WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Ceaseless
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈
Chapter 77: The Paper Revolution
──────
May 1422, the royal palace in Prague.
A faint scent of lilacs rode the spring breeze drifting in from the Vltava River through the window.
Warm sunlight, just the right humidity, and the distant ringing of church bells.
It was a peaceful morning in every respect.
Yet what lingered beneath my nose was not the fragrance of flowers, but the sharp, heavy scent of ink.
Scratch, scratch...
A nib fashioned from a trimmed goose feather raced across rough paper.
Completely focused, I poured the knowledge drifting through my mind onto the page.
[ Periodic Table ]
[ 1. H (hydrogen) - 1.008 ]
[ 2. He (helium) - 4.0026 ]
[ ... ]
[ Major events of the fifteenth century: The Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Columbus's discovery of the New World in 1492... ]
What filled the page was neither Latin, Czech, nor German.
It was my own code, one no one in this world could decipher.
Hangeul.
The papacy's codebreakers could spend decades trying, but unless they knew of a country called Joseon at the far eastern edge of the world, these letters would be nothing more than incomprehensible alien markings to medieval Europeans.
Hunminjeongeum had not even been promulgated yet, so without exaggeration, I truly was the only person in this world who could read it.
‘Humans are creatures of forgetfulness.’
No matter that I had been a researcher with a doctorate in my previous life, after spending a few years surviving in the fifteenth century, my knowledge of the future was bound to grow hazy.
What year had Joan of Arc retaken Orléans exactly?
What was the ideal temperature for cultivating Penicillium when producing penicillin?
What ratio of graphite coating was used when mixing Black powder?
The moment I became confused about some piece of information, it could prove fatal.
An error in the laboratory ended with discarded data, but an error from the throne had to be washed away with blood.
That was why I reviewed it every day.
I dragged each memory back out before it could fade, checked it with my own eyes, and carved it into my mind once more.
‘The potassium nitrate refining process... Temperature control is the key. I have to be careful not to exceed 300 degrees Celsius, or it decomposes into potassium nitrite.’
I didn't say it aloud. I traced the memories through nothing but the feeling in my fingertips.
After filling an entire page, I closed my eyes for a moment and built a vast library inside my mind.
The Mind Palace.
A memorization technique known as the palace of memory.
I imagined placing the knowledge I had just written on the second shelf of the third bookcase in the library, vividly recalling even the book's title and the feel of its pages.
‘...Perfect.’
Once I was certain I had memorized it all, I crumpled the paper without hesitation and tossed it into the fireplace.
Whoosh...
Red flames devoured the paper in an instant.
It was not meant to leave a record behind. It was a ritual intended solely to imprint the knowledge on my mind once again.
The moment knowledge of the future, known only to me in this world, was put into writing, it became a weakness.
The evidence vanished, while the knowledge hardened even more firmly in my head, like concrete.
Repeating this process would prevent my memories of the future from becoming confused or distorted as much as possible.
It also had the meditative effect of organizing my complicated thoughts, making it a routine that killed two birds with one stone.
“Whew...”
I rolled my stiff neck and picked up my pen again.
There was still more to organize.
This time, rather than chemical formulas, I wrote notes about the immediate tasks of governing the kingdom.
Scratch, scratch...
‘The Empire is still in chaos from peasant uprisings, while England and France have no room to spare because of the Hundred Years' War. Spain is also in the midst of the Reconquista. The papacy can do nothing but bark with its hollow authority, and Poland is a friendly nation. I need to focus on domestic affairs while I have this chance. The problem is the Ottoman Empire... but Sigismund in Hungary will handle that himself. If he can't, the only crown he has left will be gone.’
Scratch, scratch...
‘...I can't spend my life living under the label of a heretical kingdom. Eventually, I'll have to have a major confrontation with the papacy. To do that, I need to build a justification. National power is what matters if I want a voice in international affairs. I could crown myself Emperor like Napoleon, or found a new Protestant church...’
Scratch, scratch...
‘...Land distribution is proceeding without much trouble. Is productivity next? Producing fertilizer to increase yields is the key, but that won't be a problem either. I only need to distribute the sterilized human manure fertilizer accumulating in the septic tanks at the right time.’
The tremendous drive of landowning farmers, coupled with chemically sterilized fertilizer and four-field rotation, meant that even by the most conservative estimate, this year's harvest could be double that of previous years... no, perhaps even triple.
‘When food overflows, the population grows, and when the population grows, national power strengthens. It is the most basic and important virtuous cycle of building a rich and powerful nation. Once the agricultural reforms are complete, then...’
One thought led to another. Just as I dipped the quill deeply in ink and rapidly scribbled across the paper...
Scratch, scratch... Riiip!
The nib, which had been gliding along so smoothly, suddenly caught on something and made an unpleasant tearing sound.
“Ah...”
I frowned and hurriedly stopped writing.
But it was already too late.
The tip of the quill had snagged on the paper's coarse fibers, tearing the page hideously.
