Chapter 498: The Roland Gunboat
The return took Roland a full day, and by the time the Border Area appeared through the mist he ached through his spine and shoulders. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and went directly to bed. He didn’t feel human again until noon the following day.
The next boat, he thought as he dressed, gets a soundproof cabin, a proper desk chair with cushioning, and an actual bed. Sitting for six hours on a vibrating hardwood stool next to a roaring steam engine is not a way to govern a territory.
The first thing he did in his office was call Barov Mons and Sirius Daly, the Ministers of Administration and Agriculture. There was under a week before the planned date of the spring offensive, but that front was in Iron Axe’s hands and Roland trusted it completely. What needed his attention was spring sowing. Grain in the ground meant grain in the granary, and grain in the granary meant he could prosecute a campaign without worrying about what he’d come home to.
“I saw seeds being offloaded at the Longsong pier,” he said. “With the Golden Ones supply in place, Longsong’s harvest this year should hold. But the Border Area is where we prove it. We’re the model—the proof that the system works, the example everyone else is supposed to follow. Tell me where we stand.”
Barov opened his ledger. “Among the first batch of promoted serfs, roughly thirty percent chose to continue farming. Adding the newly employed, the agricultural population stands at about ten thousand. At last year’s average yield, those ten thousand can feed forty to fifty thousand people—calculated at the official citizen grain quota, which already exceeds the bare subsistence level of other cities. If we calculate at minimum caloric need, the number rises by another twenty thousand.”
Sirius picked it up from there with the ease of a man who’d thought through every contingency. “Those figures draw on data from two years ago. This year is different—half the serfs, predominantly the newly hired, will plant the Golden Twos that Lady Leaf modified. I’ve seen it with my own eyes: a single wheat stalk producing that many ears of grain defies expectation. Additionally, over two thousand serfs are shifting to potatoes and corn this season, which makes yield projections difficult. As for the sowing itself, farmlands are being plowed now. The Crop Farming Brochure specifies three passes with compost worked into the soil—usually three to four weeks depending on labor and equipment. But the serfs from last year all rented iron tools through the winter, which should compress that timeline considerably. I’ve had apprentices stationed with the farmers explaining optimal ditch depth and seeding intervals.”
It was evident that the former Wolf Family knight had not treated his ministry appointment as a ceremonial office. He’d done the reading, done the math, considered the variables.
This era’s agricultural stagnation came down to a single false premise: that land ownership was all there was to farming. As long as you held the soil, you could afford to let it rest for years, bleed it slowly, expect modest returns. Now Neverwinter had controlled irrigation, composting, scientifically optimized planting, and seeds modified by a witch to produce yields that would have seemed miraculous to any previous generation. A third of thirty thousand people in agricultural production—that ratio was still too high. Roland wanted mechanized plowing equipment in service within a few years, animal- or engine-powered tools that would let him pull a larger fraction of that workforce into manufacturing and construction without sacrificing output. But the foundation was solid.
“Keep the momentum,” he said. “Everyone sent to Longsong should be documenting everything—we’ll need to replicate this elsewhere.”
After the meeting, Roland left the castle.
The dock on the Redwater River was quiet in the afternoon light. The ship Anna had built sat in the crossties where it had rested for two days now, hull freshly painted in gray-red anti-corrosion coating—a vessel roughly three times the length and breadth of a concrete boat, and entirely unlike one in every particular. No paddle wheels flanking the hull. A bridge rising six meters above the deck at the center, prominent and square against the sky. A broad side port nearly three meters wide on either side to house the boiler and engine within the hull. And at the forward position, waiting for installation: the 152mm cannon Roland had pulled down from the city wall.
He spotted Anna near the bow and crossed to her.
“How did it go?” He already suspected the answer from the fact that the ship was floating upright and all its parts appeared to be attached.
