Chapter 126

Chapter 126: Oil.

Not all the foreign visitors had a positive image of the empire’s cities.

“Ugh! I can’t breathe…”

“Why is everything so hazy?”

At that time, the scale of the industrial sector in the Black Sky was growing rapidly, and so was the coal consumption.

The chimneys spewed out smoke all day long, polluting the air of the Black Sky severely.

The visitors who had lived in a clean environment without pollution were very uncomfortable with this air pollution, as they had no resistance to it.

As a result, they admired the many factories of the Black Sky, but they were reluctant to stay in this city for long.

To be precise, even the imperial citizens hated the scenery of the Black Sky.

“If this wasn’t my workplace, I would have moved to another city… Sigh, the air quality is getting worse every day.”

Even the people who lived and worked in the Black Sky thought so, let alone…

People could instinctively sense that inhaling pollution was bad for their health, even without any research.

It was only because they kept expanding the industrial zones and dispersing the polluted areas that it was this bad.

Thanks to that, the issue of environmental pollution caused by industrialization was constantly raised.

“Your Majesty! The smoke problem in the industrial cities, especially in the Black Sky, is serious. The complaints of many imperial citizens living in the Black Sky are increasing day by day, and the smoke is spreading to nearby cities. This is also true for the capital.”

Many ministers agreed with that statement.

The distance between the Black Sky and the capital was not very far.

The damage from the smoke affected not only the ministers and their families who lived in the capital, but also how could they ignore it?

“You don’t think His Majesty doesn’t know that, do you? His Majesty has been preparing for this for a long time, and ordered to build many industrial zones.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? It’s just that it seems like the damage will get worse as time goes by…”

“If you’re so worried, you should come up with a solution before you speak. There’s no point in just pointing out the problem.”

“I’ve been saying the solution for a long time.”

“…Ha, are you talking about that suggestion to slowly increase the scale of industrialization?”

“You remember it.”

The construction minister shook his head incredulously at that remark.

“I told you before, but that’s absolutely impossible. Especially at this point when demand is exploding overseas, how can you limit industrial development?”

“The construction minister is right. You should know that this is the most important time for the empire.”

If they wanted to reduce smoke emissions, they inevitably had to regulate factories.

It might be right in the long run, but it was not an easy choice for ministers who ran a country.

‘Hmm…’

Kim Ki-woo stroked his chin as he watched the debate among ministers.

‘It’s a problem if it develops too fast.’

As the continent was unified by Wakan Tanka Empire and each region began to develop, demand soared.

This was because they needed raw materials and goods for regional development, and as people’s purchasing power increased, they bought more goods.

Moreover, recently overseas markets opened up and foreigners bought cheap and high-quality imperial products.

Of course, he expected that various problems would arise from trade imbalance and market erosion over time, but that was something to think about later.

“I have an idea about this issue, so let’s move on for today.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Kim Ki-woo stopped the debate like this.

It was never a problem that could be solved by arguing in a meeting.

There were many other issues to discuss at the meeting besides smoke problem.

The next agenda was about overseas issues that imperial fleets encountered.

“Problems never seem to end.”

“That’s because they have different languages, cultures, and religions.”

Naturally enough, not all of the imperial fleets that crossed the ocean and arrived in other regions had friendly relations with natives.

Many of them started off with a hostile relationship from the beginning.

‘Because the imperial expedition looked like invaders to them.’

It was rare to see people who showed great kindness to strangers from another land.

As a result, there were many natives who attacked the imperial expedition without warning, and the imperial expedition had to fight many battles for defense.

Of course, the gap in military power was so large that it was very rare for the imperial expedition to lose, but it was hard to interact with them after such battles.

‘Even if we somehow start to interact, there are problems.’

There were always some people who boarded the imperial expedition to spread their religion.

They tried and tried to spread the spirit faith to unfamiliar regions.

But in cases where another religion had already taken root deeply, this kind of missionary work caused a lot of conflict.

Even without that, there were plenty of conflicts due to cultural differences.

There were even some European countries that had accumulated bad feelings with them.

‘Well, we have nothing to regret.’

The most important trading partners in this era were Asia, especially Ming Dynasty and India.

Asia had a much larger and richer population than Europe, because they used rice as their staple food.

The European countries would suffer more if they didn’t trade with them.

They also had no intention of letting the terrible imperialist behavior of Europe before the arrival continue.

“Let me say it again, we have no intention of coveting the land of the natives. We are already overwhelmed by exploring and developing the current continent of Wakan Tanka.”

Kim Ki-woo reiterated this and continued.

“Spreading the spirit faith is important, but I heard that there are some who cross the line lately. It is not right to forcefully preach in areas where religion has already taken hold. Isn’t that right?”

