Chapter 216: Chug Chug (3)
When I opened my eyes, I saw an unfamiliar ceiling.
Where is this? Who am I?
“Ughhh.”
I forced strength into my creaking joints and sat up. My entire body screamed in protest.
What the hell was this? Why did I feel like someone beat me like a punching bag? Or had I reincarnated again—this time as some old grandfather?
If nothing else, I definitely didn’t want to be walking around with a cane already. And if that happened, what age would I even count as now?
Good. If nonsense like that was coming out of my mouth, it meant my mind was starting to return.
I dragged a nearby chair over, sat down, and looked around.
“Ughhh… water… waaaater… someone give me water…”
“Guaaagh…”
“Kuul… kuuul…”
Hmm. Since when did I start hiring corpses instead of living employees?
Everyone had their heads buried in the wooden floor, twitching slightly. It seemed we had gone a bit too hard celebrating the success last night.
Ah. Or maybe my reincarnation bonus was some kind of voodoo priest or necromancer trait?
“Is anyone there?”
“Yes, sir. What do you need?”
As soon as I muttered quietly through the door that reeked of alcohol, a page boy popped out as if he had been waiting.
“Is the thing I told you to prepare yesterday ready?”
“Yes, sir. It’s in the kitchen.”
“Good. Bring the whole pot in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was already midday when the employees finally woke up, clutching their throbbing heads.
“…Sir?”
“Yes?”
“What kind of soup is this? It’s so pale and white…”
What else would it be? Beef bone soup, you Western barbarians.
I scooped up a large ladle and poured it into Mr. Trevithick’s bowl.
“It’s a soup good for hangovers. Something similar to remouillage, so it should be fine to eat.”
“Riiiight…”
Why did you look like you were forcing yourself? Typical British attitude. Just try it already.
“…The smell is nice though.”
“Well, it can’t taste worse than it looks.”
“Slurp.”
One by one, my employees began drinking the soup I prepared.
And every single one of them made a very familiar expression.
“Ahhhhh.”
“Fuck yes.”
That face—I had seen it countless times before. It was the same expression middle-aged men made in a hangover soup restaurant after their first spoonful of broth.
“Well?”
“What do you mean ‘well’? This clears the stomach instantly!”
Heh heh heh. Of course it does. When I lived alone, I made beef bone soup countless times to take care of drunk idiots. If I had soybean paste and chili paste, I could even make blood hangover soup.
Taste? Even Napoleon, who was annoyingly picky about food, enjoyed my beef bone soup when he had a hangover.
After about an hour, once I confirmed that everyone had finished their bowls, I clapped my hands loudly.
Clap, clap, clap.
“All right. If everyone’s done eating, let’s go to work.”
What were these people doing? Once you eat, you work. We had mountains of things to do.
Although the prototype of a modern blast furnace that produced steel was finally completed, the amount of work ahead of us was still enormous.
We had to lay railways from Minnesota to the nearest navigable port town, then lay more railways across the inland sections, and then build railways all the way to Louisiana…
“We absolutely must connect Nouvelle-Orléans to Saint Louis.”
“Hmm. When will Furnace No. 2 be completed?”
“I can’t say for certain, but at least two months.”
“Tsk. Then let’s assign Major Joachim Murat to explore the Saint Louis region. Would three weeks one way be enough?”
“That man is itching to run off somewhere anyway. That should be enough.”
Until we had multiple blast furnaces running, the amount of steel we produced wasn’t enormous. So we had to allocate resources only where they were absolutely necessary.
It felt like playing a game on impossible difficulty—build a command center, barracks, factory, and then somehow still produce a fleet of battlecruisers with the leftover resources.
At least I had vultures to scout the map.
“Something more urgent. Precision components like locomotive parts are difficult to produce in Minnesota right now. We need to airlift them from Paris if we want to start laying railways.”
“Let’s talk to an American shipping company. If we share a little profit with them now, our relationship will remain smooth later.”
“Understood.”
Anyone who eats all the good food alone will end up sick.
In class, if you opened a pack of snacks, you had to share one with the classmate beside you and one with the person behind you. Otherwise someone would report you to the teacher.
Besides, we would be living face to face with them for a long time. If you greet your new neighbors with rice cakes and say, “Hello, we just moved next door,” everything becomes easier.
