It was over a hundred kilometers long, with one end connected to the harbor's breakwater and the other end connected to the hill platform in the middle of the island. It was completed three years ago.
Its completion allowed the entire southern part of the island to be under the protection of the breakwater.
At the top of the breakwater was a wide and sturdy road that could allow four carriages to run side by side.
On the breakwater, there was a small comprehensive stronghold every ten kilometers. These strongholds served as barracks and cannons to prevent enemies from attacking from the coastline. In fact, they were mainly aimed at the nearby murloc tribes and other amphibious predators.
Outside the breakwater was a one-kilometer wide windbreak forest. The coastline outside the windbreak forest was surrounded by mangroves, while the land inside was made up of salt-resistant trees. These trees had been taken care of by the green dragons' nature magic. In just two to three years, they had become lush and verdant.
Between the windbreak forest and the breakwater was a three-hundred-meter open space.
The land inside the breakwater had been cleared and leveled. The roads and irrigation canals had been built. More than ten new villages had been built and were only waiting for people to fill them.
These villages were about five to six kilometers away from the breakwater and were located behind the more than ten strongholds on the breakwater. Every village had a road that led to the breakwater. The road on the breakwater was like an artery that connected all the villages together.
This kind of planning allowed the villages to not only enjoy the convenience of the breakwater road, but also be protected by the strongholds and provide supplies for the strongholds. Of course, this would only happen after the villages were filled with people.
Feng Chou had stopped his seclusion this time to solve the population problem.
Currently, Green Dragon Island only had about thirty thousand people, and among them, there were about ten thousand green dragons.
The reason there were so many green dragons was because Feng Chou's new merchant ships needed a large number of sailors and guards. However, he did not have that many people under his command, so he could only set his sights on the green dragons. He recruited people from the green dragons and trained them to continuously replenish the fleet.
Feng Chou had built a navigation school in his territory. On one hand, it was to train high-end navigators who could pilot and control magic ships. On the other hand, it was to train green dragon sailors systematically. After all, there were many green dragon tribes wandering in the Amazon forest. Elsera could just go and recruit them every few days.
At present, there were over a thousand Green Dragon descendants receiving training in the nautical school on Green Dragon Island all year round.
The green dragon descendants were not too different from humans in terms of intelligence. Two to three months of learning and two to three months of training were enough for them to become guards of merchant ships. If they were given one to two years of learning, they would be able to become basic battle commanders or engineers.
By now, nearly half of Feng Chou's crew consisted of Green Dragon sailors.
There were only 20,000 humans under Feng Chou's command. Among them, apart from the civilians and pirates that Feng Chou had recruited, there were also slaves, civilians, and sailors that the fleet had purchased from the Northern Continent over the years.
Half of the 20,000 people were in the fleet, and a third of the people who stayed in the territory were craftsmen. There was a serious shortage of farmers. Not to mention the newly reclaimed land, even the previously reclaimed land was far from enough.
In order to increase the efficiency of farming, Feng Chou got the Universe Tower Spirit to design some large-scale farming machines on the basis of Mana Power. He got the alchemy factories under him to manufacture a batch of them. Only then did he solve the problem of the severe shortage of farmers.
The alchemists under Feng Chou were very dissatisfied with Feng Chou's order to make agricultural machines. They felt that it was an insult to alchemy.
The alchemists of this world could not be blamed for being shallow. In fact, using alchemy equipment to farm was a very extravagant thing in this world. It should be known that the cost of a large-scale magic agricultural machine was not much cheaper than that of an engineering construct. It was close to 200,000 crowns.
If food was used as an equivalent, 200,000 crowns in this world would be about the same as 20,000,000 renminbi on Earth. Moreover, the yield per mu of farmland in this world was only equivalent to the 18th century on Earth. The gross income per mu of farmland was not even 1,000 renminbi.
Using agricultural machines worth 20,000,000 renminbi to farm!
It was probably the same as using a golden hoe to hoe the land.
It was precisely because of the high price of magic power machines that such advanced technology from another world could never enter the lives of ordinary people.
In Feng Chou's subconscious mind, he often equated the alchemy civilization of this world with the technological civilization of the earth. But in fact, these two civilizations were very different. Because of the extremely high talent requirement, alchemy was always a technology that only a small group of people could master. Science and technology, compared to alchemy, was a technology that could be popularized. Once something was popularized, it would naturally become cheap.
The high price of magic power machines had a lot to do with the scarcity of alchemists. In this world, anything related to magic was a luxury.
Of course, the scarcity of alchemists did not exist for Feng Chou. The most important, most expensive, and most complicated power core of magic power machines could be made independently by Qiankun Pagoda after the upgrade.
With Qiankun Pagoda's efficiency, as long as there were enough raw materials and soul energy, it would not be a problem to produce hundreds of power cores in a day.
Feng Chou's alchemists only needed to follow the blueprints to make various parts that were not too complicated. Finally, with the help of engineering constructs, the machines would be assembled.
Even so, the alchemists' efficiency was so low that it made one's hair stand on end. They spent three years only to create forty or so large-scale magic power machines.
With these forty or so machines, the five to six thousand farmers on Green Dragon Island could reclaim and cultivate more than three hundred thousand acres of farmland in the inner island. They were powerless to do anything about the new land in the levee.
If Feng Chou could continue to provide large-scale magic power machines, then he would need at least five thousand farmers to reclaim and cultivate the three hundred thousand acres of farmland in the levee. If there were no large-scale magic power machines, then he would need to recruit at least fifteen thousand farmers and a large number of Shire heavy horses.
Although Feng Chou wanted to use magic power machines to replace animal power, it was definitely a losing business in terms of cost. The cost-performance ratio of magic power machines was far inferior to that of Shire horses.
Therefore, not only would Feng Chou not consider adding more magic power machines, but he would also consider melting down all the magic power machines he had previously created. He would dismantle the magic power cores and remake them into large-scale construction constructs to sell for money. The goblins of the southern continent would definitely be willing to pay a high price for such construction constructs.
In this way, Feng Chou would have to recruit nearly twenty-five thousand farmers and supplement them with a large number of Shire horses. Only then would they be able to cultivate more than six hundred thousand acres of farmland on Green Dragon Island.
Fortunately, after six years of constant replenishment, Feng Chou's fleet had increased from twelve ships six years ago to twenty-five ships today. Even if he had to transport thirty thousand people at once, it wouldn't be too difficult. He would just have to lose some transportation capacity.
As for livestock, Feng Chou did not intend to use Shire horses. Instead, he intended to use the famous Rocktar cattle of the southern continent.
These cattle were a type of large-scale cattle that had been bred by the Arcane Empire's Order Refugees to the southern continent for the purpose of cultivating crops.
The Rocktar cattle were a type of large-scale cattle with an average back height of over two meters and a weight of nearly two tons. These cattle were bred by the tieflings from a type of Level 4 cow-type magical beast, the Rocktar cattle. They had great strength, speed, thick skin, and great endurance.
According to Feng Chou's observations, these cattle were even more efficient than Shire horses if they were used with a heavy plow.
Moreover, the Rocktar cattle had very low requirements for feed. They only needed to sprinkle some bran on the grass to make good feed, unlike the Shire horses, which required large amounts of fine feed when doing heavy work.
Importing cattle from the tiefling kingdom was far easier than importing Shire horses from the Northern Continent. Feng Chou's fleet would only need two to three months to go to the tiefling kingdom and back, unlike going to the Northern Continent, which would take an entire year.