Out of the window, Corco could see the lines of wolf mercenaries, as they boxed in Sawo's loyalists on the stone plates of the central yard. After his men had been handed control over the western south gate, the rest of his troops had soon made their way into the city proper. In the end, the rebellious troops only managed to give some token resistance before their commander realized the futility of his attempted coup. By midday, they had taken the central island of the Mayura Delta and Rapra Castle with it. At least the biggest problems had been solved for now. For the moment, Corco had control of his own city. Still, with the revolution over, he had to deal with the annoying fallout.
“King Corco, this must be some kind of misunderstanding!”
Before his feet kneeled Sawo, administrator of Saniya. The self-entitled warrior was really grinding Corco's gears with his servile attitude, but there would be advantage in humoring him for mow. Listening was better than talking, he reminded himself.
“So what is it you misunderstood?” the king asked with a kind smile.
“Oh, it is such a tragedy.” The warrior covered his face with his hands to display his supreme sadness. “What happened was such a terrible mistake! How could this ever happen? This poor servant thought a foreign army had invaded the great southern kingdom! Like any good official would, this servant simply did his duty. This servant risked his life, and the lives of all the warriors of Saniya, in an attempt to repel the foreign invaders and defend the city until the return of our great king.”
“So you didn't see the flags?” Corco asked, smile unchanged from the bullshit.
“Who would trust those flags? In the end, the soldiers were all foreigners. We had to be careful to not become the victims of a terrible ploy!” The man shuffled towards Corco on his knees. However, before he could come close enough to try anything, the pole of a halberd landed on the floor between him and his target. Predictably, it stopped the groveling mess in his tracks.
Still holding on to his smile, Corco looked over to the one who had opened the gates for them, a tall, weak-looking official. Iyo, was how the man had introduced himself.
“Yeah. Okay. You got anything to say about that? Since you let us in without confirming our identity, wouldn't Sawo's interpretation make you a horrible traitor?”
“That is not the case. King Corco may excuse this official, however, not all of administrator Sawo's words are the truth.” With a shallow smile, the man answered in a calm and collected manner, despite Corco's unfair accusation. The entire attitude reminded the king of the old prime minister Chaupic.
“Lies!” shouted the fat warrior in response. “Do not believe the rat's slander! He is vermin, sent by the Ichilia brood! Unlike me, who has always been a loyal servant to House Pluritac. Only due to my foresight would I hire warriors from within the local population, rather than rely on the Ichilia influence. Otherwise, if the rat had been allowed free reign, they would have taken over the entirety of Chawir long ago!”
Nothing but a short motion of his head and the soldiers around him understood their king's wish. Another heavy pole dropped onto the flailing administrator, this time on his back. As the man reeled in pain and gasped for air, pressed into the floor, Corco looked over to the smiling politician, to await his response.
“Administrator Sawo does speak the truth, in this one instance. Indeed, administrator Sawo has hired only local men to become his warriors. However, his goals were far less noble than stated. Rather than resist the Ichilia clan in favor of House Pluritac, administrator Sawo has trained commoners of Chawir into warriors, fed them and clothed them to guarantee their loyalty to Sawo alone. All of it has been done in an attempt to become a lord himself, to build his own army and rise to the highest ranks of Medala nobility.”
“Nonsense! There is no proof for any of this!” Again Sawo shouted, but this time, one stern look from the king was enough to shut him up.
Really annoying.
He wanted to solve this whole incident in a quick manner, but he had to remain fair as well. Now that he was king on his own lands, arbitrary decisions based on gut feeling would be poison for his reputation, and ultimately his entire operation. A tyrant could never implement a proper rule of law the people would believe in.
“Okay. I can't really prove intent. Or rather, I might be able to, but that sounds like a pain. So let's try a different route: How many warriors are there in Saniya right now?”
“Including their families, the total number of warriors is eight thousand. However, most of them, around five thousand total, are young men with no or only small families, ready for battle,” the official answered off the top of his head.
“Good, then what's the total population of all of Chawir, to your best guess?”
“According to the last census, there are about fifty thousand people in Chawir, twelve thousand of which call Saniya their home.”
“That sure sounds like a lot of warriors to me. Even rich territories only have a ratio of about ten percent warriors to commoners; those warrior clans usually have large families, so less than half of them actually serve the lord in any capacity, unlike here, where the total number of fighters alone makes up more than half the warriors in Saniya, not even counting other servants and officials. With this many regular fighters, with such a large standing army, how could they ever be fed and paid?”
As Corco followed the chain of logic, Sawo's face began to sweat as his eyes grew larger. Now, he was no longer complaining of injustice, though that pole pressed in his back might have had something to do with it.
