term perspective, the research on Order Force might be even more important to the development of magical civilization than the research on Plane Domain!

After all, Xia Duo's research on Plane Domain was more for the sake of making full use of his Personal Space; for an individual, it might be more important, but for the civilization as a whole that he wanted to develop, that might not necessarily be the case.

Thinking of this, Xia Duo did not immediately give a final result on this issue, but called the name of Jiefu, the Chief Official of the Development Department:

"Jiefu, currently, without delaying the opening of the 【Daxia-Saville Passage】, approximately how much arable land can the Development Department develop in a month?"

The 【Daxia-Saville Passage】 was only five hundred meters wide, and without considering multi-section construction, the number of people who could work simultaneously was limited, far lower than the total number of people in the Development Department; the remaining people would of course continue to develop new land!

Hearing the Lord call him, Jiefu immediately stood up. Regarding this question, he had been prepared before coming; Kelake had already calculated it for him, and now he just had to say it accordingly:

"Lord, currently the Development Department has a total of 243 large and small working groups, with a total of more than 3,300 people. Opening the 【Daxia-Saville Passage】 requires 78 working groups to work fixedly, with 25 mobile working groups cooperating together, and the remaining people are all used for land development. Without any major accidents, it is expected that 1,500 New Mu of land can be newly developed each month!"

"1,500 New Mu?"

Hearing this number, Xia Duo was not very surprised. Judging from the work plans and work records submitted by the Development Department in the past, this number was quite reasonable.

It seemed that thousands of people could only develop this much land in a month, but one must know that this was in a forest; not to mention anything else, just clearing tree roots would consume a large amount of manpower.

Not to mention, there was also the work of banishing and clearing forest creatures in advance, which was a task with very high uncertainty.

If it were just cutting down trees, it would not be strange for so many people to cut down 1,000 Mu in a day; the key was arable land!

Thinking of this, Xia Duo envied those who were developing on the Kangqi Plain again!