Herald of Steel

Before Alexander signed the contract, he did have a read through it.

The main thing that was written on the paper was that it stated that the ships carrying goods from either region would not be charged any tariffs or tax beyond a port landing fee.

And if these goods were to be moved from city to city, they would only be subjected to an additional 'gate tax' which was a kind of toll some cities charged merchants to enter the city,

But beyond those costs, trade between the two regions would be free.

Alexander would have preferred that 'gate tax' did not exist either, but he knew this was a large source of income for many small nobles and so did not strongly insist on it.

Following this were the various names of the parties involved.

On Lady Miranda's side this not only included the Margrave family but also many of the trade guilds of Galiosos.

This was done so that merchants carrying any of these seals on their product would be seen as being from Galiosos and thus be excluded from any taxes.

Also, in this way, smuggling and unauthorized entry of goods could be prevented.

Lady Miranda had listed a very long itinerary of names on her end who could engage in free trade with Alexander, while Alexander on the other hand only listed one. 

Him.

This meant that If anyone wanted to export to Galiosos, they would have to get his permission.

Or more specifically, a seal of approval from the ministry of commerce headed currently by Heliptos.

He did this because it was he who had gotten them this deal, so why should everyone piggyback on him for free?

Alexander felt it was only right that they paid a fee, albeit a small one, to get this seal. 

Besides, in this way, Alexander could control a part of the economy, thus giving him more influence. 

Beyond the meat of the contract, Alexander also found some of the 'flavor' texts which were quite interesting to say the least.

Particularly some of the paragraphs made him feel more like he was reading a book of curses than a legal document, as it stated the various things that would happen to the party that broke the agreement, 

But that language there actually the standard template typically used, so everything was authentic.

"Thank you, my lady. I'm sure this will strengthen the ties between our lands even further."

Satisfied with the contents and conditions written there, Alexander quickly filled ratified the documents, names with just a single name -Zanzan and then stamped and signed the agreement.

And voila!

There was now a free trade agreement between the two for 20 years!

In modern times, this kind of deal would have normally taken years of discussion, months of revision, and many more months of ratification to come into effect.

But given the primitive times as well as Alexander's absolute power over his lands, just a few strokes of his pen was enough.

He did not even need to ask his nobles or council members for their input as they already had free agreements with him anyway.

So work that might have taken others years, Alexander got it done in less than half an hour.

Sometimes absolute authority was better than a democracy. 

All that now remained to be done was to instruct Heliptos to make sure the goods carrying those specific seals were not subjected to sort of taxes at the port.

With this huge agreement reached, Alexander then got down to selling his products. 

"So what are the things I can help you get?" He posed to the eager customers.

And the other party quickly got down to listing many of his unique products- iron, sugar, paper, salt, glass, and soap.

They bought these in quite large quantities, as explained by an eager  Lord Janus

"Your products were very popular my lord. Especially the sugar. We want to buy as much as we can," 

Those things sold like hot cake and they seemed to never have enough.

Bu Lord Janus could easily understand the temptation.

Just remembering the taste of that pristine white powder made his mouth even subconsciously salivate.

"Yes, yes, the sugar is very popular. But the price…." While his counterpart, Lady Miranda was a bit more restrained in showing her desire and implicitly asked for some price concessions from Alexander.

"Haha, I have already given a discount, my lady," But Alexander would not lower his profit margins anymore.

Instead, he provided them an alternative. 

"If you have a problem with paying in gold, I also accept payments in food, livestock, gems, fabric, and slaves."

"I understand that you might need funds to recover from the disaster and the war, so perhaps you can consider those."

Alexander seemed to be very understanding.

"Umm…yes that is possible…but still…the quantities are a problem." But here Lady Miranda pointed out the sheer volume of the goods that would be needed to trade to balance the sheets.

They had bought almost half a billion ropals worth of products from Alexander to be delivered over the next year while they themselves only had the cash reserve to pay for only 20% of that without starting to run into shortages.

So the rest of it had to be paid with goods.

But some of the goods Alexander was asking to be exchanged were not so readily transportable. 

For instance, a mule weighing more than half a ton was only 500 to 600 ropals, or about the same value as 10 kg of iron, something that could be carried by hand.

That was why trade through gold was so preferable, it was convenient.

At Lady Miranda's mention of the volume problem, Lord Janus also pointed this out, "Yes, my lady is correct."

"We can transport the 50,000 tons of food you wanted no problem." 

"As well as the potteries, wood and linen." 

"But the problem is the slave and draft animals."

"Moving living things over water is always difficult."

"We need to carry extra food, water, and even extra people to take care of them."

"So ships cannot carry many of them at once."

"Meaning transporting that many will need many trips."

"And as I have previously said, we lack a strong navy… so we might not be able to protect all of them."

It was unknown how much of the problem was real, and how much Lord Janus was exaggerating to get concessions from Alexander.

But whichever it was, Alexander had no real good solution to the problem.

He could choose not to sell, but then they were one of his biggest customers.

Alexander had very few others who were able to buy his stuff in this volume.

So if he did that, his wares would simply sit in his warehouses gathering dust.

But if he were to make concessions, well then he would be losing out, and might even encourage them to make similar excuses in the future.

"Hmmmm…*tap*, *tap*," So Alexander got to thinking.

The thing that put his mind at ease was that the food he wanted would still be delivered 

And with 50,000 tons of it, mostly being grains, along with various vegetables, and some meat and wine, he could easily feed his population for half a year with no problem.

Then when combined with Lady Inayah and Pasha Farzah's contribution as well as his own production, Alexander kept he could even keep some in reserve in case of emergencies.

So now he had to decide what he should get instead of the vast number of slaves and draft animals.

And after a while, he came up with a solution.

"I can lower the prices. But I need some other way to be compensated." He offered.

"Oh anything! Please state it. And we will try our best to accommodate you, my lord," And immediately Lady Miranda jumped at the offer.

The profits from these products she was buying from Alexander would be critical in helping her territory recover and she wanted to only buy more, not less

So as long as Alexander's demands were not too unreasonable she was willing to go as far as she possibly could to fulfill them.

"Understanding the problems your family faces, I will waive the draft animals. Those things require the most space after." Alexander first said generously, getting a grateful smile from both, 

"And instead of the 50,000 slaves, I will buy only 20,000 from you over the next year." 

Alexander's most pressing concern right now was to repopulate his lands and though he could reduce the number, he could never abandon it.

"That…" But the quoted number still seemed to be so huge that it immediately got a knee-jerk response from Lady Miranda.

She was hoping Alexander would completely forego the slaves.

After all,  20,000 big, strong men as slaves was not a small number given they only controlled a territory the size of 300,000 sq km with a population of a few million.

It would not be impossible but very, very hard, especially given their recent troubles.

Hence, even though Lady Miranda said she would try to be as accommodating as possible, Alexander's ask still caused the involuntary yelp.

She would not reject him but hinted at wanting to haggle.

And Alexander, hearing this gasp, and feeling an objection be on its way, quickly decided to give an alternative offer.

One that would get him his 50,000 'men', while Lady Miranda could also keep her strong, working men.

A win, win for both sides.