I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

Old Evan did not bother with what Albert said. Instead, he earnestly advised Mitia:

“Now in Ceres, everyone has the chance to change their destiny, Your Majesty! Please do not shake the society that has only just begun to stabilize.”

Albert said angrily: “The first qualification to enter the Workers’ and Farmers’ University is to be part of the working people. If the schools are not set up in the towns and villages, then where should they be placed? If one does not enter the factories and the fields, how can the knowledge in the textbooks be combined with practice?”

“We cannot go from book to book, from theory to theory. Theory must be linked with practice. If teaching is separated from labor, then education will inevitably be led down the wrong path!”

“How can students trained like this be of one heart and one mind with the people of the whole nation, and truly share their feelings?”

Mitia gently patted Albert’s hand in comfort, then shook her head at Evan:

“You are wrong. Ceres has always been in transformation, and the people are changing as well. What we are discussing now is no longer about the few lucky ones chosen by the Goddess.”

In the end, Old Evan could only leave speechless and furious.

He was afraid that if he didn’t leave soon, Albert, who had chased him all the way from Astal to the Federal Capital, might beat him up.

Mitia soothed the old man’s emotions, then let the cat-girl secretary come in to escort him down to rest.

As for herself, she let out a breath of relief, sat down to continue drinking tea, and seized the time to rest—because soon enough, she did not know whether it would be the Ministry of Industry or the Ministry of the Military coming to quarrel again…

Just this plan of sending universities down to the countryside had already stirred such a huge quarrel. Who knew how many more problems would appear when the overall implementation began…

For example, the seemingly simplest yet most widespread problem of industrial–agricultural division already had disputes.

The income of factory workers’ families would inevitably be higher than that of farming households.

Now, as Ceres was still a major exporter of industry, the workers’ pay was even more than expected.

As for food, such an essential good with enormous consumption, the government could not afford to purchase it at too high a price.

Therefore, even if Mitia could let farmers gain a little more benefit, there was still a price ceiling for grain.

So although both sides labored, the remuneration they received differed greatly.

How big was this difference? Big enough that in twenty years at most, the two would be divided by a gulf that could never be bridged.

So how could it be solved? The answer was—it could not be solved at all.

Because the foundation of the countryside was broad, with a large population, the number of agricultural producers would only increase, further diluting the already slim profits.

This was an inevitable trend.

Meanwhile, Mitia had already planned the welfare and pathways for the workers from the very beginning.

As long as the state did not collapse, workers would always enjoy the best benefits.

By the time agricultural output caught up with industrial output, they would have already missed the golden era of the Federation’s rapid development.

Thus, it was impossible to solve this problem through normal methods. So she tried an indirect way instead.

First, an additional 2% subsidy tax would be levied separately on factories and workers.

Based on the current prices in Ceres, this was equivalent to a worker treating comrades to four bowls of noodles from their monthly wage.

Second, with the growing number of newly built and expanded factories in Ceres, the shortage of skilled workers was also increasing.

Under such circumstances, various vocational and technical schools jointly run by factories began springing up, recruiting urban youths for training to supplement the workforce.

This gave Mitia her breakthrough point: she removed the qualification for entry-level technical positions from vocational schools.

To work in a factory, one had to attend a township-level technical school for one to two years of study, then pass an assessment before obtaining the qualification.

Ordinary township-run technical schools were fully capable of teaching entry-level skills.

As for universities, Mitia redistributed them all down to the states and further to county towns.

She also relocated most of the new middle schools, high schools, and universities to towns and villages, leaving only some advanced vocational technical colleges and military defense academies in the cities.

This was the source of the quarrel between the two old men—the schools must go downward, and there was no room for debate.

Simply put, if urban youths wanted to enter factories, they had to go down to the countryside to study.

If they wanted to advance from high school to university, they also had to go to the towns, thus setting a threshold for city workers.

Rural youths, however, could conveniently enter schools nearby, enjoy national subsidies, and must follow the curriculum combining agriculture with practice, working in the fields as part of their studies.

Elementary, middle, and high schools all did their best to ensure that families would not lose laborers during the critical farming seasons while their children were in school. Such schools were collectively called 【Workers’ and Farmers’ Schools】.

By the time rural students reached high school, they already had the foundation to enter society.

At that point, they could choose their career paths based on the country’s needs.

If they chose to become workers, they could apply to the nearest township workers’ academy to obtain certificates, then later either pursue further study in the city or be assigned work just like the children of workers.

If they chose to attend university, they would enjoy extra admission points as farming children, enter nearby universities, and merge with students from higher-level cities for further education.

With rural household registration or a village head’s certificate, they could also enjoy nationally standardized tuition and living subsidies for university students—20% higher than for urban students.

Before high school, rural students’ subsidies were funded by the extra 2% tax collected from factory workers, earmarked solely for this purpose, with a unified national subsidy amount.

If the tax bureau collected too much, the surplus was returned; if too little, it was supplemented.

During university, the subsidies came directly from the central federal treasury.

As for slaves, once they had worked long enough, they would be granted freedom and registered in the countryside to replenish rural labor.

In the end, what she was doing was simply reducing the cost of education for rural youths, broadening their routes for upward mobility, and thus diluting the rural population base to relieve pressure.

In her past life, after industrialization initially showed results, the total output of a hundred years surpassed the sum of the previous five thousand years.

She could not suppress industrial development to forcibly support agriculture—going against the trend would be self-destruction.

So all Mitia could do was to let industry subsidize a portion of its profits, lower the threshold for changing destinies, and give them some opportunities to escape the agricultural class.

This way, Mitia could, in the mid-to-late stages, begin agricultural collectivization, large-scale planting and harvesting, while raising the diversity and value of agricultural by-products, thereby increasing the income of the remaining farmers.

From this, one could see that most of the past governance experience of kingdoms was no longer applicable—or rather, no longer permitted.

Thus, the major policies had to be personally reviewed and decided by Mitia.

As for people like Old Evan, Mitia temporarily humored him because she still lacked manpower. But such people could never take part in the Federation’s core decision-making departments.

The rank these people entered with when they first joined the Ceres system already had a hidden ceiling—it was just that Mitia had not said it out loud.

One thing she understood very clearly was that many matters could only be undertaken by the founding generation.

It was only after she sent the vested-interest nobles and manor lords of the kingdom to become fertilizer through her Great Purge that this short-lived vacuum of resource distribution was obtained.

Before the interest groups grew too large and unwieldy, one had to bury the plans early and use one’s own prestige to push them forward.

The further one delayed, the greater the resistance would be.

There would never be a second chance to turn back.