We had secured the weapons capable of entirely shifting the tide of war… and we had successfully trained the soldiers required to wield those weapons.

We had military rations stockpiled, and the production of various other logistical supplies was currently well underway.

Now, we simply needed a method to transport all of it.

Naturally, unless we planned to physically carve a massive, paved highway straight through hundreds of kilometers of untamed wilderness stretching from here to Florida, there was only one viable option.

We needed ships.

I briefly considered begging England for assistance, but upon further reflection, I realized that those bastards were currently so desperate they were forcibly commandeering civilian merchant vessels to use as warships.

Therefore, we had to secure the ships ourselves.

Clipper ships were out of the question.

Clippers were hyper-specialized transport vessels that sacrificed absolutely everything else in exchange for raw speed, making them entirely unsuited for our immediate needs. Furthermore, they were massive, highly advanced ships from several centuries in the future, meaning they would take far too long to construct.

Given that our primary objective was transporting heavy cargo over a relatively short distance, what we desperately needed right now wasn’t speed, but absolute stability and massive cargo capacity.

With the simplest structural design possible.

Capable of floating as much sheer mass as physically possible.

We didn’t need warships; we needed a massive fleet of heavy freighters.

Since our local shipyards had been fully operational for quite some time now, our manufacturing systems were highly organized, and the number of skilled shipwrights had grown significantly.

Thanks to this foundation, we didn’t have to blindly copy the ships currently popularized by the Dutch or other global maritime powers. Instead, we were able to conceptualize a completely unique structural design perfectly tailored to our specific needs.

First and foremost, we expanded the width of the deck as much as physically possible.

This was the exact opposite of the contemporary Dutch design philosophy, which deliberately narrowed the deck width to exploit tax loopholes. However, considering the sheer nature of the cargo we had to transport, a massive deck was an absolute necessity.

We were literally planning to haul impossibly massive blocks of solid steel across the ocean; structural stability had to be our absolute highest priority. We widened the beam and spaced the masts as far apart as possible.

And right in the center of that massive space, we securely bolted down a single steam tractor.

Of course, considering each of our armored tractors weighed several dozen tons, we couldn’t just casually plop them on top of the deck. We designed the main deck to open up entirely, allowing us to carefully lower the tractors directly into the ship’s hold.

It was a revolutionary new class of vessel utterly dedicated to the transportation of heavy tractors and massive logistical supplies, entirely sacrificing speed and universal compatibility in exchange for safely hauling astronomical volumes of cargo.

However, even with our new freighters, our total shipping capacity was simply insufficient to transport all the tractors. Therefore, we borrowed the strength of the French merchants.

More accurately, we literally borrowed their ships.

Given the current geopolitical situation, we suddenly required a massive influx of essential raw materials. While our community produced endless mountains of furs and possessed vast reserves of gold, silver, and precious gems, we severely lacked cotton and crucial industrial metals like copper.

Consequently, countless French merchant vessels frequently crossed the Atlantic to dock in our ports. While they lingered in our territory conducting trade, we temporarily leased their ships.

We then dismantled the remaining tractors piece by piece and carefully loaded the heavy components onto the leased French vessels.

Afterward, those disassembled tractors were transported to various strategic locations across Florida.

Naturally, the specialized mechanics and heavy equipment required to reassemble and maintain the tractors were shipped alongside them.

With that, the greatest logistical hurdle had finally been cleared. Now, all we had to do was gather the remaining logistical supplies to load onto our newly built freighters, and—

“…Are you telling me we have already gathered everything?” I asked, utterly bewildered.

“Yes, my lord. We primarily proceeded by directly purchasing the required goods from the various new factories that have recently sprung up across the community. The quotas filled up remarkably fast,” Raleigh reported.

“…”

This was incredibly strange.

Wasn’t everyone in our community supposedly completely allergic to wage labor? We hadn’t actively imported these specific supplies from Europe, so where the hell was this massive stockpile coming from?

