How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony-Chapter 257: Discipline (2)

Only after asking did I realize.

With that question, I had ’completed’ it.

"Like a late teenager? Of course, your actual age must be countless..."

Asking an employee if I look young for my age.

...Anyway.

This is strange.

"Your button has fallen off. I can give you one..."

"Ah! Thank you, but it’s fine. A button factory was built recently, and buttons are in abundance. I’ll just attach a new one I bought last time."

"...I see."

The attitude of the clerk from the community is somewhat... extravagant.

Well, our community people have always lived somewhat luxuriously. But this feels different.

We always struggled with a shortage of everyday items. Most daily necessities were all imported.

And no matter how much money we had, there was a limit to the quantity of daily necessities we could have delivered across the Atlantic.

Paper, hairpins, buttons, hair oil, ink, and so on... these things were always in short supply even if we used them sparingly.

But somehow... the atmosphere has changed.

What is it?

Why have we suddenly become so abundant? fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

==

Rewinding time slightly to several months ago.

Virginia’s assembly and the Council of Six received reports of victory throughout Florida.

The entire community celebrated with food and drink, and people in the streets held hands, danced, or sang together.

As such a grand festival took place after a long time, monasteries and factories temporarily closed.

"Now... we don’t need more military supplies?"

"I suppose not."

"Should we reduce the order volume significantly? How much would be appropriate?"

"About a tenth of the current amount should be sufficient, Mrs. Dare."

Soon they would close permanently.

"AAAARGH! My factory!"

The shoe and uniform factory of the Welsh carpenter Tarren, which had been earning tidy profits, was also in the same situation.

Perhaps it was an overreach to build a factory that produced thousands of pairs of shoes in a town of 100,000 people.

Like that, factories that had profited from the community’s frenzied purchasing of supplies for Florida and the Knight Brigade were all facing closure.

Moreover, the 15,000 monastics from the community and 170 monasteries who cried out, "Where do we work now?" also fell into a panic.

There’s nowhere to sell products! Where can we distribute this excess supply!

There’s nowhere to work! Nowhere to accumulate honor while dedicating ourselves to the community!

Of course, places producing materials still necessary for the community survived.

The tractor factory that Kin Issei and various craftsmen had painstakingly established remained intact. Tractors were essential for farming, and several had been damaged in this battle.

Similarly, factories producing various parts needed for manufacturing and repairing tractors also operated smoothly.

"You want to join the Tractor Monastery?"

"Y-yes."

"Let me first give you safety guidelines and equipment. After three months of education and probation, if you don’t meet our expected standards, you cannot become an official monastic."

"Ah, I understand!"

The monasteries attached to such places saw their honor shine even brighter.

Places that steadily served the community without being shaken by the flow of the war or individual events.

Moreover, their members needed both the brains to memorize complex processes and the dexterity to maintain fast, precise work.

Before long, the monasteries in these major fields increasingly screened entrants through more demanding skill assessments and strict discipline, and thoroughly educated their monastics.

As respect and admiration for these monasteries and monastics also increased, it became easier to provide the honor and status people desired.

So, several monasteries transformed into institutions for training and educating skilled workers.

However, the rest of the factories and monasteries were different.

Many factories simply closed, and the members of the monasteries attached to them scattered to find other similar work.

The surviving factory owners likewise scrambled to produce "honorable labor" that could contribute to the community, and they soon found an escape route.

"...Buttons."

"What? Tarren, what do you mean?"

"Buttons and pins fall off frequently, so people keep buying them. What if we stop making clothes and just make and sell buttons and pins? And instead of military scarves, we could make handkerchiefs that will be used briefly and discarded?"

Everyday consumables.

Items that can be used in large quantities if needed, and whose demand rarely ceases.

’Serve the community’s officials! Make paper for community documents yourself!’

’Make handkerchiefs for the cleanliness of the community!’

Those who changed fields this way tried their best to attract simple laborers.

Promotional flyers were plastered on bulletin boards in village squares, and naturally, a factory for printing flyers was also established.

As factories disappeared and reappeared, the monasteries situated beside them couldn’t help but change as well.

"It... seems difficult for us to continue living together now."

"..."

"..."

It couldn’t be helped. As existing factories failed, their subordinate monastics scattered to various factories for "different ascetic practices."

"But let’s continue to hold occasional gatherings of our monastery, and since we’re still working in similar fields, let’s maintain our previous disciplines."

"Let’s do that! For the honor of our monastery!"

But the monasteries didn’t disappear.

The honor attributed to ascetic practices varied depending on which monastery one belonged to and what work one did.

Waking up at set times, keeping the body clean every morning, observing prayer times...

Even while everyone lived in their own homes, they created more flexible and relaxed disciplines to maintain a regular lifestyle like they would in a monastery.

Groups that demanded their members be more diligent and sincere, to hone themselves to be solid and devout within a more regular lifestyle.

Some monasteries valued regular life and the strictness of work, so they contracted with factories requiring more precise dexterity and collective action to supply monastics.

Some monasteries sent monastics to factories needing night shifts, maintaining the discipline that one should not shy away from work others avoid.

Thus, factories received labor suited to their needs through monasteries.

Now, industrial monasteries took on the role of nurturing and educating their members to be labor forces more suitable for industry.

Hundreds and thousands of laborers were thus invested in various industries.

If Kin Issei had seen it, he might have been reminded of vocational training centers or specialized educational institutions.

However, amid the transformation of monasteries, there was one factory... no, farm that hardly changed its appearance:

"R-rain! It’s raining, brothers and sisters!"

"Move the cotton immediately!"

It was the cotton farm.

The cotton fields that Kin Issei had planted to try to reduce the enormous import of cotton fiber were essentially not being properly managed.

Cotton fields are typically located in sparsely populated areas and require immediate labor input based on weather conditions.

If cotton gets wet from rain near harvest time, it becomes too damp to pick and must be left to dry entirely. Conversely, if it opens completely and dries, the cotton might fly away in the wind or fall to the ground, so the harvest must be completed quickly beforehand.

That’s why slaves who could stay near the fields for 24 hours were suitable for cotton cultivation.

In other words, people who lived in remote places, stayed attached for 24 hours, lived communally, and lived with hard labor.

Yes.

Monastics also meet all these conditions.

Therefore, while many monasteries were being "corrupted," cotton cultivation monasteries maintained a form relatively close to the original monastery model.

Due to this rarity, conversely, membership applications surged.

Of course, most of these people had never properly grown cotton, let alone gotten their hands dirty.

These monastics needed someone to supervise and guide them.

"Please, Teacher Pedro..."

"If you insist so much."

So, mainly former slaves with cotton growing experience entered as supervisors for these monasteries.

"Even so, why choose such hard labor?"

"Well... they say it’s more honorable."

"I can’t understand it. English people are indeed strange."

And so they quietly circled around the cotton fields, passing on cotton-picking methods to the English.

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