“Let's do the calculations for now, Corco continued. “You have around fifty thousand people in the entire territory. Of those, twelve thousand live in the city and don't produce food. Not only that, around five thousand are cultivating warriors. Cultivators have much higher energy consumption, so we can comfortably count one warrior as two people. The territory itself has only small amounts of farmland. The lavender gets you no food, while the rest of the population mostly lives off of fishing and herding, plus the occasional tiny farm with average yield. So we end up with thirty eight thousand herders, fishermen and farmers having to feed essentially seventeen thousand mouths, plus themselves. Does that seem realistic to anyone?” Corco looked around the room. After he had left Sawo's sweating face, he saw Tama suppress a grin next to him, while Iyo still held onto his unreadable smile.
“It does not,” public servant Iyo replied dutifully. “Since his arrival in Saniya, administrator Sawo has recruited more and more warriors to bolster the numbers of those loyal to him. The measure was a temporary one, only meant to last until administrator Sawo would be acknowledged as the lord of Saniya by the southern nobles. In order to fund his hubris, administrator Sawo not only increased taxes and depleted the treasury, he also installed several bandit groups all across the Chawir waterways, a method to take in taxes a second time. These bandits are, in essence, a further part of the administrator's forces.”
“Slander! None of this can be proven.” Though he was still flat on his belly, the administrator repeated himself like a broke record. However, by now his voice had reached a much higher pitch than before, a clear sign of his panic.
“If any of this is true, then that would be at the very least a misappropriation of funds. That's one accusation I can prove without doing much actual work. You have books here, right? A way to prove how much you've been spending and on what item?” Corco asked, as his harmless smile had a stand-off with the vapid one held by Iyo.
“Of course, my king,” the official answered.
“Good, good. Let's give him the Capone treatment then. I have brought with me fifty or so people who can read and write Yakua and are well-taught in accounting and administration. How about you show us those books.”
At last, the remains of Sawo's facade fell away as his fat body squirmed under the weight of the halberd.
“No, my king, it was a mistake, please-”
“Can we get this bastard out of here? This is pissing me off. Just hold him somewhere I can't hear him for now, until we know exactly what crimes he's committed. I can still judge him then.” Under Corco's frown, Sawo was dragged out of the room, kicking and screaming.
Finally, the door to the small study atop Rapra Castle closed and peace and order returned to the room.
“King Corco,” carefully, Iyo began to disturb the peace, “if this servant may...”
“Yeah, you're still here, huh? Okay, first lesson. You can use pronouns. No more of that 'this servant' crap. Just save us all the trouble and say 'I'.”
With a nod of acknowledgment, the servant continued. “If I may, I have worked on the administration of Saniya for the past two seasons. As such, I know very well how the books have been handled and could surely be of great assistance in uncovering the truth of former administrator Sawo's crimes.”
“Sure you could,” Corco said without much care in his voice. Even so, he leaned on his hand as he observed the man's smile. “Now tell me why I should trust you. You're just as much appointed by Spuria Ichilia as the other one, and only a few hours ago you betrayed your nominal master by letting us through the gates. You seem much more insidious than Sawo, who's at least transparent in his goals, if nothing else. Why shouldn't I put you together with him and save myself the trouble?”
“My betrayal is the very reason King Corco should trust me.” Unperturbed by the threat, the servant didn't waver in either voice or smile, all throughout his answer. “In the end, I am a poor man. Forced to move to a far-off territory by my masters in the Ichilia clan, I was put under the helm of an dimwit. Sawo had his plans from the very start. It could be said that from the moment he left for Saniya, he had betrayed the Ichilia clan.
“However, I became aware of the man's ambitions only some time after we had arrived, when Sawo had already begun to build his own armies. With the deed done, I could not return to Huaylas any longer. Now I am stuck here, since Lord Ichilia will see me as a traitor just the same as Sawo was. Of course, none of it would have proven a problem, if only Sawo's plan had been more along the lines of reality. If I could become the head advisor of a new estate, I would have given my all to support him.
However, his plan has never been more than fantasy. Any man with experience in matters of warfare could see that Sawo's so-called army would never withstand the charge of real warriors. Further, it has been centuries since a new House was established and never under such peculiar circumstances. What would make Sawo d'Ichilia so special? Thus, I was stuck. I could betray Sawo for the Ichilias, but it would only get me killed as a traitor. Staying loyal to Sawo would only ever end in my swift demise as well. As such, I chose the only option which offered a chance at survival.”
