Impirren Aqaqalla was the most powerful man in the known world. At his command were armies of laborers, engineers, farmers, traders, smiths, lumberers, and, of course, armies of soldiers. Under his control was the entirety of the Droga River, from the Antis Mountains and their rich deposits of copper, tin, and gold, down to the Delta and its lush and fertile soils and vibrant wildlife. His ancestors had secured for him the whole of the Kakapopo Sea. The salt trade, the forests, the vast expanses of fertile black earth in the steppe. The Seyirvaes homelands full of silver, iron, lead, tin, and, most importantly, taxpayers. They had constructed highways and canals, waterwheels and windmills, cities and harbors.

Impirren Aqaqalla, Son of the Sun, Sixth of the Dynasty of Rapakuchi, was aware that he would have difficulty expanding his empire much further. Every Impirren must conquer, and as such he would conquer some as well, but perhaps only a few tribes along the border, something to satisfy the priestesses and ensure he kept the Blessing of the Sun. Aqaqalla, though, was far less interested in conquest than his forefathers were. He was much more excited at the prospect of enriching the Impirrenship, and he knew there were two main ways to do that: Produce more, or take control of trade.

A solid way to produce more is to dig more canals. Canals are not just very effective transportation and communication infrastructure, but can be lined with waterwheels to power forges, furnaces, mills, pumps, etcetera. Aqaqalla, as such, had canals constructed. Many were built to connect and irrigate the now rather populous regions on the western coast of the Kakapopo Sea. The region had a far higher amount of rainfall than the steppe or the Droga River Valley, and had a far greater number of more minor navigable rivers that could be cleared and canals dug to and from them.

There was an overall state policy of intensification of the economy, whether the construction of windmills for pumping water from the steppe, the digging of irrigation and transportation canals, the relocation of villages and towns to settle and farm and populate more underdeveloped regions, etcetera.

Yet there would be another major advancement that would turn the intensification campaign into a real agricultural and economic revolution:

Iron.

More specifically cast iron.

When Exaanos merchants brought over the understanding of bloomeries and the production of wrought iron, it did not take long for the promise of cheaper metal to be adopted by the Rynatoonii Empire. The Impirrenship always is looking for things such as that to help the administration and economy, but as bloomeries proliferated it was wondered why copper and tin would melt but iron would not. A bloomery was more than hot enough to theoretically make bronze, why wouldn’t iron melt into something castable?

So a governor decided to make a large furnace, powered by waterwheels, larger than any bloomery would need to be. Its bellows were large boxes, pulled back and forth by the spinning wheel’s crankshafts, and the mount of charcoal in the thing. The furnace was hot enough to melt iron, and it pooled at the bottom. Over the next several months the design of a furnace capable of melting iron into castable liquid progressed, eventually catching more than just the eye but the funding of the Impirrenship, and within two years a functional blast furnace was developed. It produced molten iron which could be cast into a variety of products. It was quickly discovered that cast iron was inferior to bloomery iron in its brittleness, and that as a result in applications where that was an issue, namely the military, cast iron would not be used. Bronze was still the dominant material for the military for weapons and armor.

Despite this cast iron did find an incredibly important role in the Rynatoonii Empire, as its ability to be mass produced out of a common metal, and its hardness and toughness (ignoring its brittleness), made it perfect for agricultural implements. Cast iron plows, sickles, scythes, seed drills, grain cradles, harrows, hoes, mattocks, everything that was previously made of simply wood and stone or flint, was made of cast iron. Even cooking utensils and simple blades like knives. By the end of the 39th century cast iron implements had reached every corner of the Impirrenship.

The increase in yields was monumental.

The black soil of the steppe and the irrigated fields of the Droga suddenly went from Breadbasket of the Impirrenship to Breadbasket of the Golden Sea…

… and the Impirren was happy to find his empire now could feed the world...