The Information Revolution
"Raise your head, Johannes von Gutenberg."
With that low-voiced declaration, the blade of my sword lightly tapped his shoulder. Johannes, who had been kneeling on one knee, looked up with an expression overflowing with emotion. The corners of his eyes were rimmed with red.
Only a few days ago, he had been a fugitive chased by creditors, rolling in the gutters. Now, he had been bestowed with the extraordinary position of Minister of Technology for the Bohemian Royal Court.
Johannes’s original surname was Gensfleisch. Literally translated, it meant "goose meat." Even for a man of noble birth, it was a rather ridiculous name for a great inventor destined to change the world.
That was why I had bestowed upon him a new surname—the very name his family would possess in the future, the most famous name in history.
Gutenberg. It meant "good mountain." There could be no name more fitting for a man who would build a mountain range of knowledge.
I sheathed my sword and spoke. "Save the sentiment for later. You don't have much time."
"I shall keep that in mind. One month... no, I will show you results even sooner than that."
"Good. I have prepared your workshop not in Prague, but in the Sternberg estate."
I looked out the window at the cityscape of Prague, where smoke rose from the chimneys. "Prague is too crowded. That means too many eyes and ears. Your invention is a top-secret matter. Not a single piece of information must leak to even a rat until it is complete."
Prague was already at a saturation point. The population density was high, and for all I knew, spies for the Emperor or the Papal States could be lurking in every corner. On the other hand, my stronghold, Sternberg, was a fortress that allowed for perfect control and was already an optimal location where a massive industrial complex was being built.
"There is a Royal Ironworks there. It is stocked with the lead and antimony you require, along with skilled blacksmiths. You won't need to run around Prague looking for materials; you need only reach out your hand to obtain the finest alloys."
"A Royal Ironworks... for a technician, there could be no more perfect heaven than that."
Johannes—no, Gutenberg’s—eyes sparkled with anticipation. He seemed to be smelling the heat of the furnace and the scent of freshly cast type already in his mind.
"I have prepared soldiers outside to escort you to Sternberg. Depart at once."
"Yes, Your Majesty! I will surely create the printing press for you!"
Gutenberg bowed deeply once more and hurried out of the reception room. In his retreating figure, I felt a sense of resolve no less than that of a general heading to the battlefield. I had perfectly injected capital, technology, and motivation into this genius inventor. Now, Gutenberg would likely work through the night to produce the printing press within the deadline.
The door closed, and silence returned. 'The hardware is settled, so is it time for the software?'
If one makes a gun, one must have bullets; if one makes a cannon, one must have shells. It was time to prepare the content that the printing press would produce.
"Konrad."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Send them in. The theologians."
A moment later, the door to the reception room opened, and three men stepped inside. The first to catch my eye was Jan Rokycana—a man with a calm, youthful impression and intellectual eyes, the next leader of the moderate Utraquists who constantly sought compromise.
Beside him stood Jan Zelivsky, who had the look of a starving wolf. A firebrand of the Taborites, he wore tattered priestly robes, yet his eyes shone with intense fervor. He was a zealot who looked ready to lead a mob to raid the city council at any moment.
Finally, there was Jan Pribram, who openly displayed his discomfort between the two. A pedantic scholar of Prague University, he was a rigid conservative who despised the Pope's corruption just as much as he loathed Zelivsky’s radicalism. These three were the titans of Hussite theology of the era.
I clicked my tongue inwardly. 'Why is it that everyone in this country is named Jan?' Jan Hus, Jan Zizka, Jan Rokycana, Jan Zelivsky... The joke that if you threw a stone on the street, it would hit a man named Jan five times out of ten wasn't just a joke.
As soon as they saw me, the three theologians bowed deeply. "We greet Your Majesty the King!"
I felt that my stature had changed significantly in their attitude. Only a few months ago, these were the men who had glared at me with suspicion and raised their voices at the Prague City Council. But my authority, having crushed the Emperor’s crusade and mocked the Pope’s excommunication, had now become absolute to them. Whether by choice or by force, they were acknowledging me as the sole monarch of Bohemia.
"Everyone, be seated."
The three sat down, stiff as boards. They were like oil and water, sworn enemies who could never mix, yet they were gathered here together, forced by the King’s authority. Pribram seemed to despise Zelivsky as an ignorant fanatic, while Zelivsky clearly viewed Pribram as a coward no better than a Catholic spy. Rokycana was just watching them with a troubled face, trying to read the room.
