July, 1593. Wow, it’s already July. These days, it feels like time is flying by at an insane speed.
‘Or... tsk. Maybe I’ve just lost my sense of time.’
Unlike the life of a twenty-first-century grape farmer, which ran with precision all year round, the life of a sixteenth-century angel was, how should I put it.
Extremely lax.
Let’s sow the seeds around this time, more or less. Let’s harvest the grapes around this time, more or less. The new settlers are making a fuss about wanting to meet the angel, so then... let’s set aside some time around then, more or less.
It really was all “more or less” like that. Since there were no utility bills or rent due by a specific day, date, or hour, life spread out without any sense of time.
What made me feel the passage of time were Virginia, growing up strong and healthy... and...
“This way! About three more steps this way!”
“Bring more hammers and nails over here!”
This settlement.
After months of laying foundations, erecting pillars, and making all sorts of people suffer through hard labor, the shipyard was finally nearing completion.
The sawmill built beside it had also begun producing lumber smoothly, without any particular need for me to show off my future knowledge.
The only place I paid special attention to was the lumber-drying yard situated between them.
“Please design the ceiling so the heat spreads evenly here.”
“Understood.”
“And we’ll be placing stoves here and there, so please be especially careful that the lumber doesn’t crack or catch fire.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Lord Nemo.”
This was a place where my knowledge and assets could intervene plenty.
Whether it was lumber or fruits and vegetables, the moment you made one wrong move, mold was mold all the same.
First, the sawn lumber would go through a simple but special process, then be moved to the lumber-drying yard.
Then we installed stoves to keep the drying yard at a high temperature, moved over a few sulfur fumigators from the farm, and managed it so that mold, insects, and all sorts of pests couldn’t damage the lumber.
In that way, we prepared a large stockpile of dried lumber, and the shipyard facilities were also ready.
“Lord Nemo! This Walter Raleigh has returned! With no fewer than two hundred and ten cannons! With this many, we can arm several large ships splendidly!”
And then we waited until Raleigh returned.
“You’ve returned at just the right time. We’ve prepared the lumber to be used for the ships here, so please take a look.”
“Perfect timing! Excellent! May I inspect it?”
“Of course.”
“Ah! You said that over there is the lumber-drying yard? Then I should go that way!”
“Let’s go together and see.”
“Well then, let me just...”
“What’s the matter?”
“...”
Raleigh’s expression stiffened slightly when he saw the lumber piled up in the warehouse beside the drying yard.
“This... the wood is different from what I expected. It’s strangely... fresh? And it has a greenish tint?”
Of course it did. I’d given it special treatment.
I had soaked it in agricultural Kocide wettable powder. Since the surface had been treated with preservative, it would last far longer than most lumber of this era.
On top of that, I’d exposed it to sulfur fumes, so there was no need to worry about insects or rot while it was stored for months.
“Oh... Ooh...”
“What do you think? When will it be possible to begin building the ‘clipper’?”
“...”
Raleigh blankly stroked the lumber, then looked at me and said,
“If the design is ready... we can begin right now.”
Good. Success.
“Looking more closely, the internal structure is clearly different from any other ship on earth. Hah... this frame is arranged like this? It’s not only the placement of the sails that’s unusual, is it?”
After that, we threw ourselves into reverse engineering.
“Is that so? I’m afraid I don’t really know.”
“You did say that you were ignorant when it comes to ships, Lord Nemo. But as someone who has designed ships myself, I can assure you. This ship is an innovation.”
Of course it was an innovation. It was a nineteenth-century ship.
I took every screenshot I could from the loading screens in Anno Domini 1800 that showed shipbuilding scenes, along with every visible detail of the ship’s shape and manufacturing process, and handed them all to Raleigh.
The rest was up to Raleigh.
...It felt like telling someone to build a robot suit after only showing them the Ir*n Man series, but even so, this was the best we could do. I did my best in my own way, too.
And the conclusion.
“We cannot build this according to the original design.”
“...What did you say?”
Had he finally gone mad from overwork? How much had I spent on the facilities built for this, and how much time had gone into it?
“If you look closely... uh... here, this frame section, you see?”
“Yes. I can see it too. You mean the part that’s slightly darker in color?”
“Yes, Lord Nemo. That part seems to be steel.
Should we... alter the design? In my opinion, I don’t think we can procure this amount of steel.”
Raleigh asked me carefully, and for the time being, he was right.
