Road to the Crown

Chapter 317: Diversifying the trainlines.

30th October 1574

To say this day was mundane and boring would be a gross understatement. Right off the bat, once I arrived in the office, my desk was already swarmed by the stacks of various papers to check, with even more waiting in boxed beside the wall. And once I realised that every single stack of the papers was about a different matter altogether, for the first time since I started developing my lands, I felt a bit of regret.

All my actions so far could be considered to spawn from two major reasons that I had. 

First off, personal one. Thinking about development, growth and innovativeness, it all came from a single fact that people wanted to make their lives easier. Why tilt the ground by hand, if you can use the force of animals to do it was more efficient? Why use the horses to move around if you can do the same with a car? Why go to make your groceries if you can just order your food online?

Some say that it was the military that was the spearhead of the development through the ages, but this saying couldn't be any further from the truth. In reality, the military was actually on the other end of the chain. Instead of being the leaders of innovation, they were its greatest customers. 

Implementing all sorts of new technology in order to gain an edge over the enemy was the most obvious way to go around things, so while the researchers and scientists often didn't have the military use in mind while working on something, the funds and protection offered by the military rarely fallen on the dry ground to transform into a beneficial relationship that only speed up the process.

Ultimately, all the progress that humanity made came from the simple sin of ours. Slothfulness. Why waste your energy on doing something, if you can make something or someone do it for you? The way of creating incentives for the people and innovations for the technology always followed this pattern.

And I was right on top of it. Shuffling the papers in front of me, I dabbled my pen in the ink before starting the monotone process of reading through the document and then deciding whether or not to sign it. Given how my staff overtook nearly all of the duties that I dealt with previously, I had no other choice but to change my flow of work from creative to organisational one.

At this point, I couldn't be any happier about the fact that I once finished a Univerisity that had something economy something in its name. As little as it was worth once put to the work in my current reality, it still managed to help me create a proper managerial system for everything. 

But that put me right in the spot that was my against off feeling of slothfulness. 

Given how I did a fair lot of office-work in my original life, returning to this kind of job right now didn't seem like a fulfilment of my dreams. Instead of a perfectly comfortable couch, lovable wife on my lap, a glass of fine wine in my hand and theatrical groups performing just for the two of us, I was sitting on a simple chair, stacks of important papers that I had to deal with later piling up on my lap, a glass of water accompanied me by my side as the entire rest of the office behind just a thin wall continued to work hard to make sure my workload would only increase!

Speaking about the other reason for my drive to develop, it was rather obvious from the last events. As full of opportunities, the current times were, they were filled with dangers just as much. Without all the progress that I made over the last few months, I would have nothing to pit against Ostros who would surely go after my lands either way. 

But this kind of reason could be said to be entirely political, outwards. Rather than aimed at improving the lives of my family, retainers and serfs, I strived to make sure their environment would be safe from external threats!

Yet in all of this, despite all the work that I had in front of me, dealing with the matters that I had real influence over, being able to see the effects of my actions reflected by the reality This kind of feeling compensated for all the hardships that would normally come in this line of work!

Taking the piece of paper that I was holding right now, for example, it outlined the new set of laws and regulations for the usage of the eastern thread of my train tracks. With how there was no longer any enemy in this direction, instead of hogging all the fun of trains for the military purposes, I was doing my best to reform it into a working and well-oiled system of civilian logistic!

It was an idea that came to my mind as I focused on how could I fulfil the promise that I made to Elia all those months ago. But how could I develop Pilzno, a city that was even further down the line from Tarnow, which was already greatly detached from the area that I was currently developing?

The answer to this question was pretty simple. 

There was no humanly way for me to implement the first idea that I had of turning both Tarnow and Pilzno into nothing else but the extreme ends of a greater urban area. Doing something like that would require me to construct a city that was several times bigger than even the biggest metropolis of Poland I knew from my original post!

Rather than focusing all my efforts at creating something that had no chances of working, I simply used what I had on hand to implement a simple, but the incredibly profitable scheme for all the lands between Pilzno and Tarnow.

Right now, while the lesser Poland plains were not considered as the greatest land of the country, they were at in the first tier of the lands one would like to possess at the very least. Its main problem was how incredibly fragmented the plots of lands were, making it hard for anyone to create a new, massive holding there.

But rather than fighting with reality, I simply adopted the mercantile approach. Using the permit I got from the Senate, all the lands that my train line would pass by could be forcefully annexed into my domain. While this right was something that I was insanely reluctant to use due to how big of a backlash I would have to face later on, once I invested enough red goldens into the group of nobles that came to my aid in buying out the plots of lands from various families, most of the local nobility turned to be smart enough to take the gold and leave. 

Obviously, there was no way this plan could work for everyone, resulting in a quite ugly map with most of the land between Tarnow and Pilzno marked in my private colours, and several jarring enclaves destroying otherwise perfect borders of the area I bought up.

Knowing how little I could do against those noble households that refused my offer, I simply shook my administrative shoulders, before proceeding to implement a simple tactic initially designed to allow the trains to pass each other on the longer routes.

Beside nearly every enclave belonging to someone else, a small station was added to the train line. It broke every single safety rule that I could recall from my past, but in the current age, it didn't really matter all that much. What was more important, was how this massive mean of transportation would instantly lead to a drastic drop in the price of food!

Given how most of the local nobles supported their lives by forcing their serfs to work harder and harder on their fields, with the decreasing price of food, the earnings of those pesky nobles would drop as well, all the while the lands around the small transit station would continue to flourish!

This was my way of fulfilling the promise I made to Elia. Instead of turning Pilzno into the centre of the world, it would serve a major role of the last big city before the highly-developed area of Tarnow and New Tarnow Colony. With how the road between those two cities would be the main area where the high-end manufactories would be set up, something that I had to do in order to diversify the structure of my lands, anyone willing to join my workforce from the far east or later from the north would have to either through Tarnow or Pilzno!

Clang.

The sound of the doors slamming against the wall on the other side of its hinges indicated that something huge happened. Raising my head from the paper detailing the exact location of one of the small stations, I saw the flustered face of one of the more active officers of mine.

"Sir, they are retreating!"