Chapter 71
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Translator: volt
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: Tractor (2)
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Chiiiik!
Oooh.
Chiiiiiik!
Oooooh...
"Y-Yes, Nemo...sir...? I-Is it supposed to move like this...?"
Chik! Chik! Chik! Chik! Chik!
"Gwaaaah!"
"Wooooow!"
"I-It’s moving! It’s really moving!"
When the first steam-powered car rolled out, people used to flee in terror.
But our settlers had already experienced excavators the size of monsters and Damas and Porters that moved at speeds incomparable to those early steam cars. They just clapped and cheered in delight.
Everyone except Oittan, who had climbed aboard it himself.
The artisans, especially, were weeping uncontrollably, their whole bodies trembling as waves of emotion coursed through them.
Of course they were. The vehicles I’d been driving around must have felt like something from the heavens, and now they had created something similar with their own hands.
The emotion had to be overwhelming.
If I exaggerated a bit, it was probably like the feeling when humanity first ventured into space and landed on the moon.
"Nemo-sir, we really did it...!"
"My God, to replicate the power of the heavens with human hands! My God!"
As they came up to me one by one, bubbling with joy, I responded with blessings of my own to celebrate this monumental moment.
A mobile steam engine, created by adding all sorts of devices to a conventional steam engine...!
Even if it was the result of shamelessly cheating with 21st-century resources, this would go down in history.
Most technological development consists of pointless trial and error. It’s only natural when you’re fumbling into uncharted territory.
It’s much like evolution. Countless random mutations arise, and only a few survive.
The species that survive evolution aren’t the flashiest, the strongest, or the largest. Evolution in biology or technology isn’t like some Pokémon or Digimon gimmick.
What survives best is what’s most suited to the situation—or what lucks out with a string of coincidences.
The original historical path of technological progress didn’t fit us. Spinning jennies, looms, railroads, steam locomotives—none of that was what we needed.
Those developments reflected what people in that history required.
That’s why I didn’t follow that path. I prioritized the tractor that suited us best.
Of course... since I, a future dweller, intervened directly, calling it "evolution" might be a stretch.
This technology would survive and evolve as long as the community’s nature didn’t change.
"We really did it. Seeing the test run today brings it all home."
Who’s that? Oh, White.
"Ah! Mr. White! No, no—as the first Agricultural Equipment Engineer, I wanted to give you a ride..."
"No, no. Heh, at my age, I wouldn’t dream of riding something like that."
"..."
"..."
...What’s going on?
He’s hemming and hawing, glancing around like he has something to say.
I quietly pulled him aside and nodded, urging him to spit it out.
White leaned in and whispered in my ear.
"I hear... you’re going to farm with ‘that thing’...?"
"Ah, yes. That machine is called a ‘tractor.’"
Right. Tractor—exaggerating a bit, it’s the root, the flower, the alpha and omega of modern agriculture.
Farming without a tractor is brutally tough (though I was an exception with my greenhouse setup), or practically impossible, as they say.
"This tractor isn’t just for hauling things around like my Damas. It’s closer to a Porter, but even Porters have limited uses."
Porters have a PTO—power take-off—so you can harness the engine for other tasks, but they’re not designed as farm machinery, so they have structural limits.
You can’t plow a field with a Porter.
But you can with a tractor.
Some clueless city folk think tractors are just noisy trucks that rattle a lot.
But calling a tractor ‘just a noisy truck’ is like looking at a smartphone and calling it ‘just a fancy phone that breaks easily.’
Depending on the apps you load on a smartphone, it becomes a gaming device, a fitness tracker, a music player, a movie theater, or a social hub. Tractors are the same.
It all depends on what implement you attach to the back.
Hook up a plow, and it turns hard soil. Attach a rotary tiller, and it breaks up the clods after plowing.
A seed drill eliminates hand-planting. A harvester makes crop collection a breeze.
In short, it can handle nearly every farm task.
Of course, the first steam tractors didn’t have PTO shafts, but I added a shaft for belting to connect rear or front implements.
Yes. This tractor is far superior to the first ones from the 18th century.
Yes. This tractor is a machine god descending upon 16th-century agriculture...!
"You can probably do everything you imagine with a tractor—as long as you design the implements to connect to that shaft."
And of course, I know the basic designs for tractor implements.
Sure, compared to 21st-century tractors with dozens of horsepower, this steam tractor might be a toy, but it’s a massive revolution right now.
So I confidently explained all this to White.
Ah, do people of this era even know? That’s a [tractor]. With just that, farming becomes effortless.
He nodded thoughtfully, gazing back at my steam tractor with a meaningful look.
To avoid getting stuck in mud, I’d widened the surface area on the wheels, and since we couldn’t make rubber tires yet, I’d cut and attached rubber anti-vibration pads for traction and shock absorption.
