184 Begining of the chaotic period

20th June 1574

Compared to the first blast furnaces, the process of pouring down molten steel from the Bessemer one was way more rapid. Rather than waiting for the metal to flow out from the furnace chamber by itself, workers would observe the colour of the flame above the single opening of the burning chamber. 

As soon as the right moment came, one of the workers pushed the rod, connecting the already operating steam engine to the set of pulleys and gears, slowly angling the massive furnace on its axis towards the ground.

The moment the liquid metal stored inside the chamber reached the opening of the barrel, it started flowing through a particular set of cast iron half-pipes, slowly filling out the forms prepared in advance. 

One by one, the limestone packages were starting to steam the remaining water off from their structure, indicating that the process of settling already begun.

But rather than enjoying the fact that the first elements of the modern firearms were produced, I couldn't help but look to the west with worry.

According to my knowledge, unless actions did change the details of the historical events, our great king Henry… 

Was already past Polish borders!

Since my memories about the precise timings of the facts surrounding this blasphemy were quite fuzzy, I could only wonder whether the local noble that used to be one of the king's advisors already caught up to him or if he was still chasing after his damned liege.

"Sir, the bores are finished. The blacksmith asked us to pass the news that at least three of them are good enough to be used!"

Just this piece of information was alone to improve my mood in any other situation. Yet, with how my time to peacefully prepare for the chaos to come was over, I couldn't find even a single shred of happiness in me.

The soon-to-be interregnum period would leave Commonwealth in a reasonably organised state when compared to the kingless times in any other country. 

Regretfully, starting with the debate whether to wait for Henry to return, through blaming the Senate for not pressing him to follow with his promise of reforming the law in the country to the fully-fledged, factional civil war that erupted when two different candidates were chosen for the royal seat, the events that would soon occur would still lead to quite a lot of chaos!

"Good. As soon as the barrels are cold enough, go and make them as sharp as possible, before tempering them a bit. Speaking of the bores, how are the pipes?"

Since what was formerly used as the barrel of the gun was just a simple pipe, with the moment that I decided to start using rifled ones, the word pipe was instantly set for its purely industrial use. While it wasn't anything all that important now, I knew what kind of mess could it cause if such details were ignored for later. 

Well, it wasn't a surprise. For most of the people in this era, while steel wasn't all that uncommon, it was still a priced commodity used mostly in top tier armours and weapons around the world. 

"Okay, then. Are boring machines prepared?"

While in theory, one could grind down the inner side of the pipe by hand, it required not only an immense amount of time but also could easily lead to the deformation of the endproduct, easily defeating the purpose of improving the weapon's accuracy. 

That's why, despite still waiting for the grinding blades to be finished, all the other parts of the machine that would do the work were prepared and ready to start working. All that was left for them was to have someone mount the blade at the end of their extendable arms and put the pipes in special holds!

Yet for now, the scale of the possible production was laughable at the very least. With the entire four steam engines responsible for turning the bore around its axis and one additional steam horse tasked with forcing them deeper inside the pipes, if everything went as planned, their output would reach four rifled barrels per hour at most! 

Just a single look at the number of barrels that were currently cast by only a single use of the Bessemer furnace, I knew that as soon as the process would be confirmed to work correctly, the number of boring machines would have to increase at least ten-fold!

But seeing how everyone was doing their job properly, I decided that there was no point for me to stay in the smelting area. Sooner or later, the news about the success or failure of the rifling of the barrels would reach my ears. By observing the process with my own eyes, I was simply wasting my own time!

Yet rather than moving to do something productive… I realised that there wasn't that much that I could do at this point! 

While the beauty of industrialisation lied in the fact that a single man had absolutely no meaning in the grand scale of things, with how all the projects of mine were operating in full swing, it wasn't very sensible for me to plan anything ahead!

Just the roads and mining town alone were enough to sap the cement production for the next few decades. As long as I would convince the nobles to invest their resources and manpower into improving the internal logistic of the country, this business would only grow bigger and bigger to the point where building a castle would be as cheap as building a damned home!

As for the carpentry plant, its uses were far greater than that of the concrete factory, even if it was far less valuable. From the furniture, through ships all the way to carriages, everything that one could desire could be produced here. Yet both of those enterprises were easily outshined by the area that I just left.

Rows of smelters, all perfectly connected to the warehouse at the entrance of the mine, where countless workers continued to pack the ore from the stockpile on top of the belt. At this point, if not for the fact that the wooden pellet production in the carpentry was already in its full swing, nearly half of my current manpower would have to busy themselves with supplying the wood to the furnaces. From there, the charcoal moved to blast furnaces and stoves, all the way with selling the slag remaining after the use of blast furnace to the nearby villages as a potent fertiliser. 

Moving through the makeshift road created by countless pairs of legs walking through this precise piece of land, I reached the outskirts of the future city. Even with how it was only nearing the finish of the very first neighbourhood, someone was smart enough to put the first iron tracks and connect the location of the future gate with the central plaza of the working area. 

Seeing this unexpected change, I noted in my mind to find the one responsible for this and make sure he would not only receive an ample reward for coming up with a great idea. And obviously, just as much scorn for wasting resources without my permission, before putting him back to Tarnow to make sure he would get this first bit of proper education that I prepared.

Overall, everything was going smoothly. The production only kept increasing as workers got used to their tasks and started looking for ways to improve their effectiveness while decreasing the amount of effort they had to put. In just about a week, the grand market on the Dunaj river would also reach its finish stage, where all that would be left would be to put the furniture inside the buildings. The outpost at the border was long finished, and from the messages I received, more and more merchants were amassing in the area, awaiting the grand opening of the new, lucrative trade route. 

Yet despite how everything seemed to grow precisely as planned, despite how I even considered the period of interregnum as more of an opportunity rather than the risk, I still couldn't help but look in the skies while fighting off the anxiety present in my head. 

The time for me to finally show off the potential behind industrialisation finally came. With the new weapons, enough money to buy all the gunpowder I would ever want and more than enough people willing to sell their families for even a shred of a chance to work for me, as long as I would be careful, nothing could stop me from reaching for not only the purple robes but maybe even a seat of a king in the near future. If no significant changes would happen, even damned world domination would be possible!

But it didn't change the fact, that with the coming period of chaos, all of my plans could shatter like a piece of elaborate glass falling from the table to the hard stones of the floor!