industrial lord

Chapter 809 Propaganda Strategy
While the north was shrouded in snow and wind, the sun shone brightly in Jindou Port on the southern shore of the Inner Sea, and people wearing shirts still felt a bit hot.

Paul pushed open the blinds of his room on the second floor of the hotel, and the salty, fishy smell unique to the seaside wafted out.

The White Stork Times has had excellent sales in recent years, and Paul, as editor-in-chief, has devoted a lot of effort to it. Therefore, this winter he decided to take his family on vacation to the South to enjoy a different kind of scenery.

Jindou Port is a wonderful place. Three years ago, it was just an unnamed river estuary on the southern shore of the Inner Sea, with swamps on both sides.

People from United Fruit Company have arrived.

In six months, they leveled several nearby hills, filled in the swamp, and dug ditches and reservoirs.

Starting the following year, soybeans were planted on the land that had been tilled by tractors.

The shareholders believed that selling soybeans directly back to the Rhine Alliance would not be profitable, so they built an oil pressing plant based on soybean resources, used soybean meal to feed livestock, and sold canned meat.

In two years, nearly ten kilometers of soybean fields have been planted along the coastline. Now, half of the soybean fields are being harvested, while the other half is being planted with rice.

The port was beginning to take shape, with warehouses, taverns, repair shops, and a newly opened "Tropical Disease Research Institute" lining the main street.

This year, many prisoners of war from the north were sent here, which alleviated the labor shortage. After living here for almost a year, many people lost their desire to escape and instead thought about how to bring their families over.

Just after the Duchy of Wessen sent a telegram to the south, a newsboy in a postal uniform appeared on the street and began delivering the newly arrived telegrams to each household.

Paul saw the newsboy enter the hotel downstairs and asked his wife to go to the front desk to ask if they had any telegrams for him.

Recently, the prisoners of war here learned some of the rules in the forest. The northern warriors couldn't defeat the Weisen army, but they could defeat the natives here. So they attacked a tribe upstream and took the women there as their wives.

In the forest, strong men were the guarantee of survival, and the captured women accepted the prisoners of war.

Paul was amazed when he heard the story in the tavern, so he wrote a news article and sent it back.

Judging by the timeline, the newspaper should have given a reply by now.

I received his telegram today. The last news was just a matter of a sentence. The important thing is that the Ministry of Culture of the Duchy of Weisen has issued a task.

"Grand Duke Wessen has ordered an immediate campaign to promote aid to Bohemia. The theme is: to strengthen the sense of gratitude."

Paul sat on the sofa, lost in deep thought.

He was used to the various propaganda tasks frequently assigned by the relevant departments of the Duchy of Weisen.

This kind of flattery is not an easy job.

There are three steps to flattery:
A single shot captures a person's triumph, while others fail to grasp the full picture; this is a shot from a true friend.

The second beat is when someone tries to appear holy in front of others, but the crowd is unwilling to listen; this is the lowest level of play.

A judge's pick is one that identifies a person's strengths that others don't appreciate.

To curry favor with Grand Duke Wessen, there's competition in all three areas, making it difficult to find a standout approach.

As for gratitude, it's just a side effect.

Paul sat on the sofa for a long time, thinking, and said, "This task is a bit difficult. I'm not very familiar with the Bohemian region, and I don't know where to start."

The focus of this news report is not "reporting aid" or "publicizing good deeds," but rather "strengthening a sense of gratitude."

This requires knowing what the local people are thinking and how they will react before you can start writing.

However, Paul is now on the remote southern coast of the Inner Sea, and has no idea what the situation is like there.

His wife, who was maintaining the camera nearby, said after hearing this, "Bohemian region? I remember Madame Dafranché whom I met the other day, she was from there."

Paul remembered this person; he was a legendary figure. He was quite surprised to run into him at the beach a few days ago. He never imagined that he would open a factory on the southern coast of the inland sea.

He needed a character, a story, an article that would make readers in Bohemia nod and say, "We should thank the Grand Duke of Wessen."

As he pondered, Paul slowly sat up straight on the sofa, the story of Dafranche coming to mind.

“That ‘prince’…” he muttered to himself, “is in the business of canned oysters in Golden Bean Port.”

Daphranche, a prodigal son of the former Gallo Kingdom, nicknamed "Prince" for his squandering wealth.

Legend has it that he was sent to the Duchy of Weisen by his elder brother like a burden, and after meeting the Grand Duke of Weisen on the ship, he turned over a new leaf and made his fortune by selling oysters.

What's even more interesting is that his wife, Ella, comes from Bohemia and is the daughter of a merchant from an iron mining town.

The reason why stories of "ordinary people achieving great success" have such widespread appeal is that they accurately reflect broad social psychology and human expectations.

From a third-person perspective, this is not merely a legend about an individual, but a profound cultural and psychological phenomenon.

From an individual psychological perspective, it provides a powerful compensatory satisfaction for the vast majority of viewers who consider themselves "ordinary people".

Real life is full of limitations and a sense of powerlessness, while such narratives construct a clear path from "humble" to "glorious".

By observing the success of others, viewers indirectly experience the thrill of breaking through their own predicaments and achieving a leap in value, thus gaining a low-cost form of psychological comfort and emotional release.

From a social structural perspective, this narrative acts as a lubricant and stabilizer for society.

It constantly reinforces the core beliefs that "effort can change destiny" and "opportunities are open to everyone," simplifying complex factors of social success into personal qualities such as perseverance, wisdom, or the ability to seize opportunities.

This not only motivates individual efforts but also cleverly preserves society's perception of fairness and openness, making people more willing to believe that the existing order is fundamentally reasonable and has a path to follow.

On a deeper level, it resonates with humanity's fundamental need for "world justice."

The narrative structure typically imbues the protagonist's early struggles with moral significance—such as kindness and integrity—while portraying their subsequent success as a well-deserved reward for virtue and effort.

This "justice delayed" perfectly aligns with people's psychological pattern of wanting to see good deeds rewarded and efforts made worthwhile, providing a reassuring narrative order for a reality full of uncertainty.

Under the overarching premise of promoting Grand Duke Wessen, assigning him roles such as "fairness," "justice," and "moral arbiter" will lead readers to believe that he is the sole determining force for the protagonist's success.

Paul made up his mind to use the story of the Dafranche couple as a starting point, and Dafranche as a perspective, to tell readers the story of a Bohemian and the Duke of Wessen from an angle that no one else would think of.

(End of this chapter)