“Because of this you have to lure them with some means to learn, such as providing them a dinner that has meat, or if they are able to speed up the learning process they can also get a monetary reward, etc., and of course, a bright and spacious classroom is also essential.” He paused, “In short, you must try every means to popularize attending the education courses to all the residents of the stronghold. As I said, this is also your examination: After one year, more than 50 % of the stronghold’s population needs to have reached literacy.”
“But Your Royal Highness…” Petrov hesitated. “No matter if they are scholars or belong to the nobility, they fundamentally have no experience with teaching civilians how to read and write, even less teaching them natural knowledge and ideological education,” he had to read the hard to pronounce noun of the parchment. “In fact, even I do not quite understand the words myself. By employing these people, I am afraid you cannot achieve your desired result.”
“Do not worry, I have already taken all that into account,” Roland paused. “I’ll send a group of officials from Border Town’s City Hall to help you realize it. Furthermore, all the books you need for the education will be provided by Border Town. They have a wealth of experience in how to teach, so they can show the people you recruit how to teach, and then, your personal will have to start to educate the residents. At that time you and they will have comprehended all the necessary details, the specific arrangements will be done when they arrive.”
This way, as long as Petrov wanted to keep in control of Longsong Stronghold, it was inevitable that he worked together with the Prince’s staff, and by placing his aids at critical positions within the Ministry of Education, news reaching or happening in Longsong Stronghold could also be passed on to Border Town in the first moments.
Seeing that Petrov didn’t show any objections, Roland began to explain his final command: “Thirdly, I plan to build a road between Longsong Stronghold and Border Town to shorten the traveling time between the two locations for pedestrians and caravans.”
“Your Royal Highness, don’t we already have a way between those two?” Petrov asked in surprise.
Roland shook his head. “I want to build a road that can accommodate at least two carriages side by side. A road that is flat and straight, and won’t be covered with water during rain, exactly like the road in Border Town.”
“You mean a macadam road?” the Acting Duke looked a little surprised, “The costs of such a road isn’t low, it requires the mason to cut the stones and then they have to pick out the stones with the right sizes which can be used together. A gravel road to Border Town would at least cost five thousand gold royals, and with all due respect Your Highness, we will never get so much money without a tax increase.”
“The stronghold only needs to provide the workforce.” The Prince stated bluntly, “You will issue a recruitment notice throughout the whole Western Territory, not just Longsong Stronghold, including all of the other noble’s territories. The monthly salary will be six silver royals, with that sum, I believe there should be plenty of applicants.”
“For laborer, six silver royals are quite a high salary,” Petrov nodded, “may you tell me how many people you want to recruit?”
“At least two thousand people,” Roland replied.
The monthly cost for such an amount of handymen wasn’t a small sum, together with masons and gravel workers, in the eyes of others, it would definitely regard as a ridiculously high costs. Very few Lords would be willing to put their money into building something which seemingly wouldn’t provide and return. This thought process could also be seen in Petrov’s expression. But now, with Border Town being able to sell steam engines, and to maintain the balance between income and expenditure, putting the remaining money into upgrading the infrastructure was undoubtedly the best choice to make. After all, Roland never intended to store all the gold royals in a vault, which was often the desire of many of the newly rich.
