Chapter 21: The First Step of Reform (1)
A temporary tent had been set up in front of the administrative office, with a banner hanging above it that read:
“Pioneer Village Immigrant Registration Desk.”
Maybe it was because people had hope that they could start a new life in a new land.
Or maybe it was simply because the bandits had already been completely wiped out, leaving the refugees with nothing else to do.
Either way, quite a lot of displaced people had come to apply.
As I watched the gathered refugees, Pascal, my Chief Secretary for Civil Affairs, approached me.
“My Lord, there is no need for you to personally oversee something like this. Why don't you go inside and rest?”
“Why do you keep telling me to rest? Are you uncomfortable with me watching?”
Pascal gave an awkward smile, clearly struck by my accusation.
“There is no way that could be true. Haha!”
“Don't worry. Later, even if you try to stop me, I'll leave. I'm just going to watch the registration process for a while.”
We sat behind the registration desk and watched the proceedings.
A junior official at the desk called out the next number.
“Number three. Come forward and register.”
“Yes, sir.”
A man approached the desk with his family.
“Let's see here... Eight underage children? Are all of them really your children?”
“Of course, sir. They've all completed their resident registration too.”
“Show me the documents.”
The man pulled a bundle of certificates from inside his clothes and handed them to the official.
“Hmm. Everything appears to be properly registered.”
“Then I'm eligible for priority, right, sir?”
“Yes. Families with many underage children receive first priority.”
“Haha! Thank you very much, sir.”
That was when I rose from my seat.
“Wait. Stop.”
I pointed at the man who was registering.
“You. Stay right there.”
“Pardon?”
“What's your name?”
“Hans, sir.”
Appraisal, appraisal, appraisal...
I appraised every single one of Hans's children.
It was because all the children who had come with him had noticeably different physical features.
There was always the possibility that this whole thing about them being one family was a trick.
[Jamie (6 years old)]
[Son of the farmer Donovan.]
[James (8 years old)]
[Son of the blacksmith Laszlo.]
[Irina (9 years old)]
[Daughter of the butcher Milan.]
All eight children were like that.
Every single one had a different biological father's name.
What the hell is this? Did he adopt them?
Pascal must have become curious about what was going on because he came closer.
“My Lord, what is the problem?”
“All the children have different fathers.”
“What? Then that bastard is a kidnapper!”
“No, I didn't say—”
Without even listening properly, Pascal immediately called over the soldiers who were standing by.
“Arrest that man. He might be a kidnapper.”
Hans panicked.
“Oh dear, sir! What are you talking about?”
“You wicked bastard. You can't fool my eyes.”
Pascal hurried over to the children.
“You children were kidnapped, weren't you? Don't worry anymore. This uncle will protect you.”
“We weren't kidnapped! Let our dad go!”
When the soldiers grabbed both of Hans's arms, the children protested by punching and kicking Pascal.
—Pow! Bam! Thud!
“Ugh! Kids, I'm trying to save you—ugh!”
I shook my head and asked Hans,
“All of these children's fathers are different. What exactly happened?”
Hans seemed to understand what I was asking.
He sighed before answering.
“My wife runs away from home quite often. She's run away again right now, sir.”
Suddenly, the atmosphere turned solemn.
I smacked Pascal on the head.
—Whack!
“You bastard. This is all your fault.”
It was partly my fault too, but I decided to dump all the blame on Pascal.
“I'm sorry...”
“Apologize to Hans, not me.”
Then I decided to clean up the mess.
“Listen well! Hans shall be given an award for being an exemplary father! Give him twice as much farmland, and exempt him from taxes for five years—no, ten years!”
“Yes, My Lord!”
The officials answered in unison.
Not a single person gathered there objected to Hans receiving the reward.
After that rough beginning, the registration process proceeded smoothly, and we were able to finish selecting the first group of immigrants.
Within a few days, the refugees would be sent to the newly reclaimed land.
I gathered the administrative officials and listened to their reports regarding the current situation.
“Treasurer, how is the territory's budget?”
“At our current spending rate, I believe the budget will be completely exhausted around February next year.”
“Even if that means we burn through the budget faster, we cannot delay sending people to the reclaimed land. Once spring arrives, things will become even more difficult.”
“But we currently don't have any particular source of additional income.”
Diego, my Chief Economic Secretary, who had been listening beside us, asked a question.
“Couldn't we obtain something from the Great Forest? We've only just begun entering it, so most of its resources should still be untouched.”
“At best, we'd find exposed mineral deposits or places where we could pan for gold. Those aren't particularly profitable, and they take too much time.”
In this world, work that required a large amount of manpower might produce a small profit if handled privately.
