Road to the Crown

17th April 1574

In the end, while the notification from the system sounded like a solution to all my problems, I hit the same wall I did back when I first used the crafting tool with the beer. But this time, instead of a few handfuls of grain, some fruits and water necessary to make the final product, creating the atmospheric steam engine would require me to provide only about fifty kilograms (110pounds) of iron for the boiler and cylinder tube, twenty kilograms of wood for the cold water container, twenty kilograms of iron for all the miscellaneous parts like pipes, valves and sprinklers and only about three thousand bricks!

But at least there was a tasty topping on this cake made out of bullshit, in form of a complete blueprint, that I could simply redraw on the physical paper to avoid making all sorts of mistakes that I would do by following my gut feeling alone.

Yet while the cost of creating an atmospheric steam engine was rather steep for a personal project of mine done only for the sake of testing its capability, if I wanted to, there would be no problem with investing only about one hundred, fifty kilograms (about 290 pounds) to make a more compact version of a proper steam engine, using the densely condensed water vapour as its driving force rather than the pressure from the air itself.

Sadly, this wasn't something that I could just make in one day and claim that I was working on it since a while ago. With the level of details that this example would require to be replicated, one would need to just go around few smiths in the lands that I visited in the last month to realise that the orders for such precise and fine elements were never placed in their workshops!

In the end, while I had to abandon the idea of creating a small engine for myself with how the customizing ability was locked behind higher level of the title I just received, as soon as I would get to those iron mines, completing the design that I came up with and improved with the help of my system would take only a few days, allowing for the swift exploitation of the reserves of iron hidden deep underground.

As for its usages, I already talked about this topic back when I introduced the idea of steam power to the governor. With how the mines lied to the north of the Stone River, just a bit to the north of the middle-sized city of Kiel, any kind of the finished products in the area of the mines could be transported downstream on the stone river, and then upstream the Vistula River with barges all the way to my lands!

What was even more important, those mines were hidden in the area rich in the actual limestone, as compared to my lands mostly consisting on the sandstone, with the rare exceptions like Saint Martin hill, on which my castle stood. With that in mind, the development of the mining area would take an absolute priority, forcing me to rush towards the level of steam-powered boats before any form of industrial project that required either cement on iron could be implemented!

At the very least, the reserves of oil could be found directly on the lands that I owned, giving me the window of an advantage as soon as the engines working on oil alone could be produced… Meaning that for the next few years at the very least, the grace and friendship of the governor would be of the utmost importance!

After weighing all the pros and cons of the current situation, I finally came to a realisation that in order to put the development in its full spin, there was no other choice than to start most of my industrial projects in the iron mining area!

Thankfully, with how much land did the governor directly own around this place, I could ship the sulfur directly from his own mines barely fifty kilometres (about 31 miles) to the south, providing the two of us with ample resource of gunpowder required in mining the limestone required to make the concrete and the asphalt mix itself.

With the decision where my next focus would be, I forced myself to ignore the pain in my heart as I did so, but still written off three major projects that would start in this area, while hoping that I would somehow convince the governor to pass those lands directly to me later on, in exchange for the insane wealth that they would bring to him in taxes.

At first, the first atmospheric steam horse had to be built. With how the mines would rely on its power to speed up the most annoying tasks like pumping the water out, moving the haul up to the surface or even crushing the hard rocks with a primitive steam tool I already found a design for in the system, there was no other way to start it out.

Later on, when enough of the necessary resources would be gathered, I would go on and build a first, massive smelting area, with air pumps powered by either the same steam horse that would be already in place or by its twin that I wouldn't mind paying for from my own pocket. While making steel would still require me to find a stable source of coal, as long as even a minimal amount of it could be found on the market, creating proper steel in almost any given amount wouldn't be that far from reality!

As for the last of the projects that I would place in the same area, it would be nothing else than a stone quarry. With how much power would be required to bring its production levels to what would satisfy me, I already expected two, three or even more steam horses to be required for all the tasks from transporting the ore around, through crushing it into small pieces all the way to storing it in a place where either carriages or barges could pick it up.

While all of the tasks that I outlined already felt overwhelming, once again following the advice of the governor, all I really had to do to kick them off, was to gather the materials that the system asked for and get some people to assemble them into the very first steam horse!

As soon as that bit would be done, not only I could prove to the governor that there was nothing more profitable than investing in my projects, all the other steps required to push the commonwealth into industrial ear would become easier as well.

Tired from all the thinking, drawing and analyzing, I took a last look at the piece of paper that contained the blueprint for the very first steam horse that this world would see, along with the insane number of notes, smaller pictures and quick ideas that filled all the gaps outside of the main image of the machine before finally standing up from my desk only to realise that while I was so focused on my task, a bowl filled with meat and pieces of bread somehow found its way to the room!