Chapter 188: The twisted technology tree of the ratmen, the sore on the grassland
The war between ratmen and wolf-orcs has entered a new stage.

The wolf beastmen left temporarily and headed deep into the grassland, but this did not mean the end of the war.

The ratmen's gains were not as rich as imagined, at least not as rich as Rat War had expected, but the wolf orcs had already gone away.

It was like punching cotton, which made Shu Zhan particularly annoyed, but there was nothing else he could do.

He really hated the vast grassland in front of him.

The scarlet pit where the rats are entrenched has become a new starting point for the rats to set foot in the vast grassland in front of them. More and more rats are arriving from the rear, and then using this as a starting point to spread into the depths of this vast grassland.

The wolf orcs did not completely abandon the grassland in this area. Many wolf rider teams were left behind to serve as scouts and to harass the rats from behind until a trade route was completely formed.

Fortresses and outposts were built one after another.

This is just one of them. At the same time, a real underground tunnel has entered the excavation stage and will connect from Prairie City to the Scarlet Pit where the Rat War is now entrenched.

This was a truly grand undertaking, built by the Skaven Lords.

In order to take all kinds of mineral deposits on this vast grassland into their arms, the resources brought covetousness and greed. The rat lords may not be very clear about the function of each mineral and the value of each vein, but they are very convinced of the guidance of the great gods.

Long ago, when the great gods were active and issued oracles from time to time, there was an oracle that is still being carried out by the rat people and is still regarded as an enlightenment by the rat priests.

Stockpile ores, stockpile all kinds of ores.

Not only because of the gods, but also because of interests, the ratman industrial zone in the Desolate Mountains is no longer limited to smelting iron ore.

Rumor has it that a ratman councillor who is about to retire seems to have brought up the idea of ​​casting a statue of the god. It will be a huge statue, and not only that, the statue of this great god will be cast using a newly discovered metal.

Another useless stone was discovered to have true power in the flames.

A bright yellow metal that will be used to cast statues of gods.

At this time, there were several veins storing the new metal on this grassland. The rat lords, who keenly sensed the opportunity, began to prepare in advance.

If this bright yellow metal statue of the god could be recognized by the Ratmen Council.

There is no doubt that this new metal will soon become the most popular thing in the rat kingdom.

Anything related to gods will be sought after by the rat people to the greatest extent and will also bring the greatest profits.

After successfully promoting the popularity of wolf-orc leather in the Rat Kingdom, these Rat Lords reaped a huge profit and naturally wanted to bet again, especially since the wolf-orcs had temporarily gone away and the amount of leather purchased by the caravans was decreasing.

If they could get control of those mineral veins, the blood mushrooms would flock to them.

Everything went very smoothly. The ratman lords easily obtained the occupied mineral veins from Shu Zhan, even though Shu Zhan offered a price that he thought was extremely high.

Amid the rat lords' pretended distress, these mineral veins were easily taken into their arms. At the end of the transaction, Rat Zhan even grinned and cunningly announced that those coal mines were not included in this transaction.

None of the rat lords had any objection to this change. After the deal was reached, they left in a hurry, leaving behind Rat Zhan with his mouth gradually stiffening.

It was obvious that these rat priests were hiding something from him, but he had no idea.

Shu Zhan began to inquire about the news.

He felt that he was being taken advantage of by those rat lords.

After the ownership of the mineral vein was determined, the planning of this underground tunnel was put on the agenda.

Obviously, they needed a smooth passage. In order to ensure the smooth transportation of resources, they united all the rat lords in office on the grassland, and the construction of this underground tunnel officially began.

They were not the first people in the rat kingdom to build such straight underground tunnels.

After a ratman priest submitted the idea of ​​underground tunnels to the ratman council, the first dedicated underground tunnel in the underground rat city was excavated. It was witnessed that the giant rats were moving several times faster in this straight underground tunnel.

This thing started to spread from the underground rat city.

It can bring a lot of conveniences. Relying on these special underground tunnels, one can reach any place in the Ratman Kingdom faster, exchange resources more conveniently, and mobilize personnel more quickly, but these are not the most important things.

The most important thing is that the underground rat city’s control over other rat cities will be greatly strengthened.

Areas that were previously unreachable and areas that seemed too far away may once again be brought under the control of the Underground Rat City.

This underground tunnel on the grassland that runs through all cities was promoted and built by the temple guards and the rat lords.

Shu Zhan knew nothing about this. His information was as scarce as ever, which was also related to the fact that he was now entrenched deep in the vast grassland.

Soon, a straight underground tunnel will extend from the Underground Rat City to connect to the Grassland City, the first city built by the Upper Rat War on this grassland.

The underground tunnel connecting every city on the grassland will be built by the rat lords, and the two underground tunnels will be connected in the grassland city.

The impact this will have remains to be seen.

But all this was caused by an idea proposed by an ordinary ratman priest.

The rat people are still as bloody and cruel as before, but their technology is advancing rapidly. This phenomenon is not normal, but it is reasonable.

In a normal civilization, the progress of science and technology and civilization will probably be in a state of mutual advancement, and civilization exists as the soil for science and technology.

However, the rat people's civilization is obviously not normal and the progress of technology also has some commonalities.

The stone murals and the more recent leather carvings were used to record one's own achievements. As for the subsequent uses that were derived from them, they were subsequent derivatives. The initial use was for the ratman priests to record their sacrifices to the gods and the achievements they had obtained.

Logically speaking, the rat kingdom should have developed writing long ago, and the soil for writing has long been ripe, but to this day, the communication between rats is still carried out by rats among rats. The same is true for metal smelting, for war, to make more sacrifices, and to offer war and victory to the gods, while other aspects are slow and rigid.

