Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 395 Problems Caused by Snowfall

Supporting the mafia wasn't an idea Perfectcot came up with on a whim, or maybe she had made a wrong connection somewhere.

Rather, the current situation determines that a large city like Chernobog needs a gang force and a black market, which will help stabilize social order and also help to supplement the shortage of material supplies.

This is actually not difficult to understand. The material control adopted by Perfect can be understood as a planned economy, while the black market is a market economy.

When material supplies are insufficient, it is naturally necessary to adopt a planned economy and allocate all materials in a unified manner. This can avoid waste and concentrate limited materials to where they are most needed.

But at the same time, the market economy cannot be completely abandoned. Some spontaneous behaviors of the private market can serve as a supplement to the official planned economy.

And what is particularly important is that gang forces in this era do help stabilize social order.

Especially with the arrival of the end of the world, social sentiment will become more and more turbulent, and it is not surprising that any kind of gray forces will emerge under such circumstances.

At this time, if a gang force can be fostered in advance to occupy the ecological niche, then even if it cannot be said that they have complete control over the situation in the future, they can at least have a first-mover advantage.

What's more important is that if you don't do things like black market and smuggling, someone else will. Instead of leaving such a large market to others to make money, Perfectcot thinks it is better to control it in his own hands.

Of course, as the Lord of the North, she only needs to convey an intention in this matter, and the specific operations can be left to her subordinates to handle.

After all, if a great Earl of the Empire and Guardian of the North had to personally support a grassroots gang, it would be too degrading and would also make her subordinates appear too incompetent.

Compared to these, the problems exposed in the North during this snowfall are what she should pay more attention to.

Because the snow came too early, the people in the north were not even prepared for winter. They had insufficient firewood reserves, food shortages, and a lack of warm clothing.

Perfect had anticipated some of these problems, and she had made a lot of preparations in the previous two years, so some of the problems were solved by officials in the North after they were exposed.

Even if some of the problems could not be solved, there were solutions. It's just that the snowfall came too quickly this time and they were not implemented in time.

But there are some issues that have not been taken into consideration.

For example, the traffic problems caused by snowfall are indeed a problem for the North.

There are currently three modes of transportation in the North: trains, carriages, and airships.

The train runs on rails, so even if there is snowfall, it is easy to deal with. The equipped snowplows can quickly clear the snow on the tracks and allow the train to resume traffic.

Even in places where the snow is too deep, it can be dug out by manual excavation to allow trains to pass.

In general, train transportation is easier to guarantee and there are currently no problems.

As for the airship, there is no need to mention it. As long as you don't rush into the clouds to commit suicide, there will basically be no problem using a flying vehicle in the sky.

This is also the main post-disaster emergency measure in the North at present, relying on the mobility of airships to transport some scarce supplies to where they are urgently needed.

Compared to these two, the traditional mode of transportation, horse-drawn carriages, seemed helpless, and they even had difficulty traveling within the city of Chernobog.

On the one hand, horses are not cold-resistant animals, and they will be affected by the cold weather. On the other hand, the passing performance of horse-drawn carriages is really poor. Even if the snow is a little thick, it will seriously affect the passage of horse-drawn carriages. Their passing ability is even worse than that of humans.

Under such circumstances, the situation in many settlements in the North is extremely worrying.

Those settlements that have built railways are still okay, because the railways can at least guarantee a stable supply of materials.

But those settlements without railways were in a miserable situation. The roads connecting towns or other settlements were covered with snow, and they were isolated from other settlements by the unpassable roads. They could only rely on fast-moving airships to ensure a minimum supply of materials.

For these settlements, eating is actually not a big deal. After all, compressed biscuit machines are available in every settlement. Even if they are not popular, it is not difficult to transport them there by airship.

Therefore, food supply is the first thing to be guaranteed.

There is no need to worry about water supply. There is snow in the north, and the accumulated snow can be shoveled away and used directly as a water source.

Industrial pollution in this era was not serious, and the snow was basically clean. Except for areas near factory areas where there was a certain degree of pollution, other places basically retained a fairly primitive natural ecology.

So there is no problem in using the accumulated snow as a water source.

The real major difficulty is the fuel issue.

With the establishment of cities and the commissioning of industrial centers in the north, the small coal mine near Eagle Cliff is definitely not enough.

In fact, in the past year, three large-scale coal mines have been put into production in the North, and seven medium-sized coal mines have been mined with the approval of Perfect.

As for small coal mines or small coal kilns that are privately mined and not reported, there are even more of them, but Perfect just turns a blind eye to them and does not criticize them too much.

Although small coal mines were indeed considered stealing her property as the lord of the North, after all, according to imperial law, all mineral resources on the lord's territory belonged to the lord, and only strategic resources such as gold needed to be shared with the king.

But for Perfect, it is not a big deal for the people to dig some small coal mines to ensure their own coal supply.

Even if these settlements report this to the higher authorities, they will just pass through when they reach Perfectocote.

After all, there was only so much mining technology available at this time. Lacking large-scale industrial equipment and professional mining technology, it was already the limit for them to dig some shallow coal to meet their daily needs.

It's unrealistic to expect them to dig up a lot of coal and sell it.

However, with traffic interruptions caused by snowfall, these small coal mines are unable to deliver the coal they dig to settlements in need for the time being.

This resulted in many settlements having enough food but people were basically freezing.

After all, it’s not winter yet. Who would be so kind as to start hoarding firewood now?
Even Perfect, who had experienced a winter in the north, did not have this awareness.

Therefore, in addition to transporting various scarce materials, the most transported item by the airships in the North is coal.

(End of this chapter)