A steel frame? My house wasn’t a forge, and there was no way to make something like that with twenty-first-century farm technology.
Even melting down the steel from my house and reusing it would ultimately be work done in a primitive sixteenth-century forge.
But if I thought about it for just a moment, I could find an answer.
“Then how about modifying this section like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t we have another material that’s stronger than steel and produced in large quantities?”
Lexan (PC) sheets.
The frame of our clipper ship would now be Lexan sheets plus square steel tubing.
***
One day, with an excited heart, I turned on a game... and out of nowhere, I was separated from my family and relatives and dropped into the sixteenth century. I even got stabbed twice.
In that situation, I had no intention of feeling grateful just because Hwangsuksoft had given me cheats... but since I’d received the benefits, I would chew them up whole, from head to tail, bones and all.
I would not waste a single part of this farm.
Lexan sheets.
They were stronger than steel anyway, and lighter too. We would make a truss structure with square steel tubes, then fit Lexan sheets into each face. That would form the keel of the hull.
Of course, the lifespan of ordinary Lexan sheets under sunlight was ten years, but the same went for iron and wood. For Lexan sheets to degrade, they needed to be exposed to sunlight... and since they would be used as an internal frame anyway, there was no problem.
If we combined the transparent panels and square steel tubes I had been steadily stockpiling until now, the rough estimate worked out. It was perfectly possible.
Just in case, I had the craftsmen experiment, but it did not fall short in terms of either strength or elasticity. The result was “perfectly possible.”
Yes.
In the sixteenth century, I was going to build a sailing ship with Lexan sheets.
...
...
...
...No, no matter how I thought about it, putting engineering plastic into a nineteenth-century warship did seem insane, but if that was the issue, I shouldn’t have tried to build a nineteenth-century warship in the sixteenth century in the first place.
Once we “really” went and did it, the construction of the clipper got back on track.
The ships would become high-speed transports carrying the colony’s goods, and at the same time, warships loaded with large numbers of cannons that would protect our colony from the Spanish navy.
Lumber continued to come out endlessly whenever farmland was cleared, and Lexan sheets and other materials were likewise pouring out steadily, so now the ships’ construction was only a matter of time.
“Probably within a year? Perhaps even far faster than that.”
Raleigh declared it. Good. If we waited just a little, nineteenth-century sailing ships would be exporting our farm’s special twenty-first-century improved grape gift sets to England.
In the meantime, we would use the Nautilus to scout the nearby area and watch the movements of the Spanish navy, while defending the coast with cast-iron cannons imported in large quantities from England.
As long as the Spanish army didn’t come charging in right away, there was no major problem.
No, even if the Spanish army did invade, we wouldn’t simply sit back and let ourselves be beaten. We had the strength for that too.
“Fire!”
Tat-tat-tatang!
I once read a column about why the army of the nineteenth-century British Empire was the most powerful army. It said something about them stockpiling huge amounts of gunpowder based on the saltpeter that came from the Indian Empire.
The important thing wasn’t the mere fact that they had a lot of gunpowder.
“Fire again!”
Ta-tang! Tat-tat-tang!
What mattered was that because they had a lot of gunpowder, they could practice shooting whenever they wanted.
We were the same. The reason was clear.
Black powder was broadly composed of three materials.
Sulfur.
Potassium nitrate.
Charcoal.
All of them came from our farm.
Not only that, but items like iron pipes and copper tubes were also spewing out infinitely, so before we knew it, we were able to realize a one-musket-per-household policy.
That’s right. If every household doesn’t own at least a firearm or so, is it even America?
...Of course, that wasn’t the real reason. It was just that crocodiles and wolves were appearing nearby more often than tigers in the Joseon era, so before we knew it, every household had a gun in hand.
Once the colony’s immediate defense problem had been solved like that, the time had come.
“Now, at last... it is time to return with the grapes.”
Walter Raleigh rubbed his hands together and showed a meaningful smile.
“That’s right, Walter.”
For some reason, the same smile formed on my lips too.
“But there is something I’m curious about. Why are you asking me to bring back cork oak bark?”
“...There is a reason for everything.”
Wine corks.
At last, once cork was introduced, the three sacred treasures of long-term wine preservation—sulfites, cork, and glass bottles—would be complete. That meant we could now age all the K-wines we had brewed so far for just a few years and export them to Europe...!
