Chapter 165: Potential Site
By midday, the convoy had left the narrow, suffocating mining valley far behind.
The rugged terrain gradually dissolved. Steep granite cliffs gave way to gently rolling plains, where endless grasslands were broken only by clusters of ancient oak trees and the occasional sleepy farming hamlet. Instead of rutted wagon tracks squeezed between rocky slopes, the King’s Highway stretched across open country, allowing the four horses to maintain a brisk, steady trot.
Arthur leaned out the window, his hand holding his hat against the wind. "I don’t think I’ve ever traveled this far east."
Samuel Wright looked up from the leather-bound survey ledgers spread across his lap. "Not many have, Mr. Pendelton. Before the reconstruction, this was just open crown pasture and seasonal wheat farms. There wasn’t much economic reason to head in this direction."
Ernest remained quiet, resting his arm on the window sill, watching the flat horizon slide past. There’s a reason now.
Nearly two hours later, the lead carriage slowed to a halt atop a low embankment.
Samuel stepped down onto the grass first, holding a heavy brass compass in one hand and cross-referencing it against a topographical survey map prepared by the Royal Survey Office months prior. He raised his arm, pointing toward a sweeping ridge overlooking a vast, sunlit basin.
"We’re here, my Lord."
The four men climbed the gentle rise together, their boots sinking softly into the thick turf.
The moment Ernest reached the crest... he stopped.
Before them stretched an immense, unobstructed plain unlike anything they had inspected that morning.
To the north, a broad, deep river flowed steadily through the basin, glinting under the afternoon sun before curving gently toward the eastern coast. To the far west, the purple silhouettes of the mountain range marked the boundaries of the Teucher Iron Mining Company’s concessions. Far beyond those peaks lay the coalfields.
To the south, the flat grassland extended for miles without a single steep slope or rock formation to break the horizon—just open, fertile country fed by small tributary streams branching off the main river channel.
No tight gorges. No threatening flood basins. No geographical constraints.
Just land. An unbelievable, sprawling expanse of land.
For a long moment, nobody spoke. Even Hollen, whose expression usually carried a permanent veil of professional skepticism, stood with his arms crossed, staring silently across the basin.
"...Well," Hollen grunted softly.
Arthur slowly removed his wire-rimmed spectacles, wiping them with his handkerchief before putting them back on. "Good gods... I certainly wasn’t expecting this."
Samuel set up a portable tripod table on the crest, unrolling a broad survey grid. "The flat, contiguous acreage exceeds six thousand acres before we hit the first significant elevation change to the east."
Hollen looked sharply at Ernest. "Six thousand? That’s... that’s fifteen times the footprint of the mountain site."
"Fifteen times," Ernest confirmed softly.
Arthur stared across the open grassland, his jaw slightly slack. "Ernest... you could fit an entire municipality down there."
A quiet, confident smile touched Ernest’s lips. "That’s the plan, Arthur."
The three men turned to look at him.
Ernest stepped forward to the very edge of the ridge, the wind tugging at his coat. "Imagine standing on this exact spot twenty years from now," he said, pointing a leather-gloved finger toward the northern riverbank.
"Over there—four multi-story blast furnaces continuously tapping molten iron," Ernest said, his voice ringing with absolute clarity. His hand moved east along the river. "The high-temperature coking batteries and chemical recovery plants right beside them. Here, along the deep water, the ore and limestone receiving yards."
He swept his arm across the center of the plain, tracing invisible industrial geometry in the air. "The converter shops. The blooming mills. The rail rolling mills. The structural steel plants. The plate mills. The heavy machine construction bays."
As he spoke, the empty grass seemed to disappear. Each facility found its logical place in his mind, as if the rising columns of brick, steel, and smoke were already anchored to the soil.
Arthur tried to follow the rapid sequence, squinting at the field. "Wait... you’ve already mapped out the entire operational flow in your head?"
"I started sketching it last night," Ernest replied.
"You... what?"
Ernest crouched down, picked up a sturdy oak twig, and cleared a patch of dirt at his feet. Without saying another word, he began dragging the stick through the soil, carving crisp, precise shapes into the earth.
A large rectangle. A smaller block beside it. Then a series of long, parallel lines.
The other three men instinctively gathered around him, leaning over his shoulders.
"The river," Ernest said, pointing the stick toward the northern boundary. "It gives us an inexhaustible supply of cooling water for the blast jackets and steam boilers. The prevailing regional wind comes out of the southwest."
Samuel checked his compass notes, nodding. "Consistent year-round."
"So the coking batteries go down here, in the southwestern quadrant," Ernest explained, dragging the stick to mark the corner. "The sulfur smoke and ash get carried downwind, entirely away from the primary residential zones."
Hollen’s eyes lit up. "Which keeps the worker housing clean and out of the soot."
"And keeps the workforce healthy," Ernest added. He drew another large block. "Blast furnaces go right here, sandwiched between the coking plants and the converter bays. Minimal transit distance for raw coke."
He dragged two deep, parallel grooves through the dirt connecting the blocks.
