Otherworld Nation Founding Chronicles

Chapter 80 – Flood Control I

Translator: Isekai Shousetsu

“I guess I’ll first reform the military system……”

“What are you going to change?”

Julia asks.

“Well, I won’t change much. I think I’ll retain both a conscription and recruitment system. Recruits would be 1000. Maybe I’ll go with 400 hoblites, another 400 would be cavalry, and the remaining 200 would be archers. Although a standing army would cost much money, it’s necessary right?”

Especially cavalry, there’s no way I could gather them from conscription.

Normally, it’s necessary for them to keep on training.

Furthermore, it’s more convenient to have a standing army that would move on my command.

I intend to have that army be led by Ron, Roswald, and Gram.

“All the rest will come from conscription. Not only would it be unreasonable to turn the whole army into a standing army, we won’t be able to gather enough numbers anyway too.”

War is quantity.

Naturally, quality is also important. However, if you could manage to maintain a certain level of quality, then what comes next is quantity.

“What’ll come next are the blacksmiths we obtained from the De Morgal Kingdom. We’ll work them hard manufacturing iron.”

We’ll prioritize iron weapons manufacture.

After we’ve changed all weapons into iron, we’ll change priorities to agricultural tools.

However, changing the weapons into iron based ones is already nearing completion.

Why?

It’s because of the presents from the De Morgal army.

Thanks to them leaving behind their weapons and running away when they were defeated, we were able to take all their iron weapons and hand them out to the army.

Well, this much is good for the army right?

If you change too much, then it might cause disorder.

“For the present, the thing I absolutely need to do is……”

Palace Construction, huh.

I had the royalty, with Raymond on the helm, gathered in advance.

Because of my position as husband ((to royalty)), I have to be mindful and honor their positions while governing.

Well, since I’m inexperienced, I’m actually happy that they’re here to help out so I don’t have any complaints.

“I’m thinking of moving the capital city anew. What do you think?”

I go straight to the point and ask them.

The Rosyth clansmen bustled in conversation for a while but Raymond steps forward before anyone else and speaks his view.

“What would be your reasoning behind such a move? Are you unsatisfied with the current palace?”

“There are several problems with the current palace.”

I begin to point out such points.

“First, it’s directly connected to the Romano Forest. It has been thought of, up until now, that no enemy that would come passing through the forest exists. Thus, we managed to use the forest to protect our rear. However, we now have King Ferrum’s case as precendent. Furthermore, we, ourselves, have extensively used the forest in the previous war. If the enemy were to march through the forest, we won’t be able to notice their movements. This is a big problem, right?”

Half of it’s my fault. It’s not like I’m regretting it now, though.

“The next problem, though it isn’t an issue yet, has a possibility of becoming one from here on out.”

The castle walls are now deteriorating.

The current capital is the one father in law got from his grandfather……in other words, if you count starting from me, this capital has been built by the third generation King Rosyth before me, in other words, Julia’s great-grandfather.

It was built to be able to restore the war front against the De Morgal Kingdom.

It has the advantages of being able to send out a sortie immediately when the country gets invaded and being able to immediately send royal orders to the battlefield.

This, however, begs the question. When King Ferrum appeared, why was the capital never moved?

There’s very little distance between King Ferrum’s capital, the Ars Territory Palace, and the Rosyth Capital. Furthermore, the then King Rosyth was ill and therefore couldn’t effectively give out orders.

This should have lowered this location’s strategic value, (dismissing it should be natural.)

However, politics got involved.

If they were to move the capital, they would look like cowards running away. It was feared that they’d lose unifying force over the great clansmen.

Morever, they also didn’t have the economic leeway to move the capital.

Due to these circumstances, the capital stayed put.

I digress so let’s return to the matter at hand.

The next problem - size.

You couldn’t say this capital was particularly spacious. Well, it’s the norm for Adernian standards. However, I’m dissatisfied with the size.

“For the sake of centralizing powers, we established a bureaucracy and a standing army. Furthermore, you people understand that there’s a need to consolidate key industries such as paper and iron, yes?”

“Yes. We understand such points and we also support them. However, what do those things have in relation to moving our capital?”

“The standing army would have one thousand men. These men would each have a wive and we could expect each would have four children. Add all of them together and we could easily expect a population of around 6000 people in our capital.

You do understand that we should expect the same for our bureaucrats, our paper craftsmen, our blacksmiths, and other personnel, yes? Once fortune gathers in our capital, people in search of it will come in droves. They, too, would then rear children, and their children would then rear their own children……this cycle will continue until we become flush with people that it becomes a problem.”

By my predictions, in 30-years time, the capital territory will become insufficient.

It’ll become full of people and get congested and would bring about various effects on the economy.

