Ch44.1 - A Crazy Banquet (Part One)

Most of the children in Northumberland had never tasted brown sugar. They merely heard about it whenever it was mentioned during the priests’ preachings. Today, they were summoned outside the Lord’s mill. 

The sensible children initially felt uneasy, because the agricultural official’s face was very ugly. But they soon found that several working serfs had smiles on their faces, diluting a lot of that uneasiness.

The agricultural official turned back to meet eyes with the Lord in order to confirm his decision. Then he loudly said, “Listen to me, you little bastards. Find two thin wooden sticks each, then line up in four lines, and come to me.”

If it was in the past, this task would be difficult to complete for the children. They wouldn’t know how to line up.

However, after the Lord distributed the broth and the peasant soldiers in rattan armour practiced standing in a battle formation, dazzling the villagers, the children also liked to practice lining up in private. So, after they found wooden sticks on the ground, they smoothly lined up in four rows according to their height. 

The agricultural farmer’s face was still so gloomy that it reminded everyone of the day when mutton soup was given out.

“Cough…” The agricultural official said calmly, “Let’s start.”

The serfs took the wooden sticks from the hands of the children at the front of the line, rinsed them in a basin of clean water, opened the earthen pot filled with sugar paste, twisted the wooden sticks twice, and rolled up a lump of sugar. “Take it to eat. It’s a reward from the Lord.”

The child had a dazed expression and didn’t know how he should react. He was the son of a serf. He hadn’t even seen brown sugar, let alone sugar paste.

“Silly boy, this is sugar.” The serf whispered, “Open your mouth and lick it.”

Sugar? Was this sugar what the Lord Priest had described, where sugar would be available all around the sky? The child subconsciously licked the sugar that was rolled on the wooden stick. The light brown sticky sugar paste burst out the most wonderful taste the child had ever tasted in their life after coming into contact with their tongue: sweetness.

At this moment, a great sense of happiness shrouded the child. This sweet taste was countless times stronger than the sweetness he had occasionally tasted from sucking grass stems. The soft and sticky texture was even more fascinating to the child. Seeing that the sugar paste was about to flow down, the serf making the sugar told him to roll the melted sugar up again.

The serf stirred the wooden stick to the front and the back, and the sugar paste was rolled up again. Even the serf’s actions looked very amazing to the children! 

The child rolled the sugar paste as if he wouldn’t grow tired of repeatedly doing the same action and licked one mouthful after another.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

The open space outside the mill and pond became a sea of joy.

Ktfs ybivis gjc ab atf juglmeiaegji boolmfg jcv atf Obgv jcv wjvf j cbcvfrmglqa rjieaf. “Ktjcx sbe, Obgv, juglmeiaegji boolmfg.”

Ktf uibbws-ibbxlcu juglmeiaegji boolmlji ofia rbwfatlcu bea bo atf cbgw. Pa kbeiv yf gfjrbcjyif obg tlw ab rmbiv atfrf meyr jcv xffq atfw jkjs ogbw tlwrfio, yea tf mbeivc’a yfjg ab joafg rfflcu atfw rwlilcu jcv tbivlcu bcab atf reujg ralmxr. 

This might be because there was still some precious brown sugar left, and he was sure he could get more from the Lord, but the agricultural official did taste a trace of happiness. They regarded serfs as tools, but when the numb serf children’s faces are filled with such a smile, how can they simply be viewed as tools?

“Milord, can I take the sugar back to my grandmother?” asked a child.

It was rare for one to be able to become a grandmother when people of this era had a short average lifespan. That person must be very old. Cui Qichao nodded and said, “What I gave you is now yours. You can freely choose who to share it with.”

Basically, after the initial joy the children experienced, all the children chose to run home, hold the sugar high up, and tell their father and mother, “This is the sugar the Lord gave me! Try it!” 

Of course, their parents were shocked. They didn’t react at the beginning. Sugar? What sugar? Was this made of sap and grass juice?

Before they tasted it, they could not be sure that it was sugar. Now they became even more confused: Even serfs were able to get a portion of sugar. Did the Lord dig a gold mine?

With such doubts, the family sat together and shared the sugar paste on the wooden stick in the child’s hand. Everyone watched their children show them how to twist the sugar. The whole fief was filled with happiness.

Sugar was worthy of being a luxury food for the nobility. It was worthy of the priest’s description: deliciousness that could only exist in heaven. Licking a mouthful would cause one to feel entirely different. 

But no one was willing to eat it all at once and only kept licking it from time to time, as if they were injected with chicken blood. Fortunately, they didn’t keep this habit up for long. In the near future, at least in Northumberland, sugar paste would not be considered luxurious anymore.

.

Cui Qichao left some of the remaining sugar paste for Lance and the children of the servants in the castle, while the rest was donated to the church.

Where the sugar came from could be concealed from the others, but the priest William, who lives in the fief, would find out sooner or later. Fortunately, William and Cui QiChao shared a common interest. He was surprised that those beets could produce sugar and enjoyed the sugar paste happily. The priest could afford honey, but who wouldn’t want to obtain more sugar? 

After William knew about it, the people in fief gradually learned about it too. It turned out that the beet that they increased manpower to harvest was the raw material for making brown sugar, not the Lord’s gold mine.

