Herald of Steel



The tour of the naval base came to an end with the showcase of the second new ship.

And as for convincing Pasha Farzah to join in the effort, it proved to be ultimately unsuccessful.

Even when Lady Inayah pointed out in an incredulous tone, "But with Alexander's new ships we can catch up to the other powers and become invisible both at land and sea. Won't you join us even then?"

The old man still did not want to commit resources to this endeavor, only saying, "To win the civil war, we need a strong army. That is our most important immediate need and we should focus on that."

"Having a navy can wait."

Lady Inayah had heard this type of myopic thinking for most of her life, and the fact that the most powerful man in Adhania refused to invest in a navy even when such glaring evidence had been presented to him hurt her.

But this type of mindset had been developed for generations and it was hard for any noble to change, with Djose and her family being the only two exceptions.

And the source of this bitterness came from years of frustration, as she was really one of the few voices in Adhania's court who really gave a damn about the navy.

But had managed to do actually nothing.

This was because most of the nobles were far more concerned with the land army, with this pragmatic decision coming about due to three main reasons.

One was due to geography as Adhania was a huge country with massive a landmass of around 4 million sq km but with only 4,000 km of coastline.

So most noble fiefdoms were landlocked and most battles were fought on land with the maximum use of the water element being using river boats to transport troops.

As a side note, this dead focus on land warfare was also one of the reasons behind the development of Adhania's famed cavalry, and also why Agapios could land so many troops uncontested and march straight to the capital.

And this focus on land army nicely led to the second reason- money or lack thereof.'

Because after financing the army, there was usually no money to finance also the navy.

And this was not a problem unique to Adhania as well, as Cantagena had the opposite problem, possessing a strong navy, but a weak army.

And this was something that was seen in Alexander's previous life as well.

For example. one of the reasons why the Engling were so successful in colonization, much more so than the French was because France also had to maintain a large land army, meaning they could not compete with both the Royal Navy on the sea and wrestle away the good parts of the world and also take on other European powers on land.

And since having a large army was paramount to protecting its borders, the French were forced to husband its resources towards that and so could not dedicate everything to maintaining a navy as the island nation could.

And thus they lost a series of critical battles, the most notable being the Battle of Trafalgar, which enabled the Royal Navy to rule the seas unhindered for almost a century and a half.

While the last reason for Adahnia's lack of a proper navy, and in Lady Inayah's opinion the most important one was because it was an institutional policy.

Generations of Adhanian kings had discouraged trade, claiming that Adhania lacked nothing and that it was a country fully self-sufficient with all the resources it could ever need- fertile land, abundant food, and rich mineral deposits.

The kings had done it both because they perceived themselves as racially superior and so deemed trade with those lesser than them as demeaning, and also because restricting trade gave them more control over their domain.

Which was also why they even viewed trade with other powers as a scheme by foreign powers to try and suck Adhania's resources for themselves.

Thus, with all these combined, with due to a lack of want among the people, a lack of funding, and through imperial pressure from above, the people of Adhania saw no need to take risky voyages out to sea and trade with or conquer other lands.

And so most of the nobles remained blind to the benefits of owning a strong navy.

This was also another reason why the drought was so bad because the nobles were not either allowed to or felt their ego hurt to buy food in the international market.

And so they rather let their people starve rather than import food and damage their grandiose image.

It also had not helped that Adhania had mostly burnt all bridges with both the trading superpowers Cantagena and Sybarsis over various disputes, mainly unilaterally killing all their merchants who step foot on Adhania, and so they were in fact not even willing to trade with Adhania anyway.

'*Sigh*, Adhania is too isolated from the rest of the world. I have again and again urged His Majesty to change policies….but it has fallen on deaf years.'

Lady Inayah would regularly and spookily sigh this, as she blamed it on the successive policies of all the previous generation of kings, the last one being the one she addressed as 'His Majesty', who was Amenheraft's father, and who most of you will remember had Lady Inayah as one of his mistresses, and also the man she had helped poison with the help of Pasha Farzah and the Queen Mother.

And afterward, not content with balming just deceased men, she would also balme the blockheads at the court for being myopic.

'They see having a navy as costing too much. But these idiots don't understand that the trade they can do using the navy will more than makeup for it.' She would lament.

But not was all doom and gloom for our pretty lady.

For it seemed the gods were finally smiling upon her.

As due to the machinations of fate, circumstances had arranged themselves as such that finally Adhania was slightly opening itself up to the outside, courtesy of Alexander who, like her was very much keen on trade, and had kind of forced Ptolomy to loosen these demands, with the king being too weak to enforce his will.

So with this silver lining the trio returned home, and over the following days, Lady Inayah relayed her experience to the Queen Mother, hoping to get some royal support.

And it worked, as a few days later, the shrewd redhead would manage to cajole the aged Pasha to contribute a thousand men to Alexander's docks, showing that the imperial woman had quite the silver tongue.

And as such, the following days for Alexander seemed to be going quite well, with him mostly doing the same clerical work and letting his subordinates oversee the rapid improvement of his fiefdom.

While in a city, long, long away, around the end of July, unbeknownst to him and even beyond his wildest considerations, his name was being uttered in the hallowed halls of a great, lavish palace, whose ceilings seemed to touch the skies, and its marbled walls glistened under the golden sunlight of noon.

And in that grand palace, in the presence of a great number of nobles, two men were having a discussion.

"Your Majesty, this Alxx…he is the one who stole your land from you. Zanzan is rightfully Tibias's" A splendidly dressed corpulent man, whose silky robes seemed to be on the verge of bursting from straining against his body had a toady smile as he slightly lowered his head and said this.

While the man whom he said this to, a man dressed in military garb with very handsome features, sitting on a resplendent throne opposite the man and being fanned by two gorgeous topless women, put his hand on the chin and nodded with a grave voice,

"Hmm, I do agree with what you said, Lord Kaiser. Zanzan will belong to Tibias. And one day the whole of Adhania will be conquered by Tibias."

The king's words were overflowing with dreams and ambition as he said so.

But then he quickly returned to reality,

"But we have just fought a bloody war in Amenherfat for three years. And are in no position to go to war again so soon." He said shaking his head while adding,

"And we have also managed to achieve our initial goals- Toppling Amnehraft"

"And I heard this Alxx played a pivotal road in that. Amenheraft would have likely won if not for him. So in that sense, this Alxx and we should be allies."

"I even heard he is a fellow Cantagenan."

"So it is difficult for me to agree with your proposal to attack Zanzan this winter."

But though the king's words seem to indicate a rejection, this tone did not seem too reluctant.

It appeared that the man was fishing for more benefits from this dignitary from afar.

And sensing this, the rotund man let out a wheezy laugh,

"Haha, Your Majesty please call me Clive. Even 'Little Clive' if you want."

And then said his main piece

"It seems Your Majesty is well informed about Zanzan."

'Yes, this Alxx indeed a Thesian. But please allow me to point out that he has betrayed his blood by becoming a dog for the Adhanians."

"He is no kin of you, great king."

"And as for Tibias's hardship in launching a winter offensive, our Kaiser family believes it can lend a strong, strong lending hand….if Your Majesty so wishes!"