62 All Road Lead to Rome

Felipe looked at Antonio's letters as he was sitting in the big office of the embassy. 

He has taken over the Embassy in Washington.

The house was large but not that large; it was big enough to have multiple offices. This created a way for Antonio to set up his own office while not getting into the actual office of the ambassador. 

He has seen many people like Antonio at the beginning of the Empire, cowards encouraged by a false sense of power. He was not interested in him, but he was more than interested in many letters in English. 

He destroyed the office of Antonio… well, his soldiers did; they destroyed everything that could be used as a hiding place. They brought back a lot of papers, letters, and receipts, and he even asked the soldiers to look through the burnt papers at the fireplaces as they would usually leave unburnt papers.

Nonetheless, that was not the case, so he was left to go through most of the things. 

A knock on the door sounded. 

"Come in."

"Your majesty, we found a yellow tube… the other guys said it is acerbic… we are not…"

"Sure."

"There is another thing." He said as he got it and left a letter on the table. 

"Thanks." Felipe quickly took the letter and opened it without caring and saw it was a letter written by the President himself.

Many people reported the incident, so the President decided to jump ahead of everything and straight out pardon him for duelling in the district of Washington, D.C. That was how it was categorized and put in the records. 

No one is trying to defend the acting consulate of a foreign nation, at least no one with good intentions toward him or the country. 

"I got horny, and I almost left here without checking on Mauricio… His body will be a soup of worms if I send him back to the Empire… I will try to bury him here and find a catholic priest or Something." Felipe said as he inhaled and exhaled, not knowing what to do. 

For the past weeks, the acting ambassador has been communicating with multiple people, and then the explosion of the multiple-match factory became more obscure as he quickly put one another together. Ha had previously thought it was a design of the factory, but now, it looked more like an evil plot.

All he knew was that he had obtained a whole new week of stay in America as he would do everything he could to find Something he thought was there.

——

The Colombian Empire.

A few weeks ago.

A whole bunch of people worked as stone managers, and many carried stones up and down as they made a whole wall across mountains. 

The whole mountainside was barren, while there were gigantic constructions of terraces.

The construction of terraces has been incredibly beneficial for the creation of roads on the side of the mountains, and at the same time, they have begun yielding fruits that would normally not appear in such elevations.

They have to stabilize all the mountains on the side and all the mountains on the side where the road will go.

And so a huge effort to do terraces and roads began. That was mainly to connect the Capital with its surroundings for a smoother path.

The current tracks were now being made of a passage in the second mountain range of the country, connecting the valleys between the first and the second mountain range to the valleys between the second and third mountain range.

It was harsh architecture, but a plan was made, so the clearing of the mountainsides where everything would go started six years ago, and now seven roads have been completed.

Nonetheless, it was being debated whether to make the roads train tracks instead of normal roads.

The roads could hold two train tracks and three if pushed, as they were all made up to standard.

Nonetheless, the amount of people employed for that was rather insane. 

They could only pay with food and a bit of money every day. It was harsh work, and it was normally done by Imperial Slaves and freed slaves after their seven years of servitude.

Still, the terraces have proved good at producing food, from tomatoes to potatoes, in very chilly places.

The Empire owned the land as they made everything possible to make things cheap.

The Empire owned the terrace farming as they continued to provide food for all the people working the harsh workload that was the creation of roads and terraces.

The same thing was happening in Peru; since they were the Royals of Peru and had huge amounts of power within the defacto government, they pushed for the creation of the Terraces.

They brought the creation of the terraces from the Incan Empire. It would be a very harsh form of the plantation as they would need rocks to make them stable, but in places where the mountain was stable enough, they have been using normal terraces made out of dirt alone.

There was even a testing ground on the Pacific coast of the Empire where, due to the planet's climate, it created one of the biggest rainforests in the Empire, second to the Amazon territory.

"Huh?" Horacio looked at the letter he had delivered. It was from the imperial office, meaning it was from the Price.

'A fleet enough to combat the fleet of the French.'

He stayed there for a few minutes, repeatedly looking at the letter. He began to think over and over again.

Horacio was the imperial chief architect of the Andean Road. He was not in charge of the Peruvian Roads, only the ones of the Empire.

He has been busy planning the roads on what is now Ecuador and its coasts and the valleys between the first and second mountain ranges to the Pacific coast. But any meaningful progress now was all the roads must lead to Rome! Meaning the Capital! All the roads must lead to Bogota, a city 2 Kilometers above sea level, resting in a small valley of the 3rd Mountain range.

He has had to train stone machines, reach for quarries, displace tons of earth at a time and battle deadly diseases that have killed hundreds in the task of connecting the Empire.

Many skilled machines have appeared on his watch and have been promoted to obtain more responsibilities.

In the Empire, there was a lack of men who could do hard work, which was impressive because they had just been through multiple years of war.

And with over a million people, the country was currently struggling.