“Not smoothly.” She shook her head. “There were problems throughout—but I’ve resolved them.” She started counting on her fingers. “Side hull deformation: the steel plating was too thin, so I added internal carriages. Propeller seal leak: the gap between the casing and gear shaft was letting water through, so I fitted a drainage sleeve that catches the ingress and routes it to the bilge pump. Bridge tilt after welding: the weight distribution was uneven, corrected through structural adjustment. The gun platform was the most difficult.” She paused, organizing the explanation. “It couldn’t hold the cannon’s weight and recoil. I took inspiration from the revolver mechanism—I cut a row of indentations into the bottom ring and fitted a detent that seats between them, so the rotating gun carrier can be locked in any firing direction without the platform shifting.”
Roland looked at her for a moment.
“You’re a genius,” he said.
He wasn’t flattering her. The hull and propeller problems he could have solved himself—he’d sketched the solutions in his notebooks months ago. But the gun platform fix was the kind of lateral connection that only someone with a genuinely architectural sense of mechanical systems would make: looking at a revolver’s cylinder-locking mechanism and seeing the answer to a naval artillery mount. He hadn’t thought of it.
“Does the ship have a name yet?” Anna asked.
“Not yet.” He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“The soldiers from the First Army have been coming every few days. They want to carve their names into the bridge.” A smile. “They say you promised the best gunner could name a gunboat.”
“Ah.” Rodney, Nelson—he remembered the conversation, the competitive gleam in their eyes. “That applies to future ships. Not this one.” He looked at the vessel—the broad hull, the prominent bridge, the waiting cannon. The first warship Neverwinter had ever produced. “The name of the first warship doesn’t just belong to the ship. It sets the type designation, the class name, the standard everything after it will be measured against.” He tilted his head slightly. “I can’t give that honor to anyone else.”
He looked at the bridge.
“She’s the Roland. Number One.”
Chapter 498: The Roland Gunboat
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
It took Roland a whole day to return to the Border Area, and his back ached with weariness. After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he went to bed early, and he didn’t feel refreshed until noon of the next day.
He thought, “I must have a soundproof cabin, a soft desk chair, and a large bed on my private boat. Otherwise, I’ll have to sit on a trembling hard deck stool and listen to the roar of the steam engine, which will torture both my body and soul.”
The first thing Roland did when he walked into his office was to call his director, Barov Mons, and Minister of Agriculture, Sirius Daly, to his office. Although there was only one week left before the planned date of the spring offensive, he could rest assured since Iron Axe was governing the military. The most important thing at the moment was to manage the agricultural production well, namely spring sowing. After all, he would be much less worried when he had a supply of grain.
“I saw seeds being transported at the Longsong Pier, so with enough Golden Ones, the crops there won’t be too bad this year. But we should focus on the Border Area, since we’re everyone’s model, proof, and example!” Roland said with one hand knocking on his desk. “How is the spring sowing going? Someone tells me.”
“Your Highness, here’s the situation,” Barov spoke first. “Among the first batch of promoted serfs, only 30% of them are willing to continue farming; plus the newly employed ones, the agricultural population is about 10,000. According to last year’s average wheat yield, the grain that these 10,000 serfs produce should be able to feed 40,000 to 50,000 people.” He paused and then added, “And this number is calculated according to the official
citizen’s quota for purchasing grains, which is far more than the daily consumption of other cities’ citizens. If we calculate according to the minimum amount of grain people need to stay alive, this number can increase by 20,000.”
“That’s about it, Your Highness,” Sirius added. “But those conclusions are made by the Ministry of Agriculture according to the statistics from two years ago. This year, half of the serfs, mainly newly employed, will use the Golden Twos modified by Lady Leaf. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that one wheat straw could produce so many ears. Also, more than 2,000 serfs will change to planting potatoes and corn this year, which makes it hard to predict the actual yield for this year.”
“As for the sowing process, farmlands are currently being plowed. According to the Crop Farming Brochure, farmland needs to be plowed three times, and raised compost must be mixed in the soil—usually, this process takes three to four weeks, depending on the number of laborers and the farm tools they’re using. But the serfs employed last year all rented iron tools, which should greatly shorten the plowing time.”
