Road to the Crown

Chapter 123: Plans for the town

22nd April 1574

"While it's not yet commonly known, but this steam horse machine Is just a tool that will be used to increase the productivity of everything that will be built here in the future. That's why, when thinking about building the settlement for all the workers, rather than hoping the town would grow organically, we need to assume it will explode in terms of population and as such, take proper countermeasures for all the troubles we know we will have to tackle."

Instead of standing in front of the table, I took a piece of charcoal used by the craftsmen to draw on the paper and started walking around the inside of the tens, as if I was some kind of inspired professor giving out a lecture to a bunch of students.

"But even if we know that we will either create some kind of severs or will be forced to live among our own dung, there are still many more questions that need to be answered before we will even start digging out the earth to make space for the foundations. Tell me then, what do one needs in a house?"

Using this partially rhetorical question was my own way of receiving an answer that people gathered would otherwise consider obvious. As someone born and raised in the modern times of the future, I could tell about freshwater, heating service severs, gas, electricity even going as far as to include post or garbage management.

While stuff like electricity or the gas was simply impossible to implement, not unless the gasoline would be properly introduced on an industrial scale, it was still possible to provide heating service, sewage and freshwater! As long as big enough number of steam horses could be put to work, taking the freshwater from the river and dumping used one along with the severs back to its streams would be an easy task, as long as all the infrastructure would be constructed beforehand!

"Well Access to water is a must, having sewage would be nice, and then short distance to the firewood storage? Maybe short walk to the stalls area where one could supply oneself with food?"

Hearing the answers, I couldn't help but be terrified with how low standards the local people had. Food, water and waste, that's all you want to be happy? If that's true, then let's turn this place into a heaven city worthy of the king!

"Okay guys, to not waste any more time. Even though there is quite a few more things that I want this new city of ours to have, no matter how much we will want to expand it, we need to start with the very basic. We need to dig up the ground deep enough, to not only make sure every building will stand atop a proper foundation, similar to the one we are making for the steam horse right now but with two hollow pipes, one to lead the sewage away while the other for the hot water that we might use to warm the future houses!"

Stopping my trod around the tent, I once again approached the makeshift table, before drawing out a simple blueprint for how would a foundation for a single house look, before copying the simple square with three small circles in it to form a small neighbourhood. With five houses on each side of the greater square, there were two buildings in the middle of it. While I knew that this idea of mine might backfire, later on, I really hoped I could introduce local grocery stories that would supply all the houses at once, with a local water heating station that would provide hot water for all the houses in the neighbourhood!

While in the future, the hot water used for heating up the houses would be provided by a single, big company located somewhere away from the town itself, I simply lacked the means to replicate the grand scale of their buildings and systems. Creating a single building where charcoal would be stored and used to heat up a single, big boiler that would be connected to the heating systems of the local neighbourhood was already the most I could do, while still forcing all the houses to use their own heaters if they wanted to obtain some hot water to wash.

"Sir, while I understand the need for the sewage hole, can you explain what will the other two be there for?"

"Sure. Just like you pointed out, one hole in the foundations of all the buildings will be used to move the sewage away. The other one will be connected in a closed system to this central building here"

Using my own hand, I pointed at the smaller building in the middle of the neighbourhood.

"... where some men will be tasked to always keep the water inside said system hot enough to warm the houses up. As for the third hole"

Looking around the room, I couldn't help but send everyone a curious stare, unable to hold back myself from teasing them a bit, wanting to see if any of them would guess what the purpose of the last hole in the foundation would be.

"If we take the steam horse into consideration Can it be?!"

Seeing that one of the craftsmen who I didn't even recognise seemed to find some clues, rather than putting him down, I looked at him and nodded my head at him to indicate he should follow up with his thinking.

"Do you want to use the steam horse to pump the freshwater directly to all the houses?!"

Considering how even in major towns like Krakow, the only way to get yourself some freshwater was going on a trip to fetch some from the nearest well or directly from the river, automating the access to water would be already a huge step in bringing this world to the future reality!

"Yes. And that's why, building this town will be the greatest project that we will embark on, even if starting it will only be possible after all the production facilities will start working in their full swing!"