I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution Chapter 81

Rule was an art — whom one ruled, how one ruled, what the goal was, and which group one relied on to achieve it.

Different choices ultimately produced different systems and results.

And the same idea could spawn many variants because of differences in implementation.

By rights, Mitia, as a member of the nobility, should have followed an elite-governance route, because that course met the least resistance and the old vested-interest groups were the strongest; but unfortunately her ideology ran exactly counter to theirs.

Their influence was everywhere, ingrained into the marrow of the people; even many commoners who had risen would be assimilated by their thinking, just like Old Evan.

Fairness, equality — in a world where personal martial power differed by heaven and earth, those two words looked like a joke.

When one carried a lethal weapon, murderous intent easily rose; that was human nature.

So Mitia would not ban firearms.

Only when both sides possessed violent weapons could they argue and reason together peacefully~

Complete fairness and equality were impossible, but one could force the opponent to hesitate to strike, creating relative fairness and relative equality.

If one could not use old groups to achieve goals, then one had to thoroughly eliminate the other side and support new interest groups.

Mitia had tried to unite workers and peasants around her; for merchants she had opened the market in the name of the Federation, allowing free competition within rules.

Although the merchant groups in the provinces were not large yet — few could afford to sponsor a city bid to acquire road-repair rights — as long as the regime held, such big merchants would only increase, and both Mitia and the Federation could wait.

Large infrastructure projects were a long-term dividend: as the Federation expanded, merchants would continuously extract profits, and workers could share in those earnings and prosper as well.

Mitia opened not only civilian industries but part of military industry to market diversification.

For example, the submachine guns from Grace Armaments had already passed the army’s initial tests and had begun to be issued to units.

Peasants were pacified through comprehensive subsidies, purchases of agricultural and sideline products, and open promotion channels.

The fundamental purpose of sending high schools and universities down to townships was to prevent rural areas from being information-monopolized for being far from city clusters.

The number of schools would naturally increase with national strength and population growth, and new consumer groups would form in townships — a good place for agricultural producers to run small businesses to supplement household income.

Years later, among the people enjoying all this, new scientists and mages would be born, continually injecting new vitality into this great ship.

“.....”

“Bang!”

‘click’

“Bang!”

‘click’

The unfamiliar-yet-familiar sound of bolts being pulled echoed again and again, leaving marks on one target after another.

Mitia fired two test shots first to verify accuracy, then pushed up the rear sight, zeroed it, set it to 400M, 600M, 800M, and tried a five-round magazine at each distance in turn; finally she nodded in satisfaction.

With her eyesight, an 800M distance was extremely clear, and in terms of precision the newly re-equipped long gun was completely up to standard.

Miwei, who had been brought along by her, was also trying out the new rifle.

Mitia asked, “How did it feel?”

“Bang!”

“It felt really good!”

Miwei’s small face had flushed a little; she seemed to quite enjoy the sensation of firing, a sharp contrast to her soft, cute appearance.

“If it feels good, that’s right! Rear-pull rotating bolt, built-in double-row magazine, better propellant, better craftsmanship, more scientific design — barring surprises, this rifle would be used by Sinos for ten to twenty years.”

The overall length was 1250mm, barrel length 740mm, unloaded weight 5 kilograms.

The 7.92 metal cartridge, being more in line with ballistics standards, had basically reached its peak.

Miwei was surprised: “Could it really be used that long?”

Mitia nodded.

“Yes! Later on there would only be improvements, but the core would not change. When the time came to replace it, well... it would shine in other fields.”

She picked up another rifle, pulled the bolt down, and pressed the barrel — which had a black unknown attachment at the muzzle — toward Miwei’s face, saying, “You can try putting your eye to the lens.”

Obediently, Miwei brought her eye up.

When she focused, the view through the glass suddenly opened up.

“PU scope, 3.5× magnification, crosshair width 2 mils, horizontal stadia 7 mils.” Mitia proudly rattled off the specs; a scope was an amplifier for a gun, and she had every reason to be proud.

“(object size ÷ mil count) × 1000.

Suppose a person’s shoulder width was 70cm, then the formula would be (0.75 ÷ 5) × 1000 = 140m, so the target was about 140M away from you.

See? Simple.”

Miwei turned her head, looking at her blankly: “Huh? What did you say?”

“Uh...”

Mitia was at a loss for words for a moment and shook her head.

“Never mind, let me show you something special we made for you.”

She took an iron case from a nearby guard, opened it, and inside the lining lay a rifle with an entirely black stock and twenty neatly arranged platinum-colored rounds:

“The one you saw earlier I named Federation Type 1-1, abbreviated LB-11, and this one is a special improved version of the LB-11, code-named LB-11MF.”

“The barrel material is our newly developed composite crystal steel.”

“It contained a powder alloy purified from that so-called ‘holy crystal’ you provided; at its highest it could withstand the energy of a level-7 magic internal compression explosion.”

“It also had exceptionally strong resistance to gas-expansion pressure. The stock material was a hard, dense ebony, and the standard length and dimensions of the stock matched the prototype.”

Mitia picked up one of the rounds.

“With a specially made crystal round installed, the muzzle’s base velocity on firing was 1160 m/s, and the bullet surface had been coated with brass as a lubricant.”

“The core was made of a silver alloy mixed with a bit of anti-magic stone powder.

When the anti-magic stone’s absorption reached its threshold it would explode, allowing the bullet to accelerate a second time in mid-air, and silver was a good magic-conductive material — you know the rest~”

Miwei happily reached into the case to take it out; upon holding it she felt its weight and exclaimed, “It’s a bit heavy~”

“Mm, weight 24.5, due to the high material density.”

Mitia spread her hands.

“Don’t say this rifle was perfectly matched to you — even if I fired it, a hit could directly obliterate a level-9 mage.

I mean vaporize on the spot, so there’d be hardly any flesh left.”

“Your scope was custom too. Due to technical reasons it only had 4× magnification, not a big boost, but I specially got a big-shot loli to help etch charts onto the glass with magic so you could more easily understand the principles.”

“The sharp left and right marks were wind-deflection mil markers; up and down showed bullet drop; the center of the sharp point was the effective impact point within the bullet’s specified range.”

“For this rifle, the first grid was 850 meters; the lower grids were 1100M, 1300M, 1500M respectively.”

“The slanted scale was a ranging ruler. 1.7 meant a base humanoid height of 1.7 meters. The 2-4-6-8 above corresponded to hundreds of meters — framing an enemy humanoid of 1.7 on the ranging ruler would let you estimate how far they were.”

‘This is practically a work of art!’ Miwei exclaimed.

Mitia nodded and quipped, “It really was.

All the materials were custom-ordered; the lab product costs were horrifyingly high. I felt sorry to waste them just playing around.”

“But having two prototype guns to indulge myself with wasn’t so bad~”