The hilly slopes of The Reach are mainly concentrated in two areas: the northwest area near the westerlands Golden Tooth Mountains, and the southeast area near the Dornish Marches red mountains.
Goldengrove is the ancestral castle of House Rowan, located directly north of Highgarden.
This castle is built on a tributary of the Mander River, backed by the westerlands Golden Tooth Mountains, and is considered a good location.
Of course, there are many castles in The Reach with better locations than Goldengrove.
But earl thaddeus of Goldengrove directly joined the Blacks during the Blood Dragon Dance and, along with earl caswell of Bitterbridge, actively intercepted Hobart Hightower's army.
For such good deeds, Jacaerys naturally prioritized such firmly loyal families.
What surprised him was that after choosing Goldengrove,
duke jason actively visited and expressed willingness to fund him with ten thousand westerlands civilian laborers and corresponding food supplies.
Actively applying to work for free with their own dry rations?
Jacaerys thought for a moment and roughly guessed his intention.
duke jason most likely thought he chose this place because of his two daughters, as silverhill of the westerlands is not far from Goldengrove.
If this astonishing idea could truly be realized, his ten thousand laborers and food supplies would give Jacaerys an excuse to renovate silverhill as well.
The House Lannisters are indeed a long-established noble family that has been wealthy for thousands of years; most of their family members are quite shrewd.
Jacaerys did not refuse duke jason's kindness.
The westerlands are so wealthy; he certainly wants to squeeze out as much as possible.
As for where the next terraced field renovation should take place after Goldengrove's is successful, Jacaerys is preparing for fair competition through auction.
Heh heh, as one of his father-in-laws, he will naturally 'take care' of duke jason.
When ravens carrying letters about the king's selection of consorts, which astonished all commoners, flew to castles throughout the Seven Kingdoms, Jacaerys had already arrived at Goldengrove with four dragons.
earl thaddeus of Goldengrove had long been waiting respectfully with members of House Rowan, and they warmly entertained the king they were loyal to.
If it weren't for being over sixty years old and having given birth to seven sons, he would probably have already taken his daughters to King's Landing.
However, earl thaddeus was indeed a man of courage and did not need Jacaerys to explain anything further.
He directly stated that he had gone all out and prepared the manpower and resources for the terraced field renovation.
The king was pleased with his subject, and the night quietly passed.
The next day was an overcast day with thick clouds. Jacaerys, who woke up early, directly led earl thaddeus, the Rowan family soldiers, and several thousand Goldengrove commoners out of the city gate.
With no better options, Jacaerys went to a hilly slope closest to Goldengrove and began the terraced field renovation directly.
Without waiting for earl thaddeus to ask, he moved his thoughts and gave the command.
Hoo hoo hoo!
Bang bang bang!
Silver-white Dracarys spewed from Seasmoke's mouth as it swooped down from high altitude.
The powerful impact of the Dracarys directly plowed a very flat, charred road on the sunny side of this hilly slope.
Compared to Womax, which could vitrify the ground, and Silverwing, which could cover a large area of the hilly slope, Seasmoke seemed to be born for terraced field renovation.
One level, two levels, three levels...
In less than half a day, this hilly slope had been roughly plowed by Seasmoke.
Of course, any large rocks and trees encountered were either shattered by Silverwing and sunfyre or moved to a secluded place and discarded.
When Seasmoke finally flew to the top of the slope and dug a huge pit with its impact Dracarys, its work was considered complete.
At this time, the sunny side of the hilly slope was like steps, layer upon layer.
And the burned flowers, grass, and trees would become ash fertilizer, allowing the first season's terraced crops to have a bumper harvest.
Seeing that it was almost time to finish, Jacaerys directly rode Womax and took Silverwing, flapping its wings, to fly into the thick clouds above.
Hoo hoo hoo!
Splash splash splash!
Two streams of hot Dracarys of different colors directly evaporated the clouds near the hilly slope into water vapor, and the torrential rain was instantly limited to the hilly slope.
Artificial rain - dragon version!
After burning away all the thick clouds in the sky above the stepped hill, a ray of sunlight shone diagonally through the broken clouds onto the stepped hill, like a beautiful oil painting.
earl thaddeus's expression at this moment was exactly the same as the thousands of family soldiers and commoners behind him.
Every single one of them had their mouths wide open, dumbfounded.
In just half a day, a relatively steep and uneven hilly slope had become a stepped hill full of a unique aesthetic beauty.
And the localized heavy rain that only covered the stepped hill was like the work of a deity.
For the ignorant native inhabitants of this world, Jacaerys's means of changing the world in this way were actually no different from those of a deity!
Whoosh, whoosh!
