The summer heat was intense. Birds sang in the forest, insects danced merrily by the river, rabbits stayed alert as they grazed, and slimes lay in shapeless heaps beneath the trees, digesting their food.
Two sturdy draft horses had been unharnessed and were grazing leisurely by the river.
The coachmen crouched by the water, washing the pheasants they had hunted that day in the clear river water.
Several hunters were scattered around, keeping watch for dangerous magical beasts.
Not far away on the opposite bank, the pointed towers of a castle rose into view.
A little boy sat on the grass by the river, holding a writing board and parchment in one hand and a quill in the other. Every so often, he dipped the quill into the ink bottle beside him, absorbed in his calculations.
Frederick von Weissen looked at the final figure and said helplessly, "This canal is about 16 kilometers long, 20 meters wide at the bottom, and 4 meters deep. Including the sloped banks, that comes to roughly 1.53 million cubic meters of earth."
"Of that, 830,000 cubic meters will be dug to a depth of two meters. Each laborer can dig five cubic meters a day at that depth. Below two meters, there are another 700,000 cubic meters, and each laborer can dig three cubic meters a day. That comes to about 400,000 workdays."
"To finish it within a year, we'd need around 1,500 people, including those taking breaks and the support staff."
"One laborer costs two Florins a year, so we'll need at least 3,000 gold coins!"
In the Rhine Alliance, one Florin Gold Coin was currently worth 20 silver Kreuzers, or 2,000 copper coins.
One Kreuzer could currently buy 50 kilograms of wheat, so 3,000 Florins were equivalent to 3,000 tons of wheat.
Although Wessen Territory covered about 1,000 square kilometers, it had been developed late and contained only a little over 3,000 hectares of farmland. Its current wheat yield was 700 kilograms per hectare, which wasn't enough to feed the territory's nearly 30,000 people, even if they went without food.
A middle-aged steward standing beside Frederick said, "My lord, the King ordered us to pay the 5,000-Florin fine within five years. That's equivalent to 17.5 kilograms of pure gold. Melting down the family's gold beads and goldware should cover it."
Frederick shook his head and said angrily, "That old bastard William had this planned all along. First, he pinned the blame for the defeat on my father, who died in battle. Then he demoted the Weissen Family from counts to barons in one fell swoop. And after that, he made a show of giving us five years to come up with 5,000 Florins. He's just using that time to lick his wounds and get strong enough to seize Wessen Territory from us!"
"Ah Fu, do you believe our neighbor has already become the King's hunting dog? In a couple of years, once he's recovered, he'll come after us to weaken us. Then he'll get to pick up a few bones."
The angrier he grew, the harder his chest heaved. His face flushed red.
Last year, the Rhine Alliance had fought a war against the Kingdom of Gaul. During the conflict, the Kingdom of Gaul ambushed the Rhine Alliance's supply camp. Frederick's father had given his life to protect the provisions there, and less than five percent had been lost.
But in the end, they lost the war. The blame for the defeat had been passed around until it finally landed on the late Count Weissen, who was accused of failing to protect the provisions. His demotion and the enormous fine had followed.
Frederick's mother had died of grief that spring. He had cried so hard at her funeral that he'd fainted, and when he fell, he struck his head on Stone. That had brought back all his memories from his previous life.
Frederick had spent three days lying in his room, digesting those memories and studying the map carefully. In the end, he had decided to fight back.
This world was both familiar and strange compared to his old home. Magic and magical beasts aside, the geography looked like Europe, but a huge stretch of land lay to the west of France and the two Spains. The Caucasus region between the Caspian and Black Seas had become an ocean. Even more incredible, the Sahara Desert across the Mediterranean Sea was a dense forest here.
As for the far-off East, Frederick hoped he'd have the chance to see it someday.
The Rhine Alliance was a loose alliance. Its members mostly exempted one another from tariffs, while politically, it was divided among countless squabbling lords. Annexations and partitions happened all the time; they only united temporarily when faced with foreign enemies.
There was no need to take down the King to start a war, and they couldn't manage that anyway. They only had to devour a few of the King's dogs in the surrounding lands. Then the King would think carefully before deciding what to do next.
Before troops could move, provisions had to be secured. War was fought with money.
To raise money, Frederick had taken people out to survey the land between two rivers in his territory.
The upper reaches of the Swabian Rezat River, a tributary of the Main River, and the Altmühl River, a tributary of the Danube River, both lay within Wessen Territory. If he connected the two rivers with a canal, cargo ships could travel north along the Main River into the Rhine and onward to the North Sea, or head south into the Danube and follow it all the way to the Black Sea.
Water transport was the cheapest way to move goods. Once the canal opened, it would greatly shorten the north-south shipping distance across the eastern part of the continent and reduce costs substantially. The area would also become a distribution hub for goods from the surrounding inland regions.
So Frederick planned to gamble everything the family had. In addition to digging the canal, he would build a small town by the river to serve as a logistics hub.
If he wanted to develop his territory, he needed access to raw materials and energy. Without those, nothing was possible.
Once the canal proved its worth, merchant ships would flock there, bringing raw materials with them.
He could also use it to sell the new products he had planned and make enormous profits.
Five years from now, if he won, he could grow his business like a snowball. If he lost, he'd change his name, grab his things, flee to Constantinople, and become a scholar at the university there.
For one thing, Newton in this world would never get the credit. In the future, students studying math and physics would see Weissen everywhere and say things like, "Weissen's coffin lid is about to burst open."
Ah Fu saw his lord staring into space and sighed to himself.
Frederick was only eight years old, yet his young shoulders carried the burden of the whole family. The pressure on him was easy to imagine.
"Ah Fu," Frederick said, "I'll draw a few maps in a bit. Take them to Nuremberg tomorrow and discuss things with the Stonemasons' Guild. It'll be a victory if we can keep the total cost of the canal and the small port town under 4,500 Florins."
"As you wish, my lord. I've heard that there's been heavy rain in the south for many days. The lower reaches of the Rhine have flooded, and many refugees have appeared. Hiring them would be very cheap."
Frederick's hand paused as he drew. After thinking it over, he said, "Then add a provision: after the project is finished, anyone who comes here to work can live in the new town or clear land nearby."
"Hmm... Actually, that's not all. There's plenty of land here that could be turned into farmland. We might as well take the opportunity to recruit more refugees to clear it."
By his calculations, 90% of Wessen Territory could be turned into farmland. In a few years, the population could grow to 50,000.
If commerce developed too, he estimated the population would increase by another 10,000 or so.
"Right," Frederick said, remembering something. "We also need to visit the Blacksmiths' Guild and the Carpenters' Guild. We'll need to get all those tools ready in advance."
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