7th Moon 139AD
I was now understanding why writers rarely ever ventured to write about the tediousness of government.
It was, as i said, tedious, but someone had to do it and I was trying to set an example here for the future generations to come. It was very rare for me to actually ever miss a cabinet meeting and when I did, either Alfred or Zhoe sat in for me to head the proceedings. When none of them were available, Lyam took charge as the first minister...you know what? I'm just going to change the name of the position of first minister to prime minister. Actually, I decided to change a lot of the names of the positions to something I was more used to, why I bothered to even try to deviate from the standard was beyond me really.
But back to matters of state, they were tedious and Lyam was in charge when none of the royal family was available. Sometimes, Henry sat in, but that was just for me to acquaint him with matters of state and government rather than for him to give a final voice in the policies of the realm. Basically, whenever he was on leave and away from being a sailor, his job was to shut up, listen and learn.
Being the most studious of my children, it seemed to work fine enough for him, something I was fine with.
"Your grace, here is the latest census," Adrian Roote said as he passed me a booklet of paper with something of a pleased look on his face. He was a new face in my cabinet and one of the new sort of lords that I had been working to bring up, educated in the schools I set up and examined thoroughly so that he was competent in his duties, it seemed to be working out for me. His duties being something of an combination of a home office plus health minister back on earth but I was sure that his office didn't hold as many responsibilities as that department did. "I think congratulations are in order, your grace, we have surpassed the three million mark in terms of the total population of our kingdom." A round of clapping passed through the cabinet as the lords and ladies gave their congratulations.
I flipped through the pages to the last and looked at the total number: 3,024,759. By now, that had increased with new births and the likes, but that was most certainly something considering we had seen a growth of over half a million in population from the last census.
Adrian continued speaking, giving more details in where we had seen the growths come from. "More births were recorded in the centres with clinics and hospitals which resulted in more babes and mothers surviving childbirths amongst the smallfolk, but we still recorded a significant amount of deaths amongst newly born babes and mothers from complications."
Zhoe birthing so many children with nary a hitch had made me forget that birth complications existed and people still died from that. Even if I had improved the state and availability of as much medical personnel as I could and believe me, I have been working on increasing the number of medical professionals that being one of the policies I put quite a bit of coin into, people still died.
Jaime might have written a book that was required reading amongst the medical students about clean hands and environments that helped increase survival chances of mothers and everyone in need of a medical procedure did make an impact, but sometimes, there was no available alternative to the completely sterile situations that modern facilities could provide. Still though, I took this as a win.
"We should see that we have more physicians available for villages and hamlets alike." I said, I didn't just want to monopolise medical help to the economic centres. I wanted to spread out the love.
Adrian nodded. "I'll see to it that it's done, your grace."
Flicking through the booklet once more, I came across the census of Edmynburgh and with quite amusement, I nodded that it was growing faster than I had thought it would be, now with a population in the fifty thousands which, with a quick flick through the brief, more than told me that at the rate it was growing, it would soon be larger than Duskendale, Maidenpool and Seagard. Three of the largest cities in the realm that had populations nearing the hundred thousand mark.
I wasn't worried about unconstrained growth really. I had been thorough in my edicts that all cities and towns had to follow a model of controlled growth and civil planning. Wide streets, fire service equivalents and all that. I was not about to have something like the London fire or any ancient fire that swept through large population centres happen on my watch.
Thoughts of growing population moved me to ask Lord Harrison Darry, a far more agreeable Darry than his father and the new agriculture minister to see whether we had enough food growing to continue to feed such a population. It was nice to know that we won't have any food problems with the rate of continued growth in population that we were seeing.
"The estates in the southern marches are most fertile your grace." he reported. "They have been returning a remarkable yield with each harvest, same for all the other estates in the realm. Also, thanks to the fact that the north has been relying less on us for imports of foodstuff, we have more foodstuff to place in the reserves in case of a bad harvest your grace."
I nodded. It was nice to know that entrusting the realm's farms to the ploughman wasn't such a bad idea. Their sigil was well deserved by the looks of it. Then again, Darry lands were some of the most fertile lands in the realm, so their sigil was well chosen.
From then on, I moved around the room, aides that had been lurking in the shadows bringing briefs and more briefs for me to have a more thorough read later on when I wasn't in a meeting. Giving them a quick glance, I was glad that my system of marking out which ones the heir would be given to work over was being implemented quite well.
It sort of made me glad...because it meant less work for me.
