Infinite Reincarnation – Arthur Hurt - Chapter 199
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Infinite Reincarnation – Arthur Hurt Chapter 199
35-Loyalty
“Oh, it’s nothing. They are just my escorts. But please bring me the information and the person in charge of the city sewage recovery plan during the previous king’s reign that I asked about yesterday.”
“Ah, that’s it, that… … .”
What does the word “aggezer” mean?
Arthur said with a bored expression.
“These are busy people. If you don’t finish your business quickly and return, they might get angry. Isn’t that right, Your Majesty the Plavan?”
The Plavan position has been adjusted.
“Right. If I say that, you’ll misunderstand. Our palace guards aren’t the type of people who move recklessly just because they’re angry. So what are you doing?”
“Yes, four?!”
When Plavan Jeongwi spoke to him, the frozen civil servant was startled and asked back.
“It seems like the administrative office here isn’t doing any work?”
“Go, go!”
As the civil servant ran away, Plavan Jeongwi clicked his tongue and muttered to himself as if telling him to listen.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Get out of here. You need to throw yourself in a military training camp to come to your senses.”
When the official who heard that ran at full speed, the commander of the Plavan turned his head and ordered the palace guards to ‘rest’. Then he waited and talked with Arthur. As a soldier, he couldn’t help but be interested in the plan to increase gunpowder production.
“Well… … there are certainly research results showing that human waste is just as effective as livestock waste.”
“Do you have any related materials?”
“Well? I heard that they even studied cases of foreign salt fields, but as you know, it’s confidential, so I don’t know if it’s true.”
While I was having a fruitful time getting various information related to gunpowder policy from the Plaban Jeongwi, the civil servant from earlier came running in, out of breath. He was accompanied by what appeared to be a high-ranking civil servant.
“The palace guards are coming in. What on earth is going on!?”
“You invaded? We are simply guarding Arthur Hurt, the Earl of Harth, on a mission for His Majesty the King.”
The Plavan officer came forward and spoke. At that, a person who appeared to be a high-ranking official questioned what danger there was here that was creating a sense of discomfort by providing such an excessive escort. In response, the Plavan officer patted the man on the shoulder and led him to a corner, where they talked quietly and returned.
“Oh my! Your Majesty! The people below you have been causing trouble!”
He showed signs of selective dementia, as if he had forgotten the complaint he had made just a moment ago, and took the lead in taking care of Arthur’s business with a broad smile on his face.
Then, doesn’t he start to lament his situation, saying that his subordinates are not tactful and don’t listen to him well, and that his suffering is really difficult?
It was clear that when I went to the corner with Plavan Jeongwi, I did not hear any nice words.
Anyway, despite the change in attitude of high-ranking officials in the administrative office, Arthur’s income was only halved.
We obtained documents on the plan to increase gunpowder production during the previous king’s reign, but the content was insufficient, and those who carried out the work at the time were no longer in their positions, or even if they were, they did not remember it properly because it was so long ago, or they were not given important tasks at the time, so it was not of much help.
Hmm… … As expected, those in power are good at erasing their own mistakes.
However, Arthur was able to confirm through the remaining documents, although they were poor, that the policy of the previous king’s time was close to the nature of a campaign. In other words, to put it in a word, ‘Let’s all gather dung together to produce gunpowder.’
So, the specific administrative work related to it, such as collecting and transporting the manure and distributing it to the slurry fields, was lacking.
The problem was that people didn’t know why they had to collect their excrement and take it to a certain place. Even if they had known, they would have thought, “Why should I carry that dirty thing all that way?”
Even if we gathered everything together, it was a problem. After that, it was the realm of the administrative organization, that is, the practitioners, and I couldn’t figure out how these guys worked.
Honestly, just looking at the report, I wondered if they didn’t want to work because most of it was just empty talk.
So Arthur devised his own plan, reported it to Andrew, and a few days later was summoned to the king. He wanted to ask Arthur questions about things he had doubts about based on the report alone.
“Installing a toilet… Is that all you need?”
“I checked the policies of the previous king’s era, and… … publicity was not very effective in terms of cost.”
So it was a toilet. There were toilets even then. However, they were not proper toilets and they were not properly distributed. It was fortunate that the excrement flowed into the river through the sewer, so it was at least sanitary, but most of it was just dumped anywhere and disappeared into the ground.
King Rai nodded and pointed out another point.
“But if we install a separate urinal, won’t the cost of installing the toilet increase?”
“The reason for installing separate urinals is because research shows that urine is more efficient.”
Arthur and King Rye had some dirty conversations, such as about using sewage mixed with feces in the saltpeter field and using only urine, but King Rye, who had high hopes for increased gunpowder production, was rather enthusiastic about understanding Arthur’s plan.
So Arthur was saying that instead of spending a lot of money on advertising to collect all of the excrement from St. Scala, let’s establish a system that can secure an amount that can be easily collected. Of course, if you do it on a large scale, the budget will be large, so the idea was to first build proper public restrooms in places where many people reside, such as government offices or places with a lot of floating population.
