Chapter 10: Grandma Said We’re Not Even as Good as Cattle and Horses
The steam engine could be used to build more blast furnaces, and the steel and iron smelted from those furnaces would bring more high-quality materials.
With this, they would have enough wrought iron to build rail tracks, allowing mines to lay cart rails for transport, greatly improving delivery capacity.
This, in turn, would accelerate the efficiency of steel and wrought iron production, enabling the scale of steam engine manufacturing to continue expanding.
By the time high-pressure steam could be produced, trains would naturally come into being.
The revolutionary speed and capacity of trains would create the conditions necessary for the large-scale industrialization of textile dumping.
Then large iron ships could be launched, carrying goods to be sold to all the surrounding countries.
The porcelain industry could also take its share within this cycle, generating transitional income for the territory.
As for muskets and cannons...
those things were merely byproducts of industrial progress.
And all of this, with a clear goal in mind, would advance extremely fast, because what she was stuck on was not the technology tree, but rather environmental factors and the breakthroughs and improvements in materials that required time to settle.
Everything was advancing in an orderly fashion, and Mitia had also found herself much more at ease.
She mobilized the women and children she had previously taken in because of the famine.
The children were still young, at the age when their worldview was being shaped.
She could teach them words and basic scientific knowledge, subtly influencing their way of thinking.
By the time these children grew up, they would become the first seeds of science in this magical world.
As for the women, things were simpler.
In the future, Mitia was determined to launch the textile industry.
What she needed to do now was to have the women skilled in weaving teach those who were not.
Once steam-powered textile machines made of new steel structures were successfully manufactured, she would have them undergo training.
When the textile industry expanded in the future, they would form a solid base for management positions.
“This character is pronounced ‘ren’. Which student can tell me, what does this word mean?”
Standing in front of a crude wooden board, Mitia wrote the character for “ren” with a carbon stick and asked the little children below.
“‘Ren’ means noble. The nobles say we are cattle and horses. Grandma said we’re not even as good as cattle and horses.”
A little girl stood up on her own and answered.
The words stunned Mitia, the high noble, into silence.
She felt as if she had heard this answer somewhere before.
Mitia looked at her.
It was also the first time she so carefully observed the appearance of a child from the bottom of this world.
She had given them clean clothes, yet the girl’s body was still like a withered tree branch fallen to the ground—thin and frail like dead bark, filled with the aura of impending decay.
If not for the two braids tied into her hair, Mitia might not have even realized she was a girl.
Years of hunger had made her body proportions terribly unbalanced, her oversized head contrasting awkwardly with her small frame.
That pair of dull, grayish big eyes looked at her, full of timidity and nervousness.
“You are not cattle or horses. You are people.”
Her dry voice echoed inside the room, met only with silence.
For a moment, Mitia was at a loss for words.
She slowly stepped down from the platform and came to the girl’s side.
The little girl flinched instinctively at the sight of the carbon stick in her hand.
Mitia squatted down, set the stick aside, and gently reached out to take the girl’s hand.
The little girl obediently did not resist.
Though she looked only seven or eight years old, her hand was covered in calluses and cracks, with stains and wounds that could not be washed clean.
They stood in stark contrast to Mitia’s hands—white as jade, without the slightest blemish.
If not for the small size of her palm, Mitia would never have guessed this was the hand of a child.
She felt it—rough and dry.
She even thought the carbon stick in her hand might look better than this child’s hand.
Children were the best mirrors of a community’s living conditions.
Mitia couldn’t help but rub her nose and take a breath.
No matter how many slogans or how grand the narratives, they all seemed hollow and powerless before this small hand.
Still, she spoke gently and sincerely: “Teacher is also a noble.
Nobles are people.
You are people too.
You are not cattle or horses.”
“Teacher stands here today to make sure that one day, there will no longer be a difference between nobles and you. We should all be the same.”
“I can go to school, and so can you. I can eat my fill, and so can you. I can learn to paint, to play music, to study anything I want, and so can you.”
“You must study hard with me, help teacher achieve this goal together, alright?”
The little girl nodded obediently, then cautiously asked, “Okay... teacher, can we really always eat our fill? Having an empty stomach hurts so much, even more than my hands.”
“Of course! I promise you will always have enough to eat in the future! You’ll even get to eat meat! Do your hands still hurt now? Teacher will ask the priest to come check them later.”
“‘They still hurt a little now, but I blow on them. Before, my sister always blew on them when they hurt. But later she went very, very far away. Grandma said she went to find father and mother. I must stay with grandma, so I can’t go yet.’”
“...Then from now on, teacher will be your sister. Sister will blow on them for you, and the pain will go away.”
Suppressing her emotions, Mitia puckered her lips and gently blew on the girl’s palm a few times.
Looking at her happy smile, Mitia told herself she must never forget the sight of this hand.
“Teacher, will I really be able to eat meat in the future? I heard them say it’s the best-tasting thing in the world.”
“You will! I promise!”
“Hehe, I believe teacher. These days I’ve been eating so well, it feels like a dream.”
Late at night in her bedroom, Mitia tossed and turned restlessly, unable to sleep.
What had happened today lingered in her mind, refusing to fade.
It made her desperately want to change things, but also filled her with a deep sense of guilt.
Her push for industrialization could change the lives of the common people, but it would certainly not be smooth sailing.
The vested interest groups would never sit idly by.
Bloodshed and brutal struggle would be inevitable.
Where would soldiers come from? From these very children still so young.
This was not a war that could be completed in one or two generations.
Perhaps, except for her, most of them would never live to see the day when everyone could eat well, stay warm, and receive an education.
“Forget it, stop thinking.”
Mitia turned over and shut her eyes.
This was never something she could decide anyway.
It was always a matter of life and death.
The only thing she could do was give ordinary people a chance to stand on the same stage and compete with the nobles.
And in any case, if she lost, she would certainly be the first one tied to the stake.
She couldn’t even guarantee she would be the final victor, so what was the point of thinking so much?
But what happened today had given her a wake-up call—being full was what ordinary people cared about most.
Only once they had enough to eat could anything else be discussed.
The poor only wanted food.
They thought of nothing else.
They didn’t think of tomorrow or the future.
Just surviving today left them exhausted.
Being full was already a luxury.
Only by solving this most basic problem could they dare to talk about dignity, hatred, and dreams.
It seemed the production of fertilizer would also need to be put on the agenda.