2nd May 1574"Sir, we have marked the area. Now all that"s left, is to plant the explosives!"
With the implementation of the steam engine, influx of the workers and materials brough all the way from Tarnow and the nearby villages by Elia and almost continuous supply of all sorts of tools and parts from the Sandomir, everything suddenly turned from great mountains that we only could slowly scale, to nothing but a small hill that could be jogged through!
"Good. Proceed just as planned. Meanwhile, how is that belt work going?"
Since along with everything mentioned previously, Elia brough a few fat pouches filled with all sorts of coins, paying off the miners just as promised could be finally done. After the wait they had to endure without any repayment for the ore that they all saw constantly swallowed by the open mouth of the blast furnace, they could finally see that I never lied to them when I proposed much greater price for their haul than what they could get from the merchants!
But rather than just keeping them idle, I made sure to consult them about the overall outline of the iron mine, putting a great emphasis on the direction in which the tunnels expanded. Only when we confirmed which area on the surface was far enough from the mine for the underground explosions to not pose any threat to the other s.h.i.+ft of miners deep below the ground.
But rather than focusing solely on the last piece of the groundwork that would allow me to truly start developing this place, I had to oversee all kinds of other projects happening simultaneously!
With the recent end of the steam engine development, most of the wood produced by the prime carpentry plant was moved to the housing project, in which the parts of the ditch where the future city would stand were filled with simple, unisolated housing that could at least protect everyone from the elements.
Rather obviously, the entire cage that kept the steam engine in place was covered with a thick set of planks with a special system of ventilation aimed to prevent the workers inside from choking on the smoke. Additionally, with how everything seemed to speed up with the help of this new source of basically an unlimited power, I had to give up to the pressure of the craftsmen now all properly renamed as managers for their respective projects, allowing them to build an administrative building and a simple house for me and Elia, that would provide us with the basic comforts.
While the second task was finished within a single, d.a.m.ned day, the administration building would take way longer to be completed. From what I understood by the blueprints drawn entirely by the new set of managers when I had the chance to throw a peek at them before they were quickly hidden away as my new team took it upon their honour to make this building not only the first project they would do completely by themselves but also something that was supposed to be a pleasant surprise to me, I could only see that outside of the expected office-like area, there was quite a lot of big rooms for which I couldn"t even begin to imagine the use!
"Sir, we have finished the city hole! What are the next orders?"
To be quite honest, as the joy and excitement but most importantly, increased resources and workforce at hand speed up all the projects that weighted both on my mind, my shoulders and my pouch for so long, when rather than taking care for a single construction or crafting at once, I had to change to overseeing all kinds of them with reports coming to me basically every quarter of an hour, I felt as if the grip over the entire situation was slowly slipping away from my hands!
"Yyy… Go to the planning office and get the outline for the severs. Dig half a meter deep trenches along with the designed lines, but leave the housing area for now. We need to do it step by step."
"Sir, everything is ready, should we go boom?"
Turning my head to another messenger, I saw one of the younger workers that had to arrive along with my wife, since I didn"t recall seeing anyone that young in the camp before.
"The quarry site? Yeah, they can go boom."
"Sir, the forms are finished, should we start casting, or do we need more of them?"
"It would be better if we keep some additional ones in case anything goes wrong, so make sure we have at least three of them for each of the parts before starting the cats.
"My lord! The carpentry team is asking for some people to make use of the new blades and expand their workshop. They claimed they don"t even need a roof, but more cutting tables and men to move the logs around!"
"That"s only to be expected. Tell them to go get some men that should be now free after the city hole is finished."
"Mike, your beer."
After all those reports that happened to suddenly flood me all at once, when Elia showed up in my field of view with a steaming hot cup of some local brew enhanced with a mix of herbs that someone from the future like me had no way of recognising.
"Thanks."
With a moment of calmness arriving amongst the storm of all the matters that required my attention, I took the cup from my wife"s hands and took a long sip, allowing the aromatic liquid to flow down my throat and chase away the headache that all the matters thrown on top of my head was inducing in me.
After cleaning up my lips with a swipe of my hand, I pa.s.sed the cup back to the hands of my beloved before taking a deep breath only to exhale it right into the cold air of the second day of May.
Compared to the future, as we were still in the middle of the so-called small arctic age, the temperatures have yet to raise enough to allow everyone to wear comfortable clothes, yet it was already warm enough to allow for the planting of the early vegetables.
BOOM!
Before I could take enough time to let this momentary tranquillity heal my soul from all the mental exhaustion of the last few days, the scream of the mother earth being torn apart by a spicy load of gunpowder shown down her throat.
"It seems they started crus.h.i.+ng the rocks…"
With the first explosive going off and upsetting the balance of the rocks, a large part of the ground vibrated, only to settle down almost instantly. Only when one looked closely at the place where the explosion hole first was, one could see that the surface was kind of jarred as if all the earth got smashed by some uneven tool.
Yet my mind was already coursing through the next steps that would need to be done to complete the production of the concrete. Since quite a huge reserves of the clay could be found literally everywhere around this place, the two main ingredients for this wondrous products were only waiting for us to use them. All I had to set right now, was a crus.h.i.+ng machine that would turn the heavy rocks into a fine powder and a special furnace that could turn it into a proper preheated mix that would later turn into the finished cement for my use!