Herald of Steel

While Menes was off securing the lands Alexander helped open up, the man himself was busy consolidating his power.

First of all, the various relief programs he promised were soon implemented, with the soup kitchens he opened having lines stitching for hundreds of meters nearly all day.

As for the cash money, funnily enough, the number of people coming to accept his stimulus package was more than the pre-war population of the city.

Which was particularly impressive given that Alexander had killed a lot of the original 100,000 inhabitants- be it during the siege, through fires caused by his catapults, and of course during the open fight. 

And the explanation for his discrepancy was, one- there were second comers who tried to claim the aid twice or even thrice, and two- there were people from other parts of the country, such as the nearby villages.

Of course, there was the third one, which was that the soldiers and camp followers that followed him disguised themselves as Tibians trying to also claim the money.

And this proved quite hard for Alexander to combat since there was no way to identify anyone.

There were no official records of any of these people, and no way to keep track of who got paid and who did not without setting up a massive dedicated bureaucratic branch.

Alexander neither had the time nor the skilled manpower to do so, while the people had no such patience.

So in this endeavor, Alexander lost almost 25 million roplas, whereas it should have been at most 15 million.

And he would only find this after this amount had been spent, and would then immediately order the halt, his heart aching at the loss.

First Leosydas and only this, Tibias was really a financial jinx for him.

And Alexander would only console himself by saying that this money would eventually aid him, circling through the economy and boosting the economy.

At the same time, Alexander also promised that he would do things better next time, such as using some kind of water insoluble ink as a mark, or if that was not possible, even a small cut on the palm to identify those who got the stipend.

Such future promises to oneself aside, Alexander also had other matters to delve into.

"My lord, September is already here. What should we do with all the ripe grains ready to be harvested?" One of the nobles posed.

And the reason was because Alexander had taken a lot of their labor into the army as levies, who were currently now with Menes many miles away.

Now normally, the men would have vehemently protested this, as it was almost an unwritten rule to pause all campaigns during this period and put every available hand in getting the ripe crops out of the fields and into the storage silos as soon as possible before the winter rain could ruin them.

But these were not normal circumstances.

They had won a brilliant victory, conquering the impregnable Thesalie, and now the gates to southern Tibias laid open for them.

It would be foolish of them not to take advantage.

So none objected to Alexander sending his army to capture the territories. 

But still, though they agreed to Alexander's move, the problem of lack of manpower still remained.

If a lot more hands were not quickly added to the fields, there was a high chance a lot of the precious crops would go to waste.

Hence the inquiry.

And this was not something Alexander had not thought about. 

In fact, he had been frowning at this problem for a while now.

And after a bit of deliberation came to the following conclusion, declaring- 

"The enslaved prisoners of war I have will for the moment help in the harvest around Thesalie."

"As for those of you noble lords who have fields in Zanzan and its vicinity, firstly ask the slave traders here to lend them their collection."

"Take both men and women. I will give an official decree, as well as a suitable compensation to them." 

"Also, I will have many of the workers working in my workshops enter the fields too. The workshops can be shut down for a month or two without too big a problem."

"But my lords, you must pay my men a fair wage."

Alexander finished with a condition.

And a similar kind of order went out to Menes too, who was asked to make sure the local populace was put to work harvesting the ripe grain.

Those were not only money hanging off trees, ready to be collected, but without them, a winter famine would surely occur.

It was also because of that that anyone trying to set fire to the fields as a kind of scorched earth policy would be instantly executed along with their whole family.

The harvest for Zanzan proved as bountiful as ever, and with the previous year's stocks as well as the grains he got by trading, Alexander's long term storage silos were finally filled to an acceptable level.

Even by his extravagant calculations, he would be able to fuel his army's march south with no problem, as well as feed the captured populace enough grain so that they would not rebel out of starvation.

Along with Zanzan's staple crop- wheat, its second most popular crop- beetroot was produced in abundance too, for in Zanzan, over the last year or so, a significant interest had grown in cultivating the vegetable to extract its juice and make coarse, brown sugar.

But while Zanzan managed to far outproduce its historical average, for Tibias, their harvests were okay.

Those around Thesalie had quite a poor harvest, mostly because Alexander's siege had made any farming very difficult.

And even those who managed to get anything done, only got around 250 to 300 kg of wheat per hectare, as opposed to Zanzan's 800 kg, though that number for the Tibians here was actually par for the course given the poor soil.

But while the farmers in this part barely made enough to live hand to foot, those downstream and cultivating along the banks of the fertile banks of the Diannu averaged far better, almost reaching as much as Zanzan's number without any of the agricultural improvements, while some particularly fertile land actually managed to achieve as much as an astonishing 1 or even 1.5 tons per hectare of wheat, an astounding number for the time.

And it was this bumper harvest that the country had each year that was perhaps its greatest blessing.

And also its greatest curse.

For it was because of such fertile lands that Zanzan, with its historically poor soil wanted Tibias so badly.

And even Amenheraft's campaign three years ago was because he wanted to capture these lands and obtain enough grain for his people.

Regarding the harvest reports, Alexander was naturally quite happy and decided he would implement the agricultural reforms for his newly conquered areas next year since there was neither the time nor enough tools to do so right now.

And besides, currently, Alexander was busy entertaining the nobles that had come to his city, along with their entourage.

The huge influx to literally ten thousand people, many of which were armed proved quite challenging for his army of only 6,000 to 7,000, so much so that he forced each noble to restrict their entourage to 10 family members and 30 additional men, be they servants, cooks or bodyguards.

And the reason for the huge attendance was because it was not only the Tibian nobles that came but many Zanzan ones too, with perhaps the biggest one being Jamider (Earl) Yuusiq.

His territory was also literally adjacent to Thesalie and if one recalled this man was the only noble who had refused to submit out of the original 12 nobles.

But he was here now not to pick a fight.

Instead, he greeted Alexander as such, 

"My lord, this fool had eyes but could not see the sky."

"Oh, conqueror of Thesalie, I beg you, please let me serve you- the destined dominator. And I swear my sword shall dye the battlefields with the blood of your enemy!"

Something caused Alexander to be at first a bit taken aback by such a grand greeting.

But after talking to Jamider (Earl) TIkba who was his neighbour and even friend, understood the reason behind his overly passionate calling as well as the change of heart.

Being right next to Thesalie, it had always been Lord Yuusiq's and his ancestor's dream to conquer the city, for they had suffered countless casualties given their proximity, and so now that Alexander had achieved their goal, the man was moved to the point of joining him.

And in tow of him was also another small group of nobles with similar thoughts.

It was something Alexander was happy to accept, the new allegiances increasing his control over Zanzan from 13,000 sq km to around 30,000 sq km, or a bit less than ten percent (10%) of the entire province. 

And this happened in spite of the fact that the conditions they were got were nowhere as favorable as the original 11, for the discounted goods Alexander sold to new his retainers were far more expensive and the quota far less than the original nobles.

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