Womax and Silverwing hovered at the top of the stepped hill. Jacaerys looked at the huge pit at the top of the hill, which had stored a little less than half of the rainwater, and nodded secretly.
Everything was proceeding smoothly according to his plan, and a few more artificial rainfalls would be enough to fill it.
Next would be the work of earl thaddeus and the others.
The reason Jacaerys brought the dragons to do it himself was to complete it before Ser Lorent and other lords of The Reach arrived at Goldengrove from King's Landing, so that he could then shame them.
If it weren't for top-tier productivity like dragons, it is estimated that before Ser Lorent arrived, the basic shape of the terraced fields would not have even been dug out.
Time passed quietly. Because Jacaerys was focused on the terraced field renovation work in Goldengrove.
The maiden's ball, originally scheduled to be held half a month later, was postponed to a month later, which also gave more commoner maidens from distant parts of the Seven Kingdoms who did not have private carriages an opportunity.
A month was enough time for most people to travel from the remote north, or to come to King's Landing by ship from the continent of Essos.
With the influx of a large population, the pressure on King's Landing's public order increased many times over.
Many maidens who had not seen the world believed the words of fellow villagers or strangers and disappeared into the alleys of places like silk street and Flea Bottom.
The quality of the Gold Cloaks in King's Landing varied, and most of them were people who were greedy for money.
Some of the Gold Cloaks even actively participated in these dark affairs.
As public order became increasingly chaotic, these problems finally erupted.
After hearing about it, Stone, who was handling political affairs on behalf of Jacaerys, directly had Rudy lead the The Unsullied Legion to take over the Gold Cloaks' city defense work.
That same night, Rudy led these Unsullied, who were ruthless and had no physiological urges, to raid silk street and Flea Bottom.
The people of King's Landing seemed to recall the fear of being dominated by Daemon back then.
The next day, the corpses of bandits, thieves, and human traffickers were hung at the top of the seven city gates as a warning.
The public order in King's Landing immediately improved, at least on the surface.
Afterward, Stone used the method Jacaerys had taught him before leaving King's Landing to hold the first audition of the maiden's ball in several satellite towns outside King's Landing.
The population pressure was immediately reduced considerably.
Furthermore, the influx of a large population did not only have disadvantages; it also had many advantages.
Because the sheer number of outsiders, just in terms of food, clothing, housing, and transportation, would greatly stimulate the economy of King's Landing and the surrounding satellite towns.
Coupled with the halving of commercial taxes this year, even lords and commoners who were not participating in the maiden's ball rushed to buy and sell goods.
King's Landing, which had been severely weakened by the Blood Dragon Dance, completely recovered after the dorne war and this maiden's ball.
However, the selection criteria announced for the maiden's ball audition caused some minor controversy.
Although girls of Western ethnicity are young, they develop very early.
Therefore, the selection criteria personally set by Jacaerys before limited the height to above 165 centimeters,
and required fair and rosy skin, well-defined facial features, and a good head-to-body ratio.
Although these conditions were high, a considerable number of people met them.
What caused controversy was the requirement of being a virgin.
Commoner maidens who usually only did labor were relatively simple; whether they had experience in this area could be determined by professional examination.
But noble maidens were different; many noble daughters were found to have already lost their virginity.
However, they claimed it was due to riding horses since childhood, and their noble fathers even swore in the name of the seven gods on the spot.
Stone was also quite troubled by this issue, as mishandling it could lead to big trouble.
In desperation, he could only ask Ela, who was engrossed in magic research, for help.
Because Jacaerys had specifically instructed Ela before leaving King's Landing, even if she was impatient, she found a way to help Stone solve this problem.
Of course, there was no such thing as a boring magic to detect virginity.
But Ela created a simple magical device that could judge the wearer's heartbeat, pulse, and breathing based on air vibrations.
If it exceeded a certain level, it would emit a specific light, similar in principle to a lie detector.
Those noble maidens naturally did not know what a lie detector was, so they would not prepare themselves psychologically in advance.
Stone used this simple magical device to screen out nearly half of the noble daughters who wanted to sneak through.
A small number of noble daughters who were kicked out still refused to give up and wanted to continue making trouble.
Stone immediately stated that their qualifications could be kept, and they could be personally examined by your majesty after he returned.
These noble daughters were instantly overjoyed upon hearing this; they did not expect that making a fuss could lead to seeing your majesty.
However, Stone added at the end that deceiving the king was a capital offense, and your majesty's dragon's favorite food was impure people.
These noble daughters were immediately fooled by him, after all, dragons have always been like deities in the eyes of ordinary people.
Perhaps they truly had such magical abilities, and they dared not gamble with their lives.
So they left the audition site dejectedly, and this controversy over virginity was thus resolved by Stone.
