I know there is a sea link in the deal, and I know that there is a deal to allow some of the guilds in the Taisigin Marid—but is there mention of a railroad? What IS in the agreement?
Machigi and his deal with the dowager
by CJ | Jul 11, 2017 | Journal | 18 comments
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this is surely a way to get us re-reading! which we are all very happy to do, I’m sure ….
It’s never actually stated, but it’s strongly implied, that the rail line between the North and the Marid will be improved, if not a new line built. (The whole business with nand’ Topari also implies this.)
Yes, Bren needed to sweeten up the xenophobic and strongly conservative (read: backward) Topari and his little hegemony of lords because he controls the only rail link between north and south, and the Transportation Guild, Merchant’s Guild and Banking Guild needed to get a foot in the door there.
I also don’t think this was actually a part of the agreement between Machigi and Ilsidi, but it really needed to happen to get an immediate flow of trade going north and south. Topari was the bottleneck on the railroad, and he could have shot the whole deal in the foot if Bren and Tatiseigi couldn’t bring him round.
The historical harassment of Marid shipping by the tribal peoples was the supposed basis for the Marid’s territorial aspirations along the coast in order to secure their shipping lanes and obtain ports for their ships. The whole idea of the railroad was to do an end run around that whole issue and to make more palatable the tribal peoples getting their own provinces on the coast and having their own “lordships” to represent them in the legislature. Improving the railroad makes Topari happy, the Marid happy, gets the guilds a foothold there, and If the railroad is open, then it’s a much more economical and weather independent way to get goods from north to south and vice versa.
The rail lines are mentioned in Intruder, well before we meet Topari, even before the documents are signed by Machigi and the aiji-dowager.
I’m just rereading Peacemaker, and Nand’ Topari’s clan controls “a critical few kilometers” of rail between Shejidan and the Marid, apparently the last (or one of the last) privately owned segments of rail in the ashidi’tat. (I haven’t yet gotten to Topari calling the paidhi aiji “excellent creature,” one of my favorite scenes!)
There is also provision for the Transport guild to improve and build railroads in the Marid and the East. There has not been an extensive rail system in either due to lack of prosperity and permission for such modern innovations.
Oh, bravo—you guys are brilliant! Sometimes I think I know, but my mind gets full of things that DIDN’T make it into the story, so I have to do a reality check. I live in the world of ‘what I wrote’ and also in the ‘what I thought about writing…’ or ‘meant to write if it fitted in…’
AIR, It took one book to start the negotiation and the next book to get the deal signed, etc. You realize, don’t you, that I’m now going to have to reread both of them instanter — which is all right. I’ve read the two books in progress on the bedside table once already (The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, and Pride and Prejudice by some chick named Austen) were both rereads anyway.
BTW, and Irrelevant, but I emailed Jane asking for Wiishu’s head circumference measurement weeks ago, and have not heard back. I have the little chart of measurements she put up, but it does not have head circumference. A pullover ain’t much of a pullover if it can’t be pulled over . . .
SteveB If you want to buy a physical copy direct from me—the shipping cost is astronomic, but it is possible. We’ve been so busy we haven’t been marketing the copies I do have, but they are here and we have shipped abroad.
On reflection, doesn’t Topari’s land hold the best railway terrain to the Marid?
My recollection was Topari’s land lies on the best right of way between Shejidan and Malguriport (or where-ever goods will be landing at ‘Sidi-ma’s end). It’s not so much that the East was totally inacessible, but rather that nobody suceeded in building that direction. Goods coming out of the Marid by land would almost have to go through Machigi’s neighbors: the new lord Geigi installed for his worldy estates, and Najida.
Hey, so I know this is probably two months too late and you’ve possibly renamed him already, but I found the elusive Senji lord mentioned in “Intruder” (while I was re-reading to answer this question, haha.)
End of chapter 3 of Intruder, page 60 in the hardcover. Machigi says:
“One is less concerned for the new lord in Senji: Bridai is old and quiet. He will cause no trouble to me, and if the Guild is truly capable of being persuaded, I can steer his choice of a successor.”
On Bren’s first trip to see Machigi to broach the idea of an association between Ilisidi’s East and the Marid, the enticements Bren used to get him to think about it were improvement of the rail line through Topari’s lands, building of more rail lines and airports in the Marid, and even though the Edi and the Gan are getting lands and lordships and votes in the legislature, they are also getting laws, and if they commit piratical acts against Marid shipping, Tabini and the full force of the law will come down on them. The Eastern coast where Bren proposes the port is inaccessible by rail, and the sailors of the Marid have the skills and ships to sail around to bring trade to them. They are more likely to welcome trade from the Marid, as Bren points out, because the two peoples have similar mindsets and culture, and this is an opportunity for trade between two like-minded people, both of whom distrust the Ragi. Ilisidi said that she would enter into an alliance with Machigi when he was the top dog in the Marid. The Assassin’s guild action against the shadow Guild in the Marid and the assassination of the two lords accomplished that.
The actual agreement stated that the East and the Marid would become associates. Ilisidi would fund the building of the port, Machigi was to outfit and send a ship with engineers and technicians to facilitate the actual building of same. Local materials were to be used as much as possible, food to feed this expedition would be bought locally, labor to do the actual building would be sourced locally, and fuel for the ships would be bought locally, all from the area where the deep water port was to be built. With this infusion of cash, the Easterners would be able to buy Marid goods. There’s nothing about the railroad in the actual agreement, but it is an important pathway for goods to move north and south. Bren urges Machigi to set up a trading office in Shejidan with an agent, and that’s the main pathway along which goods will flow north and south.
@Joe, Did you hear this on NPR?
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/13/536884827/no-offense-american-bees-but-your-sperm-isnt-cutting-it?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science
Yes, I’d heard it, but not from the program. I was aware of this quite some time ago. Sue Cobey, who has been working on the Varroa Hygienic Strain for some years, used to be at the Ohio State University where she worked with Dr. James Tew, one of the foremost bee authorities in the country. I’ve had the honor to meet and talk with Dr. Tew several times. I’ve also purchased some of Sue’s queens and they were quite easy to work with.
Part of our problem is that we have been working with primarily Italian strains of honey bees, and the gene pool is quite limited. It’s like the banana, one virus could wipe out the world’s major banana crop. Apis Mellifera Cerana is not a very nice bee when it comes to working the hives. They’re quite defensive, whereas the bees that Sue works with are Carniolans, and are a substrain of Italian 3-banded honey bees. Of course, the Russian bees aren’t as defensive as Africanized Honey Bees, but that’s a different story. In Asia, the bees have learned to signal each other when one is being bitten by a varroa mite. They do it by dancing in a certain pattern, and the workers attack the mite, biting at its legs until it lets go. One of the best IPM systems I’ve see for combatting varroa involves nothing more than a screened bottom board. There is a wide enough solid surface for the foragers to land, and for the guard bees to stand at the entrance. The majority of the bottom board is screened #8 hardware cloth. Mites that fall off workers will fall through the screens, to the ground below, and will become ant food. If there are other strains of bees that could be cross-bred with the Italians to retain the gentleness and productivity, that would be great. The search continues.
OFF-TOPIC – CJ, if you haven’t purchased FTM 2017 by tonight the price goes up tomorrow when it is released. El cheapo price available for users of 2014 and below.
Rootsmagic has their Ancestry connection working – they’re fixing the bugs as they get reported: as of yesterday, they’re at v7.5.1.
I did get it—! Thanks for the heads-up!