As expected, it was the hot-tempered Zelivsky who broke the silence. "Your Majesty, for what reason have you called me to sit with such... stuffy bookworms? I have barely enough time in the day as it is, tending to the lost lambs you entrusted to me last time."
"Ah, you mean the prisoners of war from the last battle?"
Tens of thousands of crusader prisoners. I had assigned them as labor for the Silesian mines and entrusted their management to Zelivsky.
"Yes, are those fellows doing well? Is their reformation progressing?"
At my question, Zelivsky’s eyes instantly gleamed with a strange heat. The dissatisfaction from moments ago vanished, leaving only the ecstasy of a fanatic who had witnessed a miracle.
"Oh, Your Majesty. The word 'reformation' is insufficient! That 'Ladder of Salvation' you taught me—that system is performing miracles inside the mines!"
"Ah..." I rested my chin on my hand and swallowed a bitter smile. I had packaged it with the grand name "Ladder of Salvation," but in truth, what I had taught him was the most vicious and efficient tactic of 21st-century capitalism: a pyramid scheme.
"It seems the effect is certain, then?"
"It is beyond certain! When we promised that if they truly repented and led three unbelievers into the fold of the Hussites, the weight of their cross (labor) would be halved, the mines were literally turned upside down!"
Zelivsky spoke with spittle flying. "Now, when a new prisoner enters the mine, the existing prisoners fight tooth and nail to claim him! To save their comrade's soul... no, to make even one more person their 'spiritual disciple,' they teach and persuade them all night long, and it brings tears to my eyes!"
He crossed himself, overwhelmed with emotion. "What is this if not the work of the Holy Spirit! Some prisoners have even become 'Gold Grade' evangelists and are wearing supervisor armbands!"
"..."
I nodded as if moved, but I was sweating cold sweat inside. 'As expected, stimulating human desire is the best.' If I had used whips to force their conversion, there would have been a riot. But by offering the sweet temptation that if they brought just three people under them, they could stop working and rest, they had become fanatical evangelists on their own.
Regardless, labor productivity was up, the prisoners were memorizing Hussite doctrine by heart, and management costs were down—it was a win-win for everyone.
"Ahem, it is fortunate that the results are good. You have worked hard."
"Thank you! At this rate, before winter comes, I will be able to turn them all into the most devout and most persuasive Hussite evangelists in all of Europe!"
At Zelivsky’s confident shout, Pribram, who was sitting next to him, shook his head with a look of disgust. I clapped my hands to change the atmosphere.
"Now, let us stop talking about the prisoners. The reason I have gathered three people of such different temperaments here today is... to entrust you with a very important task."
As my voice dropped low, the three men’s gazes focused on me. Rokycana asked cautiously, "And this important task is...?"
I looked at them slowly and declared firmly. "The translation of the Bible."
A strange silence spread through the room. Jan Pribram adjusted his glasses and said, "Your Majesty, forgive me, but the translation of the Bible is a task already completed by our predecessors. Master Jan Hus perfectly translated the Latin Bible into our Czech language, and we Hussites are already reading that Bible."
"Yes. It is one of the great tasks of Master Jan Hus’s life. However, it is not a Czech Bible that I need."
I placed my hand on the thick Latin Bible lying on the desk. "I need a German Bible."
"German...?"
The expressions of the three men were filled with shock. Zelivsky, in particular, reacted violently, as if he were about to jump out of his chair. "Your Majesty! The Germans are the crusaders! You want us to dedicate the holy word in the language of the enemy who seeks to kill us? Why would you cast pearls before swine?"
Pribram also showed disapproval. "His expression is crude, but he has a point. Translating the Bible into the language of the Empire... could be seen as submission or compromise."
"Submission? That is wrong, Pribram." I opened my mouth with a smirk. "Imagine it. The sight of the German Bibles we print being scattered in every alleyway in the heart of the Empire."
I mimicked grabbing the air. "If the farmers of Saxony, the merchants of Nuremberg, and the low-ranking knights of Frankfurt read and interpret the word of God directly without going through intermediaries called priests, what do you think will happen then?"
"That is..." Rokycana swallowed hard. His pupils trembled with a thrill. "The collapse of the clerical class... the church’s monopolistic authority will be shaken to its roots. Because they will realize they can meet God without a priest."
"Exactly. Remember our Hussite cause, the Four Articles of Prague. 'Every believer has the freedom to read the Bible in their mother tongue.' There is no exception, whether the target is a Bohemian, a German, or even those Italians in Rome."
"Good heavens..." Rokycana let out a sigh. "This is... a spiritual war."
"Correct."
