The clang of hammers and the grinding of millstones had become the rhythm of Harar. Smoke from forges rose like black banners, mingling with the dust of newly cut roads. Yet Tafari knew weapons and bread alone could not carry Ethiopia into the future.
"They will need hands to build," he told Abebe one evening, "but also minds to think. Industry without knowledge is a mule dragging a plow. Strong, but blind."
His first step was simple but vital. Using the profits from the rifles and granaries, Tafari commissioned a workshop for spinning and weaving. Imported looms were disassembled, studied, and copied by Ethiopian smiths. Within months, bolts of cloth rolled from Harar — rough at first, but strong, serviceable, and far cheaper than imported cotton.
"These threads," Tafari told the workers, "are not merely for robes. They are for uniforms, tents, sacks — the sinew of an army."
Women and children found work here, earning coin instead of relying solely on fields. The sight of them weaving beside roaring forges marked something new: industry breathing into Ethiopia's veins.
But Tafari's boldest move came when he gathered the elders of Harar under a canopy one hot afternoon.
"Every child," he declared, "boy or girl, noble or peasant, must learn letters and numbers. How else can they measure grain, read orders, or craft machines? A nation that cannot read its future will only stumble into chains."
The elders murmured uneasily. Some feared such schooling would make peasants unruly. But Tafari silenced them with a single phrase:
"An ignorant servant obeys out of fear. An educated servant obeys out of loyalty. Which would you rather have?"
Within months, Harar saw its first schoolhouses rise beside granaries and workshops. Not churches, not mosques, though priests and imams were welcomed as teachers. Instead, they were halls where chalk dust filled the air, where children scratched letters on slates, where arithmetic was taught alongside scripture.
Abebe, overseeing the effort, marveled at the sight. "Master, even in Europe, schooling for all is rare. You give it to peasants freely."
Tafari's reply was grim. "I do not give freely. I invest. A child who reads today will build rifles tomorrow. His son will build engines. His grandson will rule the skies."
Not everyone welcomed this. Nobles grumbled that Tafari was arming peasants with knowledge as well as rifles. Merchants feared cheap Harari cloth would ruin their profits. Priests whispered that too much learning might pull children away from faith.
But in the villages, people began to speak of him with awe. Mothers blessed his name as their daughters learned to write prayers. Fathers whispered proudly that their sons could calculate a harvest faster than they could count on their fingers.
One farmer, holding a sack of grain stamped with Tafari's seal, told his neighbor:
"He feeds us, he arms us, and now he teaches our children. What king has ever done that?"
That night, Tafari stood at the edge of Harar, watching smoke rise from forges, hearing the laughter of children spilling from a schoolhouse, the hum of looms, the steady roar of waterwheels.
He thought back to the Ethiopia of his childhood — famine, Red Terror, the humiliation of the emperor dragged before soldiers. His heart tightened.
"This," he whispered to himself, "is the Ethiopia I swore on my deathbed. Not starving, not begging, not broken. But strong, skilled, and proud."
Abebe stepped up beside him, smiling.
"You have turned Harar into a city of iron and learning, master. But what will you call it when it is done?"
Tafari's eyes narrowed on the horizon, where caravans carried rifles, flour, and cloth outward like lifeblood.
"A beginning," he said. "Only a beginning."