When Roland received the report jointly written by the commander of the First Army and the chief of the General Staff, he immediately thought of the spy movies he had watched.
This was apparently a very feasible plan.
He even thought more about the plan than Edith.
Spy was an ancient profession, and it had various names in different times, but the spy Roland was familiar with were those in WWI and WWII. Early intelligence collection was simply a two-way communication without a systematic organization. As the government tightened their control over people, spies and agents found it increasingly hard to escape the scrutiny, and that was the time when a well-organized system was established.
This also meant that in a feudal country ruled by nobles, spies could be anywhere. Once those agents received some professional training and learned cunningtricksto protect themselves, they would never be found even if the whole city was turned upside down.
They were like shadows slinking in the city, whosepresencenever raised the awareness of the people who received their tips. Even Nightingale would fail to get anything out of them upon an interrogation.
Roland thus approved the proposal at once.
However, he was not planning to entrust this task totally to Edith. This, nonetheless, had nothing to do with trust. Intelligence collection could be time-consuming. He would rather Edith focus more on the big picture of the planthan a specific project.Otherwise, itwould be a total waste of Edith’s talent.
He would need a professional to deal with this matter.
Roland spread open a letter and put Hill Fawkes at the top.
The Kingdom of Dawn had been quite peaceful recently. This former ringmaster must be very bored at the moment.
After Nightingale handed the letter to Honey, Roland started to consider about another thing.
That was an intelligence gathering network.
Before, he had only needed to take care of the war and political matters within Graycastle. However, ever since the expedition to Taquila, it had taken the carrier pigeon a much longer time to commute. Thanks to the support of the “Seagull”, Roland was still able to receive information in a timely manner.
Nevertheless, they were now waging a war in the Kingdom of Wolfheart and the Kingdom of Everwinter, and Rolandnoticeda significant delay in communication.
For example, the report he was currently reading had been written a week ago and had been shipped by sea. Although animal messengers would make things a lot faster, he would still need to wait for at least two or three days. More importantly, Honey did not have a lot of messengers that could fly more than 1,000 kilometers. She could only control the behavior of the animals but not change it.
Plus, Honey was not powerful enough to support the communication throughout the entire Western Region even for short-distance messengers, let alone the communication throughout the whole nation and beyond Graycastle. There was actually a limit in the number of the animals she could control. Therefore, how to efficiently deliver messages was also a huge problem that needed to be solved after this intelligence gathering network was established.
Roland knew very well that the ultimate solution would be radio communication.
The telegraphtechnologies were simple, but like telephones, the communication through telegraphs relied largely on reception. Normally, the signal could only cover a distance of 100 kilometers without a repeater like an electron tube that could amplify signals.
However, if he couldinvent an electron tube, he would also be able to create radios. There was no electromagnetic pollution in this era. The sound produced by tuned electromagnetic waves was very similar to the crying of a baby. He would only need to erect an antenna on the top of the Impassable Mountain Range to receive messages thousands of kilometers away.
If he could successfully create radios, it would only take a few minutes to transmit the report from the front to his office. If every soldier in the army was equipped with a portable radio, that would be even more helpful to the war than the Radiation Project.
Nevertheless, Roland had no idea where to start and how.
Perhaps, it was time to ask the Design Bureau of Graycastle to work on more projects.
Roland entered the Dream World at night. After he sent Zero off to school, he drove to the construction site of the Clover Group in the southern suburb.
Garde was indeed an efficient businessman. He fulfilled his promise at once. Not only did he authorize Roland to manage the plant, but the plant was refurbished as well. The rusty wall was painted, and the facilities were renewed.
Had the Clover Group not insisted on demolishing the apartment building, Roland would have loved to deal with Garde and conducted more business with him.
He parked his vehicle and found the yard outside the plant look a bit strange. Normally, few people came here, but today, there were a lot of workers.
He also hearddeep, heavyroar of machineries.
Roland quickly passed through the crowd and saw a queer catepillar machine in front of him. Only the lower part of the machine was currently completed. There was nothing special about the catepillar and the wheels per se. What attracted these workers was the distinctive steam-powered piston at the top and another tractor that produced steam.
Roland burst into a laugh.
So that was Master Xie’s idea. To minimize the impact of the imaginary boiler and water tank, he installed this part of the machine onto a tractor so that he could test out both of them at the same time. The tractor not only had to run on its own but it alsoneeded to power the catepillar machine. Th principle was so similar to that of the “solar torch light” that would only work when there was light.
“Ahem… hey, boss,” Master Xie, having realized the awkwardness of the machine, greeted Roland in embarrassment.
Roland praised him heartily, “Good job. This is exactly what I want!”
He came here to check the progress of the project. Last time when he had come here,Master Xiehad onlycompleted theframe of the tractor. But now,the tractorwas finished. Master Xie indeed had put a lot of efforts into it.
“R-really?” Master Xie said while scratching his scalp. “Are you sure your collector friends are interested in this kind of thing?”
“Did you make the parts of the tester with machine tools?”
“Yes, I can assure you about that,” Master Xie replied quickly as he massaged his hands. “But I bought the tractor, the boiler and the water tank. They’re all second-handed, and it cost me around ￥300,000…”
“Money isn’t a problem,” Roland dismissed his concern while waving his hand. The Clover Group would pay everything. “As long as they were manually made, my friend will be satisfied. Keep up the great work. Once the deal is successfully closed, I’ll double your salary as a bonus!”