Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 744 - 697: The Work of the Cabinet

"The progress of the airship project is at least 30% slower than expected! And this is considering the extensive groundwork that Count Brandelis has already done prior to this. As the project continues, this discrepancy will only increase!" At the cabinet meeting, the Minister of Industry, responsible for the airship project, introduced the situation to his colleagues with a troubled expression.

After Perfikot announced her retirement, all the work she was responsible for was handed over to others.

After all, when Perfikot would return was still uncertain, and even whether she would return at all was uncertain. The tasks were right there, they couldn't just be left undone.

Therefore, everyone in the cabinet took a share in these duties, in an effort to take up the work that Perfikot originally handled, preventing national paralysis due to her absence.

But it wasn't until they themselves started doing these tasks that they clearly realized just how much of a genius Perfikot was.

Not only did she manage a workload that required the entire cabinet members to jointly undertake, but her processing speed was more than three times the efficiency achieved by the collective efforts of the cabinet!

It could be said that she alone was equivalent to a cabinet, and a most efficient and wise one at that.

"How did Count Brandelis manage this? She could handle so many things simultaneously and still do everything quickly and excellently! If only I had such capability!" Another cabinet member lamented, as he dealt with funding issues related to the airship project's construction, which was driving him mad.

The airship project is deeply tied to the five-year economic development plan set by the cabinet. Previously, under Perfikot's coordination, the project ran smoothly.

She raised funds from aristocrats and businessmen, then invested these into key parts of the plan, thereby driving the development of the entire industry.

The aristocrats and businessmen who invested were also able to expand their industries due to the overall growth, everyone profited greatly, without hindering project progress.

But this requires extremely strong coordinating capabilities, as all progress of projects and the intertwining and distribution of various interests have to be considered comprehensively.

Perfikot didn't care; she didn't need to worry about balancing various powers. As long as nothing major went wrong, she could ensure that most people got the benefits they wanted.

Because the entire project was her doing, she could forcefully control everything, ruthlessly ousting anyone who opposed her.

So, there was no time when she had to beg others, only when others pleaded to her.

Even some minor nobility or businessmen, if suffering losses in profits distribution, wouldn't complain to Perfikot as long as they were still making gains.

Of course, they didn't have that qualification.

Even in cases of losses and bankruptcy, these 'minor issues' were unlikely to bother Perfikot.

The Northern Count had too many important matters and no interest in dealing with such trivialities.

As for the great nobles? They wouldn't dare offend a figure like Perfikot over some trifling profits, especially when such issues involve more than just a little interest.

They needed to consider many things, and what they were willing to sacrifice was naturally much more.

But when it's someone else? That's a different story. Cabinet officials couldn't suppress the nobles and businessmen involved in the entire plan, often having to compromise without being able to make them yield.

They're always fighting for their 'deserved' benefits, aren't they?

"Little Perfikot is perfect; she can handle everything as long as she wills it." Eldest Princess Annie rubbed her weary forehead, sighed, then continued: "But we can't. We don't have her genius mind, so we can only make up for our shortcomings with clumsy methods, using more manpower to compensate for our lack of efficiency."

"Perhaps we can adopt other measures? I heard that Count Brandelis invented a differential machine, which has simple thinking and computation abilities, capable of replacing part of human work." A cabinet member from the Northern Faction tried to suggest, adding examples for persuasion: "Currently in the Northern Territory, all large robots are equipped with similar devices, even those maid dolls are. Perhaps the cabinet can consider specially approving a budget to procure some differential machines to handle simple administrative tasks?"

This suggestion wasn't given just because of his Northern Faction identity, but because it truly could effectively boost efficiency.

Victory's mathematical level isn't considered outstanding; in the Old World, France had the greatest achievements in this field.

But considering that Perfikot bombed the capital of France with a wave of thermobaric bombs, turning the entire city to ashes along with the scholars and research findings, relying on them is evidently not feasible.

Meanwhile, in the Northern Territory, differential machines had already found preliminary applications in some sectors.

Though Perfikot mostly used differential machines as experimental apparatuses and alchemy components, it undeniably was very useful.

Some relatively connected merchants acquired not-so advanced differential machines, since the most advanced ones were jointly made by Perfikot and Sanderion, using miniaturized magic puppets to replace computation units, their computing power could rival that of first-generation computers from the original world.

Yet, even the relatively primitive differential machines, requiring manual gear rotation for calculations, provided substantial help to those merchants.

The computing speed of differential machines far surpassed that of humans, and they could handle very complicated numerical computations, beating human reliability and accuracy.

"Perhaps we should indeed consider replacing human minds with machines. Not everyone has Little Perfikot's genius; we truly need some assistance to free ourselves from tedious calculations," Eldest Princess Annie strongly supported this, as she herself wasn't good at math, and the execution of the five-year economic development plan involved too many calculations.

"But even if we resolve the calculation difficulties, we still face a mountain of work! Hard to imagine how Count Brandelis could handle all this alone before. How did she manage?" Another cabinet official, responsible for compiling project statistics, had the most direct sense of how much the cabinet needed to do.

"Perhaps to solve the problem, we need Count Brandelis to come back; the airship project needs her genius mind to point out our mistakes." Prime Minister Wellington said, looking at the cabinet members exhausted from continuous overtime.