“...Damn it.”
I set the quill down irritably.
I had lost count of how many times this had happened. Out of every ten pages I wrote, three or four inevitably became unusable like this.
At times like this, I painfully missed the smooth A4 paper and tablet computers of the modern age.
Holding the torn sheet to the light, I examined it.
An uneven surface with inconsistent thickness.
Clumps of fiber gathered here and there.
Even its color was not an even white, but the yellowed shade of an old rag.
‘What awful paper.’
The paper I was using was supposedly the finest quality supplied for the king. Yet even its quality was like this.
It was only natural.
Paper in the fifteenth century was made by soaking old linen rags or hemp cloth in water, mashing them, straining them through a sieve, and drying them.
So-called rag paper.
The problem was that its manufacturing process was terribly manual and inefficient.
The fibers were not crushed properly, leaving a rough surface, while the sizing process was a mess, causing ink to bleed whenever it was applied.
“Is something wrong?”
János Hunyadi, leaning against the doorway, asked in an indifferent voice.
He was the only one who silently watched my strange habit of writing incomprehensible worm-like letters every morning, then burning them.
“The paper tore again. It really is nothing but a rag.”
“It is made from rags. It really is a rag.”
János Hunyadi shrugged and added, “If you hate it tearing so much, why not use parchment? The royal storehouses are full of the finest vellum.”
“János Hunyadi, do you know how much a sheet of parchment costs?”
János Hunyadi's eyes shifted at my question.
“Well, I suppose it must be expensive.”
“It isn't just expensive. To make one book from parchment, you have to skin dozens of sheep. If I used it to scribble on and burn every morning, I wouldn't be a king. I'd be a madman.”
Parchment was certainly strong and smooth. Its preservation was excellent as well. The claim that it could last a thousand years was no exaggeration.
But it was only meant for important documents that needed to be preserved permanently.
Using it as a disposable item when I wrote and threw away dozens of sheets every day was absurdly expensive.
Besides, this was not just a matter of my personal inconvenience.
‘For now, the problem is manageable only because I'm the only one using it. But what about the future?’
With land reform underway, mountains of nationwide land registers, census records, tax ledgers, and trade contracts would soon pour in.
A bureaucracy was a monster that grew by consuming paper.
Strengthening administrative power meant an explosive increase in the amount of documentation.
Could such massive administrative demand possibly be met with paper of this quality? Of course not.
‘The quality of paper is the quality of information.’
What would be the point of bringing Gutenberg in and printing books all day with the printing press?
With paper this poor, the movable type would not even print properly. Poor readability would also slow the spread of knowledge.
Cost was another problem. Under the current system, where rag collectors named whatever price they pleased, mass production was impossible.
‘Wait...’
I suddenly looked up.
“Why don't I just make it myself?”
“Pardon? Make what?”
With agricultural reform settling into place, I had no project that required my immediate attention.
János Hunyadi looked bewildered, but I ignored him, wiped the ink from my hands, and closely examined the torn edge of the paper.
I was no longer looking at it with the eyes of a king, but those of a chemist.
‘The fibers are too long and irregular. That's why the nib catches on them. I need to mechanize the grinding process and make the pulp finer. The bleeding happens because the sizing is uneven. I need to precisely control the concentration of glue or starch, add alum, and improve the process of coating the fiber surfaces...’
This paper was little more than roughly crushed rags left to dry. Naturally, it felt terrible to write on.
But if I looked at it another way?
The principle was simple.
Paper was ultimately an aggregate of cellulose fibers.
Materials were everywhere. Old clothes, rope, hemp cloth, even wood.
What mattered was how uniformly I separated those fibers, then bound them together again.
I sprang to my feet.
“János Hunyadi, pack your things immediately.”
János Hunyadi's eyes widened at the sudden order.
“Pardon? Where are you suddenly going now?”
“To my factory.”
“A factory... Do you mean Sternberg?”
I nodded and took the coat hanging on the wall.
“And gather every papermaking craftsman in Prague and bring them to Sternberg.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. I don't care whether they're rag collectors or workshop owners. Gather up everyone who's ever smelled paper. Tell them they'll be paid generously.”
The craftsmen of Prague had skilled hands, but they could not escape the limits of household production. Those cramped workshops could never run the large-scale factory I wanted.
There was only one place where the blueprint in my mind could become reality.
Only Sternberg had the industrial foundation to turn a huge Waterwheel with the force of running water and dry paper with hot steam.
János Hunyadi asked with an incredulous look.
“First Gunpowder, then steel, then soap... And now paper? What are you even going to use so much paper for?”
“Well, perhaps I'll print money with the printing press.”
“What?”
János Hunyadi made a dumbfounded sound.
I merely laughed, but it wasn't entirely a joke.
What if we could mass-produce real paper, smooth and evenly dense, rather than this crude stuff that made ink bleed and caught at the nib?
Books, newspapers, toilet paper, banknotes.
Inside my mind, the countless changes paper could bring were already leading from one to the next.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
