Chapter 937 The City of Thesalie (Part-3)
Lady Felicia had certainly embellished the truth a bit when she said Alexander's farming techniques had doubled the harvest.
In reality, it was closer to 40% to 50% increase.
Which was still great no question.
But 650 kg per hectare was still quite a bit lacking when compared to Zanzan's average of nearly 1,000 kg (one ton) per hectare, and minuscule when compared to the astounding more than 3,000 kg (three tons) per hectare found in some very, very fertile parts of the Tibias during bumper harvests.
But when compared to the traditional yield of the surrounding lands here that ran between 350 to 450 kg per hectare depending on the weather, it was indeed a great improvement.
For context, in Alexander's previous life, 650 kg of grain per hectare was the average yield Greece had under Roman rule, while Tunisia's average yield was 400 kg per hectare.
Meaning that a country that was hot, arid, and 90% desert sometimes had better harvest than the lands around Thesalie depending on the weather.
And if not for the southern parts of the country helping to chip in to feed Thesalie and the surrounding populace, the city and its lands would have long ago starved and perhaps even be completely void of civilization, a dead zone.
Thus the improvement in soil fertility was greatly appreciated.
Great enough to put a smile on the farmer's face, not only because of this one harvest, but because they knew this would be their new norm as the weather this year also had been nothing to write home about, neither too good, neither too bad, but only average.
"Praise be to the Pasha. Chosen of Gaia!"
"The Lord is blessed."
"May the gods continue to favor him."
Many farmers were even heard chanting this.
And many more farmers even began to flock to the Gaia Temple in the city because of this, wishing to convert to Alexander's new faith.
Alexander would later visit the main temple and talk to the priests to know that in just the last month, the number of followers around Thesalie had gone from in the hundreds to the high thousands, a truly astonishing feat.
Such an occurrence was caused by the Gaia priests and priestesses that Theocles had appointed there, who capitalized on the great harvest on directives from Theocles and worked day and night proselytizing Alexander's faith.
"The goddess has brought her favored child to you. And he has gifted you wealth and sustenance beyond anything you could have ever hoped for! Will you still continue to deny his favors onto you?"
"Come! Our lord is the Given of Life and the Sustainer of the Worlds! Come to the straight path. The path that leads us to Him, and that does not lead you astray."
Alexander would find this particular sermon being recited by a lean black priest dressed in green and white especially charming, and seeing the man had a particular way with words, would make the man head of this Temple branch, much to the other's gratitude, as well as increase funding for their endeavor.
But now back to the meeting at hand, with the farming section out of the way, Alexander then moved on to another large task- the building of the water supply and sewage system.
Due to the slant topology of the place, Alexander did not see the need to build aqueducts here.
Instead, foregoing the expensive infrastructure, Alexander opted for building a series of small, artificial channels running through the city, drawing water from the Diannu River and nearby springs to provide the local populace with fresh, running water.
These canals were small, about 1 meter in width on average, and it was planned to have many of them run all throughout the city, letting anyone with a bucket refill their needs from these streams as they saw fit.
Or if that was too much of a hassle, one could also go to one of the many nearby huge wells being built and simply pump the water up.
All these canals would end there, storing the water in large underground cisterns.
It was a much more easier and cost effective method than building all those huge aqueducts.
As for the reason why Alexander was able to do such a thing here but not in Zanzan, it was because that city was in much more even ground, diminishing the effects of gravity on flowing water, thus making it not feasible to be 'pumped'.
The city also had no close fresh water source, and combined together, Alexander was forced to build kilometers of infrastructure at a slant at the cost of millions just to deliver water.
Whereas here in Thesalie, the water could naturally flow from the elevated parts of the river and springs to the city situated downhill by only digging a canal and letting the natural law of gravity do all the heavy lifting.
It was that easy!
"How far along are you in building the water supply to the city? And the sewage system?" Hence, curious to know the progress on these fronts, Alexander posed so to Lady Felicia.
"We are close to finishing the canals. It should be done soon!" The lady was quick to report in a chirpy voice, further informing Alexander with a hint of pride, "The engineers also suggested that we add iron or wooden grates along the points of the canals to catch any rubbish that falls into it. The water will stay fresher that way! We are even planning to employ some men just to pick these up."
Lady Felicia seemed very pleased with herself, but then her voice she suddenly frowned,
"Regarding the sewage system however…." her voice turned difficult, "the earth below ground is proving harder than anticipated. It is all rock and iron below I'm told. Even with all the new tools my lord has given us, we are finding it hard to excavate. Some of the men even fear it might not even be possible."
As previously mentioned, Thesalie was sitting on a huge solid chunk of iron ore, but given it was the city's foundation, exacting this valuable resource proved too difficult.
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Alexander thought he could do something about it with tools made from his much better and stronger steel, but alas, it seemed it was still too hard.
"Okay, cancel it then." Thus instead of trying to smash his head against this literal rock wall, Alexander casully swung his palm with this directive, much to Lady Felicia's surprise, since she figured the man not to give up so easily.
But her confusion was quickly rectified when she heard the man speak that showed he was not giving up on the plan but simply offering an alternative one.
"Instead, we will build a few huge canals throughout the city, which will be used solely to carry all the wastes the city produces."
"All the public toilets and baths will empty into these channels as will all the wastes collected from all over the city by the various sanitary units. And then everything can end up in some forest far, far away from here."
Yes.
Since the underground sewage system was not possible, Alexander simply decided to bring it above ground, using the flowing water to sweep away all the distasteful elements far, far away from the city.
Sure, such a thing would have the disadvantage of making the place stink, at the very least the vicinity of the canal, but, ancient cities stunk anyway courtesy of the refuse everything.
Alexander would hardly be able to make it any much worse than it already was.
"That….ummm," However, in much contrary to Alexander's expectation of Lady Felicia readily agreeing to this easy plan, she instead appeared to be hesitating, like she wanted to say something but was not sure how.
"Any problem?" Alexander hence clearly inquired with a raised eyebrow.
"Ummm… I do not quite understand it myself, my lord," And encouraged by the voice, Lady Felicia started in an unsure tone, relaying, "But some of the engineers were telling me how they were having some trouble building a few of the canals because some parts of the city were higher than others. The water was not flowing smoothly. I was just afraid that the same situation could come up here." before raising her head and quickly suggesting,
"Perhaps I could invite some of them so that you might get to the bottom of this. Like I said, I'm not an expert on such constructions."
"Hmmm… sure!" And being made aware of this, Alexander quickly hummed so.
Although he was fairly sure what the problem here was that Lady Felicia was talking.
Since the land around the city was never a constant gradient slope, but had many bumps and obstacles, it sometimes resulted in the water having to flow uphill before going downhill again.
Which was a problem for gravity.
Alexander's meeting with the engineers would prove him to be on the dot as the men would report that many canals had most of the water spilling to the sides instead of flowing downward due to 'these protrusions', which were too large and hard to be simply knocked down.
"You continue to build the canals. I will send some men from Zanzan with the method to solve this problem." However, asking water to travel uphill, for a small distance, was not too big a hurdle for Alexander.
It had not been too big for people of his time for more than two thousand years.
All due to a small invention called Archemdies Screw.
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