Chapter 4: Civilization Development, Begin!

TL: A_Passing_Wanderer

ED: Chrissy

"Spirit Chief, just why did you even propagate these things? I no longer feel confident that we can even eat these things..."

"What do you mean, eat them?"

"...Huh? Wait, are you implying that we didn't harvest them for the purpose of food?"

"Of course."

Upright Tree's expression cramped up a little, which was a rare thing to see. With eyes saying that he couldn't understand the logic, he stared at Kim Gi-Wu, waiting.

In a way, his reaction was unsurprising. He had to put in a lot of hard work harvesting this new crop under the blazing sun only to be told that he couldn't eat them, after all.

"In that case, why did we even raise this crop, Chief?"

"To make this, of course." Kim Gi-Wu replied while pointing to himself.

"C-c-could it be that a new spirit will be born from these things?!"

"Wha? Fu-hahahahat!"

"...Was I wrong?"

"Obviously! How can a spirit be born from plants?"

Of course, Kim Gi-Wu himself wasn't a spirit, but he didn't feel the need to shatter Upright Tree's fantasy today.

"I wasn't talking about myself, but my clothes."

"Your clothes...? Ah!"

Only then did Upright Tree figure out what Kim Gi-Wu was talking about.

"Spirit Chief, could it be... all these things are cotton?"

"I knew it. You're indeed really quick on the uptake."

Kim Gi-Wu was convinced that this village had never cultivated cotton before. He couldn't find any traces of such an activity, after all. Which meant that what little cotton found in the village had to have come from the outside through trading. But their quality wasn't much to speak of.

That's why today was Upright Tree's first time ever seeing raw cotton wool.

"All this wool will soon become clothing for everyone in our village. It's been a struggle trying to import cotton from outside, hasn't it? And on top of that, they cost a lot and there never is enough supply, too."

"..."

Upright Tree dazedly alternated his gaze between Kim Gi-Wu's clothes and the cotton wool currently being dried under the sun. He eventually regained his wits and let out an exclamation. "Ah! All these bunches of wool... If they all become clothing, then...!"

"At the very least, all the villagers will get to wear pretty good clothes in a few years."

Whenever Kim Gi-Wu spotted the villagers walking around almost buck-naked, he couldn't help but think that he needed to manufacture proper clothing as soon as possible.

To achieve that goal, he diligently prepared everything during his free time so that the textile manufacturing, including processing cotton, spinning and weaving threads, etc., could proceed ahead smoothly later. He did all this while teaching the villagers new farming methods to raise various crops.

Upright Tree had finally come to understand what Kim Gi-Wu's preparations were for. "Which means all those contraptions you made us create with wood were for this purpose!"

"It's as you say. And I think the cotton has dried out sufficiently, so it's about time we get started."

Upright Tree had been wondering why he and his fellow villagers had to construct strange contraptions until now. But listening to Kim Gi-Wu helped him figure out everything at that very moment.

'Truly amazing...'

At the same time, Upright Tree sensed his respect and awe towards the village's Spirit Chief soar even higher.

Completely oblivious to the young man's thoughts, Kim Gi-Wu proceeded to transport the sun-dried cotton wool to the spinning and weaving building with the help of the villagers.

Unfortunately, spinning and weaving could only be performed through the old-school DIY type method.

To remove the seeds, one had to hand-spin the cotton gin from both sides while feeding it with the dried cotton wool. That would separate the cotton fiber from the seeds.

Next up in the process was scutching the fibers using bowstrings to remove the remaining seeds and other impurities. Then the fibers would be rolled into yarns, fed into the spinning wheel manufactured earlier, and weaved into threads. All said and done, they should be able to manufacture fairly good-quality threads this way.

And using these threads to manufacture fabric should result in good-enough quality clothing.

'As I thought, making a single piece of fabric requires a lot of workers.'

To make matters worse, they didn't have advanced woodworking tools available, resulting in the textile manufacturing machines being crude and shabby in construction.

As such, there wasn't much he could do about the uneven quality of the manufactured cotton fabric. That was one thing, but the manufacturing process for the fabric itself turned out to be considerably cumbersome, too.

If he had his way, he would have dearly loved to construct hydro-powered spinning machines or even the ones powered by steam. But that was a distant story still very far ahead in the future. At least a few decades, he wagered.

The mechanized spinning machinery was an integral part of Kim Gi-Wu's plans, and that's why he made sure to bring their blueprints with him. They were currently slumbering quietly inside his bag, waiting for their turn to shine.