"Are we going to war with France!?" He said out loud as he got out of his place and looked at the emerald-coloured mountain in front of him.

He was not the main naval engineer, but he got to make the Shipyards on the Atlantic coast of the Empire a few years ago.

He squinted his face as he kept his arms inside his Ruana, thinking the amount of logistics everything required in the card would require.

The amount of timber, the treatment of the wood, and everything in between was too much.

"Tch…"

Oder ordered that he would truly make ships; he would not have to travel to the Pacific coast as begging.

He was truly loyal to the Prince; he understood how much work a leader must put into keeping a country afloat and progressing.

"Imperial order…. I have to pick who will be watching over it."

——

Meanwhile, in the Imperial Senate.

"The Prince gets a taste of absolute power, then decides to make himself dictator! And because the crown Prince of the Colombian Empire was not enough, he gave himself the title of Grand Duke of Venezuela. My fellow countrymen, why did we fight for? For another tyrant on the throne or freedom?"

"Exactly!"

"Yeah!"

"Silence!" The President of the Senate yelled upon the disarray of the members of the Senate. 

The whole Senate resembled a university classroom, but everyone had a desk without much privacy and arranged a big pie slide. So, if a person were to speak to the Senate and the President of the Senate, they would have to get up and arrive at one of the two podiums while the opposition party would stand on the other, where he would get the time to speak. 

The President represented the Emperor in the Senate, so he had an agenda. He was to moderate discussion but would vote if the vote was tied, just like the USA's Vice President. 

The Imperial Prime minister was absent; there were different branches, and it would be their job to make laws for the Senate to pass even though the Senate elects the Prime Minister and the people elect the Senate. 

"Oh, please, we all know the only reason why his royal majesty had to become a dictator was that people like you ran the country to the ground, ignoring our laws and rebelling, costing precious lives!" The opposition speaker said. 

There was clapping nonstop before it went down. 

"When His Majesty the Emperor and the Prince arrived in this land, we were in constant warfare and common violence! Now, we are a huge exporter of Sugar Cane and have the luxury to richly feed all the subjects of his majesty the Emperor! Laws proposed Prince himself! All the abundance, the fact that we can discuss the fact of fancy titles and not how many people are dying out of famine is thanks to his majesty, so shut up, you ungrateful son of a bitch!"

The claps were even louder this time as the momentum grew, and the President quickly calmed everyone down. 

"You will be fined for violating floor rules." He said, annoyed. 

"I am sorry, president."

"Not cutting it." He said as he announced the fine. 

"President, I do hold his majesty the Prince in high regard for what he did in the past, but the fact is, he just unilaterally set us on the path to war with France and allied ourselves with a country full of previous slaves! It is not enough that we are struggling to maintain the dictatorship he has created in Venezuela; we are also to go to war with a superpower… I don't have to be a genius that this is a bad idea, President; please, let's bring back common sense." The leader of the opposition said.

"Senator Osorio has the word."

"Thank you, President… first I will clarify Something: Mr. President, His Majesty the Prince didn't give himself the position of Grand Duke of Venezuela; his father did on the petition of his Majesty the King of Bolivia! So please get your facts right before accusing someone… second of all, this Empire only exists because his majesty has sacrificed so much of his profit from his companies to keep this country running that we should not think twice about going to war with whomever the Prince asks us to go to war with! Especially because we are his majesty the Emperor's subjects… that is not a thing we decide; it is our duty! We have already defeated a major power; why so afraid of another?"

Claps began to rain as there was some pride. 

The senator didn't wait for the word, and the President didn't care as the other party was done.

"Mr. President, I have reported that 2 out of the three biggest match factories of his majesty have been blown in the past weeks… the only reason why his majesty is in the USA is to go and solve the collapse of his business empire! Yes, his majesty has been funding this country, yet what happens when the money runs dry!? We will be in a failed state in no time! This is not time for a war or mobilization of resources for a war… we just came out of a war, for god's sake." He sat on his chair behind the podium to show he was done speaking while all the senators who supported him drowned the room with their claps. 

"You should have more faith; after all, it was his majesty that brought us out of the misery we were in. He fought a war! He centralized power! If he wants to go to war, we go to war… moreover, this is not our decision to go to war but the military Senate! And we are not going to war! We are preparing for one; that is what any country should do to defend their seas and borders." Osorio sat down. 

"Faith… that is all the opposition has to rely on… the facts speak louder than words… we are not ready for a war. Having said this, I put forward a motion of military interjection to prevent this militarization while there is not enough money."

"… I am afraid this is not possible; the armament of our navy is not only supported by his majesty the Emperor but also by his majesty the King of Bolivia… the militarization of the navy not only serves the goal of preventing the harassment of our ally the kingdom of Haiti by the French but also serves the foreign ambitions of expansion overseas... thus under imperial decree, this and any further interjection that prevents the current naval plans would be stricken down." The President said as he hit the gavel on a piece of wood.