Herald of Steel



Alexander was completely and blissfully unaware of the plot against him.

Instead, he was more busy haggling over the price of goods he was set to sell Pasha Farzah and Lady Inayah.

The time of departure for the two was nearing and Alexander had presented the final bill to each of the two nobles.

The bill read:

2,000 tons of civilian iron- 100 million ropals.

500 tons of military-grade steel -100 million.

One crossbow and instant bow sample with ammunition- 10 million.

500 tons of white sugar - 50 million.

10,000 tons of brown sugar -100 million.

10,000 tons of salt - 10 million.

Glasswares of various kinds - 20 million.

Soap, paper, and lingerie for - 10 million.

All of this was to be sold to the two over the coming year.

And seeing the huge numbers listed, Lady Inayah could not help but let a wry smile, as she reminisced about how she clearly felt very smug initially when landing her feet in Zanzan with the 300 million ropals budget her father had given her to purchase goods from here, and even thought the man was being way too generous and joking that her aging father might be going senile.

But after the initial meetings with Alexander, she was astounded to find that the transaction would indeed need 300 million ropals, and when she sat down to renegotiate the price to somehow recover her pride, she all of a sudden found the price tag had not only decreased, but some increased to 400 million.

But who could blame her?

Seeing all the new blingy things, she just could not help adding more stuff.

It was like she was in a mall full of exotic things.

But this unrestricted shopping spree had the inevitable consequence of maxing out her 'credit card' and so, as Lady Inayah sat next to Pasha Farzah, she had the desperate intention to haggle with the 'shopkeeper' and bring the price down, though asking any shopkeeper to give a 25% was a tall order for anyone.

While in the case of Alexander, he had his own list of demands, which he presented to both the nobles.

And in that, he wanted all the usual stuff:-

Horses and other draft animals to be used as beasts of burden, both for transporting materials in his industries and also to plow the fields as Alexander had plans to massively increase the amount of cultivated lands soon.

Slaves of various quality- The strong but untrained ones would be sent to work the fields and mines, or in any number of his industries, the most notable being the sugar-making firm that was scheduled to increase its output not just 10-fold, but around 400 times.

This enormous increase came about as previously Alexander had planted only 40 hectares of the land around his manor house with beetroots, whereas now he had done over 15,000 (fifteen thousand) hectares of it.

So Alexander was in need of tens of thousands of men just for that.

Then there were specialized slaves, which were mostly artisans such as carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers, etc.

No economy could ever have too many of them.

And the last two kinds of slaves were the most desirable types of slaves there were.

One were educated slaves that were used as bookkeepers and accountants, and even as teachers for the children of affluent folks and nobles.

While the second one was as you would have guessed were beautiful women.

Alexander mainly wanted these to give as gifts to his retainers and soldiers in the future for great accomplishments.

Afterward, Alexander wanted to buy grains, meat, and other produce, all in enormous quantities to stock up in case of emergencies because he was not yet self-sufficient in that and as seeds to increase this cultivated farmland.

And lastly he wanted a few thousand educated men to come to Zanzan to work as clerks.

"We have too much of a shortage of low-level administrations in the city." He said as he made the demand, the reason being he had killed or exiled almost the entire educated group of the city, i.e- the priests and nobles.

And though that was undoubtedly the right move, it also made administrating the city very hard for Alexander while also making many policies such as the slave management plans he had drawn up some time ago unable to be implemented.

Hence the ask.

And fortunately for him, it was soon granted.

Pasha Farzah had no problem with this demand, as he had intended to send some educated men anyway, in order to become priests and clerics of Gaia's faith and then export the religion to his own territory as per the secret deal struck in Adhan.

And so with Alexander's request, it would be the perfect cover story.

He even expressed an interest to send some men to learn about the new medical technique being practiced in Zanzan.

Thus a deal where a few thousand men would work under Alexander for six years was quickly reached.

While seeing this Lady Inayah too made similar offers, letting Alexander at last rest easy knowing he would soon be having a competent group of personnel to do all the mundane clerical work.

But then the group ran into a problem.

Because the number of slaves, animals, and particularly grain that Alexander wanted was too much.

"Brat! I bought off Matrak's and Adhan's entire slave market just to buy those 25,000 men. I haven't got any more." The old man had a bit of a frustrated tone to his voice as he felt Alexander was being too greedy.

And he was kind of right on this, as the whole of Adhania's annual demand for slaves was around 100,000 to 150,000 on average.

Whereas Alexander alone, who had just eaten 25,000 was asking for another 25,000 from each of them, for a total of 50,000 men.

This would not have been possible even in normal times, never mind in this situation where the nine other provinces did not really want to trade with the other three.

So this was an appetite that could not be fulfilled unless there was a massive war with the bordering barbarians that resulted in an enormous number of prisoners of war.

And similar problems were experienced with the number of animals Alexander wanted, which were in the tens of thousands from each of them, and in the amount of grain, he asked for, which was in the hundreds of thousands of tons.

The two nobles would not be able to fulfill these requests even within a few years as they simply did not produce that much.

And as for buying it on the international market, that was also not possible because of the aforementioned trade policies, which left Adhania with few channels to buy these items from, none of whom could deliver such quantities.

But it was also not really Alexander's fault here was demeaning so much.

800 million ropals was a lot of money, and hence the quantity.

So the two sides seemed to be stuck.

With Lady Inayah trying to get Alexander to reduce his prices by repeatedly highlighting the problems they were currently facing,

"You know just as well as we do that we have just recovered from a drought. Taxes are non-existent."

"And all our gold reserves were stolen…taken…distributed by you,"

"So we simply do not have any money."

"As for the grains… again, because of the drought we have no stock, and most of the harvested crops this year will be needed to be replanted to increase our production."

"The drought might be over, but we will need at least 5 years to return to pre-drought levels of grain production."

"Just because we have lost that many men and lack so much grain seed." This was said with a long sigh, and here Lady Inayah let Alexander know of the real condition Adhania was in.

Before she finished by saying,

"And I'm afraid it is the same excuse for the animals…. because of the drought a large portion of our animals have either died or been eaten as sustenance. And we need the remaining ones to farm."

"So we are sorry but paying 400 million is not possible for us."

The list of problems stated by the mature lady said were all true.

And Pasha Farzah also sang the same tune as the noble lady.

"That's right brat. I gave everything I had to you just now. All my grain reserves and slaves."

"Because I knew how bad a situation you were getting into."

"And thank goodness you managed to make lemonades out of lemons."

Here the old man sounded quite happy, before declaring,

"But I won't be much help for the next few years."

"My own territory needs much care and looking after."

Then also advised Alexander,

"Besides, you have not even eaten the things I brought out, and you are already asking for more!" "Aren't you afraid of choking on your own food? Slaves rebelling is a very real threat. You should know better than me."

The old man seemed to have genuinely good intentions as he said the last part.

But Alexander had already thought of policies to discourage it.

And thus boldly answered, "I have expanded my territory quite a bit since I ordered all those things. And so I need more of everything to develop these new pastures."

"Can you help or not?"

And it seemed this time, the answer was not.

Hence Alexander was left to find out some other alternative form of payment.