Where exactly? And why?

***

When constructing a ship, simply hammering iron nails into wooden planks to form a hull does not miraculously complete the vessel.

A ship fundamentally requires sails to catch the wind and generate propulsion. Without sails, a ship is nothing more than a floating wooden box.

Similarly, miles of heavy rope are required to secure and manipulate those sails. In fact, rope is absolutely essential for operating countless elements across the entire ship and firmly lashing down cargo to prevent it from shifting.

Only when a ship is fully stocked with all these various tools and components can it truly function as a vessel, and successfully fulfill the role Kim Lee-sang and the Virginians desperately needed: hauling massive logistical supplies across the ocean.

The exact same principle applied to the military.

For an army to actually function as a cohesive military force, simply gathering weapons and soldiers is nowhere near enough. On a fundamental level, whenever hundreds of human beings gather to live and operate collectively, a staggering amount of logistical supplies is required.

They need standardized military uniforms to wear. They need heavy canvas tents to shelter them when sleeping outdoors.

If they carry swords, they need leather belts and scabbards to hold them. They also need specialized oils and whetstones to properly maintain the steel blades.

These exact types of mundane items constituted the vast majority of the ‘logistical supplies’ Kim Lee-sang had ordered. While Virginia was currently overflowing with wealth, the newly liberated Florida would be entirely devoid of such basic necessities.

These specific supplies had to be manufactured with maximum efficiency to satisfy the sudden, explosive demand of hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of people. It was a completely different beast compared to the luxurious, meticulously hand-crafted artisanal goods that Virginia had primarily produced up until now.

And that was precisely why Kim Lee-sang was so utterly baffled.

Every single resident of the Virginia community already enjoyed a level of staggering wealth that far exceeded their basic needs. Furthermore, maintaining that luxurious lifestyle didn’t require a single ounce of manual labor on their part.

The reality was that the ordinary citizens of this community were universally enjoying a standard of living typically reserved exclusively for high-ranking aristocrats in other nations.

Given such a utopian economic reality, ‘labor’ was no longer a desperate prerequisite for survival; it had entirely shifted into the realm of personal hobbies. With the vast majority of the potential workforce permanently sidelined by their own immense wealth, the overall industrial productivity of the community should have been abysmal.

Yet, the massive logistical supplies had been procured with terrifying ease. Not only had they manufactured enough to fully supply the Virginian forces, but they had also produced enough surplus to comfortably support the massive demands of Florida as well.

To truly comprehend this bizarre, paradoxical situation, one had to look a bit deeper into the societal shifts occurring within the community.

Virginia’s very first ‘Industrial Monastic Order’ had spontaneously formed right next door to the primary tractor manufacturing plant. They deliberately wore coarse, unadorned clothing, ate incredibly frugal meals, and actively sought out grueling physical labor as a form of spiritual asceticism.

Just as the early Christian churches during the Roman Empire and the ascetic monastic orders of the Middle Ages had done, the people who chose to live this remarkably austere lifestyle gradually became the subject of intense public curiosity.

And throughout human history, those who willingly sacrificed their own personal wealth, time, and passion for the sake of a higher, nobler cause were inevitably revered with deep respect.

“Why do you subject yourselves to such grueling labor?” onlookers would ask.

“…Because the community requires my two hands, does it not?” the ‘monks’ would reply simply.

This reverence was amplified exponentially if the ‘higher cause’ in question perfectly aligned with the core values actively encouraged by society.

This was the early 17th century; it was an era still utterly dominated by religion.

Whether it was the Europeans who had lived their entire lives immersed in the Christian world, or the Native Americans who had formally embraced Christianity over a decade ago, witnessing individuals selflessly dedicating themselves to Christian asceticism and the betterment of the community naturally commanded immense, undeniable respect.

In other words, their ascetic labor was universally perceived as an incredibly ‘honorable’ pursuit.

And ‘honor’ was the one and only thing the people of this hyper-wealthy community still desperately thirsted for.

