Chapter 447 — Prospects
Blade of Dawn Page 1 of 2
"Good afternoon, glorious citizens of Cecil. I am your liege lord."
The voice of the Duke of Cecil rang out over the square, majestic and low, and the whole square fell silent.
Every person stood with mouth agape and eyes wide, staring in astonishment and bewilderment at the enormous holographic image in the center of the square, as though beholding some miracle descended from the heavens.
Even the soldiers standing at the center of the square, keeping watch beside the communicator, wore a trace of excitement on their faces: though the projection's viewing angle meant they could see only a jumble of scattered light and fragments of a clear image, they knew very well that what the image showed was happening at this very moment — their liege lord stood in Xuanyao City even now, yet had truly projected his figure and his voice to this place.
Consul Daedalus also raised his head with a touch of excitement, murmuring softly to himself: "So it is true... inconceivable..."
And the voice echoing across the square continued after a brief pause:
"...Citizens, it is my honor and my pride to tell you that Boulder Fortress has been taken by the valiant and loyal Cecil Combat Legions, and that the remnants of the rebellious nobles who hid themselves within the fortress have all been captured...
"...This land is safe. At least for this moment, it is safe.
"Citizens, this glory belongs to every Cecil — not only the Cecils along the Whitewater River, but also you who are gathered before the holographic projection at this very moment, and all the others who could not come to the gathering but labor diligently at their posts, and every person living on this land of the Southern Region. Whether you are now a farmer, a mercenary, a merchant, a knight, an official, a serf, or even a slave, no matter where you once came from, now you shall all share in this glory. You are the cornerstone and the pillars of the Duchy of Cecil; your diligence and wisdom will make this land stronger and greater...
"But safety is not eternal. Enemies still watch us with hungry eyes: the rebellious Eastern Region that seeks to overturn the kingdom, the Second Royal House hollowed out and left in name only by the Duke Protector, Typhon beyond the kingdom's borders, and the cultists hidden in the shadows — even within our own duchy... Our enemies are always with us.
"Let us remain vigilant and ever ready to meet these threats. Let us remain strong and never fear these challenges...
"And before the challenges come, before peace is broken, citizens, build with vigor and enjoy this great age to the fullest — what I have promised you shall still hold: settlers shall receive land, serfs who labor diligently shall win freedom and property of their own, those who devote themselves to the factories shall receive wages befitting their toil, and those who bear children, who study diligently, who enlist for service, who excel in farming or trade shall each have their rewards.
"And I shall take pride in you."
The image and the voice ended, yet the silence in the square endured for a long while still, until several minutes later, when someone unknown in the crowd raised the first cheer, and then a second and a third followed.
And then the whole square was cheering.
In truth, though, more than half the people were merely cheering along. They had not fully grasped what had just happened before their eyes, nor fully understood the meaning of each of the lord's sentences; they knew only that this was a moment of surging emotion, and, swept up by the atmosphere around them, they had fallen into a kind of blind herd enthusiasm. But what did that matter?
For common folk who had almost no entertainment at all and whose whole lives afforded them pitifully little news to see or hear, today they had witnessed an incredible magical marvel, seen their liege lord appear in a gigantic projection, heard his speech, heard tidings of victory at the front, and even been greatly encouraged themselves — surely that was worth cheering for!
So the people cheered. Whether they understood or not, they cheered along, and within that cheering there truly arose a faint, faint stirring of pride. Though these people, once belonging to the County of Horsman, had not yet encountered the full concepts of "labor is glorious" and "strive to build a new age," the lord had said he took pride in them... and that was very glorious indeed.
At the center of the square, in the area where the civil officials stood, a young female official, hearing the cheers that rang across the whole square and seeing the passion that so many people had unleashed all at once, could not help but be moved. She murmured to herself: "So this is what the lord meant by... the power of the people?"
"No, these are merely blind people," said Daedalus, mayor of Horsman City and consul, shaking his head. "In the words of Mentor Hedy, they are 'a crowd easily stirred by atmosphere and words, given to no thought.' They are still far from true citizens who have awakened and labor with passion out of their own conviction — and that alone is what makes a true 'Cecil citizen.'"
"Blindly stirred..." The young female official was somewhat surprised, but she was evidently one of the apprentices who had received Hedy's teaching, for she soon nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose so... this place is still only at the starting stage..."
"It does not matter. Even a populace stirred only for the moment is better than nothing — at least better than the stagnant, lifeless state they were in before," Daedalus said quietly. "The lord once said something else: 'Inefficient labor is still better than no labor.' A place like Horsman is not the same as the original Cecil frontier territory. The people here bear far less pressure, and they have their own way of living, so to make them burst forth with the passion to build, sometimes you need a little 'encouragement' like this. We do not need it to work for the long term — only for the time being."
The two officials finished their talk, and the cheering and clamor in the square gradually subsided. Daedalus stepped forward then, and with the aid of amplification magic his voice rang across the square:
"Citizens of Horsman City, what you have just seen was an image and sound transmitted by a large-scale magic-net communicator. Over the coming month, we will install the same public broadcast devices in three other places in the city...
"Beyond that, 'civilian communication points' for the common people will also open in the near future. As for how to use the magic-net communicators, you may wait for the soldiers to explain and read out the instructions, or read the relevant content on the notice boards and in the newspapers yourselves.
"Let us thank every person who has labored diligently on the magic-net communication project, and thank its inventors and its builders."
...
In Xuanyao City, within the temporary "broadcast hall" set up inside the Institute of Magical Technology.
The first broadcast of the magic-net communication age had ended, but to be honest, when it was first born, Gao Yang had never imagined that its first broadcast would turn out to be his own "speech."
Frankly speaking, what he had spoken was not what he most wanted to say.
But he knew even better that what he had spoken was what would be most effective in this period.
Propaganda must consider its audience — their worldview, their capacity for understanding, and their patterns of thought. In this broadcast, half test and half formal, the magic-net communication covered the Horsman region in the west, the Boulder–Carol–Kant line in the north, and extended east to the Grant territory. The coverage was still far from the whole Southern Region, but it was a considerable expanse nonetheless, and within it, ninety percent of the audience had only just become Cecil residents.