Chapter 12: Paper and Hangul (Part Two)

TL: A_Passing_Wanderer

ED: Chrissy

The first reason was the obvious fact that the workers could get a job in the city of Great Beginning. And more than that, they hoped that this job would lead them to permanently settling in the city.

'Back then or now, people still want to live in big cities, huh.'

But that wasn't all of the reason, of course.

The construction work was only just getting started. While existing industries like steel mills, blacksmiths, and sawmills already had their fill of skilled laborers, the construction industry did not. As long as you worked hard and did your best to learn, you might get treated as a skilled builder faster than your competition.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the applicants were laborers who had finished reclaiming arable lands. In other words, they were folks with no skills whatsoever other than knowing how to use physical strength.

And so... With the artisans, who had to learn the craft of building houses as quickly as humanly possible taking the lead, countless brick houses began to get built all at the same time.

Even so, the construction work didn't devolve into free-for-all chaos. From the get-go, every house was built strictly according to the blueprint so that each of the finished structures would be an exact match. They were so identical in the layout that even the communal lavatory of each building was in the exact same spot in said buildings.

Speaking of lavatories, they were the pit latrine-type, of course. Kim Gi-Wu stressed the importance of hygiene and prevented the tribespeople from throwing away their excrements in the middle of the road or in the river.

And as more and more people began living in concentrated areas, the role of hygienic toilets would only grow more important.

As for the excrements gathered in this manner, they were mostly used as fertilizers in the farmlands. Kim Gi-Wu also had plans to use them later in the future to manufacture gunpowder, too.

'It would've been almost impossible to plan the city's layout systematically like this if individuals claimed ownership of their land, though.'

Indigenous Americans believed in the existence of the Spirit of the Land and didn't have the concept of land ownership. They thought that the land below their feet was not something they could own. Following that logic, the houses built on such a land could not be theirs, either.

In other words... all the houses here were leases, for the lack of better term.

For a while there, Kim Gi-Wu visited various construction sites and helped out where he could. It couldn't be helped since one supervisor had to hastily learn how to build houses before managing many other workers with no knowledge or experience to speak of, after all. Obviously, there were many issues to deal with.

"Are you feeling alright, Great Chief? Your expression isn't so good, sir."

"How can my expression be good at this sight, though? Look at that mess, will you? Build them like that, and I'll bet you my damn hands that those houses will fall down in less than a month."

"Mm... Indeed, they do look unstable, sir." Upright Tree replied.

Even though he was not knowledgeable in this field, Upright Tree had been following Kim Gi-Wu around to visit various construction sites countless times by now. Which meant he had picked up on a few things, too. Didn't the old saying go, 'the sparrow near a school will eventually sing a primer'?

If a house was built far too poorly in Kim Gi-Wu's judgment, he even had it completely torn down and start over. Having said that, though, most of the finished houses could simply be fixed with a little touch here and there, so that's what they did in the end.

Still, the situation continued to improve with time. Seriously now, if the workers kept messing up building such simple houses then heaven forbid, it'd be impossible to help them out anymore.

Kim Gi-Wu steadily increased the scale of the construction as the skill level of the workers improved. The number of projects related to construction wasn't going to run out any time soon, anyway.

After dealing with the housing issue, various other buildings and structures had to be constructed, and not to forget, a road network had to be laid out, too. And once the ships were completed, ports would have to be built, as well. Eventually, they would have to work on water control measures, too.

One of these days, they would also get to build a bridge spanning that massive river. Of course, that would be a story reserved for the distant future.

*

He paid a lot of attention to the construction projects, but his main role remained that of ruling the tribe that had grown massively in size. As such, Kim Gi-Wu was saddled with many, many things to deal with. That resulted in a steady decline in his sleeping hours.

'This can't go on.'

Not simply because of the physical fatigue, either. Ruling the tribe without any clear plan was slowly but surely reaching its limit by now.

The majority of his orders were transmitted via one mouth to another. Most of the management team members were still greenhorns yet the administrative work had to be done word-of-mouth, resulting in far too many things getting left out. It felt like none of the work was panning out properly.

'I've already done almost everything that I could in the areas of three necessities in life. Which means...'

...Which meant that it was now time to get rid of an inefficiency in the administration of the tribe.

The most urgent matter to resolve was, as expected...

'...The availability of paper and writing tools, huh.'

Honestly speaking, making writing tools was pretty easy. You only needed to mix graphite and clay at a fixed ratio and bake the mixture to get the pencil lead, after all. Making ink was even simpler, too.

There were no rubber trees around here to manufacture erasers, so the bread would have to do for now.

As for the production of paper, Kim Gi-Wu had been making appropriate preparations for a while now. A ton of other projects requiring his immediate attention meant that he couldn't focus all that much on the paper production, so he instead entrusted the research and development process to a handful of skilled artisans.

Obviously, it was impossible to get good-quality paper in large quantities like in the modern world. The artisans had to repeatedly practice each of the steps from making pulps to extracting paper so that they could figure out a way to get better-quality end products.

Thankfully, Kim Gi-Wu's bag also contained a detailed explanation of the paper manufacturing process. Well, the paper remained important regardless of the era, after all. The explanation from the future thankfully saved them from going through countless trials and errors.

"Very good. This is acceptable. Thank you for your hard work, everyone."

"Great Chief, you seem to be finally happy with our end product, sir! Hahaha!"

"That's right. This is good enough to meet the minimum standards for use. For the time being, at least."

"Heok?! D-does that mean...?"

"Ng? Of course, you guys need to keep improving this. Look at this part over here, for instance. Even you can see it's not as good as it can be, right?"

"I-is that so, sir? Haha... ha..."

The man who'd be recorded in history as Creek's first-ever paper maker, Refreshing Raindrop's complexion rapidly darkened after hearing what his Great Chief had to say.

Kim Gi-Wu chuckled a little and tried to lighten the artisan's burdens somewhat. "Don't worry, though. We'll use this paper for the time being, anyway. More importantly, though, can you mass produce this paper?"

"If we have enough workers, then yes, it will be possible, Great Chief."

"I'll make sure that happens. I'll build a huge paper factory for you, so do your best in producing lots of paper in there."

"I shall, Great Chief."

Kim Gi-Wu always followed through with his promises. The mass production of paper was an absolute necessity if he wanted to reform the tribe's administration, and that's why he decided to expedite the construction of the paper factory

.

And through the blood, sweat, and tears of Refreshing Raindrop, now hired as the manager of the paper factory. The foundation of paper mass production was being laid down little by little.

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