To the Native Americans, the concept of a ‘wealthy individual’ deliberately distributing their wealth and labor to the community in exchange for political power and social prestige was an entirely familiar cultural practice.

Meanwhile, the Europeans who had crossed the ocean were largely driven by a burning ambition to elevate their social status and become ‘noble gentlemen’ back in their homelands. Now that they had been handed limitless wealth, there was only one obvious goal left for them to pursue.

—”My name is Jeffrey Cage. I wish to dedicate my entire life and fortune to the Lord and this holy community, and I recently heard that this Monastic Order performs holy labor that perfectly aligns with that purpose. By any chance, would it be possible for me to join…?” A massive, unstoppable tidal wave of membership applications flooded in.

In the blink of an eye, the membership of the so-called ‘Tractor Order’ skyrocketed into the hundreds. The factory managers were suddenly sweating bullets, desperately scrambling to create enough workstations to accommodate the endless swarm of eager ‘monks.’

However, no matter how desperately they needed more tractors, the demand was not entirely infinite. Soon, the Tractor Order was forced to strictly cap its membership, leaving countless eager applicants entirely stranded.

Driven by this overwhelming, unfulfilled demand, several similar ‘copycat’ monastic orders briefly formed around various minor industries, only to inevitably fizzle out and dissolve. The reason those minor orders failed was glaringly obvious.

They lacked true ‘honor.’

Everyone wanted to perform meaningful, highly visible labor that directly contributed to the grander societal narrative. No one wanted to gather together just to casually whittle useless wooden trinkets, tend to tiny vegetable patches, or practice decorative embroidery.

Of course.

“…Wait a minute.”

“What is it, dear?”

“No, think about it! If there is a massive swarm of laborers desperately begging to join these monastic orders… then we can do it too!”

The shrewd merchants who had previously amassed their fortunes in the bustling commercial complexes were not about to simply sit back and watch this phenomenon unfold.

Taron, the Welsh carpenter whose long-awaited dreams of massive business expansion had been utterly crushed years ago, finally saw a golden lifeline.

“Honey, do the Knights currently have standardized scarves?” Taron asked his wife urgently.

“No, I don’t believe they have anything like that…”

“Well, they’re definitely going to need them now! Should we give it a try?”

What Taron initially envisioned was incredibly simple. In this era, strictly standardized military uniforms practically did not exist. It was entirely commonplace for armies to simply wear brightly colored scarves to distinguish friend from foe on the chaotic battlefield.

Since the Knights would soon be marching off to a massive war, Taron merely assumed they would naturally require standardized, distinctly colored scarves.

However, the reality of how the situation unfolded was slightly different.

Under the direct suggestion of ‘The Angel,’ the government officially decreed that the Knights would now be issued highly standardized boots, coats, vests, and trousers that clearly denoted their specific military ranks.

It was an absolute gold mine.

Taron immediately rallied his close cobbler friends and established a massive shoe factory. Then, he simply sat back and waited for the inevitable swarm of laborers to gather and form something akin to a ‘Shoe Monastic Order.’

And, exactly as predicted, they quickly swarmed in droves.

Overjoyed, Taron eagerly hired them and put them to work. He firmly believed that everything was finally going to work out perfectly…

“…Didn’t roughly fifty people enthusiastically sign up just a few days ago? Why are there only ten people here?” Taron asked, staring at the nearly empty factory floor.

Panic setting in, he frantically asked a neighboring cobbler what had happened. The man’s response was an absolute masterpiece of absurdity.

“Well, about two-thirds of them stopped showing up after the third day. They claimed they simply lacked the necessary manual dexterity to perform the work.”

“And what about the remaining third?!”

“They complained that the work was actually far too interesting and engaging, making it impossible for them to properly meditate while doing it.”

“…”

Only then did Taron realize the true nature of his catastrophic mistake. It was an incredibly obvious, yet utterly absurd reason.

These people hadn’t come here seeking financial compensation or wage employment.

