1653 for Hero's War

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King Ektal flung open the doors with a dramatic bang and strode into the room, guards trailing behind him. "What exactly is the problem here?"
He did not appreciate having to come down to solve some minor issue that the craftsmen were facing. The room full of the fools turned to face their king, some of them partially blocked by the stacks of paper on the groaning table in the middle. No one said anything, only people avoiding his gaze.
"Tully," he addressed the woman Cato had sent down from Minmay to establish the branch university in the capital. "Explain why the capital ironworkers and woodcrafts guilds have not achieved this 'interchangeable parts' goal. You gave me a timeline that is now six months overdue. "
Ektal had been told that making guns of the same quality that came out of Minmay was impossible without the experience in making lesser things like tables and screws. They couldn't even achieve that.
Tully nodded to him, "sir, we could not manage to match the correct tolerances as the guilds refuse to-"
"We don't need you to tell us how to do our jobs, woman!" Came a shout from across the table.
Tully fired back scathingly, "If your 'experts' cannot even follow instructions-"
And the room descended into predictable chaos.
"What does it matter if the gun works? And ours shoots straighter than Minmay guns!" shouted one of the gunsmiths.
"When the barrel of your gun needs replacing, barrels from Minmay or Allie won't fit!" Tully shouted back.
"Then they just have to bring it us and we'll-"
"Enough!"
Ektal's roar silenced the room. He glanced at them and the guards placed hands on their swords, none of the craftsmen or Tully were willing to meet his gaze.
"Tully, explain what is wrong with their work. I have seen a gun made by the workshops and they work fine. "
He watched her look at his guards nervously. She gulped, "Sir. The reports I submitted state that the measurement tools and standards of the following classes-"
The king sighed internally. The woman did not respond well to intimidation and perhaps he had been a little too heavy handed. He spoke in a gentler tone this time. "Please, relax, stand up and tell us clearly what is the nature of the problem. "
Tully nodded and rose. "Minmay has used calibrated measuring tools and standards and production methods to ensure our products are of high quality and interchangeable. As you may have noticed. "
"I have. "
"The problem is..." The woman glanced at the craftsmen hesitantly, who were starting to look indignant again.
"You are speaking to me," Ektal half-growled. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the craftsmen who settled down again.
"Sir. The guilds are not purchasing the standards or using the production methods that the Ironworkers in Minmay used. "
"The guns the smiths make individually have slightly better performance than the guns made in Minmay, this is true. " She had clearly decided to try to pacify the craftsmen by flattering them a little. Tully did not believe what she was saying. "But each of those guns requires a precise fit between the different parts of the two rails, stock and trigger. Each gun has to be made individually, slowly and carefully by a master smith. Each gun's parts, if damaged or worn, has to be replaced by a smith by adjusting stock parts until they fit. "
From the grimaces and the righteous superiority on the representatives of the three smithing and ironworker guilds, this assessment was essentially accurate. He nodded for her to go on.

Arthur walked into the study of the Chancellor, feeling a little awkward. "Sir. "
Minmay looked up from the reports. He gave a small nod.
"Sir, the number of migrants arriving in Minmay city has decreased from last month. The companies are complaining about needing more people again. " Arthur saw his Chancellor sigh but continued anyway. "The Recordkeepers have found that the peasants in the farming villages have stopped leaving. Are you sure the migration policy is the right thing to do?"
The report in Arthur's hands contained the details but the butler knew he wouldn't need it. Minmay trusted him to understand these figures.
"It is," the Chancellor said.
The peasants in the villages around them had to make sure all the land was farmed, the countryside barons had been instructed not to let so many leave their villages that farming would stop.
With the seed drills, steel plow and steam engines for milling, the number of peasants needed to farm a given piece of land had drastically reduced, along with increased yields per area. With that in mind, Minmay had allowed a mass migration of peasantry to the city to seek their fortunes and serve as much needed labour force. However, each family could not send so many of their children that the land would go idle.
Occasional patrols were sufficient enough to deter whole families, who usually had children that could not travel fast, from just running away. No matter how low the price of food was getting, or how much excess they had, they could not all leave. Subsidizing the cost of the farming tools helped there too. The end result was that the number of peasants in the villages in the Minmay Region had bottomed out and only a slow trickle to the city remained. Most of their incoming population came from peasants outside Minmay Region.
The industry in Minmay that were already shorthanded, constantly complained about the difficulty of finding workers. The steel and machines production that Cato and Minmay wanted to increase further, was eating up more and more labour and squeezing out the other firms by starving them of labour. The high quality of the steel parts the Ironworkers produced was in great demand and fetched such high prices outside of Minmay Region that the Ironworkers were the best paying company.
Cato had proposed before that the peasants should be allowed to move to Minmay while making up the food shortfall from the Central Territory. The land there was more fertile, flatter and easier to farm, and they didn't have a strong industry to provoke the peasants to move to the cities. The bumper harvests in that region had completely destroyed the food market and there were rumours that they had so much food to eat that the windeyes were rotting in the ground.
With how much food could be bought for almost nothing, a single mana well drill from the Ironworkers could buy enough food to feed all of Minmay city for two weeks. The Ironworkers could make one drill per week, along with everything else they were also making. Transport might be an issue, but it was solvable by simply making and selling more carts. If the food sales were constant and in large volume, the merchant caravans would naturally expand to fill that need.
Everything made sense and it would solve the biggest bottleneck to expanding the profitable industries further.
But the Chancellor had decreed that the farming area in Minmay was to not decrease below the point that Minmay Region could not feed itself. The Recordkeepers estimated that this would need a quarter of the population in the villages and the migration policy was the result.
Cato had left for Iris before he asked why that policy was made, but now the industrial leaders were asking it for him.
No one wanted to do the deed and eventually the Recordkeepers had pushed the role onto Arthur. He was a long serving and loyal servant of the Chancellor after all.
Minmay put down his report when Arthur just looked curious. "Did you know? The Recordkeepers did an estimate for me. The Central Territory, if they focused on farming their fertile abundant river land and could achieve a yield improvement like Minmay has, could feed the entire population of Ektal. By themselves. With a good buffer for bad years. We could tear down all the other farming villages in the country. But that's not going to happen.
"King Ektal is jealous of Minmay's development. He fears that we will overtake the capital, especially with the problems he is facing from his guilds that still hold to the old methods of production that I purged here. If Minmay depends on Central Territory for food, they can easily pressure us with that supply. Yes, they are friendly to us right now, mostly because of Iris, but that can change and if we are vulnerable that way, then you can be sure King Ektal will expend all effort to woo them to his side. "
Arthur couldn't help but ask, "aren't you going to meet the King at Barin town again? We should be getting a more solid peace now. "
"We are. But an agreement is just a piece of paper. Unless something more drastic is done to seal an alliance. " Minmay said. Arthur and the Chancellor both knew that could mean one of the princes getting betrothed to Arisacrota. And Minmay was a doting father who Arthur knew did not want to sell off his only daughter. "Who knows if that will even happen. Even if an alliance is made, King Ektal still cannot allow the capital to be much weaker than a regional territory. "
The butler and chief assistant to the most powerful man in the Minmay Region shared a look with his master. Arthur gave him a short bow. He would have to explain to the Lesser Circle in private.
"By the way, how is the preparation for the trip to Iris?"
"The carriage has been outfitted with a new suspension, sir. I am sure your daughter will have a much easier time than her trip to Duport. There are no further problems in acquiring the needed supplies. "