The empire’s monopolization of Livorno and its railway was not just for military reasons.

As mentioned before, the number of merchants using the port of Livorno was continuously increasing. Consequently, the empire built a great number of warehouses in the port and profited from the storage business.

And it wasn’t just warehouses. The processes of loading and unloading cargo from ships, moving it to warehouses, transferring it from warehouses to the station, and loading it onto freight cars all required a great deal of manpower.

• The empire does not recognize the use of slaves.

Thanks to this principle being firmly established from the beginning, many people were hired as laborers. The population of Livorno, which had been around 400 when the port was first built, had since swelled to nearly 10,000. This number excluded the imperial citizens living in the designated Imperial Residential District and a very small number of Italians.

As Livorno’s population surged, Florentine officials requested help from the Imperial Embassy.

“I will take charge of this matter.”

“If it’s Lord Seong, we can rest assured.”

The one who stepped forward in response to Florence’s request was Seong Sam-mun.

With the help of Seong Sam-mun and the imperial officials, Livorno quickly found its footing. Or rather, it was transformed into another imperial city.

Since it had been a small village with almost no native population, it was a situation of building anew from scratch, and the Florentine officials could not hide their bewilderment. Seong Sam-mun stepped in.

“Our empire will handle it.”

“Would you truly do that for us?”

“The port is right next door. If a problem arises here, it becomes our problem too. So we will take care of it. That is the best path for both of us. In return, we would like to have ownership of the land and buildings.”

“Please, do so.”

“Then let us put it in writing.”

And so, the empire rolled up its sleeves and carried out the entire urban zoning process in the imperial style, starting with the water and sewage systems. With the city’s roads and plumbing all done in the imperial fashion, the interiors of the newly built houses in the town also changed to the imperial style.

“It feels a little familiar, yet strange.”

It was only natural for the Italians who moved into the houses to say this. While implementing the Reformations, the empire had introduced water and sewage systems and built new houses to match, and in doing so, Hyang had incorporated as much of the 21st-century residential culture as he was familiar with. This was what gave the Italians a sense of it being both familiar and foreign.

However, it took them no time at all to get used to the new residential culture. And as time passed, Livorno became the second-best city to live in, surpassing Florence and its satellite cities.

The first was the Imperial Residential District.

As word spread that Livorno was a good place to live, Florence’s wealthy class also began to build villas there. Naturally, the empire took charge of connecting the water and sewage lines and supplying the plumbing fixtures. Through these activities, the housing rental and construction businesses in Livorno became another source of income for the empire.

***

The empire reinvested the profits it earned in Florence back into Florence.

The areas where the empire invested its profits were the school meal program and the scholarship program. The empire provided lunch to students attending the elementary schools (Scuola elementare) that Lorenzo had established. It also provided financial aid to students who had good grades but faced difficulties due to their families’ poverty. If a student was exceptionally talented, they were supported so they could advance to a university or even study abroad in the empire.

These school meal and scholarship programs were met with great enthusiasm from parents. For the city’s lower classes, just being able to cut back on one meal for their child was a great help. The scholarship program was likewise celebrated. Through this reinvestment, the empire won over everyone from Florence’s powerful elites to its common citizens.

Of course, Lorenzo and Giovanni were not unaware of the empire’s movements.

“Should we stop them?”

Giovanni pondered Lorenzo’s question, then shook his head.

“We must be cautious, but I don’t think there’s a need to stop them. For the empire, Italy is a place that offers little benefit in possessing.”

“Is it because of the New Frontier?”

Giovanni nodded at Lorenzo’s question.

The Medici family, along with the Mansour family of Aden, was one of the families that had maintained the longest relationship with the empire. Naturally, the quality and quantity of the information they received overwhelmed that of their rivals. Of course, since the empire was extremely secretive, they were unable to obtain the true core secrets, such as the projects equivalent to the Dungeon of Challenge’s ‘Moving Mountain’ grade. However, other minor pieces of information continuously reached the eyes and ears of the Medici family.

And the talented minds of the Medici family would piece together that information and reprocess it into something more valuable. The result of that processing was information related to the New Frontier. Thanks to that information, Giovanni was confident that the empire was not eyeing Italy, or more precisely, Florence, for conquest.

However, Lorenzo could not shake his doubts.

“But looking at what the empire is doing now, they are investing more effort than one might think.”

“That is the empire’s way. Before embarking on a great undertaking, they take a long time to prepare, step by step.”

“I am worried that this great undertaking might be the swallowing of Italy.”

“As I said before, the empire has no interest in conquering Italy. Their interest in Italy is likely due to the problems they will face when they use Italy as a battlefield.”

Lorenzo let out a long sigh at Giovanni’s words.

“Haaah. War…”

Lorenzo was now in his thirties. Though still full of vitality, he had grown more cautious than he was in his twenties.

“In the past, I only wished for war, wondering when it would break out, but now, I find myself growing more afraid of it.”

