nucmednet Chapter 59 Harvest Season Chapter
Chapter 59 Harvest Season Chapter
Ah, it's autumn.
Alice stretched out her hand, and the wind blew the red leaves down, slowly sliding them into her palm. Several months of peace had brought the North a rare opportunity for development.
By integrating various jurisdictions and establishing a broad land system, and incorporating it into the national education system, people take to the streets and enjoy this different yet peaceful daily life.
Alice bent down, tucked her hair behind her ear with one hand, and picked up the leaf with the other. The golden maple leaf was clearly falling, and time passed quickly, but it had no meaning for the vampires, nor for her.
Looking up, Trian had been completely transformed. In front of her was a modernized street with three lanes marked on the asphalt road. The sidewalks on both sides of the road were slightly higher than the road, and trees and streetlights were arranged at designed intervals.
Every now and then, two or three people would walk by on either side of the street, and several horse-drawn carriages would cross the intersection under the guidance of traffic lights, carrying goods for sale.
The tranquility was soon shattered by a roar, and Alice looked toward the sound—and suddenly saw something—the sound broke the silence, but she didn't dislike it; life couldn't always be peaceful—she saw a black silhouette speeding toward her.
“Saines?”
“Whoa! Whew... Ah, Princess Alice, I'm sorry... but you saw it.”
Sainz shrugged and got off the creation called "the car." Alice looked at the car, which was not an early steam car, nor an early three-wheeled car, but a real four-wheeled car—although it had many symbols of the steam age, and although it was not much different from a horse-drawn carriage.
"I think you should clear out its name."
"Ford Model T".
“That’s right, Your Highness Alice. We’ve obtained the relevant information on the Ford Model T. The only thing we need to crack is our own brain. The internal combustion engine isn’t a problem. At least for now, we don’t need to innovate.”
Alice stepped forward and stroked its smooth exterior. The car's industrial-looking frame was painted with a glossy black paint. Unlike the original Ford Model T, Sainz's car had modern car brakes—disc brakes—and the wheels were made of metal.
But that wasn't the point. Alice meticulously examined every detail of the car. She looked up at Sainz, as if trying to confirm something. Sainz noticed Alice's question, nodded, and uttered a single word:
"Assembly line production."
"Assembly line production."
Alice repeated the word. They both knew very well what assembly line production meant, and that the adoption of assembly line production in national strategic industrial projects such as automobiles meant that the country's industrialization was beginning to take shape.
Although the Ford Model T can be considered primitive by today's standards, its very existence signifies the beginning of the discovery of a nation's enormous production capacity.
“We transferred the automotive technology to the Industrial Council, which established the National Automotive Industry Ministry. The Automotive Industry Ministry decided to open an automotive factory in Shira and Trianchine respectively – but we still need supporting facilities. We are discussing whether to adopt clustered or discrete production.”
Alice remained noncommittal, stating that discrete manufacturing is the future trend, but currently there are no manufacturers capable of supplying parts to the automotive industry—the key question is whether there are any, not how many.
Want to come up for a drive?
Sainz shook the car keys in his hand with a cool air. Alice thought to herself that she was a licensed driver in her previous life, but right now, it was obvious that her dress was not suitable for driving—as long as Alicia was in the Red House, she would have a hard time changing into pants.
"Thank you for your kindness, Dean Sainz."
Holding up her dress, Alice got into the passenger seat, while Saines rolled up the windshield.
"Um, Raffis—"
The maid knight trotted over, carrying gardening shears. Alice looked at her and said, "Um, I need to go out with Dean Seins."
"We're going to the Trian National Demonstration Farm!"
Sainz gave Raffis an OK sign, started the car, the roar of the internal combustion engine broke the silence, black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe, and the wheels turned.
“We produced the first batch of 20 cars using the experimental version of the car production line, and this one is in the best condition.”
The car was already attracting a lot of attention as it drove on the road, but Alice sitting in the passenger seat was even more eye-catching. Many people marveled at the sight of this horseless carriage.
"how?"
"Actually, manufacturing cars is not much different from manufacturing horse-drawn carriages, except that they have an engine and a rotating mechanism. However, we still have many shortcomings, so... we also sought help from the Magic Industrial Laboratory to build this car."
"Miss Anna?"
“That’s right. The discarded magic crystals there provided us with excellent materials. We even tried using magic crystal spark plugs to start fires.”
"How's the effect?"
"As you can see, it's passable. At least it's much better than the spark plugs we make ourselves. Thanks to her etched circuit, the magic spark plug has an 85% ignition success rate, while our own spark plugs only have about 50%."
"The road ahead is still long."
"That's right, it's still a long way off... By the way, while we have this time, the National Academy of Sciences would like to give you a comprehensive overview of our achievements: the Agricultural Science Laboratory, the Railway Equipment Development Group, the Steam Power Group, the Magic Industry Laboratory, the National Communications Industry Department, the Ship Power Laboratory, and the Amelansi Armory..."
Alice knew why this was for; each group was working on next year's budget. After all, it was almost the end of the year, and if they didn't produce results, the lab's research funding would inevitably be halved.
Therefore, it was only natural that Sainz, the leader, would step forward to invite Alice. After all, inviting Alicia would be too formal, and everyone wanted to be more relaxed. Princess Alice was the best choice.
"In fact, it's not just our mechanical engineering department that can manufacture mobile devices—those guys in the agricultural sciences have also made their own machines, though they're not very reliable, of course!"
As the vehicle drove through the golden forest, Alice saw an endless expanse of golden fields. The golden wheat swayed up and down like waves in the breeze, and a green-painted machine was working hard in the fields, belching out white smoke.
"Pot-shaped machine?"
"That's right, steam-powered, pot-shaped harvesters can also be used as seeders!"
A steam engine is a portable power machine that connects a steam engine and a boiler. Its advantage is that it can be powered by various fuels with low calorific value; a harvester is one such example.
"The speed isn't very fast, but it consumes much more manpower and is much more efficient than manual harvesting. Industrialization has consumed too much of our labor force, so..."
In Alice's view, agricultural mechanization and collectivization are the future direction, representing the integration of industry and agriculture.
“How’s the harvest this year?”
"In this regard, I can only say that we owe a great deal to the work of the Ministry of Industry and Metallurgy and the Ministry of Chemical Industry. In March of this year, we completed the construction of three fertilizer plants, including phosphate, nitrogen, and potash fertilizer plants. Coupled with the crop rotation system and the water conservancy project renovation plan, this year's harvest will be much greater than any previous year. You see, we couldn't have seen this golden sea in previous years..."
Sainz pointed to this large quantity of wheat, which was only a part of the Trian National Demonstration Farm.