The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing - Chapter 62

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 62: Bohemian Cement

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The deal with Venice had been an overwhelming success.

Foscari signed the contract like a man possessed. He was determined to seize this opportunity even if he had to empty the Republic's treasury, and as a result, an unprecedented wave of gold poured into Bohemia's royal coffers.

I could still vividly picture Abraham counting sacks of gold coins with a grin stretching from ear to ear.

Watching pure-gold Venetian ducats pile up like mountains in the warehouse, the Jewish treasurer made a great fuss about how the state could run for years without collecting taxes.

The treasury, which had nearly run dry from the war, was now so full it was about to overflow. His reaction was understandable.

Still, the calculator in my head had reached a different conclusion from Abraham's.

Money was nothing more than fertilizer that rotted when left in a pile.

Only when spread over a field could it grow crops.

To send the artillery corps I had promised Venice, I needed to produce cannons, manufacture Gunpowder, and train artillerymen.

I needed to build refining furnaces for mass-producing steel.

I needed to establish trade routes to secure a steady supply of Saltpeter and sulfur, ingredients used in Gunpowder.

Then there was the training of elite officers and the soldiers' wages.

Beyond that, countless money pits waited with their mouths wide open in the blueprint inside my head.

In the end, the immense funds that had come in were fated to flow right back out.

Abraham would be horrified, but it couldn't be helped. This was an investment that had to be made.

Once this process was complete, Bohemia would be reborn as an empire of steel that no nation in Europe could dare challenge.

Still, having plenty of ready cash was a pleasant thing.

It meant I had that many more choices at my disposal.

The Pope had become a toothless dog that could do nothing but bark in Rome, while the Emperor had been weakened by problems in Hungary and within the Empire, leaving him with no room to trouble us.

Foreign trade flourished as though carried by a fair wind, while soap flew off the shelves at home, winning both public support and better hygiene.

There were no troubles within or without. It was an age of perfect peace and prosperity.

* * *

"Your Majesty! We can't live like this anymore!"

"......"

The grand audience hall of Prague Palace.

The July summer breeze drifting through the windows carried the rich, sweet scent of apples.

It was the apple fragrance currently in fashion throughout Prague.

In only a few months, streets once reeking of rotten fish, filth, and stale sweat had been transformed into something resembling the middle of an orchard.

A faint soap fragrance lingered on the clothes of passersby and in the hair of children running about.

Yet the fragrant breeze did not bring only the people's praise.

"What is the matter?"

"We understand that soap is good! The priest is right a hundred times over when he says washing prevents illness! But... but Prague is in a terrible state right now!"

A merchant representative dressed in silk prostrated himself on the marble floor, his face twisted in misery.

The hem of his expensive velvet tunic was already a mess of mud and filth.

"The roads have become swamps! Soapy water and waste are all mixed together, so filth splashes everywhere whenever a carriage passes, and mold is growing in every corner of our homes. This isn't living!"

The other merchants beside him joined in as though they had been waiting for the chance.

"A river has formed right in front of our butcher shop. Customers slip and injure themselves while coming to buy meat every day!"

"We tried to avoid plague, only to die from the poison of filth! Your Majesty, please show us mercy!"

I sat on the throne and silently listened to their outcry.

I wasn't flustered.

If anything, I only felt the calm certainty that what I had expected had finally come.

'Well, this was inevitable.'

Prague was a medieval city with a pretty surface and little else.

Its sewers amounted to nothing more than ditches roughly dug down the middle of the roads, and its streets were simply unpaved roads of packed earth.

When people bathed once a week, the ground could handle the water through natural evaporation and seepage.

But things had changed.

Every citizen of Prague had started using water lavishly every day, several times a day. The city's ground had reached its limit.

"Had I not already issued an edict?"

I tapped the armrest and calmly pointed it out.

"Bathing and laundry are to be done only at designated riverbanks. Each household is to dredge the drainage ditch before its home and must not dispose of waste carelessly. Had you followed the edict, it would not have come to this."

The merchants fell silent.

After all, they were the ones who had dumped water into their courtyards out of laziness and neglected to dredge their drains.

Still, they protested again as though it were unfair.

"Your Majesty is entirely correct, but it is too difficult in practice! Everyone too lazy to go to the riverbank throws out their water in the courtyard. How are we supposed to catch those who sneak out at night to do it? Even posting guards is useless!"

"On top of that, soap foam doesn't disappear. It floats over the muddy ground and makes it as slippery as ice. Just yesterday, three people fell and broke their legs!"

One merchant carefully offered an opinion while watching my reaction.

"Your Majesty, forgive me, but should we not... restrict the use of soap? Perhaps assign districts different days to wash, or at least reduce the amount of soap sold..."

"That is impossible."

Soap sales had already become a core source of revenue supporting the treasury. If I gave that up now, Abraham would weep tears of blood.

Besides, I couldn't force people who had tasted cleanliness to live in filth again. Artificially lowering a standard of living once it had risen was the quickest route to a riot.

Above all, with the real threat of epidemics looming, lowering hygiene standards now would be madness.

"I understand your difficulties. I also understand that there are limits to controlling people through edicts."

I slowly rose from the throne.

Tension filled the merchants' eyes.

"If we cannot change the people, then we must change the city."

"Change the city...?"

"I will completely rebuild Prague's water and sewer system."

The merchants looked confused.

"I will build underground sewers centered on Old Town Square. We will dig up the middle of the roads, bury pipes beneath them, cover them with solid paved roads, and ensure that waste and rainwater flow only underground. Above ground, carriages and people will be able to travel along clean, pleasant roads."

