Arthur was burying himself in books, and research day in and day out. He read up on the different houses in his kingdom, their histories, economies and even art preferences. He was making spreadsheet after spreadsheet to condense information better, and so that he would not need to remember that house Oedrik’s third lord’s illegitimate son had an obsession with cats. He got records from the archives dating back to over three hundred years ago and began looking for trends. He seriously thanked the gods above that he took his statistics courses in his previous life seriously.
What he found made him pale. He knew feudal economies weren’t all that great, but this was horrible! The increasing taxes combined with an even barely growing economy would have resulted in a steadily growing income for the crown. Instead, the income of the crown, when one accounted for inflation, was decreasing. Barely, but steadily. What’s more, was that the overall prosperity of the nation was decreasing when divided by its population. Living conditions were stagnant or even going downhill despite the progression of technology. The schooling system, of course only accepted nobles and despite attempts to hide it, Arthur was able to piece together that its quality decreased as corruption grew through time. Military spendings were ever increasing, but the lands they conquered were rarely worth even half the resources spent in acquiring them.
He could also tell objectively which of his ancestors were fools and which did their best to mitigate their situation. His father and great grandfather for example managed to slow down the collapse of the nation to only stagnation through reforms and some clever maneuvering, with one of his ancestors from 150 years ago, Gailas the Conqueror, a man blessed by the spirits, even managing to reverse some of the damage done before him. But, the biggest reason was plain and simple: debt. It was spiraling out of control, the country needing to take up more debt to pay the previous ones off.
By his calculations, even if he managed to double the output of every aspect of the economy in a single day and had it increase by another 1% each year, the country would not be rid of its debts during his reign. Of course, it would make things a lot easier for his successor, but the point stands. The country would take a miracle to stabilize.
He was racking his brain, trying to figure a way out when there was a knock on his door. Sleep deprived and faced with something he was horribly unprepared for, he answered the knock with decorum.
“What?!”
Arthur heard a deep sigh from the other side. “At least you’re doing your research.”
‘A miracle, huh…’ Arthur quickly rushed to the door and opened it, looking at what he could guess to be Yuuki. She had more tails now and was even more beautiful somehow. That didn’t matter though. “Please, come in.”
His guest did so and conjured a chair to sit on, because all surfaces save for the floor walls and ceiling were covered in papers.
Before she could say anything, Arthur closed the door and looked at her like she was the light at the end of the tunnel. “Please, help me. I looked through records and I have no idea how I’ll have this country stand up on its legs.”
Yuuki conjured a small table in front of herself and a chair on the other side. She then reached through a hole in space and put a steaming cup of coffee on the table.
“You won’t be able to help anyone if you work yourself to death. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
That was very strange for Arthur to hear considering how hard she pushed them all during training.
“During training, I pushed you as far as you could go without damage. No further.”
Arthur blinked a few times before taking a step back.
“No, I am not reading your mind, I am reading your face. Another reason you should get some sleep. Your subconscious actions are harder to mask when you’re tired.”
Arthur frowned before taking a seat and chugging the hot coffee in a single sip and putting the cup down.
“Now, here are the rules: I will not solve your problems for you, I will tell you how to solve them yourself. I will not help directly, I will have other people do so. And lastly, should you, for any reason choose to give up, I will give you a place to stay far away from politics.” Yuuki said, her tone firm.
“Alright then. How do I get the country’s economy out of the red?”
“There are many ways. One would be to invest more heavily in infrastructure, schooling and cut spendings where possible, and wait a few hundred years.” She met Arthur’s tired expression with a slight smirk. “If you wish for something more immediate, I’m afraid there’s no real easy way. By introducing technologies, like the steam engine for example, you would change the world in an unpredictable way, but it would most likely result in the country’s prosperity.”
“How much time would that take?” He asked, not wanting to get his hopes up.
“Around sixty years. Give or take a decade. You would need to wait for the industry to build up properly before you could introduce electricity after that, but it would cut it down to roughly fifty years, forty-five if you’re lucky.”
“Anything faster, by chance?”
“One.” She leaned back in the chair, with a hint of regret that she answered truthfully. There was no going back now. “On another continent, there is a sacred forest that had been laid to ruin by demons a very very long time ago. Deep in the forest is a cave entrance that only those with a pure heart may enter. Inside, there are three trials. If you succeed, you will gain treasure beyond your wildest dreams. If you fail, you will die alone as your name will be struck from history as if you never were… or so’s the legend. The treasure itself is a powerful artifact created by the goddess of light. Her church will most likely be willing to pay an excessive amount of coin to receive it, enough to buy your country back from debt collectors.”
“Where is it?” He asked without skipping a beat.
“I’ll tell you once you’re ready.” She said with concern on her face.
“Since when do you care so much?” He yelled as he slammed his fists on the table.
