Winter, Year 14 of Konoha.
The British Continent.
The wind of a tropical rainforest climate swept down the New Capital's broad, straight Central Avenue, wide enough for eight horse-drawn carriages abreast, yet failed to disperse the peculiar scent filling the air-a mixture of coal smoke, steam, smelted metal, fresh timber, and a certain vigorous restlessness.
On either side of the avenue stood tightly packed buildings of stone and wood, their architecture richly blending Eastern and local styles. Shop signs crowded together, and pedestrians jostled shoulder to shoulder, speaking in different accents. Most wore the busy expressions of people occupied with earning a living, yet with a faint glimmer of hope.
Farther out lay sprawling, neatly planned factory districts.
Towering chimneys spewed gray-white smoke of varying density day and night, merging with the low, leaden clouds on the horizon. The thunder of forging hammers, the roar of steam engines, and the rumble of transport wagons mingled into a rough, powerful industrial symphony.
This was no longer the savage, chaotic "New Continent" of a few years earlier, crowded with tribes.
Under the remote direction of Toyotomi Yinglang's will and the efficient execution of Yutian and the others, it had transformed at a speed that left the Old Continent dumbstruck into a vigorous, orderly emerging nation armed to the teeth.
Today, the atmosphere in the New Capital was distinctly different. Beneath its solemnity ran an irrepressible excitement.
From the harbor to the central square, a fully armed soldier stood at attention every ten paces along both sides of the main road. They no longer wore the crude leather or rattan armor of the early days, but matching dark-blue regulation uniforms and round military caps. With Toyotomi Type Two rifled muskets gleaming coldly on their shoulders, bayonets and short firearms at their waists, they