If one wanted to get technical about it, the Industrial Revolution that swept across Britain got its fuse lit through the birth of fully-mechanized textile machines. No wonder Kim Gi-Wu found their existence absolutely crucial.

'And this location is pretty much perfect, too.'

This area boasted such a great climate to raise cotton that some people even referred to it as America's central cotton manufacturing hub. Indeed, this place possessed all the perfect environmental factors suited for cotton production.

It was crystal clear that these factors would play a vital role in advancing the manufacturing industries. And after his plan for those machines came to fruition, the Industrial Revolution of this place would end up holding even more significance than the one about to take place in Britain during the previous timeline.

Britain back then imported all the raw cotton, converted them into fabric in great numbers at low cost, and sold them on to kickstart their manufacturing industries. Compared to them, though, Kim Gi-Wu had no need to import anything.

All he needed to do here was to grow a lot of cotton in his own backyard, process them, and sell them on, after all!

He didn't know how long he'd have to wait until then, but regardless of what, he was greatly looking forward to that day.

*

Later that year...

Kim Gi-Wu's involvement in the food and fabric production was almost over. The textile manufacturing process did require a lot of workers but the methods themselves were not difficult, after all. He could be more hands-off now, having passed on most of the necessary knowledge to the villagers.

Since that's the case, it was time to move on to the next phase of his plan. The preparation for that had already advanced quite a lot by now, however.

Kim Gi-Wu didn't waste any time and turned around to leave.

"Spirit Chief. You've arrived."

"Yes. How is the work going?"

"It's been fine so far. We're doing as you have instructed us."

"Mm."

Kim Gi-Wu inspected every facet of their work to spot any potential problems. He knew that one mistake here could lead to a dangerous situation later on.

As for where he was looking...

...There were three shaft furnaces about two meters tall currently being erected there. These furnaces were constructed out of soil, stone, and some other wooden materials.

They were most likely the very first furnaces to be built in the entire American continent.

Next to the furnaces was a mound of iron sand. This was merely a portion of what Kim Gi-Wu and the village managed to procure after going through a lot of hardship but, even after all their efforts, the procured quantity was disappointingly small. Still, it was better than nothing.

To develop an iron mine, first, you needed tough, durable mining tools made out of steel. That's why he was thankful for getting his hands on some iron sand, at least.

The spot next to the iron sand pile was taken up by charcoal, prepared earlier by burning trees, and calcium powder, which they acquired by grinding animal bones.

"May I ask you about something, Spirit Chief?"

While Kim Gi-Wu was standing there, enjoying the view of America's first iron-smelting furnaces, Wide Leaf cautiously opened his mouth.

"What is it? Don't worry about it and ask me."

"Chief, what exactly are you thinking of doing with these... things?"

Kim Gi-Wu smirked softly. He wasn't mocking Wide Leaf here, of course. It's just that, whenever he set out to do something, the tribesmen would always ask him the same question, wondering what the strange new contraptions could even be.

It felt like he had already answered this very question – the question of furnaces' intended purpose – several times by now, too. And he gave the same answer to Wide Leaf he had already given to others. "What do you mean, what? I'm trying to make steel."

"Steel... you say?"

"Should I say it's kinda like really strong copper? So strong that, once we get to refine it properly, copper won't even compare to it in raw strength."

"Such a thing really exists?"

"Wait and you'll see. Follow my instructions to the letter and you'll soon find out."

The tribesmen already knew about copper, gold, and silver. But they still had no idea about iron or steel. So, even if Kim Gi-Wu tried to explain it to them now, they wouldn't understand it.

"Alright, then. Let's begin, everyone!"

Kim Gi-Wu proceeded to fill up the furnace for real. Of course, all of his hard work mostly involved flapping his gums. Well, he had plenty of labor force provided by the village's menfolk, after all!

Iron sand and charcoal were piled on top of each other in alternating layers while the calcium powder – the lime – was added liberally throughout. And then, the whole thing was lit on fire.

Of course, this mixture was not supposed to be left alone. They needed to raise the temperature inside by blowing air through the blowhole using the fireside bellows.

"Begin!"

"Yes, Chief!"

Right after Kim Gi-Wu issued that command, three men tasked with blowing air began pushing and pulling at the bellows. It looked like they were rowing an oar.

You needed the temperature to be between 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Celcius to get good quality steel. But the currently available tools meant that achieving such temperature was unfeasible. Ten times out of ten, they should end up with wrought iron that boasted a very low carbon content.

