Road to the Crown

Chapter 287: Delays

11th September 1574

"Forward, march!"

As annoying as it was to have all my military march on foot when there were special steam carriages that could easily move them to Tarnow, with how limited their number was, I had no other choice but to make everyone march the entire distance between my colony and the city that it took its name from.

But those soldiers of mine didn't appear as if they minded this situation any bit. Used to the long marches during their training, the journey that would ensue right now could be considered to be a pleasant stroll rather than tactically important relocation of the forces. After all, that was the essence of saying "Sweat lots, bleed a little", which could be considered to be the prime maxim behind the entire military of mine!

"Sir, the marching line is forming properly. We expect to fully leave the outskirts of the New Tarnow before the midday. Also, it seems that there are no problems with transporting train parts."

Given how the only train line that existed in this world connected Krakow and Tarnow, and the only place where the machines were advanced enough to produce a power unit of the train were in New Tarnow, all the logistic units that would be otherwise used to transport either men or their supplies were now carrying deconstructed steam locomotive, that would be assembled only when all of the parts would be gathered together in the Tarnowian suburbian station.

"Good, make sure that everything is going as planned. We can't allow ourselves any further delays."

In the end, whether or not to delay the arrival of the first train wasn't something that I could decide on. Just when everything was tested and was working properly, we learned that disassembling the locomotive inevitably lead to one of its parts wearing off, and leading to the total collapse of the system responsible for transferring the movement provided by the steam horse towards its wheels. 

By the time that the train was about to reach Krakowian station, nearly all of the development officers that ever dabbled in ironworking were busying themselves with trying to find a solution that would allow us to fix the problem. By the time the train was supposed to bring back curious Capital Citizens for a visit in Tarnow, they finally finished their roundabout solution, that relied on simply exchanging the volatile part rather than fixing the problem at its core. And now, two days after the scheduled event, we were finally departing from New Tarnow, hoping that by the end of the tomorrow this damned train would finally start working!

Because bringing the locomotive back to the Tarnow might not necessarily be the end of the challenges. Due to the normal train carts being fairly simple to produce, they were all made in Tarnow, making it impossible to properly test whether this locomotive had enough steam in it to actually pull the entire thing, once burdened with a serious weight of several carts behind it!

"Mike, calm down."

Standing beside me, Elia kidnapped my hand and brought it to her bosom, hiding it within the pleasant cover of her soft breasts.

"It's not like you can always finish everything perfectly on time. Don't you know how little everyone else cares about one or two days delay?"

Looking down on the face of my beloved wife, I just couldn't hold on to my anxiety. In one moment, I felt as if all the worries were simply melted down by her bright and cheerful smile. And to be honest, she had a fair point.

In the current age, delays were obvious to everyone in literally every single aspect of one's life. There was a reason why the clocks would require quite a few more years of the entire world developing to appear, as without the proper urbanisation on the scale of the entire country, being perfectly on time was simply impossible. Carriage breaking down due to the bad road conditions was enough to make one's visit late not by a few hours, but sometimes it could create a few days worth of delay!

While all of that held true, it didn't mean that I was willing to accept such reality. The more my lands would grow both in terms of development and its size, along with all the other adjacent territories adopting at least part of the inventions that made me so wealthy, the greater the priority of saving the time would be. In the end, if I wasn't the one to introduce the concept of punctuality to this world, then I could only accept the fact that sooner or later, someone else would do the same!

Just like with the logistics or manufacturing, one who held the torch of invention, would get the most benefits out of it, while forcing the others to satisfy with the scraps that he would no longer consider to be valuable. And just like my markets were open to anyone interested in the early and outdated steam engines, if someone were to introduce the concept of organised time in his lands first, I would be unable to do anything about lagging behind in that regard!

"While that might be true, it's not like I can just wave my hand and ignore this problem. If we start accepting small delays right now, they will only continue to grow to the point when they will be capable of paralyzing everything that we are priding ourselves with. Can you imagine the unrest that would ensue if we were to be late with paying the wages to the workers?"

Just by bringing this topic up, my body was shaken by a sudden shiver. Exactly like I pointed Elia out, if I was a single or two days late with paying what I was due, nothing major would happen. With everything that I gave to the people that worked for my projects, I could count that their sympathy and loyalty would soften the impact of this kind of problem. But what if the wages would be three days late? Or four days? In the weekly payment system that I implemented, that could already cause a huge strain on the financial situation for most of the people that worked for me!

After all, my lands were still something of a novelty on the huge body of the commonwealth. There wasn't even a single generation of people that grew up with the intention of becoming the paid worker in this or that factory. Rather than that, the entirety of my workforce consisted of the people from poor parts of the country, farmers, beggars and other social outcasts, sprinkled with a small number of people that were genuinely interested in banking on this opportunity to make a killing just like Henry did. 

And I could tell from experience what would happen with them if the flow of money were to be suddenly broken by a damned delay! With how I spent two years in the United Kingdom as your typical low-end worker back when I was still living my life in my original timeline, I could tell how stable, weekly wage would make people used to it. After all, I could remember how hard it was on me when due to some problems with the banking system of the company I worked for, my wage was delayed for just two days!

Being a damned kid that I was back then, I had little to no savings, quickly reaching the point of starvation at that time! If not for some of my more mature friends offering me a helping hand, I could very well go without food for few days!

But the difference between me back in that timeline and the workers in my current reality lied in the fact that the wage system present in my land has yet to create its own fame of stability. From the moment even a single element of this financial chain would be broken, other elements would start to crumble, quickly leading to the general dissatisfaction and protests, that would in turn only accelerate the decay of my lands!

"That would be bad. I get your point, but it's not like we lack the money to pay the workers. From what I saw in the report, another shipment of golden coins that we got from trading the furniture outside the commonwealth is about to reach Gdansk soon. Unless someone will dare to attempt robbing our armed caravan there, we should be safe for at least half a year from now from that disastrous situation you described."

Bringing up the matter of the trade, Elia simply shook her arms. Suddenly, her head twisted to the side, with one of the carriages quickly pulling all of her attention. Compared to nearly everything else in the orderly marching column formed by our soldiers, it looked simply pitiful. Pulled by the horses rather than the steam engine, completely enclosed wagon was something that any other noble would easily pride himself with. But in my current situation, I couldn't help but feel the dread just by looking at it!

"It seems that our carriage has arrived. Since you hate the delays so much, let's not be a cause for another one ourselves!"

Regaining her positive energy, Elia quickly summed up the situation before pulling me along. In the next moment, we were already sitting on the comfortable couch within the spacious compartment of the carriage, filled to the brim with all kinds of tools that I might find useful for my work. 

"I can't wait to get back. To be frank, I'm kinda missing our castle now!"

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