“Around a week ago. I realized I don’t have to be a tool. I am my own person and I wish to enjoy my life. And I do not want those I care about to be hurt.” She answered calmly, ignoring his anger.
He sighed, deflating. “I'm sorry.”
“It’s alright. For now, you should get some shuteye, I'll come by again soon.” She waved her hand and the many papers organized themselves into neat stacks. As he moved to fall into his newly available bed, Yuuki talked once more. “Oh, before I forget, your mother and I are dating now, so… I have no idea how this works, I thought I’d let you know.”
Arthur blinked many times before she had a confused smile on his face. “I’m happy for you. Uhmmm… take care of her?” He really didn't know what to say. This came out of the blue.
Yuuki nodded before disappearing. ‘Was she glowing? Nah, probably my imagination. She did get taller though.’ Arthur decided he needed sleep. A lot of it. Now that he thought about it, the coffee tasted a bit strange. Also, he hadn’t felt any more awake from it, but instead felt more and more tired by the second. With those thoughts, he collapsed face first into his pillow as he fell asleep.
sleep.... the bane of my want to read novels....
u can't cut anything in kingdom settings easily, every noble if feudal and king is only mediator most of the times, if king is tyran than it might work, badly tho
Hmmm, midevil debt crisis? Hmmm. Overall, cut spending in unnecessary places, military primarily, cut corrupt nobels, centralize the state, introduce mass agricultural and industrial reforms/development/progress, redevelop the transportation infrastructure, tax reform based around a progressive income taxes, educational reform including mandatory education, and finally debt mitigation including laws that require a set amount of the budget to go to paying off interest payments until the economy is prosperous enough to make the money needed to pay them off in full. You have earthen knowledge, that makes it 200x easier then normal.
Hmmm, another thing they could do is utilize Yuki an Alices immorality to enable the paying off to surpass Arturs lifetime. Essentially give Mystra's church (and by extension Yuki) the role of helping mange the debt. Yuki gets land to develop her church, not to mention make some money, gets lots of prestige and power over the country (a step to international power) while the country is essentially forced to work twords paying off it's debt. The catholic church in midievil europe had a similar kinda system actually.
At least, that's what I would do. Thanks for the chappy~
Well, Yuuki doesn't want to interfere too directly and the churches here normally don't really have use political power, with the deities being proven right, they have enough prestige to get things done. And Arthur is a bit hesitant to introduce new technologies too fast because the world could spiral out of control very quickly. Reforms are needed, but doing things too quickly will result in unruly nobles, they are part of the problem. Them a dozen previous kings who lived in excess. But you did give me an idea for later. Thank you for the feedback!
@Illiterate_potato With the exception of land reform. None of it includes new technologies, it's 90% administrative reform. Basically, setting up an Enlightened Despotism-esqe approach. Basically, unless he wants to be Luise the 16th, it's the only way.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/enlightened-despotism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_absolutism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_French_Revolution#Financial_crisis
https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/2014/07/31-the-three-estates-.html#comments
https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/2014/07/32-the-broken-regime.html
@KatherineFtw Thank you for the material, will read up on it for the next time these are mentioned.
Economics are really damn complex so letting things be vague is good enough. That said though, I'm no economist, but I'm not sure any kind of financial problem that a nation has, especially a monarchy whose king has a clue of how to fix things, would need a lifetime to fix it to be honest.
Like, needing a century to fix sh*t is something that's already beyond a depression and you've already entered total collapse of a nation. When a nation has a desirable resource to export, its financial situation can quickly get fixed fast no matter how much of a shitty situation it is in. National debt is also not all strictly bad, but that's an entirely different long discussion, economics are damn hard to understand.
More importantly however is that you have to remember that this isn't a democracy where stupid ass ignorant politicians get to bicker on how to solve a problem for months or years before getting fixes in that might not even work. A monarchy and dictatorship have problems, but efficiency and swiftness is one thing that they are best at. They have the protection, they have labor, and now they have a knowledgeable leader with the best damn 'advisor' in history. 20 years max is all they need to solve their financial problems no matter how much in dire straits they are in.
Having said all that, I'm being a bit pedantic with this if I'm being honest. This series isn't really focused on nation-building, so you don't have to mind these things nor be that accurate.
My idea was that due to feudalism, there would be nobles upon nobles upon nobles with different lands and allegiances. Think the complications of CK3, where a duke has a count below them, who has a baron and that baron taxes the people, takes a share, the count takes a share and the duke takes a share before it goes to the king. The reason for it taking so long is because Yuuki assumed from the get-go that Arthur doesn't want to do a noble purge. If he did, it'd take maybe 20 years like you said. It's not absolute monarchism yet. But I probably overshot it still. Idunno, I just kinda needed for Arthur to have a reason to go on a quest, kinda like in the legends. I should have preplanned more. Thanks for the feedback!