“Besides, it’s starting to become unhealthy here. You can clearly see that we’re being overwhelmed with the management of human wastes. Our drinking water supply from the river is at it’s limits too. If our population continues to grow, the river just might end up drying up completely. Should the dwellings grow denser, we also increase the risk of suffering great damage when a fire breaks out.”

“I see……You are absolutely right. Then, where should we transfer the capital?”

I spread a map before the nobles.

I then point to the place where three rivers converge.

One of the rivers runs from the Romano forest, another from the former Ars territory, and the other from the former DeBell territory.

We will source the building materials from from the Romano Forest and the Former DeBell Territories and transport them through the rivers.

We will also bring in the food to be consumed by the capital from the Former DeBell and Ars Territories.

You can secure drinking water from these rivers as well, so it should be fine if we source domestic water from them.

This place should be the best place to put the capital.

“My King! This place is…”

“Flood prone, right?”

I cut off Raymond.

Raymond nods.

Yes, the place I’m specifying has, since long time ago, suffered from severe damages from flooding.

Rivers in the Rosyth Kingdom have no sufficient flood control.

Thus, when rain falls, the rivers immediately overflow. When it rains a downpour, it’s common to see the rivers rise several meters high.

This place is always inundated - by rains in winter and by water from the thawing snow in the mountains in spring. It’s a place where water from three rivers converge after all.

As such…

“First, I think we should start with flood control.”

“Fl, flood control, my king!? The money to cover the costs for that does………exist, huh.”

Yes, we have the money.

First, from the rock salt mines.

The Rosyth Kingdom has three rock salt mines.

The first one is a mine privately owned by Raymond.

The other is a mine located nearby the present palace.

And the last one is the salt mine found in the Ars territory.

In other words, I have in my control two of those salt mines. Furthermore, the mine in the Ars territory is in a whole larger scale than the other two mines.

Next, from paper.

Thanks to my ascension as King, nationwide production of paper has begun.

Also, the earnings and Blouse town that was obtained from the previous war, which was recently being refered to by the public as the one-week war.

Earnings from plunder and earnings from the reparations.

Furthermore, the vast income obtained from the garnet stones.

There is sufficient capital to undertake flood control.

Up until now, the former King Rosyth himself had been ill and unable to engage in large scale flood control due to lack of funds.

He did occasionally commission small scale projects though.

“For the meantime, we will conduct flood control on the entire area of the planned location of the new capital. I shall rely on the great clansmen for the labor. Naturally, I will shoulder all the food expenses of that labor force. With this, you won’t have any complaints, yes?”

In otherwords, I just told them “give me people since I don’t need money” in a roundabout way.

“Your Majesty, King Rosyth. We won’t object to this flood control project. It would give us and the people peace of mind after all if we managed to mitigate flood damage. Furthermore, it would also increase our harvest by several times if we manage to arrange irrigation. However, could humans capable of a large scale project such as this really exist? I know that a Cretian architect has come to be employed by Your Majesty. However, construction and flood control are different. Would that Cretian be able to do the job?”

“There won’t be any problems. I have employed another Cretian. He’s a person learned in Astronomy and Earth Sciences. This scholar and my architect are more than enough to do the job.”

I say brimming with confidence.

“Now then, another question. What would we do about the defensive line? As Your Majesty knows, the current capital was made in consideration of the conflict with the De Morgal Kingdom. Now that our territory has increased and the border has shifted north, shouldn’t we be moving our new capital north ((following our logic))? Won’t this new location place our capital farther south from the border?”

“That is correct. However, at present, I don’t think that the De Morgal Kingdom is a huge threat to our kingdom. What we should be fearing is being surrounded by a coalition of neighboring countries. As such, we should, as much as possible, put our capital in a central location. Besides, I intend to construct paved roads that reach up to our borders. We’ll do this at the same time as flood control. I think we should sufficiently manage with that.”

We would also need stations next, huh.

It would increase the transmission speed of information by fast horse.

If we succeed, we would be able to do correspondence in a speed faster than ever before.

“Is that so?……Then I guess there won’t be problems.”

Raymond quickly withdraws.

Just like this, the flood control project has been decided.

“How is it, Ismere? How do you feel about your own employer becoming king?”

“……Uh, it, let’s see, feels quite like incubating a chicken’s egg and it ends up hatching up as a dragon.”

“ It’s an example I quite get but really don’t, huh.”

Qingming quips from the side.

“Well, it was quite a splendid subjugation. I have seen and heard of several domestic strifes in my travels but the one that managed to brilliantly subdue such is pretty much King Rosyth. Would it be fine if I write it down in a book?”

“I won’t mind. Do as you wish. But don’t exaggerate too much.”

An Ancient History Annals would be appropriate after all.

Besides, all of them completely exaggerates, like “isn’t that one zero too many?”

Eyewitness A would say “It was such a huge army!”

Historian A would be like “I see…then let’s make it a million.”

