Agriculture-Inspection

After sending James away, Ferdinand lay helplessly in his armchair while Alice considerately massaged his temples.

"The temple is small, but the demons make a mighty wind; the pond is shallow, but it's full of turtles!"

That saying perfectly described Bulgaria's current state—and that was after a whole horde of parasites had already been cleared out.

The problems plaguing Bulgarian agriculture were far more complicated than they appeared on the surface. They weren't simply a matter of corruption or embezzlement. The core problem was that the bureaucrats had never truly paid agriculture any attention.

The Five-Year Plan was unfolding in full swing. Take the most difficult and most closely watched project, the "Railway Plan."

So far, it hadn't run into any major problems. Even during the most chaotic period under Stam, it had remained unaffected.

Local governments had given their all to support railway construction. They organized workers to help with relocations, land acquisition, and the transport of materials, often without pay. Ferdinand still hadn't found anyone daring to drag their feet.

Ferdinand couldn't think of any way to change the ideas that had taken root in the bureaucrats' minds—not anytime soon, at least.

Seeing Ferdinand in low spirits, Alice, who served as both his secretary and maid, was troubled too. She suggested, "Your Highness, why don't you go out for a walk?"

"Go out for a walk? Right! I should go out for a walk!" Ferdinand said delightedly.

Her words had awakened him from a dream. The confused Ferdinand had suddenly found a solution.

In the original timeline, the Soviet Union had faced the same problem while implementing its first Five-Year Plan.

It wasn't until the first half of 1929, when Stalin personally inspected the countryside and urged the work forward, that the collectivization of Soviet agriculture was fully launched.

In just two months, ten million Soviet farming households joined the collective farms—half of all the farming households in the country. Plenty of problems arose along the way, but overall, the Soviet agricultural reform had succeeded.

Bulgaria's problems couldn't possibly be as severe as the Soviet Union's! Ferdinand only intended to reform agriculture. He had no plans to touch private land ownership or harm the interests of any class.

Heavy snow fell from the sky, blanketing everything in white. Only the pine trees remained a vivid green, with flakes settling on their branches like white blossoms.

In February 1891, Ferdinand set out from Sofia in the bitter cold on a three-month tour of the country.

He headed northwest, leading a grand procession of a thousand guards. His first stop was Vratsa Province.

Vratsa was a city in northwestern Bulgaria and the capital of Vratsa Province. It lay on the northern slope of the western Balkan Mountains, where the Leva River flowed onto the plain.

With its favorable location, the region had industries including natural gas, chemicals, cement, cotton and silk textiles, cast iron, copper smelting, fertilizer, and wood processing. Its agricultural specialties included wheat and oats.

Vratsa Province's importance to Bulgaria went without saying.

In a parallel timeline, by 1974, Vratsa Province produced 96 percent of Bulgaria's urea, 24.8 percent of its pulp, 23 percent of its cement, and 19 percent of its cotton cloth.

In agriculture, the province ranked third nationwide in wheat and oat production, fourth in egg production, and eighth in milk production.

Most noteworthy of all, Bulgaria's Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, built near Kozloduy Village in Vratsa Province, was the first nuclear power plant in the Balkan Peninsula and all of Southeast Europe.

Ferdinand had every reason to take the province seriously. But Vratsa had yet to achieve the glory it would enjoy in the future. Its industrial development had only just begun, while its agricultural development lagged far behind.

Ferdinand's surprise visit left the officials of Vratsa Province stunned. Sofia was only a few days' journey away, so they had hardly any time to prepare after receiving the notice.

This time, Ferdinand wasn't coming to pick a fight with them. His tour proceeded at a leisurely pace. At every stop, he sent people to inspect the factories and went to the countryside himself. Whenever he encountered a problem, he raised it directly and ordered the local government to resolve it.

What were bureaucrats, anyway? Ferdinand had seen plenty of them in his previous life. No pressure, no drive—and the desire to meet their superiors' political expectations was their strongest motivation of all.

Wei Zheng-Ivanov, the governor of Vratsa Province, was a new-style bourgeois bureaucrat. Since taking office, he had overseen rapid industrial growth in Vratsa Province, maintaining an annual growth rate of over 10 percent and earning repeated commendations from the government.

So even though he came from the Liberal Party and was a staunch supporter of Stam-Bolov, the new government hadn't replaced him.

Wei Zheng-Ivanov said sternly, "All right, gentlemen, go and get ready. His Highness will be here before long. I don't want him seeing a dirty, disorganized Vratsa. If anything goes wrong, none of you will get off lightly!"

"Don't worry, Governor. We'll get it done!" everyone answered in unison.

His authority was plain to see. If Ferdinand had witnessed this scene, he would surely have cried, "Factionalism!"

On February 18, Ferdinand arrived in Vratsa with his large entourage and received a warm welcome from the people. His first impression of the city was that it was clean and orderly.

If Vratsa had been a city in the twenty-first century, Ferdinand wouldn't have found that strange. But this was the nineteenth century, when cities all over the world were filthy, chaotic, and run-down. There was even a saying about London: "Fine carriages and wine, foul London." People had yet to take sanitation seriously.

It had to be said: Wei Zheng-Ivanov had chosen the right way to curry favor. Since ascending the throne, Ferdinand had issued multiple orders to improve public cleanliness and sanitation. So far, only Sofia had fully carried them out.

Ferdinand received Wei Zheng-Ivanov pleasantly and attended the welcoming banquet they had organized.

Of course, he only showed his face, said fewer than ten words, and hurried off. The difference in their status was simply too great for them to enjoy each other's company.

"Wei Zheng-Ivanov, you've done very well," Ferdinand said when he summoned him privately.

Wei Zheng-Ivanov quickly replied, "I wouldn't dare take the credit. I simply followed Your Highness's orders and did my job."

People in the West today were confident and direct, and they didn't like being modest. But in the nineteenth century, their confidence hadn't yet run wild. At least when facing someone of higher rank, they still showed reverence.

Ferdinand smiled. "You've carried out my orders perfectly. That makes you a capable man! But what I've seen so far is only part of the picture. I'm looking forward to seeing how you perform in other areas."

Wei Zheng-Ivanov was delighted at first, then startled. He felt he had done a very good job carrying out the central government's orders, but whether he could meet Ferdinand's expectations was another matter. He even regretted, deep down, "If only I'd known His Highness was coming on an inspection tour sooner. I would have done an even better job."

Why did so many leaders in the future travel around on inspection tours? Wasn't it better to stay in the office? Before transmigrating, Ferdinand hadn't understood it very well. He'd thought it was just for show. After being king for more than two years, he'd realized that putting on a show was necessary too. At the very least, it put enough pressure on the people below.

Suddenly, he realized he'd run out of chapters in reserve.