Here, we could create a company that collects excrement from toilets, supply excrement to the saltpeter field through that company, produce saltpeter, and sell the remaining byproducts as fertilizer, which would help offset some of the costs.
“Hmm. Fertilizer… … .”
“The byproduct of the production of nitrates is known to be effective as fertilizer. I think it would be a good idea to use it in the royal territory.”
This prickled the ears of King Rai, who had to find other ways to increase food production for his household as farmland area was decreasing.
Arthur listed auxiliary policies that support the toilet distribution policy in various ways, not just fertilizer. The plan was to create a kind of economic ecosystem centered around the distribution of toilets, so that it can run on its own without necessarily investing money.
However, King Lei was impressed by the fact that Arthur had thought about it from many different angles, but he could not easily let go of his worries. Everyone has a plausible plan before they start.
Arthur spoke to King Rai, who was worried whether things would go as planned.
“Fortunately, interest in hygiene is increasing these days, so I think encouraging that will be effective.”
The success of a policy is determined by administrative support and public response. In order for the public to respond, there had to be sufficient policy incentives and publicity. At that time, the theory of longevity and Ignaqua were in vogue. Therefore, it was possible to fully utilize the increased need and interest in waste disposal, which is the source of longevity.
King Rai nodded in admiration at Arthur’s words. His concerns about the policy’s failure were somewhat reduced.
During the Q&A, the topic of budget finally came up.
“But it is difficult to secure the budget right now.”
“I knew it.”
“Ahem!”
King Rai coughed in vain, feeling somewhat reprimanded, and showed his discomfort.
But Arthur paid no attention and continued to speak.
“Issuing additional scalons is difficult, and even if bonds are issued, they won’t sell, and it will be difficult to reduce the cost of maintaining quality.”
“The royal family’s reputation is an important issue.”
Arthur nodded instead of scolding him to stop talking nonsense. It was the same reason why nobles couldn’t stop their extravagances even when they were struggling financially. Did they have to appear to have power and influence to borrow money?
It was a kind of bluff, but power was an intangible force that was thought to have influence and authority over someone. Money and power had something in common in that even a healthy bank could have a bank run if it was known that it could not return deposits.
Arthur continued.
“The crown prince will have money.”
“Huh? Money for the crown prince?”
“This is money I gave you as an apology for the mistake I made last time due to a misunderstanding.”
“It seems like a pretty large amount of money.”
“It would be enough money to design toilets in several government offices, including the palace.”
And if word of the toilet’s effectiveness spread, it could win support from the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. The mere pretext of increasing gunpowder production was not enough to induce people to act; it had to provide some direct benefit, so an improvement in the surrounding environment due to a properly designed toilet would be enough to open the wallets of the rich.
King Rye expressed his doubts at Arthur’s words.
“Where does the money come from?”
“This is the money I saved up while selling Ignaqua.”
Arthur spoke frankly, and King Rye showed his discomfort.
“Um… … Didn’t you decide to donate the profits from Ignaqua to the country?”
This kid? How much did I do for you to just take it and wipe your mouth clean?
Arthur remembered the word “Monarch Wuchi” and engraved the character “忍” (patience) on it, but he did not just let it go.
“Please forgive me for having to gain profits by interfering with the production and distribution process in order to pay compensation to His Highness the Crown Prince.”
It was half true. He had been thinking about how much compensation he should give the crown prince so that he would feel satisfied rather than insulted by being beaten, so he scraped together as much as he could.
“And anyway, the later the compensation is paid, the better, right? If you think that you have secured national policy funds, then you will be very grateful.”
That made sense, so King Rai nodded with a cough. Well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give the Jatra guys the money a little later. Even if you give them the money early, wouldn’t it just lead to a military buildup?
Arthur made King Rai exact compensation from the crown prince. If it was a small revenge, it was revenge.
* * *
The toilet distribution project required the cooperation of many people. There was a toilet builder(?) capable of realizing Arthur’s design and a ceramics company that would make urinals to be placed in the toilets.
Arthur sent the blueprints for the urinal to Lanik, the head of the pottery guild. Lanik came to the capital with a smile on his face at the new job. It was a time when the problem was not the lack of work, but the abundance of work.
Arthur was secretly satisfied with Lannick’s forward-looking attitude, as he came all the way to Seoul for work, and blurted out his usual social comment.
“You don’t have to come up like this… … .”
“Haha! How can you do that when you have a client who gives you so much work?”
The guild leader must provide work for the guild members to make a living. Therefore, guild leaders are divided into the type that is good for advertising and is good to hang on the guild signboard, and the practical type that somehow gets work through advanced social life and political power.
The former is a craftsman guild leader who has the skills recognized by the guild members and the reputation of a famous craftsman has a promotional effect, so he can attract customers, so unless the staff is really bad, he can live off of them to some extent and there is not much noise, whereas the practical guild leader has to satisfy the guild members with performance, not skills. Lanik was just such a practical guild leader.
He asked Arthur.
“But why do you make things called urinals?”