Chapter 6 Nature Conservation and Coke Oven

Making iron is not that complicated in theory.

In short, when carbon reacts with iron ore (iron oxide), it strips away the oxygen leaving metallic iron. It's just middle school level chemistry knowledge.

For a long time in history the carbon used for the oxidation-reduction process was wood, or in other words, charcoal. The thing is, it consumed loads of wood.

No matter how much iron ore your country has access to, you can't produce iron if you don't have enough wood.

Even the United Kingdom, which possessed ample supply of iron ore and sophisticated smelting techniques, once had to import iron from iron-rich Sweden. Because they chopped down too many trees from forests and mountains for land reclamation and shipbuilding materials, they experienced a shortage of wood.

Meanwhile, Sweden had abundant access to wood and made use of that for iron production. They exported iron overseas, amassing great fortune and became powerful enough to be called the Baltic Empire.

What broke the status quo was the invention of coke smelting by the Darby father and son in England.

In coal, aside from carbon there are also other impurities mixed in, like sulfur. When you smelt iron with coal, sulfur will react with iron to form iron sulfide thus making the metal brittle.

Therefore by baking coal in an airless environment—a process called dry distillation—impurities are removed leaving us with high purity carbon. This is called coke.

Fortunately, the bald mountains of Britain contained abundant coal. Thanks to the invention of coke, the UK became self-sufficient in iron.

In short!

Baldness is a sin.

"That's the gist of it, do you understand?"

"Hm, I think I get it, Your Majesty."

Hercule explained about coke to the dwarven man with beard plaited into three braids and wrapped around his neck—a rather peculiar fashion among dwarves.

Dwarves and elves were fellow brethren who had supported the Lemurian Empire since way back; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they were partner races.

They were good with their hands, physically strong and proficient at spirit arts just like elves. Because of their close relation to elves, their life spans were second only to elves at an average of 150 years.

However, they were very different in appearance.

Elves had fair skin and thin body hair, they were tall and had slender limbs, their faces were well-featured for the most part.

On the other hand, dwarves… had dark skin, thick body hair, short and stout limbs, and short stature, and their looks could not be described as elegant even as a compliment…

So their appearances were almost the exact opposites. Because of that, it seems they were always in conflict when they first came into contact with each other. But things changed when Lemulos founded the Lemurian City-State and conquered the dwarven tribes.

To tell the truth, the race called elves was bad at manufacturing… no, at working in general. They preferred to play around rather than work, and even more than playing around—they loved warfare.

In fact, elves mainly made use of spirit arts to wage wars.

Their long, slender limbs that possessed physical strength several times those of humans; their sense of balance honed by the treetop lifestyle; and being originally a hunting race, elves' natural born fighting instinct showed its true worth in warfare.

They were basically like this:

"Whatever, I'll start trying next year."

"Wish there were some cute chicks (hot boys) here."

"Farming is too much work, don't you think?"

"I'd rather get wet from the rain than build a stupid house!"

"Do we really need to wear clothes? If we have to sew clothing for everyone, isn't it better to just all be naked?"

Yet once they went to war, elves would transform into excellent warriors who would strike down one enemy after another.

On the other hand, dwarves were poor at warfare. They weren't tall; their short limbs were awkward for wielding weapons. They had high ability to concentrate; minute work was their forte… yet they were poor at making on-the-fly judgments on the battlefield. And compared to the elves who had a herd mentality, the individually-oriented dwarves were bad at cooperating with each other, so they weren't able to form ranks.

The elves who were good at warfare but awful at making weapons and building houses.

The dwarves who were terrible at warfare but skillful at making weapons and building houses.

Their encounter was momentous.

Henceforth, the dwarves became the backbone of Lemurian manufacturing.

This is off-topic, but in contrast to the elves who worked hard to keep their blood pure yet continued to become more and more mixed with other races, dwarves did not have this trouble and their half-blooded population remained practically non-existent.

…The reason should be obvious.

Their partner could only be another dwarf! That was inevitable, since both dwarven men and women were so… hairy.

As another trivia, there were no bald dwarves. While bald elves were dime a dozen.

"But where did Your Majesty learn of this? Or did you come up with it yourself?"

"Nah, I just read about it in a book. Forgot which one."

Coke was not Hercule's invention; it was invented by some great person in the past. So Hercule didn't lie that he came up with coke, nor did he feel proud of it. But having the knowledge was an advantage, so he wasn't going to beat himself up over it.

Between the knowledgable Hercule and the unknowledgeable others, the knowledgable Hercule was undoubtedly a little greater.

