"So you don"t want to earn double and keep a positive relations.h.i.+p with the one person capable of driving you out of work just because?"

Rather than flaring up in anger, I decided to pry into the reasons of this miner. With how good those strange negotiations were going, for this man to suddenly do a one hundred eighty degrees turn with his att.i.tude, meant that I had to strike some nerve of his without even realising it.

"Just like I said, you can go and shove your nice speech down your a.s.s. We have families to feed, and we won"t bet their starvation on some random n.o.ble word!"

So that was the reason!

While I could expect it, with how for most of the people their wage meant the means to get by before the next payment would arrive, as someone from the future when despite how bad the economy in my country was, if someone used his money smart, he could still create a comfortable buffer in case something happened, making him suddenly lose his income.

On the other hand, for those miners, to get the payment for their work or not get it meant whether or not they would be able to support their livelihood for the next short period of time! And I could only imagine how bad it would feel to work this kind of high-paying but a health-costly job only to lose a week worth of income to a sc.u.mmy n.o.ble!

"So that"s your reason. I think I get it, but I can"t convince you right away. Would you mind coming with me? It so happens that both your appearance and the arrival of the villagers that you might see in the distance forced me away from finis.h.i.+ng a funny project of mine, that will greatly change your lives in the near future."

Rather than trying to convince the miner of my pure heart and golden intentions, it would be better to simply show him the machine that would soon turn his acceptable paycheck into something that half of the country would envy. Even though I was going to buy off the iron from the miners for a lower price than what it was now, with the insane increase of productivity provided by this miraculous machine of steam, the amount they could steal from the greedy hold of the earth would also increase at least severalfold!

"Eh… You won"t give up… Just make it quick, we are tired after working for a d.a.m.ned week straight!"

Yeah, as if!

While it was true that they remained underground for about a week from what I heard and saw with my own eyes, I highly doubted they worked without any break for that long! According to my estimates, as soon as they hit the cap of what they had to produce to get just enough money to be satisfies, their work turned into a drinking festival, when only those who lost the penalty would have to work for a while before returning to the work!

But there was a simple way to put this kind of people in line. A way so devious it was used all the way from the moment of its invention to the times I lived in.

Work per diem.

While to some point, they could already claim to work in this system, with how hard this work was right now, they most likely knew that overexerting themselves in the mine would not only lead to the greater risk for their health but also the potential fall of the prices of their ware!

That"s why instead of making them work for as much as they wanted, after implementing my inventions in their mine, I would guarantee them the price at which I would buy the ore they would extract from the ground!

Obviously, as more and more inventions would enter their life, that price would be lowered by all sorts of applicancies I would offer them, yet no matter what, their earnings could only keep on increasing as would the output!

With most of the hard work taken away from them by the track and carts powered by the steam engine, with the steam horse pumping the water away from the flooded parts of the mine or even with steam-powered tools that could be developed as soon as I would be capable of producing portable steam engines, every single invention of mine that would be implemented in their line of work, would drastically increase their output, while slightly lowering the price of the ore.

But if that trend continued, even with all the uses I had for the metal, sooner or later I would hit the cap when I simply couldn"t afford any more of the ore dug out from this mine!

Yet I couldn"t be bothered by such a silly problem!

By the time the ore would become so popular and inexpensive, rather than me using this place for my own benefit, the entire commonwealth would keep placing ma.s.sive orders on literally any product coming out of my factories, clogging the production queue for weeks if not months, and providing me with enough funds to keep expanding the mining area and rate!

Yet as my mind continued to want in the beautiful scenario that might soon be fulfilled, the reality, as usual, came knocking only to chase away all those useless thoughts, replacing them with the sight of my beautiful creation.

Even though it wasn"t finished by any means, with some auxiliary mechanisms still requiring attention, as long as we would compromise on doing some stuff by hand instead of making the machine itself solve its problems.

"Now, just watch."

Keeping in mind that the miners followed me to this site, I couldn"t be bothered to even spare them a single look, busy signalling to my men that it was finally the time to wake up this beast from its slumber and put its fires to work!

It was time for the first-ever steam engine, or rather, steam horse to flex its muscles in front of an audience!