Chapter 127

Chapter 127: The Situation.

“Hahaha! I knew you guys would pull it off this time.”

“Your Majesty, we are sorry for taking so long to achieve results, even though you personally guided us.”

“Not at all. This is your great achievement.”

Kim Kiwoo praised the industrial director enthusiastically as soon as he heard the news of the successful oil drilling.

Of course, it had taken a lot of trial and error and a huge amount of money.

It was because in this era, they needed a lot of manpower and materials to cover up for the lack of technology.

But with this success, they were able to obtain an astronomical amount of oil at this point in time.

“Is it true that an enormous amount of oil is gushing out every day from the place where you struck oil?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. It is unbelievable how much black oil there is underground. It is flowing out endlessly.”

“Those will be very valuable resources in the future. I will provide enough support for you, so make sure to stockpile as much as you can.”

“We will do our best, Your Majesty.”

The amount of oil that spewed out from the ground was so large that it was very difficult to store it.

It was because there were hardly any oil storage facilities like in the future.

Therefore, they needed a huge amount of money to store all that oil.

But they had to stockpile as much oil as possible, even if they had to bear the cost.

It was not enough to consume all the stored oil right now, but it would change in the future.

‘I still haven’t built the foundation to use oil yet… Sigh, it will be a lot of work to pile up oil for a while.’

It was also a problem to have too much supply.

They had to increase the demand for oil from now on.

But Kim Kiwoo was not too worried about it, because he knew the greatness of oil.

He just set the direction to speed up the popularization of oil.

***

Kim Kiwoo moved busily for a while.

He carried out various tasks related to oil consumption simultaneously.

He did not hesitate to present a future outlook that oil would be the core energy and raw material for many products in the future.

“Hmm. They say that black oil is so amazing.”

“That’s right. His Majesty emphasized it so much, so it must be true.”

It pierced through many issues that had been stirring up the empire, and oil stole the focus of the imperial citizens.

“What exactly is oil?”

“I have to see how amazing it is with my own eyes.”

Thanks to that, countless imperial citizens flocked to the place where oil drilling was successful, and they confirmed the substance called oil with their own eyes.

“Amazing!”

“Wow… It’s flowing out endlessly, isn’t it?”

There were so many people that visitors could not get close to where the oil was drilled.

But there was so much oil flowing out that they could roughly estimate its enormous amount even from afar.

“They say that’s the most important resource in the future?”

And naturally, people from all walks of life in the empire also began to take an interest in oil.

Merchants wondered how to make money with oil, and scientists and craftsmen thought about how to use it.

At this time when interest in oil was hot,

Kim Kiwoo built a large-scale facility to fractionate crude oil.

And he separated crude oil into various types of petroleum products from the already existing fractionation facilities, and generously supplied them to various universities and research institutes.

“Try various experiments with these.”

The scholarship of the empire became more mature day by day.

Many theories, such as thermodynamics, had already been proven by then.

So Kim Kiwoo no longer had to lead the research on the front line.

At the universities and research institutes, even without Kim Kiwoo’s instructions, they voluntarily worked day and night to understand the properties of various materials.

“Petroleum…”

For those scholars, petroleum was a very interesting topic that Kim Kiwoo had emphasized over and over again.

“This kerosene can be used as fuel for lamps right away, right?”

“If we do some research, we can use it for heating too.”

Among them, kerosene was the fastest to be utilized.

Even at that time, there were oil lamps, because they needed lamps to light up the dark places during the mining process.

In this regard, kerosene had all the conditions to be highly sought after.

That’s why most of the scholars were more interested in other types of petroleum than kerosene.

They had to give meaning to the petroleum that had no clear use yet, so that it would be recognized as a more remarkable achievement.

“Hmm. The color is similar, and it’s quite similar to coal.”

The scholars noticed this first.

It was inevitable since they were both fossil fuels.

Therefore, the scholars thought that it would be possible to apply it first in the things where coal was used.

Among them, burning petroleum to obtain power was the way that most of the scholars thought of.

However, the current steam engines were external combustion engines that used steam.

Therefore, at first, there were quite a lot of researches on putting petroleum instead of coal.

But many scholars thought differently.

“This petroleum might be able to compensate for the drawbacks that steam engines have had so far…”

It was very easy to encounter steam engines in the empire now.

That meant that they were being used in various places.

Numerous scholars and craftsmen tried to improve the steam engines, but there were clear limits due to the nature of external combustion engines.

It was hard to miniaturize them below a certain level because the place where thermal energy was generated was outside the cylinder.

That’s why many research labs were conducting research on a way to generate thermal energy inside the cylinder instead of outside. In other words, internal combustion engines.

