Chapter 266: A Year Goes By (1/2)

A year had passed since Adela's birthday, and while the world changed around him Berengar had been living in Kufstein, overseeing the reconstruction of the Duchy of Austria. The war with the Bavarians had left much of the land ravaged, and it was through great effort that the fields began to be restored, and the people returned to rebuild their homes with assistance from the State that Berengar had been establishing.

Over the past year, Berengar had focused on four critical areas of development; agriculture, industry, infrastructure, and the Military. In regards to agriculture, over the past year, the fields were resewn, much to the help of the mechanized seeders that Berengar had begun to employ across the realm.

The use of the steel plow and the mechanical seeder had greatly aided in the amount of farmland that could be utilized while the fields were worked by significantly less population than was needed before. The four-field system was implemented throughout the realm, semi-modern irrigation was constructed across the fields, advanced fertilizers had begun to be employed, and selective breeding was introduced to livestock.

Due to the massive amount of animal power needed to utilize combine harvesters, Berengar had spent a significant sum acquiring farm horses and mules to power these devices. In the end, he felt that this would be an essential investment as the combine harvester combined the critical components of grain harvest such as reaping, threshing, gathering, and winnowing into a single process.

With this invention, the work of thousands of farmers could be done by a handful of men. The only downside was that each combined harvester required 20 or more beasts of burden. To Berengar, it was well worth the price; the thousands of farmers who would typically be working in the fields doing all of these functions were now replaced by a single machine and a few men to operate it.

The men who were previously employed in the fields could be put to work in industry, construction, mining, the Military, or any other number of jobs needed in a semi-modern society. They could also undergo public education and further add to Berengar's scientific network.

The Agriculture of Austria had made a significant process towards the early 19th century from Berengar's previous life. Within a decade, every field of Austria would be fully mechanized while utilizing advanced irrigation and fertilizers.

The towns and cities destroyed or damaged during the Bavarian Occupation had undergone reconstruction under Berengar's infrastructure initiative. It was a process that might take a decade, or possibly two. Still, in the future, every city and central town of Austria would be made to a similar degree of security and sanitation that Kufstein now found itself in.

Roads were being constructed across Austria to connect the major cities and towns of the realm. Roads were an essential feature for commerce, and Berengar intended to make sure that his roads stretched across the entire Duchy.

As for the industry, several critical industrial cities had begun to pop up aside from Kufstein. Innsbruck had long since been established as an Industrial city; within it, the arms and armor Berengar manufactured for the Byzantine Empire were mass-produced.

Arkubuses, pikes, falconets, and mirror pattern armor were mass-produced there and supplied to the Byzantine Empire under the agreement to be paid for in the future, after their conquests. The Emperor had agreed to Berengar's terms and unknowingly fallen into a debt trap.

As for Vienna, it had begun the production of even earlier arms and armor, which could be sold to any medieval army Berengar chose. They focused on the production of brigandine armor, hand cannons, primitive medieval cannons, and any number of other medieval weaponry. Most of which was being given as military aid to the Hussites, under the terms that they would pay for it in the future, creating a sizable debt among the Hussite forces.

Within Istria, the glass and salt industries had greatly expanded over the past year, and Berengar had stolen a large portion of the market from the Venetians, much to their ire. Berengar had more than once received an unfriendly letter from the Venetian Doge demanding he cease production of his superior glass.

Of course, being the terrible aggressive, and arrogant man that he was, Berengar's response to the Venetian's outrage was to politely tell them to go pound sand. This had worsened the relations between Venice and Austria to the point of a Naval Arms race.

As for Berengar's Cathedral, and Grand Palace, he had decided not to go with concrete and steel construction; as such, he had the buildings entirely rebuilt from scratch in the form of more traditional materials such as granite and mortar.