But even beyond all those problems, there was one far greater obstacle.
“Sir.”
“Yes?”
“The food supply. It may be difficult to cultivate crops here in Minnesota.”
I rubbed my temples.
“Why?”
“If we farm in weather this cold, most farmers will collapse from influenza.”
“…It’s only minus ten degrees.”
“O-only minus ten?! Who could endure such bitter cold?”
Ah. My French friends had never experienced the legendary Korean winter. Humans live perfectly fine even at minus thirty.
“As you know, the cold wave around 1785 nearly destroyed France.”
“That’s true.”
I remembered running myself ragged back then just to keep things from collapsing.
“People from the Mediterranean regions will find Minnesota too harsh. They might survive here, but asking them to farm… that’s another matter.”
Most of the settlers who followed my recruitment notices weren’t from wealthy regions like Paris or Provence. They came from poorer western and southern regions with warm Mediterranean climates.
Even Koreans—raised in a land where spring brought dust storms, summer brought tropical nights, autumn brought more dust storms, and winter brought brutal cold—would panic if forced to live in Southeast Asia without air conditioning.
For these delicate southern Frenchmen, farming in Minnesota was terrifying.
“But what choice do we have? If we transport food by ship, maintenance costs will double. Our finances will suffer.”
I lit a cigarette.
Just as a steel mill required coal to run, people required food to keep moving.
How could I supply bread to Minnesota efficiently?
Louisiana, Nouvelle-Orléans.
“…Honestly, life here isn’t bad.”
The climate was warm, harvests exceeded demand, and because of that abundance, crime was practically nonexistent.
Naturally, the governor’s job mostly involved stamping documents like 1795 Third Quarter Approval Forms. Anything complicated was handled by subordinates.
Even the truly troublesome matters were handled by Deputy Minister Talleyrand or Guillaume.
With so little to do, Governor Dumouriez had recently begun considering cultivating a small vineyard for pocket money.
Knock knock knock.
“Oh! What is it? Come in!”
In the past he would have pouted and said, “Why come to me instead of someone else?” But since no one ever called for him and he had nothing to do, the knock itself made him excited.
“A short letter has arrived from Minnesota for Your Excellency.”
“…From Director General Guillaume?”
He took the letter and broke the wax seal.
Inside were three short sentences written in familiar handwriting.
[Need 800 tons of wheat immediately.
After this harvest, send Russian prisoners to Minnesota.
— Guillaume de Toulon —]
From what I learned in school, Vietnam harvested rice three times a year because of its warm climate. Louisiana was also warm, so buying some excess wheat wouldn’t starve anyone.
We could survive this year with that.
Next year the Russian prisoners would farm the land.
Minnesota might be minus ten degrees, but Russia was minus forty. If those people could produce wheat in frozen wastelands, surely they could do it here.
Besides, ordering French citizens around would violate individual rights. But moving prisoners around? No one would complain.
That solved most of our problems.
Now all that remained was patience.
More blast furnaces would emerge, more steel would be produced.
And the one thing I was best at in the world was patience.
January 1796.
French Minnesota.
“Are you ready?”
At Mr. Murdoch’s words, I nodded.
“…Of course.”
“Understood. I’ll start the engine.”
Pssshhhhh!
The pressurized cylinder began moving, and boiling steam burst violently from the chimney.
The scene looked like a giant steel titan lying down with a cigarette in its mouth.
I took out my own cigarette.
“Now… let’s move forward.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the engineer in the driver’s seat pulled the lever, the rods gripping the wheels began to move.
The driving wheels engaged. The rear wheels and front wheels followed.
The enormous steel horse rose and began running along the rails.
Despite the locomotive’s tremendous weight pressing down on the tracks, the newly forged steel rails did not bend.
Chiiiiiiik!
The sound I had heard on television as a child—not in Toulon, France, but in South Korea.
The sight I had seen countless times in movies and dramas.
Now it was running.
Running while carrying me.
“Haha… hahaha!”
“Sir! It worked! It’s a success!”
“I told you it would work! Aaaah!!”
The wind blowing from the train was refreshing.
Even though the temperature was below freezing, it didn’t sting my skin at all.
Even the exhaust fumes I hadn’t smelled in decades felt strangely welcome.
Like meeting an old friend again.