But it was not easy with coal.

But in front of them appeared petroleum, which was liquid and had higher thermal efficiency than coal.

Thanks to that, many research institutes started to conduct active research on it.

Of course, such changes in power paradigm and development of chemical industry took time as Kim Kiwoo expected.

But after most of the universities and research institutes researched petroleum, various achievements began to appear as time passed.

***

Contrary to this, as the empire’s momentum continued to ascend, the world entered a whirlpool of chaos.

This was deeply related to the emergence of the Wakan Tanka Empire.

There were endless problems.

First of all, despite the fact that the quality of imperial products was far superior to those of their own countries, their prices were very cheap. This was typical.

Among them, high-quality cotton fabrics and paper contributed greatly.

These products were very light, so they could be loaded on ships in large quantities and taken far away very cheaply.

“Huh… This good cloth is only this price?”

“Haha. We value credit first. So don’t worry.”

Especially cotton fabrics produced in large quantities due to the industrial revolution were sold all over the world and caused a collapse in cotton prices.

Then, those who made a living by weaving cloth in those areas went bankrupt completely.

“Oh my. How am I supposed to live now… Sob!”

In addition, due to high-quality, cheap and diverse products, many native cottage industries suffered huge damage and many closed their doors.

People no longer bought expensive products from their own countries.

The regions that had enough things to trade with the empire were in good condition, but those that had nothing to trade suffered from trade deficits and became poorer and poorer.

“Trade with Wakan Tanka Empire is nothing but a disaster!”

The imperial merchants did not enslave the natives or use force like the Europeans in the original history, but their image was constantly tarnished by just trading.

Kim Ki-woo watched this.

“This can’t go on.”

And he made a decision.

He realized that if the current situation continued, it would not be good for the empire or the regions they traded with.

Therefore, Kim Ki-woo planned to foster industries that suited each region and put them into action.

A lot of budget was executed at the government level, but Kim Ki-woo accepted it.

He could have lost a lot by coveting a small thing.

He gave a lot of support to activate mining in regions rich in mines.

Not only did he provide funds, but he also taught them advanced mining techniques and installed steam engines.

And in tropical or subtropical climates, he supported them to establish plantation agriculture such as rubber, sugarcane, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, etc., and to complete the processing work in that region.

These agricultural products were intended to be exported as imperial products and imported from overseas as the living conditions of the imperial people improved and they disliked doing them.

“Just giving this much support for free. It seems like we are giving too much unilaterally.”

As the imperial budget continued to pour out until the indigenous industries settled down, such complaints erupted.

But Kim Ki-woo did not think this was a loss at all.

The products produced in this way could be distributed exclusively by the empire as much as they invested.

And this became clear over time.

Their labor was so cheap that it was incomparable to the labor of the imperial people, and as a result, the prices continued to fall as they started importing them from overseas.

In this way, he gradually solved the trade imbalance with other countries.

***

Among the many imperial products that confused the world, the most confusing thing was firearms.

Gunpowder, guns, and cannons sold tremendously.

The region that bought the most firearms was undoubtedly India.

India had hardly seen a trade deficit since it started trading with the empire.

“Indeed, the artifacts from India are amazing.”

“I want to go there if possible.”

India had a tremendous cultural heritage from many countries, starting from the Indus civilization, one of the four ancient civilizations of the world.

The imperial wealthy class was crazy about these Indian artifacts, and they were sold to the empire at high prices.

In addition, saltpeter, which is a raw material for gunpowder, was very common in India.

Moreover, cotton was also cultivated in large quantities.

“India is truly a land of milk and honey!”

Naturally, there were many cases where India was included in the main commercial routes of the imperial merchants.

Thanks to this, they had enough capital to buy countless firearms from the empire, and they had a clear reason to buy firearms.

At this time, India was divided into many indigenous states.

Originally, India had different languages ​​in each region and had rarely been united.

Of course, there was the Mughal Empire established by Babur, who claimed to be a descendant of Timur’s empire in northern India, but at this time it was just one of the regional losers.

Anyway, the indigenous states accepted the empire’s firearms and tactical system aggressively to avoid being annihilated by other countries.

Thanks to this, Mughal Empire’s expansion did not go smoothly on the Indian subcontinent.

The Mughal Empire also traded with the empire no differently than others, but naturally coastal regions were more advantageous for trade with the empire.

For this reason, unlike in original history, coastal indigenous kingdoms flourished greatly.

They even invaded inland kingdoms based on their accumulated wealth from trade and expanded their territory greatly.

The fate of the Indian subcontinent also reached a turning point due to the influence of the empire.