World history has already proved that plagiarism is justice. It's plagiarized people who are in the wrong.

"So, do you think you can do it?"

"Basically, it's the same principle as not letting wood come into contact with air when making charcoal. I think it's plenty possible, should be quite simple even. I can probably work out the production theory in a month. And if you give me half a year, I will build the most optimal furnace for making coke."

"Just as expected from a dwarf."

"But of course, Your Majesty."

The dwarven man laughed in a husky voice.

"Your Majesty seems unusually enthusiastic about this."

"Rude. I'm a prudent ruler who is always keen on politics."

Hercule replied to Christos. The other man smiled wryly.

"What's your motive really, Your Majesty?"

"Carolina asked me, 'Are you going to end the financial reforms at domestic affairs?'"

Considering that it's Hercule, he of course had a secret, true motive.

"But is there really a need to go that far to protect forests?"

"Huh… This is unexpected. I thought you'd be the first to offer your support."

Hearing Hercule's words, Christos tilted his head.

"The wood previously used for iron smelting can now serve other purposes… Like building ships for example."

With that, Christos clapped his hand in realization.

The current Lemurian Empire was a maritime power. To maintain its formidable navy and build huge trade vessels, they needed big, durable wood for ship keels.

Aside from agriculture and forestry, Hercule's multilateral forest protection policy was also centrally linked to commerce and military affairs.

"So, are there any objections?"

"I see… Anyway, how exactly do you plan to protect the forests?"

"A sudden ban would cause chaos to the economy, so for the time being I will nationalize all forests in the empire. The villages that regularly use those forests will gain exclusive access to them under supervision."

Hercule devised this policy with the famous economic theory "Tragedy of the Commons" in mind.

To explain the gist of "Tragedy of the Commons": "Because public lands belong to no one, people will exploit them according to their self-interest until those lands get ruined. But private lands owned by a specific group of people are utilized in a more systematic way and don't get devastated." The environmental destruction of modern Earth is the most striking example.

As an aside, the Kyoto Protocol which restricts greenhouse gas emission was also based on this "Tragedy of the Commons" theory.

Forests in the Lemurian Empire were naturally public lands, belonging to no one. Currently, large merchants could cut down trees as they saw fit for timber. To put a stop to this, he intended to turn Lemurian forests from "everyone's property" to "surrounding villagers' property". This way, he expected preservation to be carried out to some extent.

Though he didn't hope that forest protection would go all that well. This was only the first step, the preliminary process.

"As people profit from the forests, I will oblige them to plant new trees and make periodic reports. I'm not sure how well afforestation will go. Also… The villagers will be in charge of exploiting the forests, the wood sales rights will belong to timber guilds just like usual. All sales have to go through timber guilds, that way we can regulate the wood price inside the Empire to an extent; and we can also monitor so that they won't chop down trees excessively."

The point of giving guilds exclusive rights is to monitor them.

It was impossible to monitor the forests with the current situation of people coming and going and chopping down trees without anyone' knowledge, but it would become quite simple if he restricted the number of people who could use the forests.

Rather than having the state do afforestation, it would cost much less if he could make the people do it half-voluntarily.

"Ah, that's right…"

"What's the matter?"

"We'll collect some mushrooms like truffles as tribute as well."

Mushrooms procured directly from the source would be much safer than the ones bought from the market, and since they would be fresh they'd taste better as well. Hercule puffed up his chest in anticipation.

In this world that was lacking in pleasures, reading, eating, and Carolina were the few things he had to enjoy.

"Speaking of the merits of forest protection, there's also soil fertility… It has a connection to the development of the fishing industry as well."

"Can you elaborate?"

"Water containing nutrients from the forests will flow into the ocean."

It's also a countermeasure against tsunami… Hercule started to list out the merits of forest protection in his mind, and the longer he thought about it the more merits there turned out to be. It was an ingenious policy if he had to say so himself.

Hercule sang his own praises.

"In any case, we will regulate lumbering to start with. We have to wait for the dwarves to start producing coke, but it will take quite some time for coke to be used widely. Well, these are only the preliminary arrangements… We'll have to invest in coal mining as well."

There's no shortage of coal mines in the Empire; but Hadrianus III only focused on gold and silver and did not invest in expanding coal production…

The mined volume would increase for sure if the government made a large investment; Hercule thought.

"Come to think of it, there's no guild specialized in coal… Should we monopolize it, or shall we entrust it to the firewood guilds…"

Hercule muttered audibly as he thought about the next policy.