Giovanni gave a small smile at Lorenzo’s words.

“That is the proper attitude for a sovereign. Surprisingly, the ones who dislike fighting the most are the monarchs of the empire.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Lorenzo’s face brightened at Giovanni’s words.

To the European intellectuals of this period, the emperors of the empire were the ‘model of a monarch.’ Sejong and Hyang, in particular, were the ‘most ideal monarchs.’

“Your Highness is as much a wise ruler as an emperor of the empire!”

This was the highest praise one could give to a king or sovereign in Europe at this time.

***

“Speaking of war, I think I now understand for certain why the empire put so much effort into education.”

“It is truly so. We saw it too simply.”

Lorenzo replied to Giovanni’s words with sincere self-reflection.

• Through the education in the elementary schools, the children will engrave loyalty to Florence and Italy in their minds.

This had been the goal of the Youth Faction and Lorenzo at the time. And they had thought it would be easy.

“No matter how cunning, stupid, or lazy they are, they’ll learn properly before a club.”

Both the Youth Faction and Lorenzo were wealthy intellectuals. From a young age, they had private tutors and learned the classics of Greece and Rome and various other subjects. However, even for them, their initial education had been accompanied by considerable corporal punishment. Because of that experience, they implemented a rote learning system that involved violence.

However, Seong Sam-mun and the imperial officials frowned upon seeing this.

“When a mistake is made, I acknowledge the use of a switch for the purpose of moral correction. That is what a switch is for.”

“Is it not?”

“To rephrase, it is for moral correction, not for education. They are people, not beasts. Do you think you can properly tame them with a club?”

In the end, Seong Sam-mun and the imperial officials also got their hands on Florence’s school curriculum.

The first thing they tackled was the textbooks. They put many illustrations in each textbook to make the children curious and help them focus on their studies. And as the level of learning gradually increased, they structured it so that the children would develop loyalty and a sense of belonging to Florence and Italy. They created textbooks from the biographies of generals famous for their bravery and loyalty in the Roman era and stories of medieval knights, and based on these, they had the children engrave a sense of belonging and loyalty to Florence and Italy in their minds.

“Is this a textbook or a storybook…”

The Youth Faction’s initial reaction to the empire-supervised textbooks was entirely critical. But as time passed, they had to reverse their decision. The academic achievement and motivation of the children who learned with the new textbooks were much higher.

And that wasn’t all.

Their loyalty to Florence and Italy was also extraordinary.

“The unification of Italy, by the hands of Italians!”

“By the hands of us, the citizens of Florence, we will unify Italy!”

Shouting such slogans, boys who had graduated from elementary school and had just been recognized as adults, or rather, wanted to be recognized as such, enlisted in the army. While there was the calculation that it was the fastest path to success and fame, it was also because they wanted to participate in the process of creating a unified Italy.

“How could this be…”

Watching the dumbfounded expressions of the Youth Faction members, Seong Sam-mun explained the reason.

“Because to you, the wars until now have not been ‘your war’ but ‘the war of others,’ while for them, this is ‘their war’.”

“What do you mean by that…”

“The wars you are familiar with were all about mercenaries fighting each other and that was the end of it. Where is the loyalty or trust in such a war?”

“Then those boys…”

“If you first teach them their roots, a just cause will emerge from those roots, as will loyalty and trust…”

Seong Sam-mun paused for a moment, then shook his head and clicked his tongue.

“Tsk! There was no shortage of men in Europe who upheld loyalty and honor, nor was there a shortage of stories of common people rising up to protect their country, so how did it come to be that ‘war is someone else’s business’… This is why loyalty and duty have all become bullshit.”

It was something that any imperial citizen, or at least any scholar-official, would be appalled by. In the empire, it was common to hear stories of not just soldiers or generals, but ordinary people, even slaves, rising up to fight against foreign invaders. That was loyalty, faith, and duty. And this was the common sense of the imperial people.

“If a foreign enemy invades, of course you have to step up and stop them!”

“Damn right!”

However, there was one person who did not take this for granted.

It was Hyang.

“Do not take for granted the idea of ‘If not you and I, then who will protect us?’ If the state neglects the people, that sentiment will not be something to take for a given, it will just be bullshit!”

Hyang continuously emphasized this to his ministers.

“Do not forget that there is no loyalty without duty to the people!”

To the imperial people who were accustomed to this way of thinking, the medieval feudalistic mindset of Italy and Europe was an incomprehensible system of values.

“No matter how different the living conditions and traditions are, loyalty and duty should be the same for all…”

“War is for mercenaries, and they just continue their business or watch from the sidelines? What lengths won’t people go to for their own ruin?”

This was why the sight of young Florentine men and boys flocking to the army elicited such different reactions.

To the Florentine intellectuals, it was an ‘astonishing event.’ To the imperial officials, it was ‘only natural.’