Chapter 25: Establishing the Factory
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Crate after crate of coins was carried out of the manor’s treasury, while building after building rose from the ground in Castell.
The islanders of Castell were astonished to discover that their lord had apparently gone mad. He had begun recruiting workers and constructing workshops.
Of course, he called them “factories,” but to the islanders they were merely workshops that were somewhat larger and arranged in rather peculiar ways.
What could so many factories possibly be built for?
The islanders had no idea, but they did not mind. Although their lord had forcibly conscripted them, he was actually willing to pay them for their labor!
Castell had almost no commerce. Primitive barter was enough to satisfy most of the islanders’ needs, but earning even a few Rio coins with their own hands was no easy matter.
No one knew when they might suddenly need money, so the islanders cheerfully set aside whatever work they had originally been doing and became laborers in their lord’s employ.
Once the laborers had money, the people of the island suddenly realized that they seemed to have grown wealthier. Even the fishermen who went out to sea found that more and more people were willing to pay for fish.
Coins began circulating throughout the island, and they moved faster and faster. Everyone felt as though they were becoming richer; once they had money, they gradually became willing to spend whatever they had left over.
The islanders of Castell slowly filled with vigor. They felt that their lives were steadily improving.
“Money only has value when it circulates. Otherwise, it is nothing more than scrap iron waiting to rust.”
The first time Alexei had heard his lord say this, he had not understood it. Only now did he realize how profound that wisdom was.
With a sigh, he looked toward the construction site before him.
Those taking part in the construction were all islanders, most of them fishermen. They knew nothing about factories and simply worked away in silence.
Among them, however, were several brewers who had been conscripted. They had spent many years in workshops, and the factory before them seemed somewhat… strange.
“My lord, what is this empty space meant for?” one of the craftsmen asked Alexei cautiously, his face covered in smiles.
“This… is just an ordinary passageway.” Alexei glanced at the plans.
“A passageway?” The craftsman was stunned. “Why build it so wide?”
He gestured with his hands. “It is far wider than necessary.”
“This is a factory. Every dimension has its purpose. Do you think it is some slapdash little workshop?”
Alexei shook his head. He had originally thought some of the dimensional requirements excessive as well, until he began moving the oil presses inside. The passageways, built to standard dimensions, were precisely wide enough for the equipment to pass through. Any wider would be wasteful; any narrower, and the equipment would not fit.
At first, he had assumed it was merely a coincidence. But as such coincidences accumulated, Alexei gradually realized that Hughes’s plans had all been designed with meticulous care.
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He had established several dimensional standards. They appeared unnecessary at first glance, but whenever they were needed, one could know the answer immediately without having to take measurements on-site.
For example, although Hughes was currently in the manor, he could clearly determine roughly how much cargo his factory could move in and out in a day, what size of crate would fit exactly through a room’s door, and what dimensions would be required for any new equipment.
Alexei had once asked Hughes about this. His lord had smiled and told him that it was called standardization.
Standardization. What a marvelous word. There was nothing in it beyond Alexei’s understanding, yet it instantly brought order to everything.
With another sigh, Alexei returned his attention to the construction site before him.
The olive oil factory was nearly complete. There was nothing particularly remarkable about its process: stone rollers would be used to press oil from the olives.
Alexei noticed that not every factory building had been fitted with oil-pressing equipment. Some had been left completely empty.
He guessed that his lord intended to use them to manufacture other things.
He had a few ideas about what those things might be.
Hughes had given him more than just the task of building factories. He had also ordered him to prospect for minerals—but Alexei did not know one mineral from another.
So Alexei went to the smithy. The blacksmith there could hardly be called a mineral expert, but he certainly knew far more than Alexei did.
The result was…
“No. I’m terribly busy here. I won’t have time for the next few days.”
The blacksmith rejected him outright.
“But this is my lord’s—”
“You’re working for my lord, and so am I!” The burly old man glared at him, his beard bristling. “A few days ago, my lord sent someone to tell me to forge parts for some kind of blast furnace. There—those are the parts.”
Alexei followed the blacksmith’s gesture and looked into the smithy.
“Good heavens!”
He inhaled a lungful of furnace heat and was stunned.
A heap of miscellaneous components whose purpose he could not identify lay piled there, yet even a layman like him could see how ingeniously they had been crafted.
“The lord’s drawings are quite good, and the dimensions are marked out very clearly. It’s just that these things are all far too strange!”
The old blacksmith frowned at them.
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“And he wants so many of them, and wants them urgently. I’ve nearly worked my furnace to death these past few days. How could I possibly have time to go looking at some mineral vein with you?”
Alexei had no choice but to return disappointed. For now, he would build the factories first.
The newly constructed oil-pressing factory was doing well enough, but renovating the sweet-fruit wine workshops had run into considerable trouble.
Most of those workshops were old and chaotic. Many were filthy besides, so dirty that merely looking at them was enough to make one feel sick.
Hughes had personally inspected the workshops. After hesitating for a long while, he had finally abandoned the idea.
In his experience, the fact that these places had not burned down over the years was nothing short of a miracle. If they were converted into large-scale factories, he genuinely feared that a single fire would reduce everything to ashes.
For now, the workshops would remain as they were. Once Castell had been properly developed, they could be demolished later.
Besides…
Hughes knocked on the crude wall.
There were plenty of mineral deposits on the island. If he was lucky, perhaps he could even produce cement.
At that point, construction speed would undergo a tremendous leap forward. The factories being built now were merely temporary structures, and they would eventually be torn down.
Cement had another advantage as well: it was relatively resistant to seawater.
So, pirates, was it? Guess how quickly I can build fortifications.
Once industrialization began, the pace of development would only accelerate. The spontaneous refinement and innovation of a sound system would drive the development of all Castell.
When that time came, he would need only to set the general direction and then sit back at his ease while his territory developed, allowing a torrent of iron and fire to sweep across this ordinary fantasy world.
As long as he provided a healthy path for advancement, the reformists might even seize hold of him and drag him forward.
Even the Empire was merely a somewhat larger ant. As for whether they would become enemies…
Ha. Those who had never witnessed an industrial explosion would probably go mad at the sight of this industrial giant.
He would not even need to send out an army. A simple dumping of cheap goods would be enough to make them collapse on their own.
Of course, they might launch a desperate final counterattack with everything they had. Watching them shatter beneath the wheels of history ought to make for rather pleasant entertainment.
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