The Royal Dilemma 5
Translator: Cinder Translations
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"Dear Betty, I hope you can leverage your influence in the noble circles of the capital to spread the word about these disinfecting measures and their tremendous impact, and subsequently promote them throughout the kingdom. This will save countless sisters' lives."
"A mere few sheets of paper cannot convey all I wish to say, so I will leave it at that for now."
"Wishing you happiness and health, your friend, Ladia Setia."
After reading the contents of the letter, Catherine lifted her head.
"Are you in a hurry to tell Father about these so-called disinfecting measures?"
To be honest, when she saw the maternal mortality rate mentioned in her heart, she was genuinely shocked.
Was that figure really that high?
"Yes!"
Guilt once again washed over Eileen's face.
"I should have asked Father to issue a nationwide order, at least for the royal territories! Ah, a year has passed, and how many women have given birth in that time?"
Eileen had brought back the booklet from the Northwest Bay, but only a few good friends showed interest; there were very few responses.
Her greatest achievement was getting the people around her to develop the habit of drinking boiled water.
Afterward, she poured her energy into building her school.
She began to regretfully tug at her hair.
Catherine immediately stopped her increasingly unbecoming behavior.
"Come on, let's go see Father; he should still be in the council hall."
The two sisters soon arrived at the council hall, where they found King Rodney deep in thought over the meeting minutes.
"Father, Eileen has something very important to discuss with you."
After listening to his youngest daughter's purpose for seeking him, the king glanced at the letter.
"Ha ha, this young lord always brings me unexpected surprises," King Rodney XVI remarked with a smile.
"Uh… what I mean is that maternal deaths are indeed unfortunate, but with these improved delivery measures, many tragedies can be prevented. That's the surprise."
No ruler wishes for their territories to lack population.
"Alright, Eileen," the king decided, "I will announce that the entire royal territory should follow the guidelines in your booklet and inform the kingdom's lords."
"But…" the king said helplessly, "If you want me to use administrative power like Lord Grayman, sending officials to urge doctors across the regions to implement these measures, that I cannot do at this moment."
"Why?" Eileen pouted, looking somewhat angry.
The king reached out and apologetically patted his youngest daughter's head.
"It's not that I don't want to, but I truly cannot. The kingdom's government is currently facing financial difficulties and cannot increase administrative expenses any further."
"Oh!" Eileen tightly clenched her fists in disappointment. "It's simply impossible to expect those stubborn fellows to change their long-standing habits voluntarily."
"Alright, Eileen," Catherine advised her. "How do you know they won't change? I believe most doctors will study and learn new knowledge out of their duty to save lives."
Eileen asked, "Father just mentioned financial difficulties; why is that?"
Catherine sighed and replied, "Isn't it because of those southern nobles? We've spent a lot of money to maintain their status and livelihood, and to appease them, Father has even considered distributing royal lands to compensate them."
Eileen looked at the king and saw her father nodding helplessly.
Watching her father and sister fall into a state of gloom, an idea suddenly sprang to Eileen's mind.
"I have an idea that could provide some pathways for resettling those displaced nobles while saving funds for the kingdom government."
"What is it?" both the king and Catherine turned to her.
With her respected father and sister both paying attention to her, Eileen felt a surge of pride.
"Develop the secondary industry!"
"The secondary industry?"
This term was new to both the father and daughter.
"You see, most of our wealth currently comes directly from the land, which is agriculture."
"That's true," the king and Catherine agreed.
Before the birth of true industry, the most important wealth in the world came from land, which produced nearly everything humans relied on for survival.
Eileen's eyes sparkled with excitement. "However, during my time in the Northwest Bay, I saw another way of producing wealth."
"Another way?"
"Yes, it's called the secondary industry!"
Eileen excitedly explained, "Agriculture, the direct use of land to obtain wealth, can be classified as the primary industry. The extraction of natural resources and the processing of raw and agricultural products can be considered the secondary industry, or in other words, industry."
She directly lifted Paul's definition of industry.
Catherine, slightly puzzled, asked, "This so-called secondary industry has existed throughout human history for thousands of years, yet it hasn't generated a large amount of wealth. How can it solve our current predicament?"
Eileen's expression turned serious as she explained, "It has existed, but compared to the primary industry of agriculture, it has only existed on a scale so small that it's almost negligible, which is why it cannot generate a large amount of wealth. For example, in many places, several villages share one blacksmith shop, and compared to the numerous farmers, the number of blacksmiths is indeed very small."
The king and Catherine nodded thoughtfully. "That's true."
Eileen raised three fingers on her right hand and continued, "Based on my limited understanding, many factors limit the scale of the secondary industry, which can be broadly categorized into three."
"The first limitation is technology, which is the most direct reason. The advancement of technology directly determines the value that industry can produce. For instance, weapons crafted with excellent techniques will be superior to those made with ordinary craftsmanship. However, there's another important aspect of technological limitations: the range of technology dissemination. Some highly skilled craftsmen often keep their unique techniques secret to avoid competition, passing them only to their descendants or carefully selected apprentices. This restricts the application of advanced technologies to a small scale, thus limiting the value they can generate."
"The second limitation is organizational structure. The existing secondary industries, such as blacksmithing, leatherworking, and tailoring, mostly operate in the form of small family workshops, resulting in low output and very inefficient production."
"The third limitation is demand. We must admit that even if a great invention suddenly appeared—such as a piece of advanced machinery requiring only a small amount of manual labor, possessing great power, and deployable in large numbers—this would solve the first two limitations: technology and organizational structure. However, with current human demand, it is impossible to absorb these excess products."
Eileen now held up two fingers.
"Regarding the demand limitation, it can be divided into two aspects…"
TL: Man, why am I feeling proud?
(End of the Chapter)
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