The Restoration of Rome: In the Name of Augustus

Chapter 81 The Land of Ramla

The scorching sun on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean is burning the newly reclaimed slopes along the Levant coast.

Surrounded by the royal guards, Lyon rode his horse to the town of Ramla, the reclamation area that Robert had entrusted to Theodore before his departure.

Ramla is located on the west side of Jerusalem, and not far to the south of Ramla is the well-known Mount Montgisar.

In the Battle of Montigza, Saladin's army scattered and plundered around Ramla, while his main force marched down the Montigza hills. The armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem then joined forces and decisively defeated Saladin's main force at Montigza, making Baldwin IV famous in one battle.

But as the saying goes, "One general's success is built on the bones of ten thousand." People only know that the king won a great victory over Saladin at Montigza, but they are unaware of how brutally the surrounding villages and towns were burned, killed, and looted by the infidel rebels while the Battle of Montigza was taking place.

To this day, the area surrounding Ramla has not yet emerged from the shadow of war. When Lyon arrived in Ramla, he found the scene before him to be even more dire than he had anticipated.

The village of Ramla is quite poor and desolate. The surrounding palm groves have been abandoned, the sandy soil mixed with gravel is barren and infertile, and the irrigation ditches are blocked with silt.

Dozens of farmers, men and women, were emaciated and leading the village's only cow, working with the most primitive tools.

The other cattle and livestock were either slaughtered and eaten by them, or died of disease, and their remains were left on the sandy ground outside to be devoured by wild animals.

Several men with deeply lined faces, whose real age was hard to discern, were struggling to pull a very simple single-shaft wooden plow. The plow tip could barely cut the surface of the ground, and the clods of soil it turned up were small and dry.

The women and children followed behind, laboriously breaking up the clods of earth that had been turned up with wooden mallets, their sweat dripping into the parched land and evaporating instantly.

A sense of despair and exhaustion filled the air, and Lyon and his entourage, along with the royal guards behind them, all wore expressions of unspoken reluctance.

The project manager, Theodore, strode forward, bowed to Lyon, and said with barely concealed anxiety and frustration, "Your Highness, as you can see... this land is practically abandoned by God. We cleared away the stones according to the blueprints, but... the seeds we sowed won't even sprout. The soil is too fertile, and it can't retain water; a light rain washes it away, and the sun causes it to harden."

Theodore looked sadly at the farmers on the wasteland and sighed heavily: "Most of the wastelands in the Levant have this kind of soil, but the Ramla region is the most difficult."

Lyon did not answer immediately. He dismounted, walked to the edge of a freshly plowed field, bent down, and grabbed a handful of soil.

The sand quickly slipped through his fingers, leaving only a few rough pebbles. He looked around and saw the hunched backs of the farmers, bent over from years of hard work, and the deep doubt in their eyes.

An elderly farmer, his hair and beard completely white, mustered his courage to complain to Theodore, supported by his son: "Adults, it's not that we don't want to work... it's just that working on this land is useless!"

Lyon straightened up, his gaze sweeping over everyone present, from Theodore to the most ordinary farmer.

"Theodore, and the people of the kingdom," Lyon raised his voice, cutting through the wind across the wilderness, "land may be fertile or barren, but such differences can be bridged by human effort. This land may indeed be barren, but the key is that our farming methods are not quite right."

He walked over to the simple wooden plow and tapped it with his foot: "First of all, the tool. This light plow is only suitable for the soft garden soil along the Mediterranean coast. To deal with the gravelly soil here, it's like trying to pry open a boulder with a toothpick."

He turned to Theodore and the laborers accompanying the convoy: “We need heavy plows, preferably heavy plows with iron plowshares and sieves. The plowshares need to be narrower and sharper so they can penetrate deep into the hard soil. And the sieves need to have a unique curved design.”

He picked up a twig and drew a simple diagram on the ground: "Look, it's this curve. When the plowshare breaks through the soil, the clods of earth are completely turned over along this curve. This not only brings up the subsoil to weather, but also buries the weeds and stubble on the surface, turning them into green manure. More importantly, deep plowing breaks through the hard plow pan, allowing crop roots to go deeper to find water and nutrients."

Then, he walked to a patch of uncultivated wasteland: "Secondly, we need to improve the soil. We have a lot of livestock manure and human and animal excrement, which cannot be piled up randomly, otherwise the fertilizer effect will be lost. We need to build standardized manure pits and composting sites, and pile these wastes in layers with soil, wood ash, and even river silt, and stir them regularly to ensure they are fully utilized..."

Lyon suddenly realized that the concept of "fermentation" didn't seem to exist in 12th-century Europe. After a pause, he could only use "gruit" and "barm" instead: "Let it boil fully, or rather, decay!"

"Furthermore," he pointed to a corner overgrown with some legume weeds, "see that? These legumes have root nodules that can fix nutrients from the air. We can systematically plant these crops on fallow land and then plow them back into the field—that's called green manure. In this way, the land can slowly recover."

"As for water," Lyon continued, "the reason why the land here can't retain water is because the field structure is wrong."

He had his servants bring a water bag and slowly poured the water onto the flat ground. The water quickly flowed and seeped everywhere.

Then, he used his hands to build a low ridge in the sand, dug a shallow ditch on the other side, and watered it again. The water was collected in the ditch and slowly seeped down.

"What we need to do is emulate this principle. We need to shape the land into narrow ridges and deep furrows. When it rains, the rainwater will collect in the furrows and slowly nourish the crop roots, instead of flowing away instantly. This not only helps with drought resistance, but also effectively drains water during heavy rains and prevents flooding. In areas with steep slopes, we can even create terraces to intercept water and soil layer by layer."

Theodore and the farmer's faces were filled with doubt and disbelief.

Theodore hesitated. "Your Highness, what you're saying... especially the plowshare that can turn over clods of earth, and the green manure... will it really work?"

Lyon nodded: "That's right, Theodore. The heavy things I had you fetch from the artisans' quarter that were on your convoy are the plows I was talking about! Have someone bring the plows, and right here in this area, choose a small, barren patch of land, prepare it according to my method, then collect animal manure from the camp, mix it with soil and weeds, and make a small pile of fertilizer on the spot as a demonstration."

Theodore immediately obeyed and got to work with the laborers and some farmers. Soon, more than a dozen oddly shaped heavy plows were placed in front of them.

As the iron plowshare of the new heavy plow cut deep into the soil, and the curved wooden plowshare behind it successfully turned over a large clod of earth, a chorus of uncontrollable gasps erupted around them. This was a world apart from the wooden plows they had used for generations, which could only scratch the surface of the ground.

Meanwhile, the small demonstration plot, arranged according to Lyon's method, also demonstrated its advantages during a brief watering. The water flow was neatly confined within the ditch, slowly seeping down, creating a stark contrast with the water rapidly flowing away on the adjacent flat ground.

The farmer stared in astonishment, his mouth agape. He stepped forward and touched the turned-over, damp, dark soil, his hands trembling slightly.

Lyon turned to Theodore and said, “See? Just like I did, now it’s your turn. Jerusalem will produce enough plows, and you’re in charge of distributing them to the farmers, teaching them the methods, and working to turn these arable lands into Jerusalem’s granary.”

Theodore took a deep breath, solemnly placed his hand on his chest, and bowed: "I will certainly not fail Your Highness's trust!"