With Anna’s new ability, her former and new production efficiency shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath. As long as she had enough raw materials, she could now cut out a dozen of steam engines a day.
Such products could also easily be sold, but that would only be simply the “selling” of a machine.
But if he wanted to develop the industry, he had to set up a special team responsible for production, assembly, and the maintenance of the steam engine. In Roland’s plan, he would build a factory with all the needed tools, such as a boring machine, planning machine, milling machine, and so forth. The complete steam engine production would only be done by the hands of ordinary workers.
In the beginning, it should be expected that the factory’s efficiency would still be low, and the quality of the first products would also be too horrible to look at, but slowly, everything would surly come on to the right track. In addition, with the experience Anna had gathered by creating them step by step on her own, as long as the workers became familiar with the process, it would be guaranteed that the output would start to increase.
The next step would be to use the profits from the sale of machinery to expand the production scale and also to train more workers. While at the same time the already experienced older workers, would gain the ability to manufacture products of higher quality, such as steam trains, steam ships, and so forth.
For Roland, there was no doubt that this would become a virtuous cycle. Those to whom he had sold the steam engine would also indirectly create benefits for Border Town. For example, if they used them for mining, they could reduce the ore prices; if they used them for shipping, it would also promote trade; when used for spinning and weaving, they could make up for their own deficiency.
Roland was already eager to see how the new steam power would spread over the whole nation and all these machines would come from Border Town. And once he was able to unify the entire Kingdom of Graycastle, he could then save a lot of time and work.
He also considered the possibility that buyers could try to imitate the steam engine, but for the new steam engine, he would use new circular cylinder which could only be drilled out by using his boring machine. He had also considered deliberately designed some complex components, which would be hard to reproduce by relying on the current level of technology. Roland didn’t believe that they would be able to produce a qualitatively good steam engine, even if they could count on a witch that was able to provide high temperature.
After being able to negotiate such a big order, and after finding a way to sell his industrial products, Roland should have felt elated, but he couldn’t find any trace of happiness within himself at all.
“Everything has cleared up itself, so why are you still showing such a bitter face?” Nightingale lifted her legs and sat by the side of the table, holding a plate of dried fish. “Are you still troubled with the news of the Church?”
When Scroll wasn’t around, Nightingale’s behavior always became a lot more casual. Sitting on the corner of his desk or laying down on the couch were all her usual places. For other lords, actions such as these would be seen as offensive, but Roland became aware of the fact that he didn’t mind it as much as he thought he would, and Nightingale was also clearly also aware of it.
“I always wondered why the Church would support Garcia and me for the fight to the throne, but now I think I’m starting to understand it. If my guess is right, I’m afraid that Timothy also got an invitation from the Church.” Roland knit his brow.
In addition to the business deal, Margaret also brought him a lot of new intelligence that she had gathered from the Four Kingdoms. One of the things that Roland was the most surprised about was that the Church had attacked and taken over the Kingdom of Endless Winter. If the merchant was right, they would now also be busy preparing the last steps before they launched an attack on the Wolfsheart Kingdom. This news had hit Roland like a thunderbolt out of the blue, and ever since then he had turned all of this information in his head over and over, slowly forming a picture filled with bad omens.
“Why should they support all three of you at the same time with the fight for the throne?”