The mechanisms under the rain cover hissed endlessly, gears turning everywhere, while pipes snaked around, delivering powerful pressure from the cylindrical steam boiler to every component.
The externally mounted power unit, designed for easy maintenance, churned with pistons and gears writhing like a living metal organism.
"...What do you think?"
I stood there puffed up, expecting a reaction like ‘Whaaat? I’ve never heard of such a thing! The Steam Priest is amazing!’
"You explained all those details last time I asked."
"...Oh, right?"
My smugness deflated at the underwhelming response.
Unaware or not of my feelings, White rolled his eyes for a moment before speaking.
"Ah, that’s not what I meant to bring up."
"Then what did you want to discuss...?"
"Yes, well, ahem."
White cleared his throat.
"If we farm with this tractor, it’ll completely change how we do agriculture."
"Probably."
As expected from the man who first planned the Roanoke colony. He grasped it immediately. Yes. The tractor is agriculture’s revolution incarnate.
When I nodded as if it were obvious, White asked,
"So, do you have a plan for how our settlers will use it?"
"Well..."
Heh, heh heh.
Was he underestimating me? I’m Nemo, the otherworld hero from the 21st century, 400 years in the future.
Not just anywhere—from Korea, with its deeply rooted ‘Nonghyeop’ agricultural cooperative system and all sorts of other institutions!
"So, first, we finish land clearing with that tractor, then once we have a few more, we rent them out to individual farmers..."
"Yes."
"..."
So... uh... like Nonghyeop in Korea, renting them out...
Uh...
You know...
Ah.
"..."
"..."
It won’t work, will it?
...
...
...
Yeah.
"...I’ll have to think about it going forward."
I have no idea.
Cold sweat suddenly dripped down my back.
The reason I broke out in cold sweat in front of John White and panicked was simple.
How do cooperatives manage and operate tractors back home?
There’s this ‘farm machinery bank’ service.
The co-op buys the machinery and rents it to qualified users or handles farm work on their behalf. I was so used to that, it seemed natural.
But... rent it out?
How many more tractors can we even produce? It took months just for this one.
No way. Who would sell or lend out something so precious?
I’d naturally forgotten I was in the late 16th century. That could’ve been a disaster.
And the second factor.
Land area.
Why did we develop the tractor in the first place? Because we lack properly cleared farmland.
With cultivated land scarce and population over 50,000?
That means farmland per person is tiny.
...And tractors?
‘They’re farm machines for cultivating vast areas.’
Why hadn’t I thought of this?
The cushy habits from 21st-century rural life must still linger after a decade.
Snap out of it. You’re not in the 21st century—you’re in the 16th. Not even human, an angel.
Anyway, in a 16th-century settlement surrounded by uncleared wilderness, individuals running their own tractors is absurd.
But that’s not the only problem.
‘Even if we had them, hardly anyone knows how to drive one!’
The third issue grew more serious the more I chewed on it.
Our settlement doesn’t just lack power.
It lacks the ‘people’ to handle that power...!
Even counting only those who can properly farm wheat, barley, potatoes—our population drops to a few thousand.
With over 50,000 people, that’s woefully short.
And among them, how many can properly handle horses and plows?
Even fewer.
So our settlement has vast land, but only a few farm properly, while most half-ass it imitating them.
That’s why our power shortage feels even worse.
They can’t even handle the horses we have, let alone 19th- or 21st-century tractors.
In a settlement where most can’t drive a horse cart, who can operate a steam tractor?
...
...
...I just realized: right now, it’s just me.
Oof... this won’t do.
It’s not just short farmland—we lack the power to expand it, and the manpower to wield that power.
Plus, running a tractor over fragmented small personal plots requires a whole new agricultural system.
Why do problems keep chaining up like Vienna sausages? I clutched my head alone in the room, agonizing.
Since the first steam tractor involved tons of trial and error, the second will come faster. Third and fourth, even quicker.
I need to solve this somehow by then...
We already have people handling similar machines—the cultivators and other farm equipment.
Agricultural Equipment Engineers.
Farming used to work the same way. Sure, now with vast fields and tens of thousands of people, it’s changed—but originally?
I’d run the cultivator over a wide area, then people would plant and tend by hand.
Yes. Think of it as an expanded version of that.
...Don’t look too far ahead.
We’ve barely got one basic tractor.
Popularizing tractors and implements that replace most farm work and embody modern agriculture’s essence? That’s a long way off.
This one took months, like building a warship, with dozens or hundreds contributing directly and indirectly.
The next ones will take months more.
For now... expand the ranks of Agricultural Equipment Engineers and maximize our current resources.
This tractor will focus on expanding cleared land. Excavators clear it fast, but we can’t keep up—that’s our bottleneck.
We have time before those issues boil over.
For now, prioritize expanding cleared land.