Hmm?
Just as Stone was about to return to the Tower of the Hand to handle other political affairs,
he suddenly noticed a group of extremely alluring exotic beautiful maidens entering the audition site amidst laughter and chatter.
He ordered a follower to go and inquire, and it turned out that these were noble daughters from Pentos and Braavos.
They were either the daughters of the governor of Pentos or the daughters of wealthy merchants from Braavos.
With Korman's intelligence organization secretly reviewing their qualifications, it was difficult for this group of exotic maidens to fake their identities.
Without paying too much attention, Stone directly mounted the horse brought by his follower and returned to the Tower of the Hand.
Among that group of exotic beautiful maidens, a sweet-looking beautiful maiden, although she was laughing and playing with her companions, glanced at Stone's retreating back.
These exotic beautiful maidens were all tools specifically trained by their fathers and families for marriage alliances, so they naturally easily passed the audition.
Then, relying on their excellent conditions, they advanced all the way and successfully obtained the qualification to participate in the maiden's ball.
The sweet-looking beautiful maiden secretly calculated the time, and one deep night, she took out a glass bottle the thickness of her thumb from a hidden layer in her luggage.
And in that glass bottle were a few black and gray mottled scales.
The beautiful maiden stared at the glass bottle expressionlessly for a while. She directly stuck one of the black and gray scales on the innermost side of her left thigh.
After doing all this, she took the glass bottle and slipped out of her room, heading towards Flea Bottom.
An exotic beautiful maiden walking in Flea Bottom late at night.
Even though Flea Bottom had been cleared by Rudy, her behavior was equivalent to seeking death.
Soon, several fierce-looking men darted out of the shadows and dragged her into the darkness.
After a series of screams, the exotic beautiful maiden walked out of the darkness unharmed and returned to her residence.
After that, the bruised and swollen men touched their backs, warned each other not to speak of this embarrassing matter, and then left separately.
...
After more than twenty days of rushing, the lords of The Reach led by Ser Lorent finally arrived at Goldengrove.
They met Jacaerys, who was drinking fine wine and listening to a minstrel sing a song about the king, in the Goldengrove banquet hall.
The anxious Ser Lorent, after paying his respects to the king, immediately spoke, wanting to begin the terraced field renovation work.
After all, it was the busy farming season now, and they in The Reach had drawn a lot of commoner laborers because of Jacaerys's command.
The sooner Jacaerys's idea of terraced field renovation was proven absurd, the sooner those commoner laborers could begin farming.
Jacaerys naturally knew what Ser Lorent meant, and he immediately took them to the stepped hill.
Upon seeing the stepped hill, Ser Lorent and the other lords of The Reach were directly dumbfounded.
They saw Goldengrove commoners busy on each level of the steps, inserting transplanted wheat seedlings into the terraced fields covered with ash.
Sections of yellow cinnamon bamboo, a specialty of The Reach, with basically uniform thickness of each joint, were joined together.
Starting from the water storage pit at the top of the hill, they formed a water delivery bamboo aqueduct from top to bottom.
When the Goldengrove commoners operating the gates opened them and released water, streams of clear water flowed down these water delivery bamboo aqueducts, supplying water for irrigation to the tiered fields from top to bottom.
This scene shone brightly under the sunlight, like a beautiful painting with clear layers.
After that, Jacaerys did not need to say anything more. Ser Lorent, while slapping his own face, knelt down and apologized for questioning your majesty.
The other lords of The Reach, after flattering Jacaerys, rushed to apply for the second batch of terraced field renovation spots.
Jacaerys didn't even agree to duke jason, who had actively supported him with ten thousand laborers and food supplies, so how could he agree to them so easily.
He directly refused, citing that the terraced field renovation in Goldengrove had just begun.
What he said was indeed true; this stepped hill was merely a product quickly built with Dragon Power to shame them.
Subsequent terraced field renovations would certainly not be carried out by him, the king, personally.
So, during the time he was waiting for Ser Lorent, Jacaerys had already taught earl thaddeus the specific operations of terraced field renovation.
He was preparing to add the position of Minister of Agriculture to the Small Council, and this earl thaddeus would be the first Minister of Agriculture.
From now on, he would be specifically responsible for reclaiming terraced fields, building water pumping and irrigation equipment, and other work.
The ten thousand commoner laborers supported from the westerlands would also be assigned to his command.
As long as earl thaddeus could follow the example and complete the renovation of the remaining hilly slopes within Goldengrove's territory.
Then the other territories in the Seven Kingdoms would be largely the same.
As for Jacaerys, who was acting as a hands-off boss, he naturally returned to King's Landing to participate in his exclusive virgin... uh, maiden's ball!