I had originally assumed that thirty or forty thousand people would be enough, but once the development truly began, I realized that was far too few. After delegating tasks, I was stretched thin. I needed at least 10,000 for the army, while the remaining 60,000-plus would handle the labor. As for those twenty-something girls, they were really only suited for farming and cooking; their strength, damn it, was truly pitiful—no more than a normal person from my past life, maybe fifty kilograms of force. Even the little kids only had twenty-five or thirty kilograms of strength; holding a hoe to weed was fine, but if you asked them to build roads or chop wood, they’d be useless.
The older ones, those twelve or thirteen, could manage, but my subordinates were no saints—most were prisoners. Given enough time, with all those hot-blooded men around, having twelve or thirteen-year-old girls nearby was dangerous. They had to be kept separate, which put me in a real bind.
With not enough people and no better options, I decided to put that aside and take things one step at a time. First, I needed to choose a site for the city. This area was too flat; even with mountains behind us, it didn't feel safe. That might be tied to my past life—after all, I lived in a mountainous region back then. Living on these plains just felt exposed. Thinking about building a city, I knew I’d need cement and steel bars; without them, so many things would be impossible.
Chapter 35