Ed and a group of soldiers were pulling carts along a road beside the fields.
Originally, this road was just two ruts through a thicket of weeds, rough and meandering, with weeds on both sides that could reach waist high, making for terrible conditions.
Now, it had improved greatly, the road was flat and offered a clear view.
Every day, people could be seen carrying scythes and hoes, barefoot on the firm road, to clear weeds from the fields—most of these figures were women. Tens of thousands of women tended to over two hundred thousand acres of land, while the men were tasked with even heavier labor.
Some wild weeds, after intensive cultivation and exposure to the sun, had died in large numbers, but others still took root and sprouted like pests, stealthily stealing nutrients from the crops.
Weeds cleared today, grown back tomorrow, no matter how much you hoe, they never seem to vanish, it's enough to itch at one's teeth with frustration.