But that alone was not enough. A revolution would not happen just by letting them read the Bible. The content they read was important. "Simply moving Latin to German is not enough. In the translation process, very delicate... adjustments are needed."
"Adjustments, you say?"
"The nuances must be corrected."
Questions appeared on the faces of the three theologians. "The Divine Right of Kings. The infallibility of the Pope. The basis for indulgences. Blind feudal obedience. The mandatory nature of tithes... We will strip away all those rotten authoritarian concepts that the Roman Catholic Church has used the Bible to justify for hundreds of years."
Pribram’s brow furrowed. "Your Majesty! That is a distortion of the Bible! No matter how right our cause is, we cannot alter the word of God to our liking. That is what heretics do!"
"Distortion? That is what the Catholics did. What I am doing is a correction."
I raised the corners of my mouth. "Where in the Bible does it say the Pope should reign above the Emperor? Where does it say the successor of Peter should adorn himself with gold and sell indulgences? Where does it say a King may treat his people like slaves?"
At my question, Pribram’s eyes began to waver. Zelivsky clenched his fist and shouted, "Nowhere! Not a single line!"
The rebellious spirit in his heart began to burn. "Jesus was a friend to the poor, and he said he did not come to be served, but to serve! All of that is a lie created by the swindlers of Rome!"
I spun my quill. "Zelivsky is right. Saint Jerome was a great scholar, but he was a Roman. And he worked alone. He, too, was human, so he made mistakes. For example... Exodus 34:29."
I looked at Pribram. "How does the Vulgate Bible describe the face of Moses coming down from Mount Sinai?"
"Cornuta esset facies sua," Pribram answered immediately. "It says, 'his face had horns.'"
"Yes. It had horns. That is because Jerome mistook the Hebrew karan (to shine) for keren (horn). Because of that one mistake, for a thousand years, artists have carved Moses with horns like a devil."
I set the quill down. "Is that the truth? No. It is an error. A lie born of ignorance."
The three theologians were silent. They knew I was right. It was a famous textual conundrum, but they had simply never dared to challenge the authority of the Vulgate.
"We return to the source. Ad Fontes. I have prepared Jewish scholars from the ghetto. They are more versed in the Hebrew original than any Christian."
"Jews?" Zelivsky frowned. "Them, in the work of the holy Bible?"
"They are assistants to verify the linguistic accuracy of the Old Testament."
"But...!"
"This is a task to return the Bible to its original, whole state. We need the truth. Not old customs."
Zelivsky seemed dissatisfied, but in the end, he could not refute my logic. I leaned forward and lowered my voice. More secretly, more dangerously.
"And while we are correcting the nuances... we must also re-examine the way power is addressed."
"Power, you say?"
"The Vulgate was written in the Empire, for the Empire. So it translated words like Rex (King) or Dominus (Lord) in a flattering way, favorable to the tyrants of the earth."
I met their eyes one by one. "For example, let us look at the translation of the word 'Master.' Instead of an authoritarian word that reminds one of a feudal lord, what if we used words like 'leader' or 'teacher'? Also, instead of blind submission like 'obey,' what if we changed it to an active word like 'follow' voluntarily?"
Rokycana and Pribram’s eyes widened. As scholars, they immediately understood the destructive power of my words.
"That subtle word will change the consciousness of the reader. They will realize that Kings and nobles are not absolute beings ordained by God, but merely functionaries who must serve the people."
I was ordering them to weaponize the Bible. It meant creating a German text that would go beyond simply spreading the Gospel to secretly erode the legitimacy of the Holy Roman Emperor and the feudal lords themselves.
It was dangerous. In the eyes of Rome, it was a clear act of heresy. And that was exactly what the three theologians truly wanted.
The first to curl the corners of his mouth was Zelivsky. "Smashing the idols of false kings with the Lord’s word... My goodness, Your Majesty. That is a task I like very, very much."
Pribram adjusted his clothes and sighed. "If we correct Jerome’s philological errors with the Hebrew original... it is also an academically valuable task. There is no justification to oppose the pursuit of truth."
Rokycana looked between the two, then slowly nodded at me. "It will take time, Your Majesty. To translate the entire book..."
"There are Jewish scholars. There is also the Czech Bible for reference. And there will be my full support." I added in a tone of conviction. "Do not worry about money and manpower. You only need to focus on creating the perfect result."
The three looked at each other for a moment without a word. Moderate, radical, conservative. The gazes of three colors that seemed impossible to mix were locked together at a single focal point: revolution. The hesitation was short, and the decision was heavy. Soon, they bowed their heads deeply at the same time, as if by promise.
"We shall uphold Your Majesty's command."