The Lord Of Blood Hill

Chapter 637: Delegating Power

After the Lumir coronation ceremony ends, Henwell does not stay. He returns straight to Blood Hill Manor.After Henwell passes his thirty-first birthday, everyone gradually notices the change in him.

Before this, Henwell spent more than half of every day on work. Now, he pushes away half of his political duties each day.

He finally starts living like a normal person. He works eight hours a day, then spends the rest of his time either cultivating or staying with his family.

At the end of the year, Henwell's second son is born. Henwell names the child Hunter.

After that, Henwell spends even more time taking care of the child and Melissa.

A great deal of power is delegated, and each department finally feels the pressure Henwell used to bear.

Every decision affects the fate of thousands upon thousands of people.

This forces the high officials to carefully consider every issue. They cannot achieve complete fairness, only relative fairness, fairness for the majority.

Is Henwell starting to indulge himself?

Of course not. Henwell is not throwing himself into music, dancing, and pleasure.

He is simply giving Peace Haven its direction now, rather than personally designing every project.

On the one hand, as Peace Haven's population grows and its territory expands, the senior officials must play a greater role.

On the other hand, Henwell is also cutting himself off in advance from the corrosion of power.

Henwell writes a piece of calligraphy in English and hangs it in his study.

"Do not forget who you are, and what you came to this world to do!"

Of course, Henwell's delegation of power gives each department greater authority, and clashes of interest between factions start to become obvious.

Before this, Henwell made decisions alone. No one was dissatisfied.

But now, every high official represents the interests of his own faction. That naturally creates many things to argue over.

The same principle still applies. As long as the competition between the sides does not harm Peace Haven's fundamental interests, Henwell will not interfere.

As for the situation going out of control, it has not reached that point.

In his previous world, there were no professionals, so no emperor could rely on personal power to govern a country.

Henwell, however, is an actual professional.

Longevity is not guaranteed, but killing and fighting are very real.

Besides, with the Lord Iron Guards and the Central Military District in his hands, Henwell is not worried about disorder.

Military and administrative talent must graduate from the academies, and every year he draws people's hearts to himself.

As long as Henwell is willing, he can remove the authority of anyone in Peace Haven with a single order.

Peace Haven has become too deeply bound to Henwell. The two have achieved each other and merged into one.

Henwell is the embodiment of Peace Haven's will. To say it more seriously, Henwell's will is Peace Haven's future.

Just like that, a year passes.

Henwell, now past his thirty-second birthday, rarely wears armor anymore.

A set of red-and-black casual clothes becomes the image people see most often.

During this year, many things happen in the various countries.

The Billie royal succession dispute grows more and more intense, breaking into several small-scale wars.

Ogiro remains locked in internal struggles over its new territory.

Diversion Bay has selectively forgotten Peace Haven's expeditionary zone. The expeditionary zone now borders Saltwater Town.

It gradually merges into one piece of territory covering more than ten thousand square kilometers.

Together with the roughly ten thousand square kilometers of land around Tatan City, the expeditionary zone has expanded to its limit.

Next, they must begin supporting themselves and eventually form a new industrial center.

Peace Haven's secret allies, the Divarak trio, have now returned to Ogiro's northwest region.

The three keep a low profile. After two years of development, they only maintain four legions.

They no longer participate in Diversion Bay's various power struggles and instead focus on developing their own territories.

They have realized the importance of population and begin moving as many people as possible into their lands.

At the same time, they introduce all kinds of Peace Haven management systems and improve them.

Although they are only copying the form without mastering the essence, they at least capture some of the spirit.

This is an age where being less awful than the rest is already enough to stand out. They cannot compare to Peace Haven, but compared with other parts of Ogiro, their development is fast.

In terms of population especially, compared with leaving home to go to a foreign country and seek a living in the unfamiliar Peace Haven, many bankrupt freemen in Ogiro prefer to make a living in the territory of the three young powers.

Even if the conditions and income are not high, there is still a sense of belonging.

To feed so many new people, the three have sold quite a few family assets to buy grain from Peace Haven.

Now, all minerals in their territories have already been bought by Peace Haven.

They only need to wait for dividends each year, and even so, the dividends are greater than what they would have earned by mining the deposits themselves.

At this time, Henwell no longer restricts the use of steam engines. Many industries have begun using these roaring steel beasts.

More people means more ideas. Since the steam engine was first released, it has already gone through two generations of updates.

Many parts have been improved. The craftsmen discover that apart from the core components, the other parts do not require such expensive extraordinary alloy.

After replacing them with refined steel, the machine's failure rate does rise a little.

At first, they still ask technical engineers from the Technical Research Institute to repair the engines. But as the number of steam engines increases, there are not enough engineers, and people often need to wait in line for repairs.

Here, workers who specialize in repairing machines naturally appear.

In modern society, many machine improvements are actually ideas from excellent repair workers.

After all, they see more failures. They summarize experience on their own, and the more flexible-minded ones improve certain parts themselves.

During spring plowing after the new year, Peace Haven's first steam engine not built by the Technical Research Institute rolls off the line at Peace Haven Second Forge.

It cannot be said that they produced it completely on their own. Some core parts still need to be ordered from the Technical Research Institute, but this already proves a trend.

This world-changing machine has begun to slowly detach itself from the extraordinary.

Aside from the steam engine, Peace Haven also makes a breakthrough in another major project.

Unfortunately, it is not extraordinary alloy, nor is it extraordinary potion.

It is even less the cannons and firearms that Henwell has been thinking about constantly. Instead, it is a research project that surprises even Henwell.

A few days after Henwell passes his thirty-second birthday, he arrives at the Technical Research Institute.

Looking at the iron pot before him, where the water is slowly steaming, Henwell frowns. "How was this done? What is the principle?"

Peace Haven's spellcaster consultant, chief arcanist Gallagher, points at the pot lid.

On it is a heavily corroded mark, a pattern that can barely still be seen.

It is the English word "fire."

Gallagher explains, "This is the mysterious symbol you once wrote, my lord. Its meaning is flame."

"This metal plate was the signboard of Peace Haven's earliest smelting factory. Later, when the factory was moved and improved, the signboard was put away."

"After changing hands several times, it ended up among the people. Only when someone discovered that it had an extraordinary effect did we recover it."

"We traced its origin all the way back, and in the end, it still pointed to you, my lord."