Of course, having a sugar mill might not be very different from owning a gold mine…

“The Lord is kind-hearted. No wonder he can produce sugar.”

“Yes, it must be because the Lord is kind-hearted, so God gave him sugar.” 

“Let’s follow the ways of the Lord, so we’ll have sugar to eat…”

“Stop talking about it. When the sugar mill was picking who to hire, I had a chance to be one of them. If I had known earlier, I would have fought for the position. I heard that the people in the sugar mill obtained a lot of beet residue to feed pigs.”

From everyone’s past ignorance of the use of beets to the present time, they still didn’t understand beets, but they at least understood that crops that could make sugar must be good things. And they also understood that after feeding pigs, they would grow up healthy and fat.

Why didn’t such good matters ever happen to them? 

If the sugar mill opened in the future, the workers there would definitely be the same workers and wouldn’t be casually replaced. Unless they needed to hire more workers, this job position was likely to be passed down to the current workers’ descendants. Their sons and grandchildren could make a living using their sugar-making skills.

After they thought about the requirements the sugar mill had when selecting workers, weren’t their requirements only to be hard-working, honest, and willing to work? This made the people who weren’t employees of the mill extremely regretful. They only hated that they didn’t show up at that time or give gifts to the village head in advance. Otherwise, the proud ones today would be them.

Those serfs working in the sugar mill mentioned how much sugar they had seen stacked together. It seemed they could discuss this topic for a year.

They took the beet dregs back, but the Lord told them not to feed the pigs all the beet dregs. It wasn’t good for the pigs to be fed too much. The number of workers in the sugar mill wasn’t a lot, and there might only be one or a few pigs in their homes. 

In this way, the workers had no choice but to give some of the pig feed to their neighbors in exchange for firewood, pig dung, or their neighbors’ assistance in carrying water.

For a moment, everyone began crazily trading in the village. In the past, some people might have tried to cook the beet dregs for consumption, but no one would have thought to use it as pig feed.

The servants in the castle were happier. Compared to the serfs, they were able to experience way more of the Lord’s generosity, given how close they could get to the Lord.

As soon as the Lord came back, he gave everyone sugar paste. The Lord had a mine—no, a sugar mill, but there wasn’t much of a difference. Everyone in the castle was filled with joy. 

Sugar paste was nothing to the Lord. Given how the Lord usually acted, he would definitely use the sugar to cook dishes. The knights and stewards would definitely get a share, while the rest could also obtain the leftovers.

In addition to joy, everyone also felt a trace of anxiety.

This was an age when people could go to war over just a few boxes of honey. What if other people discovered the existence of the sugar mill? They should now be glad that the Lord had trained so many peasant soldiers. Their hard work proved that their combat effectiveness was very good. They could even battle with regular armed forces.

The steward anxiously asked the Lord to immediately send someone to surround the sugar mill and stated that those beet seeds must be firmly locked inside the warehouse without anyone knowing. 

“Fine, what’s the hurry? You don’t have an opinion if the serfs are trained in turn, right? In the most critical moments, we can make it mandatory for everyone to serve as soldiers.” Cui Qichao said casually, “Armor, weapons, rattan armor, wooden bows and swords stained with poison rattan juice, thousands of troops, who would be able to beat me?”

The steward whispered, “As for the church…”

“Yes, I’ll contact the archbishop and send them some sugar,” Cui Qichao said. The archbishop’s position in the church had greatly alleviated because of the insecticide recipe. Now, Cui QiChao was sending him brown sugar and the beet-sugar-making method to further strengthen their fief’s relationship with the church and reduce Northumberland’s sense of existence.

Moreover, ignoring the presence of the archbishop, by giving them the sugar-making method, the church wouldn’t covet their fief. There were larger and more plentiful sugar beets growing in coastal cities over where they were. The church could ask for some sugar beets from the bigger cities. 

There was also a problem regarding the promotion of brown sugar to other fiefs. It wasn’t feasible for them to rashly disclose the new sugar production method in the form of a transaction. Everyone would find themselves confused between cash crops and grains.

Brown sugar was very valuable, so by then, everyone would be growing beets. What would they do if the production of grains was reduced? Besides, there was a risk of accidents happening during the planting process, and not everyone could handle the aftermath should such accidents occur.

For everyone to prosper together, there needed to be a long-term plan. The church had a lot of cultivated land, and when the output of brown sugar increased, the price would naturally decline. Everyone would be able to calmly look at the matter of producing sugar. At the same time, they could probably figure out a good planting method for beets or deal with the process of growing beets.

Which feudal landlord had a higher tolerance for risks than the church? 

The steward was pleased and said, “Lord, one more thing. Should the farmers plant some beets next season?”

Northumberland’s grain yield had increased greatly due to the increase of cultivated land, the reduction of fallow land, and fertilization, which meant that they could open up more fields for more kinds of sugar beet planting. The farmers had also obtained some beet seeds to grow. Anyway, most of the beets they planted had to be used to pay the rent. For the rest, they could also make brown sugar in the Lord’s sugar mill after paying for permission to use it. They could also purchase brown sugar for their own consumption.

Of course, Cui Qichao had thought of this. The steward probably only thought about the rent collection part, and the steward would surely want to grow red beets in his own lands.

“Yes, it will be planted collectively,” Cui Qichao said. He would control the ratio of cash crops and grains.