Arthur frowned, pointing at the grooves. "What are those lines?"
"The hot-metal railway," Ernest said.
"A private track?" Arthur asked.
"Exclusive to the works," Ernest said, his stick moving rapidly. "Liquid pig iron drops from the blast furnace tapholes straight into insulated torpedo cars. It travels along these tracks directly to the pneumatic converters while still at two thousand degrees. No cooling. No pig ingots. No reheating furnaces. Zero wasted thermal energy."
Hollen let out a low whistle, nodding slowly. "The integrated cycle."
"Precisely," Ernest said. He kept drawing, the twig scratching loudly against the dirt.
The master layout expanded rapidly across the patch of soil: raw material stockyards, flux storage bins, a centralized steam-electric power station, machine maintenance shops, metallurgical testing labs, rolling stands, and finished inventory yards. Every single facility was placed with clinical thermodynamic and logistical intent. Nothing was random. Nothing was an afterthought.
Finally, Ernest drew a long, heavy double line cutting straight across the southern perimeter of his dirt map.
Arthur pointed to it. "And that’s...?"
"The mainline for the National Railway System," Ernest said.
Arthur blinked. "You’re placing the primary commercial line that close to the mills?"
"It has to be," Ernest said, standing up and brushing the dirt from his hands. "If a train loaded with sixty-pound steel rails has to crawl twenty miles across country roads just to reach the commercial network, we’re burning money on transit before the product even leaves the county."
Samuel looked up from the dirt sketch toward the vast, open basin, his mind running the calculations. "It’s a completely closed logistical loop. Everything connects."
"It’s the only way a modern mill survives high-volume production," Ernest said.
Hollen crossed his thick arms over his chest, his eyes fixed on Ernest. "You know, Ernest... I’ve noticed something strange about this whole trip."
Ernest turned to the old forge master. "What’s that?"
"You haven’t asked Samuel a single question about the iron ore purity at the northern mines today," Hollen noted.
"I already ran the chemical assays on the hematite samples last week," Ernest said smoothly.
"You haven’t asked about the coal yield from your northern pits."
"I already know the carbon density of those seams."
"The river flow rate?"
"Hydro-surveys were completed three weeks ago."
Hollen raised his eyebrows. "So what in the hell have you actually been inspecting out here all day?"
Ernest looked across the wide plain, a quiet smile spreading across his face. "The future, Hollen."
Seeing the old forge master’s puzzled expression, Ernest gestured toward the distant mountain range behind them. "If we build the steelworks tucked inside those northern mountains, the factory stays trapped in those mountains forever. It hits a wall the moment we try to scale."
He turned back, his arm sweeping across the massive, open basin. "But out here... out here, we can expand for the next fifty years. One rolling mill becomes four. One pneumatic converter shop becomes a dozen. More blast furnaces. Worker housing. Schools. Technical institutes. Hospitals. Commercial markets. Freight yards."
His voice dropped, quiet yet filled with unshakeable conviction. "We aren’t just building a manufacturing plant here, gentlemen. We are laying the foundation for an entirely new industrial city."
Hollen stared out over the sunlit grasslands, seeing the landscape through an entirely new lens. Until ten minutes ago, he had only seen an empty pasture.
Now... looking through Ernest’s eyes, he could almost hear it. The sharp, rhythmic shrieks of steam whistles echoing across the valley. The deafening, metallic thunder of heavy rolling mills shaping red-hot steel ingots. The deep, continuous roar of multi-story blast furnaces burning day and night. The heavy rumble of freight trains hauling thousands of tons of metal to every corner of the realm.
The old forge master slowly shook his head, a genuine, awe-struck smile breaking through his silver beard.
"My whole life, I’ve thought like a blacksmith trying to forge a better blade," Hollen whispered softly.
Ernest turned to him. "And now?"
"Now I realize you’re thinking like a man building a civilization."
The words hung in the warm afternoon breeze, drifting across the ridge.
Samuel Wright quietly snapped his notebook shut, his eyes bright with professional excitement. "My Lord... I assume I should instruct my team to begin a full-scale geological and structural survey of this basin immediately?"
"Immediately, Samuel," Ernest confirmed, turning to the surveyor. "I want core soil samples every five hundred yards across the entire six thousand acres. Groundwater depth, seasonal flood margins, bedrock stability, and river flow velocity through all four seasons."
Samuel’s pencil was already flying across his notepad, recording the parameters. "Consider it done. Anything else?"
Ernest turned back to the horizon one last time, looking out over the land that would soon bear his name.
"Yes," Ernest said quietly.
The three men waited, watching him.
"I don’t want this surveyed as a factory site, Samuel," Ernest said, his voice firm and absolute. "I want it surveyed as the future industrial capital of Belfast."
Silence settled over the ridge. Arthur slowly lowered his legal portfolio, staring out over the plain, while Hollen stood in mute reverence.
The afternoon wind swept across the grass, carrying the scent of rich earth and river water. To anyone else passing along the King’s Highway, it was just an empty, quiet stretch of countryside.
To Ernest, it was the exact spot where the next century would begin.