“As for the ditch depth and seeding distance, I’ve arranged apprentices to educate the serfs to farm with the optimal methods introduced on the farming brochure.”
It was easy to see that the former knight of the Wolf Family had done a lot of research on farming. He obviously had considered all aspects and made points that Roland could not help but agree with.
The excessive dependence on the land itself led to the agricultural underdevelopment in this era. Namely, people believed that owning land was all there was to farming. Sometimes, in order to protect the farmlands, they would let farmlands rest for a few years, which was very inefficient. Now that the City of Neverwinter had controllable water irrigation, natural fertilizer, and scientific planting methods, plus Leaf’s modified seeds, the land yields greatly surprised all the residents. However, a third of the 30,000 total population was engaged in agricultural production, which was too high of a percentage for Roland. He wanted to efficiently reduce the agricultural
population by improving farming tools, such as manufacturing agricultural equipment which used animal or mechanic power.
“Well, keep the momentum going,” Roland said with satisfaction, “and people who have been assigned to the Longsong Area should keep everything well documented, in case we want to extend this model to other cities.”
After dealing with agricultural affairs, Roland left the castle. Accompanied by Nightingale and the guards, he went to the dock of the Redwater River.
The ship, which was constructed by Anna, entered the weapons installation phase two days ago. Now, with its hull painted with a gray and red anticorrosion coating, the ship quietly stood on the crossties. It was the size of about three concrete boats and seemed extremely mighty. Unlike the cement paddle steamer, which had no cabin, this ship’s side port was almost three meters wide and could fit the boiler and steam engine. There were also no paddle wheels on both sides. Another characteristic was a bridge at the center of the hull. Although the bridge was only about six meters tall, it looked very prominent.
Of course, as a shallow water gunboat, its most important equipment was its 152mm giant cannon. In order to save the manufacturing time, Roland did not let Anna produce the naval artillery, but tore down the one on the city wall and planned to install it on the ship.
Now, it was standing in the dock, waiting for hoisting—the final step.
“Your Highness.” Anna waved at Roland when she saw him. “Over here!”
The prince walked over with a smile on his face. “How is it? Is the construction going well?”
During his absence in Border Town, Anna took care of all the manufacturing work. Although she had all the blueprints of its key parts, it was entirely an unprecedented huge project, so it was natural to run into all sorts of problems.
“Not so well.” Anna shook her head. “There were some tricky problems— side hull deformation, propeller leaking, hull tilting after being welded with a bridge, and the gun platform couldn’t hold a cannon, but I solved all of them.”
“All… solved?” Roland asked surprisedly.
“Yes.” With a big smile, Anna explained while counting her fingers. “There was a hull deformation because the steel plate of the board was too thin, so I added fixed carriages. The propeller leak was caused by the gap between the casing and the gear lever, so I wrapped the gap with a sink so that the water inside won’t run everywhere and can be pumped out by a steam engine. The bridge tilting was caused by uneven weights, which were fixed with a little modification. The gun platform problem was the most difficult one, but I drew inspiration from the revolver design—I first cut a row of indentations on the bottom ring, then I put in a falcula, which could be inserted in between gears, and it could simply fix the upper rotating gun carrier in any direction.”
Roland blinked his eyes and spoke after a long pause. “You’re a genius.” For him, those problems were not difficult to deal with, but he had drawn countless mechanic sketches. Especially for the last problem, probably only someone as observative as Anna could associate a revolver with the fixing method of the gun platform.
“By the way, Your Highness, does the boat have a name?”
“Not yet,” he said, raising his eyebrow, “and why do you ask?”
“The soldiers from the First Army came every few days and fought eagerly to carve their own names onto the bridge,” Anna said with a smile. “They say you promised that the best gunner could have a gunboat named after him.”
“Ah… I see.” Rodney from the Artillery Battalion and Nelson from the Artillery Battalion came to Roland’s mind. “But not for this ship, because the name of the first warship not only represents the ship itself but also represents its rank and model number.” He tilted his mouth. “I can’t hand over this honor to anyone else, so I’ll name it the Roland—the Roland No. 1.”