64 Plans and intrigues
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Friedrich Wilhelm POV
287 AC first moon
Time passes quickly when you are working hard
it has been almost 10 moons since the last time I was able to relax and put my thoughts in order.
With the fortune, I have generated with the trade of the summer islands, I finally had an almost unlimited budget, I had more gold than my vaults could hold, but as I am clearly not a dragon I decided to make wise investments that will soon grow and strengthen my government.
During this time of peace and prosperity the arsenal has not stopped working, now we can say that the Prussian war fleet is the largest of the seven kingdoms, if we only consider war galleys, as the iron born probably have much more
regarding the security against the StepStone pirates we had already negotiated with 2 of 3 free cities tyrosh and lys decided to hand over their rights over the StepStone rule for a good sum of gold, tyrosh was obviously the easiest to negotiate with, they were in a very bad situation because of lothar, so they accepted much less than the free city of lys.
Myr decided not to negotiate until we negotiated about the crystal business, but apparently they realized that I am not the child they can threaten and control and are only asking for minor concessions, I could probably negotiate the delivery of the envoy who insulted me diplomatically, but for the time being all talks are over
We had expanded the trade with the summer islands to such an extent that every 2 moons a trading fleet goes out to trade with all the islands, as we had expanded our trading partners with each of the princes of the summer islands
As we also began to trade with some of the free cities, this kept much of the fleet busy leaving 100 galleys and 20 galleons available to be a quick response force because to keep the trade routes safe required a large marine presence, but literally trade was what filled the coffers with gold making up almost 65% of the annual budget income
But currently the construction of ships for my personal use was over, only a small amount of ships are built to change ships that have been badly damaged by some combat against pirates or a storm, but the arsenal was still working this time for private individuals who want ships, we built the typical Westerosi commercial galley that was sold to merchants and also small fishing boats to be delivered to fishing villages in my territories or to be sold to other peoples because the arsenal should not stop working ever because the idea is to destroy the competition of shipbuilders
With the possibility of having harvests twice a year we had already started to produce more food than was consumed for the entire population of the reach, which has allowed me to sell it at extremely low prices for my own people making the food prices in this territory the lowest in the seven kingdoms.
Everything to favor the population growth, after much waiting I had already started to receive the information about the birth certificates of all the cantons, this was very important, since it will be the future generation that will be born and raised under the Prussian government and according to the birth certificates, there are many differences between the Prussian marriages and the local ones.
The traditional marriages among the locals tend to produce only one baby, while the Prussian marriages tend to have triplets and twins in a common way, which is a decrease in the number of children born compared to the average we had in Prussia, which is probably due to genetics, so I will have to keep an eye on the children of the nobles to see if they retain our physical characteristics of accelerated growth and increased strength because it is possible as with the commoners the characteristics could be diminished
But we expect Prussian families to be extremely large because I have started to give tax exemptions per child born as well as subsidies for every family that has children, obviously these benefits are only for Prussian marriages.
With all the gold income I have collected, the first phase of the project to guarantee the absolute loyalty of the small folks has already begun, the construction of schools in all the cantons of my government has already begun.
The construction of these schools took only three moons, but I had to invest a lot of time in finding the teachers, I had managed to get only nobles without theological studies to become teachers, I wanted the future students to have an education as secular as possible in order to take away at once all the power that the church has over state affairs.
I was stretching when Aleksanteri entered my room without any warning.
''What is going on Aleksanteri?'', I said, asking the Finnish man.
''Nothing I just came to give you the report of what is going on in our sphere of influence'' said Aleksanteri yawning.
''Well tell me what happened'' I said scratching my jaw.
''Well as you may recall in essos lothar has secured with an iron fist the territories by which he usually operates in the disputed lands, lothar has continued to make small advances against tyrosh, but recently, we have some very important information, lothar's mercenary contract was recently terminated, and he negotiated with lys for better terms, but the negotiations failed, mainly because lothar had a lot of control in the villages around his base of operations and other cities of which he has children of the ruling elite as prisoners, lothar found that the city of tyrosh offered greener lands and for the last moon lothar has dedicated himself to attack the armies of lys because he now officially works for tyrosh''Aleksanteri said as he read his report.
Aleksanteri turned over the page and continued reading
''Myr join the conflict again officially, lothar has had small skirmishes with the mercenary armies, recently lothar has tried to fight the golden company, but there has been no fighting between them both try to have the ground in their favor, but neither is foolish enough to attack because lothar prefers the hills to prevent the golden company from using their elephants and lothar doesn't fight in the open field, so the elephants won't tear the tercios apart, so the conflict in the area is stagnant, as all participants have the same amount of soldiers on the battlefields and are going for more defensive measures than looking for a fight''Aleksanteri said.