Olyvar Mallister had good news about the realms finances. It seemed everything was in the black and government revenue was more than the spending we did. Thankfully, one of my first policies when it came to taxes was to slowly phase out the collection of crops and other such goods as tax and instead, only start accepting coin. It made things infinitely easier when it came to tracking how much we had in the bank.
Speaking of banks, the central bank was coming along nicely if Olyvar was to be believed. "Master Orlin reports that there has been increase in the number of promissory notes being used by merchants and private subjects for the moving of large amount of coin."
"Excellent." I was ecstatic.
Slower than I would have liked despite the backing of both the Crown and the bank, it was still better than nothing after five years. At the rate it was going, paper money might very well be a thing some future centuries from now. Just had to make sure that it was controlled. The memory was foggy, but I remember seeing something about Sweden's economy crashing during the time that paper money was being introduced to western Europe. That was something I didn't want to happen.
Orlin was a smart guy, he wouldn't be in charge of the central bank if he wasn't and he most certainly well knew what would happen if he fucked over my economy. I had long enough conversations with him about the subject that I would tentatively say that I had nothing to worry about. Hopefully.
"Keep promoting the use of the notes because I sincerely doubt that no merchant wants to carry large amounts of coin on his persons as he moves from one market to another."
The commerce minister came next, telling me of how all those merchants were doing, making the coin work and multiply. To my pleasant surprise, it was nice to know that our little kingdom was exporting more than we were importing, and it just so happened that the goods we would be importing where mostly raw resources that we would work then sell at a higher price. Added value chains at work.
The canal that we built was also proving to be excellent in bringing in revenue as traffic passed through it. Harroway was beginning to see a marked increase in size from the number of barges that pass through as they enter the canal. Actually, the number of barges passing through either on their way to Seagard or Saltpans had meant that all of the bridges on the canal had to be destroyed and rebuilt that would allow the passage of the barges without impending the flow of traffic upon the waters.
Ser Guyard was quite happy to tell us that shipwrights in Maidenpool had been able to successfully recreated the junk ship of Yi Ti. The YiTish had a name of their own for the ship, but when I saw the drawing, I could recognise a junk ship when I saw a junk ship. The Song dynasty were able to build junks large enough to hold a thousand men.
A thousand men.
That was insane. That was like the number of people on a modern aircraft carrier or something.
Actually, now that I think about it, junks were effectively ancient China's answer to the modern cargo ship.
Lord Buckwell took quite the interest when he learned of some of the initial specifications of the junks. "How many sailors would the ships need at the minimum to be sailed?" he asked, directing his question towards Ser Guyard.
"I don't know." the admiral admitted with ease. "We have yet to learn the full capabilities of this eastern ship. Remember, we recreated it from the drawings and descriptions of the sailors. They might not be built entirely to the same standards as these YiTish." he finished, drawing out the word as it was still rather foreign to many tongues in the realm, let alone Westeros.
Lord Buckwell stroked his bearded chin in pensive thought. "If the specifications you say are true, then this ship might be able to hold quite the weight in cargo. Our traders would benefit from being able to use such a ship. We should talk more about these junks when you are available, ser."
Ser Guyard nodded and we moved on. It was nice to see different departments interacting and working together without me needing to do anything. Actually, I didn't need to do anything nowadays. I just let things run there course and intervening only here and there if something I didn't like the sound off turned up.
Ser Lyman had come a long way from being one of the officers in my proto-staff officer corps, it gave him a wealth of experience in his new administrative role as the defence minister that was aimed at making sure that the army was always prepared and had everything it needed when it came to its objective of defence of the realm. Over nearly three decades the army had seen some changes.
Refinement in the smithing industry saw the increased efficient use of the steel mills and better trade pacts with the north along with their improved internal infrastructure saw cheaper ore being imported. In other words, armour got a little cheaper to make, that allowed me to outfit a little more people and thus increased the overall size.
That wasn't the only thing that was being done though, I'd thrown some coin to developing ready-to-eat foodstuffs that could be preserved and last for a long time in the field. Somehow, jerky was born and biscuits. It wasn't much, but it was still something. It certainly made issues of supply easier.
And anyway, it was cheaper keeping a purely infantry army since I could just call upon all those knights my vassals had in their service, though I had agreed to recruit hedge knights that had come to seek service in the army. That calvary corps was still small in number, but it lessened my reliance on my vassals for knights.
"Your grace," Marq Vance, former envoy to the Eyrie spoke up as the meeting was winding up to a close after nearly two hours. Turning my attention to him, his eyes flicked over towards Willem before going back to me and continued speaking. "Your grace, some of the stormland houses at the frontier of the stormland have been reaching out towards us."