Things probably go down like that, right?

“By the way, for what purpose did you call for us?”

“Well, I’ll get straight to the point. We’ll be making a city, so I want you to make some plans. Qingming, we’ll also be expecting much from your knowledge.”

I now don’t have the time to go and inspect other countries’ cities after all. I’ll leave it to these two. Especially Qingming, he had come and gone through cities aof the Scarlet and Persis Empires.

“Really!? I will be designing a city!?”

Ismere bends forward in excitement.

Well, this is the highest honor for an architect after all.

“It won’t just be you, you know? I, just in case, intend to call on another Cretian for the job. Whether or not your plan gets utilized would depend on your abilities.”

I, however, sufficiently understand the extent of Ismere’s skills.

There’s no architect better than this woman.

“There’s a caveat. The planned location for this city has suffered from heavy flood damage since long ago.”

I pass the map over to Ismere and point to the planned location.

Ismere frowns.

“As such, flood control is necessary before the construction of the city. Can you do it? Around the parts here and here…”

Ismere’s face dims.

“I’ll be able to do it if it’s small scale. However, to do this on such a large scale…if we don’t play our cards right, we might inadvertently worsen the problem. We would need someone with specialized knowledge. We’ll also need some sorcerers.”

“I see. In otherwords, we’ll be needing an Earth Scientist.”

I have Tetra so a sorcerer won’t be a problem but…

Dang…where do I find an Earth Scientist looking for a job.

“My King, Sir Ains requests a meeting with Your Majesty.”

A guard informs me.

What now? I should have paid my liabilities, though?

“Ains, is it? Let him in.”

Ains enters on my command.

He sits down correcting his posture, bows his head deeply, and greets me once again.

He then breaks the ice.

“I actually, you see, have an earth scientist!!”

“What the heck is this, are you a psychic or something?”

“No, I’m not. Just as I was thinking about introducing an earth scientist, in a stroke of luck, everyone was talking about it so I figured I’d cut to the chase.”

As expected of Ains. Your company even deals with earth scientists, huh.

What impeccable timing.

“He’s my brother.”

“……You, you actually made your own brother fall in to slavery, huh……”

You’re the worst as a human.

“No, you’re mistaken! He’s not a slave. He’s a genuine free man, though he’s quite weird. Could you somehow give him the opportunity to meet with you?”

“Hmm, let’s see. I guess meeting him won’t hurt.”

A while later, Ains brings his brother along.

He goes by the name Nikolaos.

What’s with him, I can feel a very eccentric atmosphere on him.

“I’m a Cretian scholar by the name of Nikolaos. My specialty is astronomy but I’m knowledgable in every field including mathematics, earth sciences, physics, and the like.”

“Ah! The Alto Eccentric! The number one in the annoying scholars ranking, Nikolaos!!”

Ismere points at Nikolaos.

“Oi! Who are you calling eccentric!!”

Even your younger brother called you eccentric, you know.

But, the annoying scholars’ ranking top 1, huh. To think something like that exists…

“This guy’s extremely annoying, you know. One way or another, he’d end up repeatedly saying ‘the world is round, the world is round.’ In the morning, he’d say ‘It’s round’ in place of a greeting. Even in academic conferences, he’d begin with ‘It’s round.’ Nonetheless, he doesn’t give sufficient evidence. In the end, he will scream ‘persecution!’ in persecution complex.

Are you pretending to be a scholar in a tragedy? It’s not just your thinking that’s being persecuted, it’s you yourself. You’re very annoying! Is what my friend constantly grumbled.”

“I already told everyone that my calculations are correct, right!?”

“Aren’t you missing a digit somewhere? Then why don’t you also discover and show me the annual parallax?”

“Then why don’t you also explain the retrograde motion of the stars!?”

Aren’t you guys in the presence of a king?

Well, I guess it’s fine. It’s good when people are full of vigor.

That said, it’s completely become like an internet response battle, huh. Are all Cretians like this?

It’s kind of like the battle between the Ptolemaic theory and the Copernican theory.

Which one is it, I wonder?

For the meantime, I’ve confirmed that this planet is round. You’ll understand that if you looked at a ship.

However, I still don’t know if it’s revolving around the sun or the converse.

This world has stuff like sorcerers, fairies, divine protections, Griffons, and the like so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sun wound up revolving around this planet.

I don’t understand much astronomy after all.

“Eitherway would by fine but, would you be up to the job?”

“Yes, I believe I can do the job. I’m quite confident regarding the movements of rivers.”

Oh?……Then I guess he will do.

“Well then, Ismere, Qingming, Nikolaos, and Tetra. I hereby order the four of you to control the floods. Well, do it after convening, okay? Perform some preliminary investigations.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!!”

Author’s notes:

I wonder how much time would flood control actually take?

Well, I guess it would depend on the river as well as the scope of the project.