“And so you picked me,” Corco concluded. “Let's repeat the important question though: Why would I trust anything you say? Why take the risk?”
“Obvious: I will be very useful to the new king. As king, Lord Corco will need to control the territory of Chawir. Taking over will be much more difficult if King cannot understand the exact operations under Sawo. As the administrator's right-hand man, I am very much privy to this information, thus my value. As far as my own loyalty is concerned: At this point, my only chance is to subscribe to King Corco, heart and soul. I will be more loyal than any of your men, not because of my devotion, but because my life depends on it, and to me, my life is more precious than anything.”
Corco stared down the servant for a few long seconds, before he nodded his head.
“Fair enough. You can go and support my men as they look through the old documentation. Know that you're on probation, so I'd advise you to tread lightly. You're dismissed.” With a snappy bow, the servant turned and left the study. Even after the door had been closed, Corco's eyes were still focused to his front, onto the invisible back of his new, enigmatic servant.
“Tamaya, get some of your people to look after the guy. Make sure he doesn't spend a single second alone.”
“Yes, King Corco.” Tama, who had remained silent until now, answered in a proper manner.
“Also, do you have any people positioned in Huaylas?”
“A few, but Huaylas was never our priority. I can ask Arguna to send extra.”
“That's alright, I don't need many. Find out if Iyo d'Ichilia has any relatives left on Ichilia land, and whether or not he cares about them. He might turn out to be much less pragmatic if his mother ends up as a hostage.”
“Of course,” Tama offered a subtle smile. “As an aside, I have seen the offices, while you were organizing troops. Even with all that help from your people, looking through that mess of papers will take days. What should we do with Sawo and his men until then?”
“That's simple. Put them in the prisoner's camp outside the city.”
“Prisoner's camp?” Confused, Tama looked out of the opened window, over the river and the city walls, in search of the elusive, hidden camp.
“No need to look, it's not there yet. They'll build it themselves. If they start now, they can get it done by the time night falls. Have Atau oversee their work and let him work out the details of the prison. This is perfect, actually. For the first phase of our development, I'll need a lot of workers, and now I have thousands of free laborers, all young and healthy men with cultivation.”
Corco looked outside, into the yard. Out there, his first work force sat around, encircled by his first army. In anticipation of the future, he couldn't prevent a genuine smile from stealing itself onto his face.
“Looks like our revolution is off to a good start.”
I'm so excited for the kingdom building part!
Nothing says "progress" like gulags.
Thanks for the vote of confidence on the first shady thing the MC is doing. Maybe, just maybe, it's not quite as horrible as you're imagining in your head... maybe.
@SociableHermit I don't think that slavery and forced labor is something bad. Till last century it was something not just necesseary, but inevitable. I would just wish more time was used to show MC struggling with toxic humanism of our times - which, while obviously a good thing, is akin to trying to implement cryptocurrencies in his time. Like he actually comes to comprehend exactly why he is wrong in his misplaced compassion, why it is psychological suicide to try and see his people as people, why there are commoners and nobles, and that "equality" is a privilege that he will not see in his lifetime. Industrial Revolution took centuries and it used people like sand. He should cast aside those childlish notions, that can have place only in modern world (and are foolish still, even now, if you get on high enough level).
It is a story as old as time. First you are forced to do some shady and abhorent stuff out of necessity: compromise your ideals a little bit. Than you try and justify your actions due our brains innate psychological self-defence mechanisms. Since now you have less compulsions against doing shady stuff (and if the necessity is still there), you do more, you justify more, you change your beliefs more, until you, inevitably, come to believe, honestly and sincerely, that some people are cattle, and some are predators, that some are inherently better than others, and some are disposable for the greater good.
And worst of all, you may even be right.
@Pezt I fundamentally disagree with almost everything you've said here. Slavery is an incredibly inefficient way to run an economy, because most people aren't really a part of it. It artificially keeps labor costs down too, which stifles potential consumers of mass products. No modern society has slavery for a reason, and it's not because we're all nice people now. Forced labor is a different thing, but not without wages.
Yes, his attitude is a bit of a handicap, and yes, he'll have to adjust it somewhat, but it's balanced out by his impossible advantages in terms of knowledge. Yes, the industrial revolution took centuries, but with his cultivation, the MC has centuries as well.
Finally, I'm not sure what to say about the 'toxic humanism' comment. Humanism is what brought us from the middle ages to the modern era, so I'm not quite sure where your bias is coming from. Not to mention, those ideas are pretty old too, from around the 1600s... Even at the start of the novel, the societies are already comparable to 16th century Europe, so it's hardly impossibly far off.