I quirked an eyebrow whilst Lyam furrowed his eyebrows together. "Reaching out to us?"
"Not just to us." Willem waded in, leaning forward onto the great oaken table we all sat around. "I've heard some whispers that House Bar Emmon means to declare for Dragonstone."
Fantastic.
The other lords and ladies seemed to share my opinion as well as they began to talk at once over each other. "Ridiculous! House Bar Emmon is sworn to Storm's End!" Ser Josua Rosby the works minister cried out. "For thousands of years! Why would such a noble Andal house declare for those slaving foreigners?"
"Can you blame them?" young but brilliant Lady Emery Hayford, the newly minted justice minister and I swear the closest thing to a lawyer this kingdom had, asked snidely. "Storm's End has lost all semblance of control with their internal feuding. If the Durrandons can't keep the peace, to protect their vassals, the Bar Emmons have every right to seek out better lieges that would be able to protect them."
Ser Lyman frowned though. "But why the Targaryens? Why not seek us?"
That was a good question. I turned my head towards the person involved for this little theatrics. "Lord Marq?"
"It's rumoured that Houses Bar Emmon and Massey have always enjoyed better ties with Dragonstone than they did with Storm's End. Lord Darklyn tells me that some of these ties included extending marriage offers between the two houses after the Doom."
Lord Buckwell snorted so loudly he might as well have nearly sucked in his own face. "What a tale! I have never heard of such a marriage happening between any of those houses. The Targaryens prefer to keep their marriages within the family, I hear."
The chief diplomat of the realm did look a little sheepish as he nodded his head. "That's what I thought as well my lord, but as I said, they are merely rumours that with everything we know, I doubt actually happened."
Lady Emery though frowned as she stared intently into the table. "Have the Masseys and Bar Emmons lost their wits? I'm sure tales of Crackclaw Point have reached their little hook. They should know what happens when Targaryens or their ilk come to Westeros."
The lady had a point. Given choices between leaving underneath foreign overlords that made a habit of slaving people, quite a large people of the Point called it quits and moved homes right next door into my kingdom. Though the first waves of immigrants had been low in number, when the Celtigars started moving in slaves to reclaim much of the land of the Point, what had been a thin flow of people turned into a large wave.
That had been difficult to deal with, even more with all the exiled lordlings and knights of the Point that had come to try and rouse support to reclaim their homeland.
I had put a stop to that. Death by flying murder beast was not something on my itinerary in any part of my foreseeable future. I would rather it not happen at all.
When petitioning me had failed, they had turned to the Faith. Specifically, the Faith that was based in the riverlands. The Faith that after that fiasco with Mern and the Reach based Faith I had neutered. I had endorsed the founding of something similar to the old college of deacons but with the Most Devouts. I did pay lip service to the High Septon in the Reach, but when it came to my kingdom? The First Devout was the lead priest in the riverlands.
It also just happened that in that College of Devouts, the Crown happened to have a vote as well and a veto when it came to the voting of the First Devout among other things.
So those men of the point were shit outta luck, but I did the ones that stayed were putting up one hell of an insurgency, though seemingly a futile one since the Celtigars seemed to be there to stay.
The prime minister quietened down the talk for a moment, then turned to pay all attention onto Lord Marq. "I suspect the houses that are reaching out to us are the ones that don't wish to become Targaryen fiefdoms?"
The lordling nodded. "It is nothing serious, your grace. It just so happens that merchants and travellers from the northern settlements happen to talkquite loudly in taverns in Blackwater about how it would be better to leave the chaos of the Stormlands behind for the peace of the Trident."
Willem nodded his head as he took his turn to speak. "From some investigation, these merchants and travellers seem to come from houses like the Wendwaters, Edgerton and Harte among others."
From my left, Jaime made his voice heard for the first time, the people paying attention to the wise old man. "Storied houses of ancient lines, some rich in lands and wealth," he began, speaking softly. "they would make good vassals, but accepting them into our realm could very well spark the ire of Storm's End."
"Grand Maester, Storm's End is in shambles," Lady Emery pointed out. "Between the king and queen, none know who is truly ruling. The queen gives one order, the king another."
"Yet us accepting the fealty of their vassals might unite them against us." I spoke up, pointing out the obvious.
