Steel, Guns, and the Industrial Party in Another World-Chapter 709: Changes on the West Coast
TL: Rui88
“I do not expect your understanding! But please believe that I must have a reason for doing this.”
In the reception room of the royal palace, Rodney XVIII spoke to the crowd with a face full of guilt. “As for the reason, it is not convenient to disclose it for the time being.”
Seated here were Paul, Catherine, and Malron Ganard, who had been by the king’s side serving as a member of the Special Zone Administrative Committee.
“Your Majesty, will this be the end between us and the orcs?” Paul asked him.
After stabilizing the situation in the Northwest, Paul and Catherine had rushed to Crystal Shine on horseback at the king’s urging. Rodney XVIII was to hold an investiture ceremony for him.
“Of course this won’t be the end! Five years!” Rodney XVIII’s brow furrowed tightly as he held up his hand. “At most five years, and Ordo’s army will stand on the walls of the Watcher’s Fortress again.”
The king’s words were resolute. The humiliating treaty with the orcs had dealt a major blow to his prestige, and Rodney XVIII now felt as if he were sitting on a volcano at every moment.
“I will organize a great army!” He clenched his fist and waved it in the air.
“The Alda army is an excellent model!” The king looked eagerly at Paul. “I have studied the details of your battle with the orcs, and I must say that the Alda army acted as a stabilizing force. Your subordinates are an example for all the armies of the kingdom to follow.”
Paul nodded slightly. “I am deeply honoured to receive such praise from Your Majesty.”
“But I also understand that supporting an army like Alda’s requires a great deal of money. Even with military scrip, we need corresponding convertible goods to match it.”
Rodney XVIII turned his gaze to Malron.
“Therefore, our reforms cannot be limited to the small-scale efforts of the special zone but must be fully rolled out across the entire Crownlands, and even in other territories loyal to the Royal Family.”
Malron stood up. “Your Majesty, I will do my utmost.”
Paul thought to himself that it seemed he and the king were getting along well.
Since its establishment, the special economic zone centred on Port West had been operating well. The administrative committee had set up many factories following the model of the Northwest Bay.
Papermaking, salt drying, timber processing, coke production…
In fact, apart from a few new industries, many industries had existed in Ordo for hundreds or even thousands of years, but they had always been in the form of scattered small workshops and manual production.
The Special Zone Administrative Committee introduced new organizational forms, new production technologies, and the so-called “standardization” from the West Bay, thereby establishing “factories” as large-scale production units.
Among these, the most important was the textile industry. The high efficiency of the Jenny spinning machine and the flying shuttle loom attracted a large number of wealthy individuals to join this industry. With a huge amount of private capital invested, textile mills rose from the ground one after another. The abundant water power in the southern part of the kingdom provided a continuous source of power for the machines in the factories.
These factories attracted a large number of workers seeking a livelihood. Among Ordo’s previous lower classes, the number of workers (artisans) was negligible compared to the vast peasant population, but now the situation was beginning to change.
Traditional Ordo cities could only be described as commodity distribution centres for the surrounding countryside. Most of the goods in the cities relied on supplies from the surrounding rural areas, and the number of citizens was also very small; many cities had only ten to twenty thousand people. But in the special economic zone, this situation had also changed. As workers gathered, the scale of the cities grew larger and larger.
The rise of new industries made cities not only commodity distribution centres but also places of goods production. To put it bluntly, the handicraft workshops scattered in the countryside were destroyed by the factories in the cities, and the countryside was completely reduced to a pure supplier of raw materials.
Bankrupt rural artisans had to move to the cities to find a new way of life, and the factory owners, suffering from a labour shortage, welcomed their arrival. This was particularly evident in the textile industry.
The rise of the textile industry had another huge impact. Because the demand for raw materials—cotton and wool—was enormous, the prices of both rose sharply.
Cotton is especially worth mentioning because the cotton gin invented in the Northwest Bay was also brought to the south. The main body of this powerful machine was a cylinder with a large number of steel teeth installed on its wall. When the cylinder rotated, the steel teeth forcibly tore the cotton lint from the cottonseed, and used centrifugal force to filter out the cottonseed, throwing out the cotton fibres. Driven by water power, one person operating a cotton gin could separate more cotton in a single day than could be done by hand in several months, and the operation was simple; one machine only required one person, not to mention that it was picked much cleaner than by the manual method.
The vigorous demand for raw materials from the textile industry led to a huge change in the surrounding agricultural production. Combined with the advanced agricultural technology and machinery also from the West Bay, the demand for labour per unit of land was greatly reduced. And there was no spare wasteland for reclamation near the densely populated Royal Capital and Port West, which further promoted the concentration of the rural population in the cities.
The influx of a large population placed great pressure on the public facilities of the special zone. Because it was experimental, the kingdom’s government’s support for the special zone was limited. The committee had to entrust the Northwest Bank (developed from the bank originally established by the Alda Administration Council) to issue bonds to obtain funds for the development of public facilities.
Roads, bridges, factory buildings, dormitories, residences… new buildings were constantly under construction in the Port West Special Economic Zone, changing its appearance every day.
The booming maritime trade solved the sales problem for the goods in the special zone. Driven by the Northwest Bay, more and more coastal cities joined in. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
Through continuous technological iteration, the sailing ships built in the Northwest Bay became larger, stronger, and had a greater cargo capacity, strongly supporting the growth of the trade chain.
The ever-growing trade chain started from the Northwest Bay, extending north to the Tranquil Steppes, the Lucky Forest, and the Blackwater Basin—the territories of the forest orcs. To the south, it covered the entire west coast of Ordo, turned east through Horn Bay, passed the Assar Subcontinent under the control of the Holy See, and continued to the eastern end of the continent, even establishing contact with the land inhabited by elves in the southeastern part of the continent.
The sailing routes of Ordo’s merchant ships were like threads, connecting the various civilizations of the continent that had previously had very little interaction. Centralized production and high-capacity sea transport made Ordo’s goods both high-quality and inexpensive. Although this impacted the local backward handicraft industries, it was welcomed by more local people. And when the merchant ships returned, they were also fully loaded with local specialties, as well as culture.
With trade as a bridge, the residents of Ordo’s coastal cities greatly broadened their horizons. Urban culture flourished, and the publishing industry began to develop rapidly, especially in the Northwest Bay, where the literacy rate was increasing at a flying pace.
With the support of the paper and printing industries, not only did books such as novels and poems appear in large numbers, but even newspapers, publications mainly featuring news and current affairs commentary, were independently invented by the common people.