@SociableHermit I apologise in advance for so many words. I work hard on being able to be concise and still get my point across, but I am not so smart.
First of all, I agree that forced labor with minimum wage (enough not to starve) and slavery are different things from technical perspective. But I just can't really call a factory worker who works 16 hours a day for dimes to be anything but slave. I can't call prisoner in a labor camp anything but a slave. Consumer economy works only on a certain level of mass production. Social mobility works only on a certain level of mass production. Waste resources to scrap population for diamonds among them is an initiative directly dependant on the amount of recources. If they are sharply limited,keeping a small, privileged class to receive all the education is better, than spend those meager resources to educate everyone how to write letter A and count to 5, while skipping 2 and 4.
We don't have slavery for a reason, that is true. But for most of our history we got slavery for a reaeo too, and the only way we even got to the point when it is inefficient, is by abusing it really, really hard.
We had banned slave labor (although we didn't, not really, we just delegated it to countries that has plentiful supply of cheap labor, just like we delegate EAF to countries with cheap electricity) because we reached level of technology and resources that made it an actual viable strategy. And even in the beginnings of 20th century, most "civilized" countries got rid of slavery in name only, just look at the work conditions of factory worker in the early nineties. There is a reason communism was even a thing.
Look at most industrial ways of making steel, aluminum, etc. It is not that it the best way, it is the best way if you do it in REALLY large quantities. Until something is economically viable (i.e. hand labor before industrialisation) it will be used and abused. Even now, people will usually choose using cheap labor (illegal immigrants for one), instead of making use of wonders of automatisation. Change comes when previous systems bring more losses than reorganising production. Idealistic hero with knowledge will be overthrown, because his idealistic model will not be able to compete with countries runing their people to the ground.
Hand labor is still the cheepest way to make most of things, and manpower is your best resource. You can't force ideals from another world onto the society that is not ready for them, economically. Secrets get stolen, industrial espionage is still a thing, how do you think your secrets will fare, if you expand the scale big enough? They will become common knowledge. Absolute loyalty of average goons is the most fantastic thing about most isekais, period.
Example with Whiteport and Burma: a country with long standing naval traditoon will be first to see utility of innovation and first to implement them, not last. People are not stupid, they have eyes.
Look at it this way: until very recently, by history standarts, most of the population had to work most of the time, just to make enough food to feed itself. And if we are talking "making most food", slavery (or disguised slavery, if it tickles your fancy), is the most economically viable solution. Slavery isn't viable now (technically) but a century ago it was. Of course nobody was so uncouth as to actually call it slavery. Compulsory education on mass scale, human rights, wages, all that jazz are really big, enourmous blackholes of recources, that will maybe start paying for itself in a few decades, and in a century, maybe, will finally bring overall profit.
If you need cheap labor - and you need it - more than intellectual one, which MC does, right now, because most of his designs, most of his ideas, are viable only if they are on a real mass scale, you gotta use force labor, however lenient. We had known steam engine for millenias, but had been using it for centuries. There is a reason for that.
Humanism did not bring us anywhere, it is a luxury that we were gradually had been able to afford. The ideas were in the air from the Buddha and the rise of Christianity, didn't stop slavers none.
But, credit where credit's due, if MC is to live for centuries, his gradual expantion may be plausible - but would either make for a boring read, or for a abudance of timeskips.
Also, one of the reasons we have equality, proclamed, sort of, in some parts of the world, is because people had little by little realised that they are all generqlly the same. Do you know that until XVIII century there was a genuine belief that nobles and commoners have different biological structure (and that peasants can't process complex foods... or even white bread)? But with cultivation, ooh boy, there are quite literal, FACTUAL Übermensch walking the earth. Viva La Endlosung!
Him playing friendlies with commoners may actually work for opposite effect and make him seem weak. And then they will ask for more and more, and when he will put his foot down, hate him twice as much. A king should keep his distance, both so that populace better followed his laws and so that he can still make hard choices unflinchingly.
Also. This whole idea that "people just need smart and benevolent leader guiding them to the better future" is as repulsive as it is insulting.
@Pezt I feel like you're thinking pretty short-term here. Yes, in the short term, a small elite would be more efficient, but the ultimate 'end-game economy' will always be mass consumer based. Corco is already moving towards manufactories/automation to some degree, so mass-production is not that far off. Neither is social mobility, considering I've made a repeated point out of the fact that a lot of commoners in Medala already have a lot of wealth, with no way to spend it.