The merchants' mouths fell open.

Underground sewers.

It was a declaration that I would build infrastructure possible only in the days of the Roman Empire, or perhaps something even greater.

"Y-Your Majesty... it sounds like a dream, but how will you bear the cost? Such an enormous project would require an astronomical sum. Royal assets alone could never cover it."

"Then we will collect taxes."

I answered casually.

"The royal family will bear half the cost. The other half will be collected as a special tax from every household and shop, under the name of a cleanliness tax."

The merchants' faces went pale in an instant.

"Taxes?!"

"Your Majesty, please show mercy! It is hard enough to make a living already. How can there be another tax?"

"We have spent no small amount on soap, and if you add taxes on top of that, we will all starve to death!"

The merchants' resistance was fierce.

I had expected it. No one welcomed money leaving their own pocket.

But I had already done the calculations.

"Stop exaggerating. Did the price of bread not fall by half because of the flour I released? You should have enough spare money for that much."

"Th-That is...!"

"Think of it as paying with the money you saved on food. It is the cost of clearing away the waste in front of your shops. Once clean, pleasant roads are laid, more customers will come as well. In the end, everyone benefits."

The merchants pursed their lips, but they couldn't deny that cheaper bread had made their lives easier.

Then one merchant raised a more fundamental concern.

"If Your Majesty says so, we will somehow gather the tax and pay it. But what about the construction? To bury pipes underground, you will need to dig up all the roads. Then there will not even be paths for customers to use."

Another merchant next to him eagerly added, "That is right. Even repairing a single city wall takes years. You speak of tearing up the ground across the entire city! It is a massive project that will take at least ten years! If you dig up the front of our shops for all that time, every customer will run away. You might as well tell us to starve to death!"

At first glance, it was a reasonable argument.

That was how medieval civil engineering worked. It was an age when building a single city wall took ten years, and constructing a cathedral took a hundred.

Naturally, they believed a project that tore up the entire city would take years at the very least.

But not for me.

"Who said it would take ten years?"

"Yes...?"

"Two months."

The merchants looked blankly at one another, as though they hadn't understood what I said.

"It will be finished within two months. From laying the sewers to paving the roads, everything will be completed in sixty days."

"T-Two months, did you say?!"

The merchants' eyes widened.

In truth, even ten years would have seemed like a short estimate to them. In medieval construction, once the ground was dug up, it was common for completion to come in the generation of one's children, or even grandchildren.

Yet I was saying two months.

"Is that truly possible?"

"Of course."

I leaned back against the throne and looked down at them.

"I promise you this. If I fail to complete the construction within two months, I will not collect a single coin of the cleanliness tax. The royal private treasury will cover the entire cost of the project."

"......!"

The merchants put their heads together and whispered.

"Two months is bearable, isn't it?"

"Even if he fails, it means we won't have to pay anything."

"More than anything, His Majesty has never made an empty promise before."

Two months.

That was short enough for them to grit their teeth and endure.

If the King broke his promise? They simply would not pay the tax.

If the King performed a miracle and kept it? Even if they paid, they would gain clean, pleasant roads.

A deal with nothing to lose.

The merchants exchanged glances, then seemed to come to a decision and bowed their heads together.

"We will trust Your Majesty's promise. If you meet the two-month deadline, we merchants of Prague will fully cooperate with the construction."

"A wise choice."

After the merchants bowed and withdrew, the doors of the audience hall closed.

Only then did I roll my stiff neck and massage my tight shoulders.

"My lord."

János Hunyadi, who had remained at my side the whole time, quietly approached.

"Tell me honestly. You knew from the start, didn't you? That releasing the soap would turn the city into this."

"Well, it would be a lie to say I hadn't expected it."

What happened when water use surged in a medieval city with no drainage facilities?

It was common sense, something anyone could understand without studying civil engineering.

János shook his head in disbelief.

"I knew it. Then why didn't you start the construction earlier? Why did you wait until people were covered in filthy water and crying out in misery?"

"People are self-serving creatures."

I shrugged.

"If I had said I would dig up perfectly fine ground and collect taxes while everyone was living comfortably, they would have opposed it with everything they had. But look at them now. Now that the problem affects them directly, they are offering money and begging me to carry out the construction."

János shook his head.

"My lord truly is... skilled at scheming, or perhaps black-hearted."

"I'll take that as praise."

"Politics aside, the deadline is the problem. Two months? Is that possible?"

"Why, does it seem impossible?"

"It is beyond impossible. You would need a miracle. Carving stone to make roads is no joke. Just quarrying stone, transporting it, and splitting it with chisels into the proper shapes would take at least a year."

János counted on his fingers as he went through each point.

"Even if we summoned every stonemason in the Sternberg domain, it would not be enough. No matter how much of a genius you are, my lord, you cannot control time."

János's point was correct.

With existing medieval construction methods, namely masonry construction, it would be impossible to meet the deadline even if I died and came back to life.

There was nowhere near enough time or manpower to build a massive Water channel running beneath Prague by carving and fitting each stone together like a puzzle.

But I had no intention of carving stones one by one.

"Who said I would carve stone?"

"Yes?"

János looked blank.

"Then will you lay wood instead? It is weak against moisture and will rot quickly."

"No."

The corner of my mouth rose.

"I will pour stone."

"...Pour it? Like water?"

"Yes. Stone that flows like water, but becomes as hard as steel over time."

Stone was hard. Heavy. Unchanging.

That was the limit of medieval common sense.