They had come here exclusively seeking ‘holy labor’ itself.

It was entirely Taron’s fault for foolishly ‘providing’ such complex, highly engaging work to people seeking mindless asceticism.

The labor had to be painstakingly simple.

Simple enough that even someone with absolutely zero manual dexterity could effortlessly perform it.

Simple enough that literally anyone could fully participate in the ‘ascetic act.’

Consequently, the labor had to be agonizingly monotonous.

Monotonous enough that they could easily sink into deep, uninterrupted meditation while working.

The tasks had to be as mind-numbingly repetitive and cyclical as a constantly turning waterwheel.

Learning from Taron’s failure, the various monastic orders rapidly springing up across the community aggressively fractured and subdivided the manufacturing process into the smallest possible components. If any physically grueling tasks remained, they eagerly introduced simple machinery to streamline it.

The complex process of crafting a single shoe was violently ripped apart. The tasks of carving the soles, treating the leather, stitching the seams, and polishing the final product were completely isolated from one another within Taron’s new factory.

The exact same brutal subdivision was applied to the massive nail factories, the scarf factories, and the pin factories rapidly erected across the community.

They had successfully created massive industrial facilities specifically designed to ‘provide’ the most painfully simplistic, highly standardized forms of labor and experience possible, explicitly ensuring that absolutely anyone—regardless of skill—could participate.

It was a bizarre, almost holy form of industrialization.

If Adam Smith—who wouldn’t even be born for another century—had witnessed this utterly absurd process, he likely would have scratched his head and muttered, ‘Uh… is this really how this is supposed to work?’ Yet, regardless of the bizarre motivations driving it, the division of labor functioned flawlessly.

As a direct result of nearly ten thousand ‘monks’ working with terrifying, meditative efficiency…

“My lord, isn’t this… an absurdly excessive amount of logistical supplies? Just how many tens of thousands of leather boots did they produce…?” Raleigh asked, staring at the towering mountains of cargo.

“Just load whatever we don’t need onto the ships heading for Florida,” I replied dryly.

Naturally, massive overproduction had occurred. Just how many supplies could a society of a mere hundred thousand people possibly need?

Fortunately, there were thousands—tens of thousands—of desperate people in the south who absolutely needed that exact surplus.

The newly constructed Virginian freighters were rapidly loaded to the brim with towering stacks of meticulously organized supplies. Heavy leather boots, iron pins, thick undergarments, brightly colored scarves, wooden pegs, standardized hats, and so much more…

The preparations for departure were finally complete. Once the fleet set sail, our war preparations would officially be finalized.

And then.

The six-member governing council of the Virginia community—often simply referred to as the Council of Six—made the executive decision to load one final, utterly irreplaceable ‘supply’ onto the flagship.

It was a miraculous totem guaranteed to dramatically skyrocket the morale of the troops, while simultaneously preemptively crushing any potential dissent or anxiety that might arise during a grueling foreign military campaign.

However, it was also a catastrophic seed of destruction; if this ‘supply’ were to ever be captured or killed by the enemy, the entire Virginia community would instantly descend into apocalyptic chaos and completely collapse, leaving not a single foundational stone standing.

That ultimate logistical supply was, of course, the ‘Angel’.

From the very beginning, if we lost this war, our community was entirely finished. From the perspective of the Spanish Empire, Virginia had single-handedly orchestrated the violent overthrow of their colony.

From the exact moment Florida was flipped and our community openly committed to supporting the rebels, we became a far greater, far more terrifying existential threat to Spain than England could ever hope to be. After all, the absolute lifeblood of the Spanish economy flowed directly from the New World.

Therefore, there was absolutely zero chance Spain would ever leave Virginia alone after this.

This was a war we absolutely, unconditionally had to win.

And for a war that absolutely had to be won, He had to be there.

And so, the nameless Angel, Kim Lee-sang, finally departed.

Toward San Agustín, Florida.

It was roughly early February of 1611.