Herald of Steel

Alexander arrived at Lord Janus's fief, around 150 kilometers northeast of Caira in about two and a half days.

During their voyage, Alexander ordered the ships to stay literally within a kilometer of the nearby coast, just in case the weather suddenly turned bad. And this precaution let them avoid most of the trouble other than some small rough patches of seas.

The ships safely moored themselves along the slanted shores, letting Alexander quickly peer out of the decks to lay his sight on Lord Janus's fief for the first time.

It was akin to the ideal bucolic fief one would imagine when they thought of about the country- vast, open, swathes of land with only wooded highlands, periodically dotted with a few hatched huts off in the distance.

There was nothing like the hustle and bustle of a city or even a town, but simply open pastures that were currently under the grip of king winter. The entire place was coated in a dull, grey white curtain of snow, and no bird, animal, or even insect was in sight.

The only sign of life came from the thin plums of black smoke rising from the few far away settlements.

And observing all this, the first thought to pierce Alexander's mind was, 'This place is a dump!'

Idyllic sceneries and pristine wildlands were nice and all, but he was not here on a picnic.

He was here to refit and re equip his army and that required a large, industrial base- with numerous mines, metal workshops, and blacksmiths. When Lord Janus invited him, he had even alluded to this.

"..." But now, Alexander could do little except swallow his disappointment, He had already made the decision and could only hope this was a thin facade.

Perhaps things would be better once he got a closer look, with the wildlands opening up to a large, busy city.

It was with such hopes that the lord made sure not to show any disappointment but instead thanked Lord Janus for inviting them into his home.

Alexander however would soon have those hopes dashed as he made his way to the large, manor, that was surrounded by nothing but open fields. He would have to swallow the bitter pill that there was indeed no large population center near here.

These lands mostly consisted of various small to medium villages scattered all around, with a relatively small town connecting all of them via a few strips of narrow, mud roads.

This town, which was given the much too impressive name 'Giant City' was Lord Janus's true center of power, and as Alexander entered it on a tour the next day, he found it to be barely worth a second look.

The place only had the bare, bare necessities to call itself a town, barely able to escape the ignominy of being called- a hovel.

For instance, the place had only two blacksmiths, one tailor, one barber, two carpenters, and a single inn as its specialties.

It was simply too pathetic!

In this time period, the number of artisans in a city directly correlated to its size, as they directly served other people. So the more people were gathered in one place, the more of these artisans gathered there.

This was very different from farmers, who worked the fields and hence were fairly self sufficient.

Hence if one wanted to work out the size of a city, the number of artisan and craftsman guilds there were a very clear indicator.

Take Zanzan for example- the city of 'only' a few hundred thousand people had tens of thousands of artisans working there, making it one of the, if not the most productive city in the known world.

Compared to that, this place was indeed a hovel.

Even the presence of 'two' blacksmiths and carpenters instead of simply 'one' was due to the Margraves family's immense weapons manufacturing hub in the surrounding area, which trickled down to even here.

Only small villages could be said to be inferior to this place, as they would even lack these basic necessities, thus requiring their people to journey here for their required tools and services.

But even that was easier said than done, as the roads connecting the town to them could barely be even called roads, remaining unusable for half of the year- i.e.- in the winter or rainy seasons- as the melted snow and rain literally turned the mud baked path it into a gooey, muddy mixture.

In fact, due to this, during the autumn harvest, there would be a race among the farmer to not only harvest their crops but also bring them to the market here as soon as they could, before the winter snows overtook them.

If they were unable to do so, it would not only mean they would be unable to exchange for the critical supplies they would need to pass the winter, but much more than that, it would mean their tax for the year would be recorded as being unpaid.

Autumn was also the time when tax collectors came knocking on the door because this would be the time when the farmers made almost all their income for the year, and had the most amount of cash.

It did not need to be said what happened to those who missed their taxes. Beatings and fines were considered only light punishments, with more serious consequences being the seizure of land, sold to slavery, and sometimes even death.

All such hurdles made Lord Janus's fief one of the poorest fiefs, not only among the Margraves retainers but perhaps the entire island.

But then again, once Alexander thought about it, it all made natural sense.

Due to how recently Lord Janus had become a lord as well as how late he had gotten his fief, most of the land he got could only be unwanted leftovers, capable of generating very little productive output.

If it had been a good piece of land, it would have been long seized by those nobles who came before him.

And since Lord Janus was no visionary from another world like Alexander, he could do little that others had not already thought of before.

For instance, the old man did not think to improve the roads because be it hail, rain or snow, he still got his taxes.

It was the people that suffered, but his bottom line remained untouched.

So why would he spend enormous amounts of money to make something that according to him produced no benefit?

Not to mention, he did not even have the money to undertake these very expensive infrastructure projects.

And on top of all that, there was a completely wrong saying in Sybarsis that said,

'You built roads only when you have the money.'

It seemed even though the mercantile natured Sybarsis recognized the importance of roads in facilitating roads, the same 'profit first' nature of the merchants made them very shy from investing in these public endeavors.

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They failed to see the increased future revenues generated due to this, for they had no way to project such earnings, and thus advised each other to play safe, to only invest when the settlements grew large enough to start producing profit.

However this was a very wrong direction for Lord Janus to take because without good roads, those small villages under him would never get the chance to flourish.

And Alexander tried to show Lord Janus show that logic, as a favor for all he had done for him.

The young pasha thus said, "My lord, you should invest in the people. To wait for the villages to grow before investing is like waiting for the tree to bear fruit before deciding to water it. You got it the other way around."

However, Lord Janus did not seem interested.

He only pretended to hear and nod, before noting in a casual, nonchalant tone, "Young lord, what you said does make sense. Let me think on it once I have a bit more money."

From his body language, Alexander could clearly glean the message he was sending,- 'I am not going to listen to a brat tell me how to run my land. You have your way of doing things, and I have mine.'

And as a subtle proof of this, when Alexander tried to press the man by saying,

"The villages have not grown for centuries. And they will not grow for not a few more centuries if you keep waiting to gather the money,"

Lord Janus simply replied insincerely with the words, "Then I will depend on you to build me those roads, my lord. I will pay you back later."

Clearly, even though Lord Janus was impressed by Alexander's ability in statecraft, he had no intention of emulating it, being perfectly content with what he had now.

This exchange once again reminded Alexander that few were as ambitious and proactive as him.

Most of the nobles were willing to let things remain as is.

After all, why risk ruining a good thing by unnecessarily shaking it when you had all that you could have ever wanted and even more?

And one could not really blame them. This was really human nature- most being vehemently resistant to change.

They much preferred the known to the unknown, even if the unknown clearly promised a better future.

This exchange reminded Alexander to that and then caused him to promise,

'I must not let myself or my retainers sit on their laurels and get comfortable. Zanzan must never be satisfied with what it has but always keep moving.'

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