The first serious consideration for building a system of locks and canals to enable large river craft to descend the Shadew River, bypassing the cascades was conceived by the ancient Ithatian, Pattomos, who realized the resources and work required would be staggering. The Yophentheans who feared improved communications with the sky peoples of the Jaggudorns scrapped any such ideas during their empire. During Kalikán rule, the idea was revisited, but the need for advanced engineering and highly organized control scuttled any further development.

Although previous rulers have attempted to constructs locks and canals to enable the descent of the Shadew River by grain barges, none had profitably developed this scheme. Aurice gained control of the region as a result of the Great Sky War and succeeded in 2694 where Dwarves, Kalikán, and Ithatians failed.

Metropolitan Adras Pessicoro

Metropolitan Pessicoro purchased the Magdala-Jagohrish Company and eventually created River Shadew Industries in 2667.

The provincial governor of the Shadevan Provinces oversaw the cooperative work of dwarven and Aurican corpora mercia to undertake the Five Locks Project. After its completion, great barges voyage a complete route from the vale of the Shadew in the Asdaurian highland of Thrace and Thworgania to the Shadevan Delta and the resource-hungry nations of the Pallathantic Sea, bearing grain and all other manner of essential goods. In turn, manufactured goods from the Pallathantic were shipped by barge to the eastern Jaggudorns. The Aurician Empire became even wealthier and more crucial to the lifeblood of the eastern Pallathantic.

Benefits and Purpose of the Five Locks Project

Investors make a sizeable and ongoing profit with the completed Five Locks Project. The rich agricultural potential of the vale of Shadew is now exploited because of the cheap and massive communication of great barges from the vale of the Shadew to the Pallathantic. Traditional Skycraft are too frail to carry colossal tonnage and too easily subject to the storm fronts of the Jaggudorns. Titancraft vessels are too costly to fare the great tonnage of common goods lucratively. But a system of locks, bypassing the five cascades, enabled widely desirable resources like grain, livestock, and other merchandise to flow freely and cheaply in both directions. Barges pay a reasonable toll to pass through and the towns and cities of the Shadmaus developed to the benefit of investors and laborers alike. The dwarven city-states of the southern Jaggudorns also benefit from river access to the Pallathantic.

Attitudes Towards the Five Locks Project

The nations of the interior of Asdauria, especially Thrace and Osfandia, were generally eager for the Five Locks Project to proceed through to completion as the industrial potential for their land-locked economies promises a new level of prosperity.

Privately, the rulers of the Pallathantic were not so pleased with with prospect of their powerful eastern neighbor, Aurice, entrenching itself even further in the economy of the world. Aurician corpora mercia, however, promised great profits not only to their domestic investors, but have employed a dozen corpora mercia of the neighboring countries of the Jaggudorns and Pytharnia. These foreign corpora mercia in turn influenced their homelands to refrain from opposing the Five Locks Project with the promise of increased prosperity for all. The chief merchants and commercial interests of southern Corundy and the Bay of Elántuventh saw the development of the Shadew River as a competitive threat because they rely in no small part on barge traffic of the Thybdis river that also reaches deep into Asdauria. Their economic clout is relatively weak, so they can only voice opposition.

The common people of the Shadmaus were divided over the project. Many were employed as laborers by the corpora mercia and looked forward to continued prosperity. Others detest the destruction of the natural flow of the Shadew River and consider it a profanation of the river god Shadew. The Shadevan Trolls see the locks as another encroachment on the wilds of the Bhinsasa Mountains. They are too powerless to oppose the project openly, but secretly worked to frustrate and foil the operations.

Planning and Surveying

Dwarven and human engineers planned the basics of the project and continue to oversee its progress. The Five Locks Project is the greatest engineering and titancraft feat of the modern age. The lord governor general of the Shadevan Provinces oversaw the passage of the first barge through the system of locks in 2694 with great celebration.

Industrial Enterprise Zone

This zone extended the area of the Five Locks Project into Shaddago where the first and highest lock was constructed. Treaty preserved the sovereignty of Shaddago, but in practice Aurician corpora mercia virtually governed the Industrial Enterprise Zone as if it were an extension of the province of Agogia.

Engineering

Each of the five cataracts presents a great engineering challenge and each must be surmounted for a single barge to pass all the way through. The river itself is too great to be re-channeled, so a system of canals parallel to the river, drawing water from it will be constructed. Balik Shadew, the furthest cataract or first from the east is also the highest, a drop of 178 feet (ca. 54 m). Dwarven Corpora Mercia provided direct engineering and Dwarven banking was the second highest financial party after Aurice.

Although called the Five Locks Project, each cascade required a system of some half dozen or more locks to negotiate, especially the first and highest, Balik Shadew, which requires a controlled descent of some 180 feet (54m).

Chronology

Pattomos
Yophentheans
Kalikán and Dwarves
2613, Magdalan -- Jagohrish company surveys Shadmaus, proposes locks, advised by dwarves
2662, Magdalan -- Jagohrish company goes bankrupt
2655 to 2663, informal surveys conducted by Aurician engineer and Dwarven engineering company
2659 Metropolitan Adras Pessicorio, acquires the Magdalan -- Jagohrish company
2664 heavy surveys conducted at all five cataracts in the Shadmaus
2667, creation of River Shadew Industries
2668 to 2673, solicitation of investors in Aurice, Dwarven bankers, and throughout Pallathantic
2673, Aurician Noble Senate gives formal blessing to plan to create the Five Locks
2673 constructions begin on the Five Locks Project
2694 late in year (spring), construction nearly complete
2694 Month of Addanmoon; first operation of traffic through completed Grand Shadew Canal

Economic Consequences of the Five Locks

Southern Pytharnia, Ithatia, Erechóreb, and Ambrinqua consequently became dependent upon grain shipments to augment their local agriculture and the population of the Pallathantic increased, especially in southern Pytharnia. Agriculture in southern Pytharnia could not compete with the lower cost of grain from eastern Jaggudornia and had to change to other crops and herds, such as sheep for wool.

Sources

New Gateway to the Jaggudorns: The Five Locks Project, {Throvian Author}, 2672, the ambitious project to build locks to circumvent the five cataracts of the Shadmaus and enable river barge traffic from the Pallathantic into the High Shadevan, Throvian Language

Five Locks Project

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