The rat people had already learned to use wheels and metals a long time ago, but until now, the rat caravans on this vast grassland are still using the most primitive wooden wheels, and there is no sign of metal wheels yet.

If Du Yuan had not bestowed the Cold Soul Bell, the ratmen priests would have started using metal to create various giant bells as decorations and symbols of status, and incidentally led to the expansion of the use of metal in other directions. It is estimated that until now, the metals smelted in the Desolate Mountains and the Furnace City would have at most only two uses.

Craft weapons and build more complex weapons.

But on the other hand, the progress of ratmen technology is extremely rapid. In a very short period of time, the ratmen's metal smelting level has caught up with the boarmen from scratch. Now the exquisite armor produced in the Desolate Mountains is far harder and lighter than the plate armor of the boar knights.

The same is true for large war machines.

The ratmen's catapults and siege crossbows in the Western Expeditionary Force under Sheng Qi have become increasingly complex and sophisticated. Of course, when they are disintegrated, they will bring about a more grand scene.

It comes from the impetus of the huge group of priests that exists in the Ratman Empire.

As long as religion does not involve heresy trials, then in most cases, priests will be the primary productive force of science and technology, but will the rat people try heretics?

Yes, any other race is a heretic, so why did the ratmen's technology advance so fast?
Because countless rat priests are frantically sharpening the blades in the hands of the Ratman Kingdom, making them sharper and stronger when used to slaughter heretics. That blade is the technology of the Ratman Kingdom.

From this perspective, it seems that the particularly twisted technology tree of the Ratman Kingdom makes sense.

And Du Yuan has a lot of priests under his command, very, very many, very, very many.

For the rat people, the more priests there are, the faster the technology will advance, and the faster the technology advances, the more twisted the technology tree becomes.

The number of rat priests in the Rat Empire is still increasing.

It can be predicted that the technology tree of the ratmen will probably become more and more distorted.

………….

Shu Zhan discovered a blind spot. After the transaction, the suspicious Shu Zhan sent people to investigate what had happened recently. After some investigation, he actually found out something.

Found a problem.

Found a very serious problem!
It was so serious that Shu Zhan let out an angry roar from the bottom of his heart.

"You are a bunch of despicable, stealing rats!"

He discovered that the wolf-orc corpses that the rat-man caravans bought from him for ten blood mushrooms were transformed into exquisite leather materials that cost at least two hundred blood mushrooms to purchase, and they were in short supply!
At this moment, Shu Zhan really felt a heartache from the bottom of his heart, and the anger that followed. Next time, if the caravan under the control of the rat lords wanted to trade with Shu Zhan again, it would not be so easy. Shu Zhan felt that he was being taken advantage of.

Shu Zhan did find out some information, which was indeed important, but it didn't seem that important.

Taking the grassland city as the starting point, the underground tunnel that would run through the grassland entered the construction phase. Due to the excessive looseness of the grassland soil, the Big Claw Priests did not choose to dig underground.

Instead, a trench is dug in advance, and then neat stone slabs are laid in it, and the tunnel structure is piled up to serve as the load-bearing structure.

Countless slave rats were surging on this vast grassland under the command of the Big Claw Priest. The ability of these senior priests who took over as rat lords to mobilize resources was much higher than that of the previous contractor on this grassland, these rats of all kinds who gathered together and gradually became joint investors.

A large number of slave rats were mobilized to join the construction of the tunnel, amid the sharp roars and whippings of the Big Claw Priests.

The tunnel is spreading deep into the grassland at a very fast speed.

This brings up a problem, a serious problem.

The towering mountains that separate the grassland and the wetlands serve as the rat people's stone mining site. Whether it is the construction of this long tunnel or the construction of rat cities on the grassland, all the materials are mined from this towering mountain.

It is mined by slave rats who cling to the mountains like ants.

The ratmen's work involves great losses, and the Big Claw Priests are unwilling to equip these slave rats with overly sophisticated tools. However, both the construction of the ratmen's city and this long tunnel require neatly laid stone slabs.

Often only one out of twenty pieces of mined stone will be qualified. The rats do not care about such a yield rate, they just send out more slave rats.

The damage caused by the rats to this towering mountain is real, although the rats' short-term excavation is not worth mentioning at all for this towering mountain.

But the abandoned and carelessly dumped stones are a huge problem.

The places where the rat people mine stones are often built along rivers, because rivers can more easily transport stones down the mountains.

The places where stones are discarded are often close to rivers. Since stones are mined near rivers, it is natural that garbage is discarded nearby.

As for the excavated stones blocking the river?
If the river is blocked, I will just open another one. The rat people's way of solving the problem was very simple and crude, but it also brought a simple and crude disaster to the Four Seasons Ranch under the towering mountains.

The Four Seasons Ranch can be called the Four Seasons Ranch because it relies on the nourishment of the snowmelt from the towering mountains that converges into rivers.

However, the rat people's simple and crude mining is blocking most of the rivers on the mountains.

And a possibility is slowly emerging.

If the ratmen continue to build cities on this vast grassland, if the ratmen continue to exploit this towering mountain, then will there be a day when these towering mountains that separate the grassland wetlands, these towering mountains that have existed since ancient times, will completely disappear in history due to the ratmen's greedy demands?
Don't know.

The Four Seasons Ranch is gradually becoming desertified, with Prairie City as the starting point.

The land was stained red, the air was gradually drying up, the grass no longer grew, all living creatures were extinct, and only the rats wandered around and gathered here.

And this area is still spreading, as if this vast grassland has contracted a chronic disease, growing a disgusting, twisted and ever-expanding sore.

(End of this chapter)