The room was quiet for a moment as my words sank in, before Lyman broke it by pointing out another obvious fact. "It also just so happens that the Stormlands is besieged from west and south. Even if Queen Argella and King Olyvar are able to come to an accord, it would be some time before they could marshall any strength that they have left against us." a confident smile then spread upon his lips. "Also, I have the utmost confidence that our forces would be more than enough to smash whatever men they could bring together in the field."
Ser Guyard smacked a hand on the table, making a resounding noise from the impact, a large grin on his face. "And whatever scrap of wood they call a fleet as well!"
Lord Adrian then spoke up then. "I admit, matters of war are not my strongest suit, but if we do take in these vassals, does that not open up the borders we have to defend even more, my lords? The Blackwater serves as more than defensible border boundary between the stormlands and us."
Lady Emery hummed in agreement with her fellow minister. Now that I thought about it, didn't they go to school together? Seems like Adrian has an ally in the cabinet. How nice. "He has the right of it, my lords. The last land we acquired saw our borders being harassed by raids from the Reach. We found that tolerable due to the fact that the southern marches are more than fertile." she glanced quickly at the large map of Westeros that hanged on one side of the wall, her eyes looking for something. "But from what I can see, the lands of the Wendwaters does nothing for us but give us woods and forests. Something we already have and can acquire without needlessly antagonising our neighbours."
"My lady," Ser Guyard spoke with even tones of courtesy. "these 'neighbours' of ours are failing to control their vassals. Vassals that have waged war upon themselves with their incessant fighting spilling over into our very own lands."
"A price we have returned to them with our own raids before the situation escalated to what it is now." She returned, not giving an inch.
Ser Guyard seemed like he was about to say something before I decided to end it. "That's enough," I cut in, bringing back attention to me before things went south. "I will think upon it, but for now, let's just see what happens. Remember that in the coming days, we shall be hosting three kings and their court, so prepare for that, for I believe quite a few things shall be on the agenda. Thank you for your counsel, my lords, my lady. Let's end this for today and we shall meet upon the turn of the moon once more."
"Yes, your grace." they said as one before them and the aides that they had brought with them filed out of the room.
All but two, my oldest and most trusted advisers in Lyam and Jaime.
"Well?" Lyam asked, a greying eyebrow raised up his forehead.
I pushed myself up from my chair. "We'll see what happens. I have no intention of starting something with Storm's End, weakened as it is at the moment. Right now, I just want to prepare for my fellow king's to arrive."
Jaime nodded his wizened old head. "A suitable choice. Tackle one problem at a time as you would say."
Someone knocked on the door and I called them in. It was a messenger who quickly passed over a letter that had arrived via raven. After reading it, I scrunched it up and threw it into the fire. "Apparently, King Lancel won't be attending."
"Could the queen dowager advised him against this?" Lyam asked, thinking of the Lannister king's Gardener mother. "He had seemed quite attuned to the idea from the letters exchanged."
I shook my head. "Nothing like that. Apparently, he's been taken ill and his brother and right-hand Prince Loreon is coming instead in his place. Though questions do have to be asked about the timing..."
Reports had told me that Torrhen was a couple of days away and Ronnel had already landed in Saltpans and was travelling up the Trident on a barge. If Lancel had kept to schedule, he would have reached the Golden Tooth by now or very well passed it. So either he got ill during the journey or he never meant to come and instead, always meant to send his brother instead.
"It doesn't add up." Jaime admitted, eyes lost in thought. "but no matter, the Hand of King Lancel is still a fine enough replacement. In this regard, he would be speaking with the voice of his king."
Shrugging, I began for the door the others following. "It doesn't really matter to me anyway. The Lannisters were a surprise inclusion anyway. I already know they will be trying to get generous trade deals involving the canal so they are a moot point. I'll pay enough attention to be respectable but not so little as to intend to slight them." I stopped for a moment to look at Jaime. "Speaking of which, how goes the ravens and pigeons?"
"Still some work to be done, your grace. The art of ravenry is a long and difficult process, but we might have made a breakthrough."
"How so?" Lyam asked as we left the meeting room behind.
"We suspect the use of pheromones might help with the task that you require the ravens and pigeons to work in. The Alchemists have been most useful in that regard."
The thought of accepting those insane pyromancers into my kingdom gave me nightmares, but I had need for their skills. Their actual skills instead of the stunt they tried to pull with the iron ore supposedly turning into gold ore. "Well, as long as they aren't making pigshit, I'm happy."
Lyam made an amused sound. "I still don't quite understand your fear of wildfire."
"Believe me coz, I hope you never have to find out."