''It seems that lothar is doing very well in essos, it's a pity that the elephants cause that we can't use our tactics in a normal way, let's hope that the captain of the golden company makes some mistake and lothar is wise enough to be able to exploit the mistake'' i said looking at the map of essos
''Yes, but one thing I must congratulate lothar on is he learned intrigue in essos'' said Aleksanteri smiling.
''Explain yourself'' I said, looking at the Finnish man.
''Well lothar took the opportunity to have the children of the city's elite and indoctrinated them to make those children think that their parents are demons and monsters, a city fell under lothar's direct control because those children were freed to go back to their parents and poison them to take over the city and put all the resources for lothar's campaign'' said Aleksanteri smiling with his sadistic smile.
''Wow, a son killing his own father, with what he is brainwashing those children, they only had 1 year at the most in his hands'' I said surprised.
''Antti breaks them psychologically and leaves fertile ground for Lothar's fanatic ideas, soon they have a child who is completely convinced that the only true religion is the protestant religion and all the rest are false gods and that the only representative of god on earth is you'' said Aleksanteri smiling.
''Interesting, what do we know about what happened in the capital?'', I said asking
''ah, about the fire, well, recently a fire happened in the capital, mainly in the silk street, for a strange reason, the pleasure houses in the area started to burn uncontrollably, but luckily, they could be controlled in a fast way, but they destroy such lucrative businesses'' said Aleksanteri showing me the affected area on our map of the capital
''I guess you had nothing to do with it right?'', I said asking the Finnish man
''No, no, no, no, well, yes it was me, the owners didn't want to sell their pleasure houses and I couldn't find anything to threaten or blackmail them with, so I decided to take matters a bit more serious and by giving some coins to the right people they burned those establishments, I will only have to buy and rebuild them to make them operative again and by the way, those who set the fires are already dead, so nobody can tell on us'' said the smiling Aleksanteri.
''Ha, ha, ha, why am I not surprised, just make sure your name and face is not known, or we will have problems'' I said laughing.
''Anything else about the capital?'', I said playing with my hands
''Well the crown has problems with its budget, with lord Arryn's new expenses and the explosive increase in expenses Robert had buying gifts, products and food of Prussian manufacture, the crown is in the red, lord Arryn is looking for a new master of coin because the current one seems to be just collecting his salary and doing nothing'' said Aleksanteri
''And who would this new Master of Coin be'' I said, smiling.
''Well there are many names, Robert doesn't care as long as the master collects coins for his feasts and tournaments, lord Arryn recommended you my king, he is completely sure that you would be an excellent master of coin, queen Cersei recommends her father Tywin Lannister, but it seems that who is the favorite is Petyr Baelish because he has the recommendation of lord Arryn's wife and lord Arryn himself also recognizes Baelish's ability given that he increased the income of the port of gulltown almost 5 times'' Aleksanteri said with a serious tone.
''An important position in the government, but does it change anything else about the influence I can exert on the king?'', I said thoughtfully
''Almost nothing, only that if you have a suggestion for the king you should only walk a couple of meters to talk to him, it's not worth going into that nest of vipers and traitors, just to have the king's ear closer'' said Aleksanteri while he was exploring my room
''Right, regarding our plan with the iron born, has it worked? What do our smugglers say'' I said very interested.
''Our man in the north has taken bribes from the iron born and is bartering trunks from the iron born for the spoils of his raids, the smuggler in the south has been getting cloth for his ship sails, and information we get from the merchants going to the iron islands tells us they have not stopped building ships, we are on the verge of starting their rebellion'' Aleksanteri said laughing
''Great, this way we can accelerate the Iron born's rebellion plans, the sooner we finish with those scum, the sooner we can establish a safe trade without so many escorts to get to the north.
Johann will be ready to fight this Iron born force, their ships will be small, but there are many between the iron fleet and the banner man ships, they should be very close to 300–500 ships, if we consider that we will have the northern fleet and the fleet in Neu Danzig we will have 200 ships'' said Aleksanteri with a serious tone.
''Yes, Johann is ready the fleet is in perfect condition and perfectly armed with scorpions and Greek fire, keep me informed of any situation, if we can determine when this rebellion starts we will be able to reduce our casualties, as it is certain that they will try to attack the more powerful fleets in order to have naval superiority'' I said smiling
Yes, my king'' said Aleksanteri as he left my room.
It's only a matter of time, we will have to plan how to divide the iron islands, but it all depends on Robert's mood because if he decides to keep the same dynasty it could be complicated to take advantage of the iron mines of those islands.
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