"Shall we accompany you back to your tent, Sire?" My two advisors asked.
"One last task," I replied.
I had put the plans to secure the settlement in motion. Next came my personal security. Bodyguards weren't really necessary while I was in the settlement, but being seen with them would establish my authori..tah among the people. I mock sniffled as I lamented the loss of my favorite show. It would be one of the things I'd miss from the modern world.
Bodyguards wouldn't just provide me with security and authority, but by interacting with the most skilled fighting-age men of the settlement, I would be able to pick the right people to lead Chadom's budding military / police.
"Lothar, do you think you could spare a third of the day of your best five hunters?" I asked my new General.
"Five, Sire?"
"Yes. I want to establish a personal guard. Two men per shift, so six of you. Each shift will last a third of the day, as you can't expect a man to remain fully vigilant for longer than that."
A pained expression came on Lothar's face. "That might be difficult, Sire, as we are having problems procuring enough food to feed everyone."
"What? Why didn't you inform us?" Ericsson asked him angrily.
"We just found out today that the nuts we thought would solve the shortage of food are not edible. Two of the hunters got sick from eating them this morning." He explained.
"What kind of nuts?" I asked.
"We found a grove of large trees laden with them. They have rough caps on top, which easily separates from ripe nuts."
"Let me take a look at them. Maybe they can be turned edible. Still, do introduce me to your best five men and assign them as my bodyguards. They can keep on hunting until the food crisis is solved."
He nodded and went to fetch five young men.
"Sire, this is Theo, who is the best hunter and tracker among us, despite his youth," He said, pointing to a young man barely out of his teens, with a thick mop of black hair on his head. "This is Ethan, my cousin," he said, with obvious pride. He introduced me to the rest of the men: "These are Wenik, Helad and Noah. All fine hunters. Old enough to have plenty of experience so they won't shame you, but young enough to stay up all night and still be functional the next day."
I made eye contact with them one by one. "I need capable, loyal men to guard me from any threat, man or beast. I would choose you lot over most soldiers, even if we had any, because as successful hunters you have sharper senses. I expect you to be vigilant and detect any threat approaching me and neutralize it before it can act. Do you believe you could do that?"
The men nodded stiffly.
"Good. Lothar, you will be in the morning rotation, so we can discuss how to improve our security and expand our forces. Your second and third best will take the evening and night shift. The rest you can assign yourself."
He nodded in response.
"Let's decide the timing as well. How about 6 AM to 2 PM, 2PM to 10 PM and 10 PM to 6 AM?"
"Two pee em?" He and everyone else looked at me quizzically.
Great, no concept of accurate time. I sighed and added another item to my ever growing Todo list: build sundials and water clocks.
"Afternoon, when the sun has moved two hands below its peak position." I demonstrated with my hands.
"These are the nuts we found, my lord." A hunter showed me some nuts that looked like acorns.
"Hmm. We don't have them in Nanon, do we?" I tried to recall. "No matter. I believe I know how to turn them edible."
I told one of the men how to process the nuts: Smash them to get the meat inside, dry it, then boil it multiple times, while changing the water, until it stops tasting bitter. Then grind it, followed by drying, and you have nutritious nut flour.
"Oh, and don't just throw away the water," I told him. "Give it to the tanner." The tannin rich water was more effective and less disgusting than what tanneries used traditionally to tan leather.
"If this works out, I can put the six of us in your service immediately without risking food shortage, Sire." Lothar informed me.
I just smiled in response. I wasn't going to inform the poor bastard prematurely that I was going to run him and his men ragged with the plans I had in mind.
While Lothar discussed the rotation schedule with his men, I considered our sanitation situation.
"What are our people using to clean their clothes, utensils and bodies?" I asked Ericsson.
"Ash, Sire."
"Hmm... It works, but it's not as effective as soap. Do you have any?"
"No," he hid it well, but I could see he was confused. I recalled that soap used to be a luxury item in pre-industrial times. It won't be anymore.
"Do you have any soap-makers among your people?"
"No, my lord."
"Well, you will now. Get me some enterprising men, and I will teach them how to make it."
I explained the process to the men he brought:
Mix clean hardwood ash in soft water. Filter the solution and boil it in a ventilated area to get lye solution. Then slowly mix one part lye solution to five parts vegetable oil or rendered animal fat. Gently heat and stir the solution until it starts thickening. Pour it into a mold and when it solidifies, you have soap.
That would get us clean people and items. Water wasn't a problem thanks to the river. It would also wash away our waste, but that would be a waste... heh, since it had so many uses.
"Hmm... biogas." I muttered to myself.
"Bayo gas?" Ericsson tried to repeat.
"Yes. It's an excellent fuel, although we will have to scrub it with water to make it more potent. Once we've built the palisade, we will build latrines, which will dump all the waste into a biogas plant."
I thought aloud. Poor Eric looked confused.
"A biogas plant is essentially a big hole in the ground, properly sealed and connected to two smaller ones; one through which you add the 'ingredients', and one from which you take out the digested waste, ready to be used as fertilizer. While the waste is being digested by tiny little creatures, they release a flammable gas called methane."
That reminded me of urine, and how to make saltpeter from it.
"We'll have to collect urine separately though."
"Collect urine?" He asked incredulously.
"You wouldn't believe what can be made from piss, my friend. It's a long term project, but if it succeeds, we will become the de-facto power in this region." I declared smugly, while the poor Steward looked constipated, his face switching between disgust and confusion. I could not recall Jack ever seeing a firearm, so my statement was most likely true. Having them would guarantee our security.
"I know it's a nasty job, but it is necessary. Trrussst me. Are there any nearby caves that house bats?"
"We haven't found any," he replied apprehensively.
"Right. Life can't be that easy." Bat or seabird guano would have made it so much easier.
"We will have to set up a nitrary, then. Please get me a few people who wouldn't mind a job involving lots of urine and who can be trusted to keep the process secret."
This is why I wanted the position of leader. Many of my projects would make no sense without seeing the results, and everyone would have lost if I failed to convince them to follow my plans.
Ericsson found two older hard looking men and I made them take a vow of secrecy before divulging the process to them: regularly dump urine on beds of chopped straw and soil, and flip the mix every two weeks for a year, while keeping it safe from rain.
I didn't give them the full explanation, nor told them about the final process, as it would be useless without proper education: over time, soil bacteria convert nitrogen compounds in the urine soaked soil into nitrates. You then extract potassium nitrate from it by scraping the top soil, adding it to boiling water, filtering the solution and adding hardwood ashes, for potash, to it. Filter it again and boil it until you are left with saltpeter crystals.
Saltpeter was a very versatile substance. You could make gunpowder by mixing it with sulfur and charcoal, while burning it with sulfur in the presence of steam would produce sulfuric acid. Add it to sulfuric acid and you have nitric acid, opening the doors for producing guncotton, grenades, photographs and plastics.
There were far more cleaner and efficient methods like the Haber-Bosch process for producing essential chemicals, but I didn't know their details, so the nastier but easier versions would have to do.
That drew my attention to the fact that I remembered all these facts with such clarity. I was a bit of a prepper in my past life, so I occasionally read up on random trivia on how to rebuild civilization, but I shouldn't be able to recall the details so precisely. I guess it was another effect of the health blessing. Thank you God... or whoever you are.