Herald of Steel



The Margraves had not only won the battle.

And it was just not a decisive win.

No.

For as if the gods were compensating them for their recent misfortune, in the ensuing flanking attack, the biggest fish out there, Straus, was injured and even captured.

What a catch!

The man was then interrogated about the real political maneuvering going on in the mainland against them, but he simply refused to open his mouth.

And with him being a high-ranking noble, the Margrave's did not dare to raise their hand on him, restricting their interrogation techniques to only denying the man food and particularly water.

This soft approach was applied because the public opinion was still neutral, and if the Margrave were to assault a noble like Straus, a gaint Sybarsis navy coming to greet them was entirely possible.

The Margraves were not that powerful.

So the topic then was moved to the issue of his freedom, where in exchange for his release, he was asked to cease all hostility against the Margraves.

But that was rejected as Straus claimed it to be out of his control, for the real masterminds were the confederation members.

And so finally the deal was then changed to make him swear that he would remain neutral for the next ten years in the event of a conflict between Margrave and other Sybarsis powers, as well as being required to pay 200 million ropals, a true king's ransom as this was equal to 4 tons of gold, or about 40 times his weight in gold.

The amount was equal to his annual revenue, and was so huge that he had to borrow the amount from the Kaiser family, which practically meant that even if Sraus wanted to, his ability to wage another war for the next ten years would be severely crippled.

In this way, it appeared that the Margraves had managed to tide over their predicament for the time being.

At least the one that intended to militarily obliterate one.

Now, they only had to convince the political apparatus in Sybarsis to give up these charges.

The military win and capture of Straus was not the only piece of good for them.

Another piece of good news, which might be more specifically favorable to Alexander would be that Lady Margaret had luckily managed to give birth to a boy in the meantime.

This, coupled with the fact that she had managed to get so much iron in their time of need, plus acquiring the crossbow which most certainly had played a decisive role in their battle, meant her contributions were so great that it was practically guaranteed she would be named Mother Earl.

Which by extension meant that Alexander would be likely able to establish a foothold on Galiosis.

For now it appeared that his gamble paid off and were about to reap great dividends.

But all these events transpired during the months of May to September.

While in the meantime, many, many things had taken place in Zanzan as Alexander and his retainers were busy solving their own individual challenges.

The various civilian council members were primarily occupied with carrying out all of Alexander's grand construction plans.

Diaogosis was busy preparing his men to start building the new harbor.

A subordinate of his, named Farnaz was tasked with completing the residential buildings Alexander wished to make.

Harun, alongside managing the mines, was additionally tasked with overseeing the building of the aqueducts and the senate hall.

The latter was so because Alexander certainly could not be expected to host the council meeting in his manor, in the hall room on his first floor forever.

He wanted a much more formal setting.

Uzak was furiously working to complete the extensive road network Alexander had set out for him to complete.

Jazum was finally completing the 10 cement kilns Alexander had ordered.

And Krishok was at last catching up on the brick-making dome kiln projects, which had been delayed up until now due to the war and then the spring harvest.

As a side note, the boy in charge of the brick-making facilities, Jazum's son, Jafor, had been sacked by Alexander due to incompetence as Krishok had complained to Alexander about his many mismanagements in the manufacturing process, which ranged from being lazy, being late to work, not showing up, and cutting the workers pay just to say a few.

Worse of all, there were even multiple reports of the boy assaulting some of the female workers there,

This was the final straw for Alexander, and even knowing that it would affect his relationship with Jazum, he still removed the boy.

And then chastised the father for not raising his son properly, which predictably turned the two's relationship very frosty.

But Alexander did not care, as there were a million Jazums for Alexander, but only one Alexander for Jazum.

Alexander even thought of depriving Jazum of the noble title he had promised because he did not want someone like the boy to have the powers of a noble.

But he had not made up his mind on that yet.

Then there was Menicus who oversaw the fields, or more accurately his sons did as the old man's body really could not handle the heavy toll this job placed on the body.

Overseeing the fields might sound easy, but it was really not, as the job required one to regularly go on patrols around the vast amount of land to ensure the farmers did not slack in their work, make sure they had everything they needed, such as plows, animals, and water from irrigation, and lastly solve any disputes between neighboring farms.

These disputes might be over water supply, things like nearby farm animals trampling other fields, or even complaints about the neighbors not properly planting their seeds and so causing them to blow them into others' territory.

It was a tiring, full-time job and Alexander knew Menicus with his aged body could not hope to fulfill this role in the long term.

And lastly, Heliptos was running around the city all day, placing himself around the markets and keeping his eyes out for any foreign merchants.

For he hoped to attract them to the city, as per Alexander's directive, which had read, "All of you are to get more merchants to trade with Zanzan. We must increase the volume of trade,"

The 'all' here of course referred to all the council members, not just Heliptos, and Alexander even hinted their next promotion might depend on that.

So in fact all the council members had some men looking tasked with getting more merchants to Zanzan

These were the immediate tasks of the civilian ministers, who were currently much busier than their militaristic counterparts.

But it was not to say they had no tasks.

For instance, until now, they were responsible for reclaiming much of the land around Zanzan.

And there were always regular drills to keep them fit.

While they also worked to iron out the few creases in the new legionary formation, like the optimal placement of officers during a battle.

Alexander also soon intended to give the military engineers the task of developing various siege weapons such as catapults, ballistae, and the Roman scorpion in preparation for his Tibias campaign scheduled for the winter next year.

But he was still busy drawing up the basic blueprints of the weapons.

Alexander was of the mind to skip this year's attack due to having already fought a major battle and because he wanted to consolidate his rule this year, while also taking into consideration that it would them take some time to develop these weapons.

But that was only the current plan, as it was not as if he had totally ruled out an attack this season.

Time would tell.

And these were the tasks of all the retainers, minus Camius, who was currently posing as a wine merchant seller.

And it seemed his wine sales were going great, particularly among Tibian, which was his primary focus due to obvious reasons.

Alexander too was as busy as his retainers.

He had first spent some of his time during the later part of April thinking about the hurricane that hit the Margrave and shuddered to think what would happen if the same had happened to him.

If Zanzan was to be destroyed or flooded, Alexander would end up washed with it.

But even after raking his head for a while, Alexander failed to find a solution to this natural phenomenon.

So taking solace in the saying, 'Success is 90% hard work and 10% luck, he could only hope that probability was on his side.

After he managed to put that unpleasant thought he had no counter to to the back of his head, he decided to focus on things he could affect.

To that effect, he first focused on ironing out the details regarding the establishment of a bank, like its lending policies and interest rates, and then tried to implement the slave reforms he had discussed with the council members.

But here he ran into a great obstacle, something he had totally not seen coming.

That was the general lack of qualified personnel.

This situation had come to Alexander's attention before, as all the previous administrators, who were the nobles and their servants, along with the temple priests were all gone or slaughtered.

Meaning Alexander simply did not have the number of educated people needed to keep track of the paper trail of 22,000 people.

But all these problems had to wait for now.

Because on the 5th of May, Pasha Farzah arrived.

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