Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 383 Return
The prince's soul paused, his expression confused, and hesitated before asking, "Are you talking about those things in the Imperial Codex of Truth? That knowledge is indeed very interesting, but... what's the use of it?"

"What use is knowledge? I don't know either, but I've ruled the empire for eleven years and have been building schools all along. Do you know why?"

"Training army officers?"

"That's only part of it. More importantly, it allows me to successfully build the entire civil service system. With the thirteen-rank civil service system, I won't have to rely on those foolish nobles to govern the country. The talented people in the empire will step forward on their own and serve me."

Seeing the prince's thoughtful expression, Isabella shook her head: "Actually, there's a simpler statistic—building one more school means building one less prison."

Silence fell over the room. After a long while, the prince spoke hesitantly, "Do you think Bazel will release them? Will Nora be able to return safely?"

"Of course not possible."

The prince's soul opened its eyes wide: "Then why..."

Isabella snorted coldly: "What's there to be afraid of? This is a good thing. These two-faced good-for-nothings need to be taught a lesson. As for Hughes—reputation is earned through fighting. If he were afraid, he would have been hiding on that island long ago."

"You mean he'll send troops to the north?"

“That’s what he planned from the beginning. Have you seen the letter he made me write? Tsk tsk, just like his father.”

"His father?" The prince racked his brains for a while before asking uncertainly, "The Duke of Cohen?"

Isabella didn't reply. She shifted to a more comfortable position, closed her eyes, and took a nap.

Castells.

After giving a brief explanation, Hughes led most of the banshees and swam directly back to Castel from the sea.

Although the ironclad warship was docked in the port, he still chose to swim in the sea, mainly because he didn't really trust the people at the shipyard.
If the ship sinks anyway, it will end up in the sea anyway, so it's better to just go directly out to sea and skip the intermediate steps.

When he returned to his office, soaking wet, Alexei had been waiting for him for a long time.

Hughes took a towel and, while drying his hair, explained the negotiations between the two sides to Alexei.

"You rejected the land given away for free and instead went into business with them?" the chief clerk asked in surprise.

You don't understand, do you?

“Indeed, such a large port, and the core city of Tess, I can’t think of any reason not to take it.”

“It’s very simple, Alexei. Our Castel is an industrial nation, and productivity is our core asset. Before we have built up our territory, expanding outwards is like slowly bleeding blood.”

It's basically the difference between a high-end shop and a premium shop.

Quickly occupying land can yield more resources and population, but there are two problems.

Resources, such as minerals, do not automatically turn into steel.

For industrialized countries, only educated people represent a demographic dividend; otherwise, they are merely a burden.

The benefits from inefficient population utilization, such as farming, are often insufficient to offset the administrative costs of management.

As the managed area expands, administrative efficiency decreases very quickly. Without real-time communication methods, a large amount of manpower is wasted on every expansion of territory.

This is a real waste of industrial workers. "But I still don't understand," Alexei rubbed his temples. "By simply giving up the land, aren't we essentially losing these resources and people forever?"

“Who told you it’s lost?” Hughes laughed. “Didn’t I demand missionary work and free trade?”

Alexei was taken aback, his mind racing for a moment, before he suddenly had a look of realization: "You want to establish a school under the guise of missionary work?"

“That’s right. After the school is established, people who learn knowledge will naturally move up the ranks. Castel will provide them with upward mobility. Even if the prince wants to keep people, there aren’t enough positions to accommodate high-end talents.”

"Won't this lead to a loss of knowledge?"

Hughes shook his head, his expression turning serious: "Knowledge is much like wealth; the more it circulates, the more valuable it becomes. And there's another crucial point—the top talents that are Blood Harbor are just ordinary people in Castel."

Castells had long since popularized a higher level of education. Advanced classes? Those were merely the threshold to Castells.

The textbooks written by Hughes are not profound, and the advanced class is just a lot of common sense added. On Earth, it would not even be outside the scope of compulsory education. It's just that the pursuit of knowledge in this world is too dangerous, and the overall level is too poor.

This way, they could have an educated population without the burden of managing Blood Harbor. As for the prince? He was even happier with this; as long as schools were established, education in Blood Harbor would inevitably improve significantly.

As for resources, free trade is not just a slogan; if you can't buy something, you can send an ironclad warship to buy it.

"Alright, let's leave it at that. Everything went smoothly today. After the shipyard iterates a few more times, we should have enough reliable ships to use. Let's start organizing a team now, and then we can go directly to the Northern Territory by ship."

Hughes recalled the short, white-haired girl. So much time had passed that her face was somewhat blurry in his memory; he only remembered that she always had a serious expression and never smiled.

Ken and Jeremiah's ship was originally intended to support her, but it was delayed for so long that they finally had time to spare.

“I heard she left the Silent Sanctuary; there must be quite a story behind it.” Hughes sighed. “We can get more people familiar with the North involved, hmm, those from the Secret Order would do.”

Alexei scribbled notes in his notebook: "By the way, my lord, what are your plans for dealing with the Secret Order?"

"A secret society."

Speaking of this, Hughes also had a headache. According to the report his mother-in-law gave him, these people were just using Castel's name, and their so-called faith and holy scriptures were all made up.

Hughes didn't care much about this, and only planned to give some symbolic punishment, spread the truth of the empire, and then let the matter pass.

However, the rebellion at Bloodharbor saw Castel personally intervene, deploying airships and banshees, instantly elevating the battle to an epic scale. Even many members of the harbor guards knelt and kowtowed on the spot, as if they were seeing a god, not to mention the Secret Order.

Was the holy book fabricated?
Everyone witnessed the battle between the evil gods; no one believes that anymore.

"Let's get Josh back first. I'll think about the specifics later."

Hughes was also somewhat hesitant; he was now in a dilemma regarding the Secret Society.

But that's about all the trouble we have.

Hughes quickly finished dealing with all the mess and went back to bed to get a good night's sleep—but he kept feeling like he'd forgotten something.

Around midnight, he suddenly sat up in bed:

"Damn it, I completely forgot about this! Quick, someone come quick, don't let Nini secretly distribute the newspaper!!"

(End of this chapter)