But if the government tried to develop it directly, it would almost always result in a loss.
After all, there was no way government-owned slaves would enthusiastically perform backbreaking labor.
That was why mining rights were usually sold to private developers.
The government would invest in shares instead and receive dividends from the profits.
Meanwhile, government-owned slaves were mainly used for agricultural work, where supervising them was much easier.
“Then I'll start recruiting private mine developers. Also, isn't the Great Forest full of trees? Couldn't we do something with lumber?”
“Trees, huh...”
A few ideas came to mind.
That included the medicine whose recipe I had promised to teach Winnie the witch.
But none of those ideas were certain yet.
I'd have to go there myself and check.
“Diego, come with me to the Great Forest.”
Together with Diego and several soldiers, I rode toward the Great Forest.
It was a dense woodland close to both the newly reclaimed pioneer village and the existing Komangsville.
While still on horseback, I looked at the surrounding trees.
Appraisal.
[Beech Tree]
[Its fruit is inedible.]
[Oak Tree]
[Can produce high-quality lumber.]
The tree species are mostly similar. I'll have a use for that one later.
However, after looking around the forest, Diego gave a pessimistic assessment.
“The quality of the trees here is certainly good, but transporting them will be difficult. If there were a river nearby, it would be a different story, but transporting lumber over land would cost far too much.”
“That would be true if we only intended to supply lumber or firewood to the cities.”
Diego seemed to notice something from my response.
“You have another method in mind.”
“It's not something we can do immediately. We're still short on manpower.”
“Even with all the refugees?”
“When it comes to population, the more people we have, the better.”
Diego fell into thought.
There were only two population-increasing policies we could use in the short term.
Accepting immigrants from other territories.
And purchasing slaves.
We needed to think of other ways to rapidly increase the population.
“I'll think about that together with Pascal.”
To be completely honest, I wasn't expecting too much from policies created by secretaries who were only nineteen or twenty years old.
Still, young people sometimes came up with unique ideas that older people would never consider.
“Think carefully. The future of our territory depends on you guys.”
“Ugh. Are you trying to put pressure on us?”
“Call it an appropriate sense of responsibility.”
I had established something called the Chief Secretaries' Meeting, but they didn't actually have many independent duties yet.
If I gave them too much freedom, they might become lazy.
So maybe I needed to tighten the reins a little—
I suddenly flinched in the middle of my thoughts.
Wait.
Isn't that exactly the kind of thing an old-fashioned boomer would think? Damn, I really am getting old.
I started laughing to myself, then frowned.
Diego looked at me strangely.
“Ahem. I'm not telling you to blindly smash your head against a wall. Let me give you an example. If we attracted a major foreign trading company to Marcel, the company's employees would naturally move here as well. Think about methods like that.”
“The first things that come to mind are guilds and Magic Towers. Ah!”
Diego's eyes lit up.
“We should attract a Magic Tower!”
Magic Towers in this world occupied a position similar to massive corporations in my previous life.
Their economic influence was so enormous that there were even cities whose entire economies depended on a single Magic Tower.
“A Magic Tower would certainly work. Assuming you can actually convince one to come here.”
I continued.
“There are also religious organizations. Aachen, the city where the Cardinal of the Sun God Church resides, has practically its entire population economically dependent on the Church.”
“Oh! You're giving away all the good ideas yourself. We only need to succeed with one of them.”
I chuckled.
“Go ahead and try. If you can actually do it.”
My tone clearly suggested that I wasn't expecting much.
Perhaps that ignited Diego's competitive spirit.
He tightly pressed his lips together and clenched his fist.
While continuing our conversation, we traveled deeper into the forest.
There, I discovered a tree I hadn't seen before and used [Low-Grade Appraisal] on it.
[Sugar Maple]
[Its sap is sweet.]
“Found it.”
I had grown up in the countryside during my previous life.
Thanks to that, I had experience collecting gorosoe sap and even making syrup from it.
Gorosoe was also a type of maple tree.
Its sap could be collected and boiled into syrup using a method similar to maple syrup production.
Whether it was done in Korea, Canada, or this pioneer village, the basic process should be similar.
Diego noticed my delighted expression and looked confused.
“Isn't this just an ordinary maple tree?”
“Yes. This particular species is called a sugar maple. All maple sap has some sweetness, but this one is especially sweet.”
Diego's eyes widened.
“Don't tell me... We can make sugar from it?”
Sweetness was expensive.
That was true in my previous life, and it was equally true in this one.
If we could produce sugar, the financial situation of the territory would improve in an instant.