“Your Majesty is absolutely right. I will take immediate action.”

***

After the meeting was over.

Kim Ki-woo called in the industrial director.

“…I apologize.”

The industrial director bowed his head as soon as he entered the office.

“Why are you making such a face? Relax.”

“Yes…”

“Hey!”

“…I understand.”

“Sit down.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Kim Ki-woo watched quietly as the industrial director sat down.

He knew very well why the industrial director was like that.

‘He’s having trouble with oil drilling.’

People in this era thought that the age of coal would continue.

But Kim Ki-woo knew very well that the most important resource in the future would be oil.

‘Coal is nothing compared to oil.’

Petroleum products using oil would completely change human life, and the energy from oil would be used for countless machines, starting from cars.

It was because oil had much better thermal efficiency than coal.

This would help reduce environmental pollution compared to using coal.

Of course, coal use was inevitable for a while.

It would take time for petrochemistry to develop.

‘But we have to prepare in advance.’

For this purpose, Kim Ki-woo had been preparing for oil drilling for a long time.

Using steam engines to drill down to where oil was located.

While applying some of the future drilling technology as well.

But he had not yet achieved success.

Kim Ki-woo had ordered drilling mainly in areas where he knew oil was buried, but if he dug up the wrong spot by a little bit, he failed miserably.

‘I thought I could hit the oil layer in one shot if I was lucky.’

Unfortunately, this time the goddess of fortune was not on Kim Ki-woo’s side.

But Kim Ki-woo did not give up.

He knew very well that there was oil buried in the area where he was drilling.

So, drilling was only a matter of time.

“Don’t worry at all, industrial director. Just keep directing the drilling work as you are now. You will not run out of support for this.”

“I will surely repay Your Majesty’s trust.”

“Haha. I feel really reassured when you say that.”

Kim Ki-woo encouraged the industrial director some more and then sent him away.

After that, Kim Ki-woo checked the documents and reviewed the matters related to oil.

‘Fractional distillation is also getting settled.’

Oil is a mixture.

This mixture had to be separated into LPG, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, diesel, heavy oil, asphalt, and so on.

And the method for this was fractional distillation, which used the difference in boiling points of each substance.

It was to capture the lowest boiling point LPG first by raising the temperature of the oil.

Kim Ki-woo had personally ordered experiments using oil that flowed out with salt in some salt dome areas, and the results were showing up one after another.

The properties of the separated oil were also being identified.

‘I want to see petrochemical products take over the world soon.’

Kim Ki-woo wanted to see that sight as soon as possible.

***

“Phew… Is it another failure?”

Cold Cloud, who had been busy drilling for oil in the area called Texas before the arrival, sighed as he looked at the drill that had gone deep into the ground.

Kim Ki-woo knew very well that there was a lot of oil buried in this Texas area, so he focused on drilling here.

And Kim Ki-woo even applied the rotary drilling method, which attached a crusher to the end of a pipe and rotated it to insert it into the ground.

Thanks to this, he was able to drill through the bedrock layer underground, but he still failed repeatedly.

‘Is there really oil in this ground?’

He even started to have such doubts.

But soon Cold Cloud shook his head.

‘What am I thinking? If His Majesty says it’s there, it must be there.’

He suppressed his doubts and prayed and prayed that oil would come out this time.

But as time passed, his expression grew darker.

There was a limit to how deep he could dig into the ground with the current technology.

He had to stop working and dig another ground soon.

He was engulfed in anxiety alone when it happened.

It happened suddenly.

Boom!

“Ugh!”

“Ahh!”

A huge noise rang out from where he was drilling.

“What, what is it!?”

Cold Cloud couldn’t calm his startled heart and looked at the source of the noise.

“…!”

And he witnessed it clearly.

A huge cloud spewing out from above the drill hole.

It was a sight of methane gas that had been piled up on top of the cap rock of the oil trap bursting out at once.

After a while.

An even more shocking sight unfolded.

Whoosh!

A dark liquid formed a huge pillar that looked over 50 meters high and shot up to the sky.

“Everyone back off!”

Cold Cloud came to his senses after seeing that sight.

It was obvious that a huge amount of oil was coming out, and if he made a mistake, there could be casualties.

Thanks to Cold Cloud’s instructions, people quickly backed away.

He also watched the towering giant oil pillar from afar.

‘It’s beautiful.’

It looked like a truly amazing natural wonder.

He felt like he would never forget this sight until he died.

‘That’s oil… We succeeded.’

Cold Cloud finally confirmed that the drilling was successful.

“Ha, haha…”

Then a great emotion began to rise in his chest.

His hollow laughter caught the attention of his colleagues.

“We, we did it.”

“Hahaha! We did it!”

They hugged each other and shouted.