Again, I disagree on your slavery point. Most societies that used slavery a lot were held back by it. When Rome fell it was mostly made up of slaves, for example (unlike early rome). Same goes for Russia around 1900, which was basically held in the previous era by its backwards societal structure. In fact, the only example of a functioning society of a small elite and mostly slaves I can think of is Sparta, which is an exception in every other case as well.
You can call factory work slavery, but it really isn't. In many cases, factory workers had (and still have) worse lives than slavery, but they still get paid. They can still buy a new washing machine, they can still mortgage their house. You need that to further money circulation. I'm not arguing that it's better for all people than slavery, just that it's better for the economy (long-term).
Hand labor is never the best way to do things, unless you have no other choice. Wind and watermills were already used during antiquity to replace manpower, to great effect. I'm not sure why you insist on the opposite, to be honest.
As for Whiteport: Again I believe your critique is misguided here. Established powers keep with what worked in the past, that's how empires fall. Before that big sea battle, no one could have known how strong cannons would be in naval warfare. That's how it worked in the real world after all. Back then, Venice was the great seafaring nation with the powerful navy and access to all the trade routes and their old galleys still got overtaken by the Portuguese and Spanish. And yes, Whiteport is loosely based on Venice.
Compulsory education is an idea of the enlightenment, not actually that far away from the current tech level in the novel. In 1500s Japan (which Medala is partially based on), between 10 and 20% of the population were samurai, which means they really didn't do anything. Another large chunk was craftsmen and merchants. A lot of the population was in fact not farmers.
Humanism is the basis for our modern university system, and the basis for the scientific method. Without either of them, we'd be nowhere near where we are right now. Humanism isn't optional, it's required for a modern society to form. Plus, it's a good tool to unite a people.
As for your last point, again, plenty of examples of the contrary. From Frederick II, Napoleon (when he wasn't on another warmongering trip) all the way to more recent dictators like Lee Kuan Yew in singapore, there have been plenty of rulers who have used theri authority to improve their country in some way, rather than make themselves richer or commit some sort of genocide. I'm not sure why you're insulted.
Honestly, I'm not sure what you're complaining about here. To me, this all sounds like you're nitpicking random points from among 100 chapters, and then make weird Nazi allusions about my characters (while at teh same time complaining about their moral standards). I honestly don't see your greater point, so I'll just leave it at that.
@SociableHermit I meant that slavery was useful at some point of history, otherwise it wouldn't've existed in such a wide variety of places. And then it was made ineffective, and held back those places, which ensured that they would either collapse or reform. Which kinda defeats my point, since MC kinda chooses to willingly avoid everything that proved detrimental, rather than healthy.
As to the rest of my points, I will concede that I acted prematurely and was wrong. Except that well, all four Frederics of Prussia (well two Frederics and two Frederics Williams, which are entirely different names) and Napoleon and many others were an exception, rather than a rule. But it is colored by my personal beliefs, since I am not a big believer in humanity, and think that without insititutions and all other thought constructs to constrict and guide our behaviour, we would'nt been able to do anything usefull. At all. I think that there is nothing great in individual, but rather, the true force that changes a course of history and brings great deeds be their good or bad is collective as a whole, and that we just like to paint a face over it to make ourselves feel better. And that true force is determined from the start of existence in the first place, so we can't really affect it or fight the tide, since we would either drown, as we were meant too, or win, as we were meant too, but still the forces behind our victory or defeat against society, would still be weirdly, society.
In the end, I do believe that any great man, inserted in any situation, would not bring any and all impact, because behind any great man stood the truly great forces that paved a way for him to be on top or in position of influence, and if it wouldn't be him, it would be someone else. So all my objections to you stemmed from personal faith rather than rational argument, and for that, I apologize.
@Pezt It's fine. I mean, you're not entirely wrong, even though objectivey, there have been these benevolent rulers after all. It's not like my novel strays too much from your ideas either. I find the thought that one guy can elevate an entire cuontry alone ridiculous (since it is), which is why Corco has had close allies who know his secret from early on and acts as more of a teacher, to guide society in hopefully the right direction.
@SociableHermit I am not saying anything, it is a nice fantasy
@Pezt Slavery might have been necessary early on sure, but there’s a reason why a hyper capitalistic society like the US got rid of it. It just wasn’t profitable. It’s far more efficient to pay someone minimum wage who will buy your product than to have a slave whom you must provide all basic life necessities for, lest they die too early, who can’t purchase your goods. With the minimum wage worker, whether or not they are starving or homeless matters not, their problem, with slaves not so much.
@tyler89558 That's what it comes down to (though I wouldn't put it this cynically). Also, a slave will work exactly as hard as they need to to stay alive. A worker may work much, much harder, because they can get more money/status out of it in the long run.