A great advance in Korean agriculture was unfolding at this very moment.
“L-Lord Nemo?”
“...It is for the blood of the Lord, so please make every possible effort.”
“U-understood. I shall do my utmost.”
Wine = the blood of the Lord. I hadn’t lied.
“I shall never forget my experiences here for the rest of my life! Lord Nemo, you were a fountain of inspiration to me!”
“...That was not my intention, but I’m glad you were inspired.”
Shakespeare had to get back to his writing career too, so it was bye-bye for now. In any case, since he had become a believer of the Nemo faction, he would surely do his part in England.
The clipper was still a long way from completion. Raleigh and Shakespeare took the ship they had used to come from England and sailed back.
After sending them off like that, I once again devoted myself to shipbuilding and various other tasks.
The most important of those various other tasks... was the matter of “administration.”
***
Ten thousand people.
In twenty-first-century Korea, it was a light number, on the level of a few apartment complexes combined, but in ancient times, it was enough population to found a country, and in this era, it was enough people to form a small-to-medium-sized city.
The residents of Croatoan Island were only two or three hundred at most, so that was fine, but the huge population living in Chesapeake was gradually starting to require control.
“People have slowly started cultivating vegetable gardens around their own houses.”
“Mm? That’s a good thing. It seems there’s enough land now.”
“No. It is not only a good thing.”
“Hmm... could you explain in detail, Mr. Hewet?”
Especially in terms of land distribution.
“Until now, the people have plowed the fields together and shared the harvest, haven’t they?”
“That’s right. There wasn’t much land cleared enough to cultivate.”
“That is correct. But from now on, it won’t be like that. It is about time everyone starts wanting land of their own.”
The first one to sense that sign was Hewet.
“People have slowly started planting vegetable seeds they brought from Europe near their homes, then marking off the land among themselves.”
“Hmm...”
“Of course, it is not serious yet. But...”
Hewet glanced toward the excavator and cultivator parked in one corner of my cabin as he spoke.
“Uh... land clearing that would normally have taken years was finished in just a few months, so it will only be a matter of time before this issue comes to the surface.”
“...Hmm. So when we were sharing food in a cramped space, everyone worked together and divided it up, but now it has become large enough for people to split off individually.”
“That is right. From what I heard from Manteo, even the natives are in a similar situation.”
Good. I roughly understood.
“Then we can divide the land into proper sections and distribute it. It looks like I’ll be getting busier from now on. How should I handle this...”
Was this the point where we needed to start selling off common land? As I was nodding along appropriately, Hewet, for some reason looking worried, began watching my reaction. Why?
“Um... I suppose such things do not happen in heaven, but usually, when this happens, humans establish something called a ‘government’ to mediate conflicts.”
“...”
“In other words, I am saying that there is no need for you to take charge of everything yourself, Lord Nemo. Yes.”
“...I know that.”
I had forgotten. Because I’d been living too much like a village headman, I’d just had a sixteenth-century man hit me with, “This is called [government]. It allows you to refine a system of rule...”
“Ah, my apologies. I thought Lord Nemo might not be familiar with the affairs of the mortal world...”
“No. It can happen.”
“...”
“...”
This was humiliating.
“...In any case, Lord Nemo, I am saying that the time has come for you to form a government.”
“I suppose it has.”
A government.
Distributing land to ten thousand people one by one was not something that could be decided on the spot by gathering people together and holding a meeting like we had been doing until now.
We needed something more systematic and precise.
“Hmm...”
Like an Excel file... huh?
As I pondered for a long time, Hewet blinked. No, he was probably thinking there was nothing to ponder over. I could simply speak to Sir Raleigh and leave this and that to him.
But that was not “efficient.”
“...I think I understand something. Mr. Hewet, would you wait a moment and then come to my room?”
“Pardon?”
I found my tablet in my bag, then called Hewet.
“What... is this object? It gives off light.”
Now, it was time to restore the pride of a twenty-first-century man.
“This is called a ‘computer.’”
“Com... puter?”
Ah, you don’t know?
“Here, press the left button on this ‘mouse.’”
Click.
“The picture inside this frame moved! Wh-what is this...!”
I smiled and said to Hewet,
“Now, this is called a ‘click.’ And...”
I took the mouse from Hewet and opened Excel.
“...With this, we will create a ‘government.’”
If I’ve been given it, I’ll use it.
Naturally, Excel was included.