Chapter 205 (1/2)
Chapter 205 Microscopes
After Timothy’s armed forces had been repulsed, Border Town became calm once again.
Roland selected three people from the City Hall’s Ministry of Education and added another two teachers to form a team, which he then sent, together with some of Soraya’s books to Longsong Stronghold. No matter how much effect they could achieve, he finally took the first step for the assimilation of the stronghold.
Petrov, although he did not excel at commanding a battle, his performance in administration was outstanding. In just one week, two thousand recruited road-workers, escorted by cavalrymen, came to Border Town one after the other. If not for the second batch of ten blast furnaces he’d already put into production, Roland would also never have dared to make the firm resolution to establish a hard road between the two locations. But now, he finally had the opportunity to extravagantly spent a lot of money.
Roland named the road the ‘Kingdom Main Street’, and Karl, the Head of the Ministry of Construction, was fully responsible for its construction. Its structure and the streets’ in the town were exactly the same; a cement-stabilized gravel layer. During this era, where there existed no heavy vehicles, this kind of pavement was already sufficient to undertake every transportation tasks. Moreover, with a good drainage performance, if the circumstances ever demanded, later on, an concrete or even a asphalt pavement could always be added.
To always have enough construction material, four steam-driven milling machine replaced the labor-power that was required to crush the stones, producing dozens of tons of gravel and material each day. It was the too small transportation capacity, which hindered the further rise of the output, so many stones needed hundreds of people to send the stones with carriages to the construction site during the day. For the later generation of roads, one single muck car would have been enough to complete the whole shipment.
With the exception of the four furnaces which maintained the clay brick firing, the rest of the blast furnaces had been put into the production of cement powder. After going through repeated component tests, as well as making sure that the mine provided enough iron powder, Border Town’s cement production, whether it be its quality or quantity, they were both far better than the original batches.
However, the mass transport of gravel and cement powder also brought a large negative impact to the town, of which the most severe problem was the dust. Until the afternoon, there had only been little wind, so that a dense cloud of dust could be seen flying in the sky, turning the street into a light yellow. Although most of the town people did not mind such a situation, for Roland, there was nothing worse than having to shut all of the doors and windows during the hot summer.
Therefore, the carriages for transporting the cement powder and gravel had been fitted with a cover plate as quickly as possible, to reduce the dispersion during the transportation. At the same time, he also used it as a chance to promote Leaves’ ability. Within a few days, the inside of the town was covered with shade providing trees, they were symmetrical parasol trees, which Leaves had grown one branch of after another, creating the impression that the scenery appeared to be full of green for as far as the eye could see. With Roland’s additional appeal to all of the people, that they should take the initiative and sprinkle water over the dust, the situation had quickly been improved.
The straight distance between the two places was less than 70 kilometers, but considering that the road had to avoid the extensions of the Impassable Mountain Range, the total length of the road would be around 100 kilometers and its expected construction duration would be one year. With roads of such excellent quality, some modern kinds of vehicles could also come in handy, such as bicycles and steam powered cars.
In his vision for the future, the development of education and the upgrading of the road were necessary steps to fuse the two cities together. Just like the cities of the later generations would energetically carry out urban integration. After the land between these two places was fully opened up, Border Town and Longsong Stronghold would slowly merge into one huge city. And in case he could even integrate the southern hill into the city, he could then open up a path through the edge of the mountains, and even get an outgoing sea port for himself.
Of course, being able to develop so much land would require an even larger population. And in response to the possibility of future wars, the city would need to be self-sufficient with its food production, while also providing a significant number of workers for the industrial production.From his preliminary calculations, he would need around one hundred thousand residents, while Graycastle’s largest city, King’s City, had only around twenty to thirty thousand people.
When thinking about this issue, Roland remembered that the North and South of the Kingdom of Graycastle, are both places that have recently experienced a war. So, when the winter comes, it is likely that there will be a large number of refugees coming who would be deprived of food and clothing. By offering them food and a warm shelter they can all be absorbed into Border Town.
Furthermore, I also have to take into consideration that there should also be many refugees within the Kingdom of Endless Winter and the Wolfsheart Kingdom. For that reason, it would be better to write Margaret a letter and ask her to help me to find out how the situation is within those two countries.
…
After he had finished to writing down the recent development program, the Prince folded the paper and placed it into the drawer. Afterward, he stretched out his tensed-up body and decided to go to Anna’s room to take a look at how much progress she had made with creating a lens.