Chapter 458 — Dissemination
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
The newly established printing factory ran day and night. The moment the new large-scale industrial printing presses came off the production line they were delivered to the factory floor, and then, amid the roar of machinery, they ceaselessly transformed sheet after sheet of blank paper at astonishing speed into newspapers and books bearing information. In the latest issue of the Cecil Weekly, the historic scene of the Southern March nobles signing the document collectively ran as the front-page feature, occupying a full page. That large black-and-white image was the first "photograph" ever printed since the birth of the newspaper, and above the black-and-white image, the largest bold type proclaimed to the people the meaning of this scene:
"The Duchy Concludes Its Covenant—All Old Lords of the Southern March Swear Allegiance to Cecil Law. Let Us Rejoice in the Great Order."
The new issue came off the presses, was sorted and bundled in the hands of the printing workers, then sent to the distribution center and onward with the courier caravans to Tansang, to Kant, to Grant, to Horsman, to every corner of the Southern March.
In Cecil's main city and several satellite towns, where literacy was higher, the newspaper's promotional effect was greatest; but where literacy was low, there were still those who could read the contents of the newspaper and pass the news on to everyone around them.
The morning sunlight spilled across the old, dilapidated streets of Carroll Town. The heat it brought dispersed the droplets condensed on the blades of weeds in the corners of walls. A carriage bearing the Cecil mark drove along the town's only paved stone road, and the bells hung upon it scattered a string of jingling notes that roused the town's residents from slumber.
The blacksmith walked into his workshop and berated the apprentice who had dozed off while tending the furnace; the stonemason picked up his tools, preparing to go to the newly established administrative hall to ask what work he might find; the women, cursing, drove their lazy children and husbands out of their rooms and began to tidy the foul, filthy beds; and the men and half-grown boys chewed on dry rations, gathered up their work tools, and stepped out into the street, ready to labor in the fields or to "try their luck" in the town square.
A stretch of the town wall that the Cecil forces had once blasted down with their great cannons still lay desolately upon the open ground south of the town, and a crew of yawning laborers, under the foreman's supervision, was clearing away broken stone and timber. Now and then those passing the ruins would cast a swift glance at the surviving wall with awe, even fear, as though the earth-shattering explosion of that day still crouched within their hearts.
A column of Cecil soldiers marched down the main street in neat formation. They did not harass the people along the roadside at will as ordinary noble retainers would, yet the common folk still instinctively bowed their heads and stepped aside with reverence—the people of Carroll had grown used to these soldiers. Since the war broke out, great numbers of Cecil men had passed through the towns of Xuanque, heading north from here to the battlefield and returning south after their great victory. They had established an administrative hall in the town and turned the old lord's castle into barracks and offices, and then set about enforcing new laws. They were "outsiders," but they had become the rulers of this town, and the people who lived here... had accepted it all without much feeling.