The cities of the Southern Continent that produced sugar from sugarcane were all extremely wealthy.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but it isn't sugar. It's syrup. A sweet syrup with a caramel-like aroma.”
“Disappointed?”
Diego shook his head.
“Sweetness is the taste of nobility. There is no question that this will make money.”
I took my eyes away from the system window and grabbed the reins.
“First, let's determine how widely these trees are distributed. Look carefully at their appearance and memorize it.”
“Yes, My Lord!”
Diego answered energetically.
Judging by his reaction, the budget problem must have been weighing heavily on him.
We rode through the forests around the pioneer village, searching for sugar maples and creating a map of their distribution.
Fortunately, they grew densely throughout a fairly large area.
The economic potential looked promising.
“Diego, let's return to the lord's castle. We need to make some tools before we can collect the sap.”
“I'll take you straight to the blacksmiths.”
Diego eagerly took the lead.
A few days later.
Early in the morning, the residents of the pioneer village of Komangsville headed into the forest.
After finding sugar maple trees, they drilled holes into the trunks.
They inserted metal taps that resembled small faucets into the holes and hung buckets beneath them.
They then went around to the trees where buckets had already been placed, collected the accumulated sap, and returned to the village.
At the workshop, they placed large pots over the fire.
The sap was first filtered through clean linen to remove impurities.
Then it was simmered slowly over a weak fire until it became thick and concentrated.
Once the sap had caramelized slightly, it was poured into sterilized, clean bottles and jars.
The village chief of Komangsville stared at one of the bottles of syrup.
“My Lord, so this is Maipol Syrup.”
“Ma.ple. Syrup.”
“The pronunciation is difficult. Can't we call it something else?”
Apparently, the chief had trouble with Konglish pronunciation.
“Hmm. Then choose between ‘Gorosoe’ and ‘Canada.’”
“Canada is easier.”
“Then from now on, this syrup shall be called ‘Canada.’”
The village chief seemed satisfied with the name and grinned, showing his white teeth.
I inspected the finished bottle of ‘Canada.’
“You've made it very well. If you boil it down less, you can also produce a lighter-colored syrup. Experiment with different methods.”
“May I taste it?”
“You still haven't tried it? Hurry up and taste it. How are you supposed to sell something when you don't even know what it tastes like?”
The village chief scooped a little onto a spoon and tasted it.
His eyes immediately widened.
Apparently, it was so sweet that his entire body trembled.
Diego brought over some bread, dipped it lightly into the syrup, and took a bite.
“It seems to pair extremely well with foods made from flour. The aroma is excellent too.”
The village chief was delighted that the villagers would now have work throughout the winter.
Meanwhile, Diego was smiling happily while imagining the additional tax revenue.
“Teach this method to more villagers. Teach the newly arrived refugees as well.”
“There are plenty of trees, but we need more of those things called taps, along with more buckets.”
“I've already placed a large order with the blacksmiths. Wait a little. I'll lend the tools to you on credit.”
I decided to teach the method for producing Canada to every village bordering the Great Forest.
Once we began mass production and export, it wouldn't just improve the territory's finances.
It would also greatly reduce unemployment among the territory's residents.
Even after the agricultural off-season ended, continued production of Canada would require a steady supply of labor.
I returned to the lord's castle with Diego and the village chief.
“Diego, I need to meet the spice merchants. Guide me.”
“Let's go to the general goods auction house.”
When we arrived at the auction house, we gathered the owners of the spice shops.
We distributed samples of Canada to them and instructed them to evaluate the product.
The merchants looked extremely satisfied as they offered their assessments.
“This flavor is remarkable. There's a subtle woody fragrance combined with a caramel aroma. The sweetness is excellent as well.”
“Indeed. It would pair wonderfully with bread and pastries. I'm certain it would satisfy even the palates of nobles.”
“It was clearly produced by boiling down tree sap, but this doesn't seem to come from any commonly seen tree. It could become a specialty product of this village.”
“Village Chief, we'll purchase it from you continuously, so make sure you secure more of those trees. Plant seedlings as well. If you want, we can even send transport wagons.”
They had produced an astonishing amount of analysis just from tasting the syrup.
I couldn't help but admire their professionalism and business instincts.
“This Canada shall be sold using the crest and trademark of our territory. Register it with the Spice Guild and apply for protection as well.”
If we received the guild's protection, Marcel Territory would become the only place in the Northern Continent legally allowed to produce and sell Canada.
There probably aren't any maple trees on the Southern Continent either.
That means we'll have a production monopoly!
Hell yeah!
Just imagining all the taxes I could collect put me in an excellent mood.
After all—
The bigger the budget, the better.
