Chapter 164 — The Winter Construction Plan
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
In the context of this era, Hetty's worries were in fact perfectly reasonable. For the vast majority of people—indeed, by the plain facts of this age—winter meant only one thing: all things withered, life dwindled, every kind of work came to a halt. Before it arrived, people would stockpile enough food and fuel, then stop working, retreat indoors, and shift into a state of pure consumption.
Just like those animals that store food in tree hollows ahead of time and curl up in their burrows to wait out the winter.
This way of living was dictated by reality. For all that various forms of "magic" existed, looking like something out of black technology, such things belonged to a tiny upper elite; the world as a whole remained bound fast to the land. Farmers were the most fundamental producers of nearly all social wealth, and agriculture—together with all the productive activities built upon it—was the society's principal mode of production. Once winter descended and farm work ceased, eighty percent of the population would be left idle. And the backward noble order forbade such people from freely engaging in commerce or any "side work unbefitting their station." Without a noble's permission, commoners could be severely punished even for fishing in a river or gathering firewood and hunting in the hills.
Add to that the fact that most commoners could store only a limited amount of food for winter—some barely maintained a state of semi-hunger throughout the season—and so they dared not waste their strength on anything "improper." Every warm breath they exhaled in winter was drawn from their already meager reserve of strength, and might kill them with cold and hunger before spring ever came.
In the Cecil Territory, however, the situation was altogether different.
The Cecil family currently had no luxury expenditures of any kind, which saved a great deal of money. The new mode of production ensured enough supplies could be stockpiled before winter. Piyun and the apprentice apothecaries he had trained threw everything they had into it, guaranteeing the territory's food was sufficient—and with the grain purchased from Tansang Town and the supplies the King had sent, the people of Cecil Territory did not have to think about consumption at all that winter.
Here one must make special mention of the supplies the King had provided. Gao Yang admitted that he had pulled a small trick on Francis II in this regard: the agreement he had signed with the King stipulated that the royal house would cover the Cecil Territory's consumption throughout the early period of its development. He had never said how many people his territory would contain, nor how many would be added in a short span of time—and so he had already, quite openly and honorably, requisitioned extra supplies from the royal house several times over...
With food supplies secured, Gao Yang had no shortage of jobs to offer.
Nothing to do once winter set in? That was other territories. Here in Cecil Territory there was still plenty to be done. The steelworks was expanding; two new large workshops had been added beside the machinery works to house new production lines; the kiln district that fired Rebecca Crystals had been rebuilt into a proper factory called the "Magic-Energy Crystal Smelting Plant," which not only fired Rebecca Crystals but also housed a laboratory for testing what new substances could be synthesized from the various ores dug out of the Dark Mountains. The silly doe had to hurl two hundred-odd fireballs at crucibles and small furnaces every day before she was happy...
Beyond that, the iron mine in the east and the countless construction sites across the territory all needed hands.