Not only that but eliminating the impurities like vanadium and titanium contained in iron sand was, realistically speaking, impossible at this stage. Any metallic items crafted out of such wrought iron should be crude at best.

Even so, Kim Gi-Wu chose to be satisfied with the simple fact that they were actually refining steel at this early stage.

"Oh, ooooh!"

"Fire Spirit has descended among us!"

"Oh, my word!"

Before long, quite a number of villagers had shown up to spectate near the furnace site. They had been showing a great deal of interest ever since the furnaces were getting built, openly wondering what kind of a bizarre new contraption Kim Gi-Wu was making this time.

And now that the operation was underway, it wasn't so surprising to see them turn up in a big crowd.

To their eyes, the powerfully billowing flames gushing up into the heavens looked like the descent of the Fire Spirit. It seemed that they were under the impression that Kim Gi-Wu used his spirit power to summon the noble Fire Spirit.

The evidence of that was the tribesmen busy prostrating on the ground towards the furnace.

However, Kim Gi-Wu didn't try to correct them. Doing that would only waste his energy for no reason. Besides, these flames could help with elevating his status even higher in the village, too.

"Hey, you need to blow in a constant quantity of air! I told you, it's no good if the quantity fluctuates like that!"

"Y-yes, Chief!"

"You, throw in more charcoal! More, more! Stop! It's dangerous, so get away from the fire!"

To prevent any accidents, Kim Gi-Wu diligently supervised the smelting process. As expected, this was the villagers' first time smelting iron and as such, they were noticeably sloppy. That's why he needed to keep his wits about him and control the operation.

Time ticked by relentlessly. Before long, though, slags were extracted from the taphole. That indicated that they had reached the last part of the smelting process.

Eventually...

At the end of the process, they were able to get their hands on the components for steel left behind on the furnace's floor. A broad smile was plastered all over on Kim Gi-Wu's face.

'Finally, we're about to enter the Iron Age.'

His heart fluttered when that thought bubbled up in his head. It felt like his adrenaline was entering overdrive.

The 'object' that closed the curtains in the Neolithic Age was now finally in his hands.

It wasn't for no reason why so many experts in the 'field' chose to divide the different ages into the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages. That's how the usage of bronze tools, and beyond that, iron tools, went on to completely transform the lives of primitive men.

Of course, the North American region would never get to experience its own Bronze Age, all thanks to Kim Gi-Wu's meddling. But that's because the people of this place would simply bypass the ultimately-restrictive Bronze Age and enter the Iron Age straightaway.

'Wait, didn't this also happen back in the original history, too?'

If the original history of America was one where the outside factors forced the changes in the Ages, then from this moment on, that change in Ages would come from within America itself.

...Even if the so-called New World was behind the Old World by thousand-plus years in entering the Iron Age.

'Wait for me. We'll catch up to you soon enough.'

The current gulp in technology between the New World and the Old World should not persist for long if he had his way. Kim Gi-Wu swore to himself once more that America's civilization will catch up to that of Europe and Asia as soon as possible.

*

The state of the Creek tribe had flipped on its head after its inhabitants came in contact with this foreign object called 'iron' and the production of cotton-based fabric.

"Hunting has become so much easier, everyone. Oh, oh! To think there would be stone as hard as this!"

"That's not all! The clothes made out of cotton wool are so much smoother than the ones we got before, and we even have a lot of supply, too!"

"And it became so much easier to gather the children (farm produce) of the sacred lands, too. This is all thanks to the blessings of our Spirit Chief."

"Ah, aaah! How incredible and noble is the wisdom of the Spirits!"

The level of fervor displayed by the young and strong warriors during the current tribal meeting was noticeably fever-pitched. Some of them even became too emotional and teared up, too.

The gazes of respect and adulation poured out in Kim Gi-Wu's way.

But that was unsurprising, really. Despite many impurities, it was still 'steel', after all. Sure, it was just wrought iron, but even that was incomparably better than stone tools they had been utilizing until now.

Even the refining process was relatively simpler, too - compared to all the effort required to sharpen stone tools, smelting iron was in another realm of simplicity.

What about the cotton-based textiles, then? The completed textiles were still a long way off from being top-tier quality since the manufacturing process was still in its infancy. But most of the villagers had already realized that things would only improve further in the future.

Not too long from now, the majority of the villagers would get to wear clothes on both their upper and lower halves in their daily lives.

< 4. Civilization Development, Begin! > Fin.