232 My SI Stash #32 - Shields Will Be Broken, A Realm Will Be Forged by ArkosArc (AsongofIceandFire)

-Recently published fic~ Here comes another Joffrey SI but with worse morals than we're used to!

Sypnosis: He smiled as he did it. Hundreds of thousands would die and yet Joffrey smiled. In that moment, Jamie knew that he had stabbed the wrong king, and yet even as his hands twitched, yearning to pick up a sword, he stilled it. Nevertheless. Joffrey caught the movement. With a bittersweet smile, he asked, "Are you going to stab me too... Father?"

Rated: M

Words: 10K

Posted on: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13519163/1/Shields-Will-Be-Broken-A-Realm-Will-Be-Forged-Joffrey-SI (ArkosArc)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1-2 (exceptional)

Joffrey I

At the tic-tic-tic of the clock situated on the wall next to him, the one who had become Joffrey Baratheon admitted, to himself if no one else, that canon had gone just fine for the one-who-was-him.

Well up to the Purple Wedding, at any rate. That had a simple enough solution to it. After the Red Wedding, all he would have to do was kill Sansa. Without her to tattle to the Tyrells, everything would be fine.

Failing that, he could just not drink wine at his wedding. No wine until he was wedded and bedded.

And yet… and yet the Joffrey-of-before was a cunt and the war wouldn't end with the death of Stannis and Robb. There was Daenerys Targaryen to consider and the White Walkers besides.

How would one go about preparing the realm for ice zombies and dragons? Guns perhaps? The printing press?

Despite himself, Joffrey began laughing. A fools solution. A permanent problem to a replace a temporary one.

He started to sing, despite himself, "Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, les aristocrates à la lanterne! Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, les aristocrates on les pendra!"

As he sang his mind translated those lyrics to English. "Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine, aristocrats to the lamp posts! Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine! The aristocrats, we'll hang them!"

Gunpowder and the printing press wouldn't solve much. What it would do was signal the beginning of the end. The first step in a long road to democratic revolution.

In the medieval era a good warrior, a knight, was a near-hereditary caste of warriors. They were expensive to train and arm, limiting opportunities to become one to the nobility, and more importantly, they were slow to train. A noble training to become a knight started at four and trained until they were twenty-one.

Once trained, even the worst were still better than peasants and thanks to skill and superior armaments, they were capable of mowing down dozens of them, especially when fighting in formation.

If he made the switch to gunpowder, then soldiers would take about four months to train, giving a lot more power to the peasants. Given that starvation was eminent, that seemed like an awful idea.

And of the printing press? Joffrey thought back and recalled the protestant reformation. How did that spread? How did the American Revolution? How did the French Revolution spread?

The last thing Joffrey wanted was a pamphlet simliar to that of Thomas Paynes 'Common Sense' spreading throughout his kingdom, calling for the downfall of monarchy.

Even if he managed to side-step all that nastiness while he lived, what of when he passed? Even if he were a just and wise king, there was no guarantee his son wouldn't be an imbecile.

Monarchy was a bit like a coin flip. For every Catherine the Great, there would be an Ivan the Terrible. As Aerys the Mad demonstrates, it takes only one to topple a dynasty.

Joffrey paused as he considered this. Casting his mind wide he contemplated the map of Westeros and went through the houses that were currently rebelling against him. For the first time, he saw not a war of survival, but a war of opportunity.

In a single second, he saw it, his vision of what Westeros could be.

"Hound," he shouted suddenly, drawing a clatter from the outside of his room. Creaking, the door opened to reveal Ser Sandor Clegane standing outside his door. In silence he waited for Joffrey's command.

"Order Pycelle to summon the High Septon." There was gleam in Joffrey's eyes as he concluded his thoughts with, "I wish for a meeting."

Chapter 2

Indubitably, the Joffrey of Old was in the wrong. He had started this war through sheer stupidity when he lopped off Eddard Stark's head, and the history books weren't likely to forget it.

Joffrey the New aimed to make the best of the situation he had been handed. Once he had won the war, he intended to expand the powers and lands of the monarchy at the expense of his enemies. While that ensured that this war wouldn't be a total waste in his mind, "I want that land down by the river," didn't exactly make him seem like a good king. In all honesty, it made him seem like a greedy cunt.

If Joffrey wanted to seem like a just king, he needed a better reason to march to war. He needed to rebrand this entire war, and in order to do that, he needed the support of the faith.

Back in the medieval era, the church was the most useful source of propaganda a king had available. In a world as deeply moved by religious faith as medieval Europe, a sizeable portion of the populace would attend church every Sunday, where they would all hear the words of their local priest. Given his status as a holy man, questioning him would be heresy, regardless of whether you were questioning his statements on religious or political matters.

To that end, whatever the priest said went mostly unchallenged and rapidly spread through a city, garnering support for the king. In this way, both Britain and France came to believe they carried the favor God during the Hundred Years War.

In this case, with Renly dead, the only king left in the war that remained in the Light of the Seven was Joffrey. Robb Stark worshipped the Old God's of the forest, Stannis Baratheon worshipped the Red God, and Balon Greyjoy worshipped the Drowned God.

With this in mind, Joffrey began meeting with the High Septon, the Westerosi equivalent of a Pope. It took five minutes to get the High Septon to agree to denounce the other kings in the war. It took another three to get the High Septon to reaffirm Joffrey's title of "Defender of the Faith."

Buoyed by his success, Joffrey eagerly pushed on to draw further concessions and promptly slammed his head onto a metaphorical brick wall. The High Septon would not budge.

Joffrey wanted to consolidate power under the monarch, fusing church and state. The inspiration for this came from the Protestant Reformation and the 1534 Act of Supremacy, as passed by King Henry the Eighth.

The legislation had recognized the monarch as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and gave civil laws precedence over religious laws.

Joffrey wanted the same privileges, but the High Septon refused to part with his power for obvious reasons, leading to a stalemate. In the interim, the Septs had taken to denouncing his enemies as devil worshippers and heretics. If Joffrey wanted that to continue, he couldn't force the issue, despite having an army in the capital.

This left him with only one option. Negotiating.

In the end, three weeks of negotiations resulted in the High Septon being granted a seat on the Small Council, one that would be inherited by all High Septons for the rest of time. Further, the monarchy would take on the burden of supporting the Septs financially. In exchange for this, the monarch would be recognized as the 'Supreme Head of the Faith of the Seven and Lord Temporal of the Faithful,' a title that would be purely ceremonial.

By the end of the negotiations, both sides walked away feeling as though they had won. The High Septon felt as though he had tricked a child into increasing the wealth of the faith, as well as granting himself further opportunities to influence said boy-king. In exchange, all he had to do was support the only religiously acceptable king in this war, something he ought to have been doing anyways, as well as granting him a ceremonial title that didn't mean anything.

Joffrey on the other hand? Joffrey had just won both the war, as well as the peace that would follow.

The chamber of the Small Council was filled with stifling silence as the King entered the hall, flanked by the High Septon and the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard.

Glancing at his council briefly, Joffrey curled his lips into a tight smile. "No need to stop on our accord. Carry on as you were." Despite his words, Joffey stopped at the head of the table, at the seat occupied by Tyrion Lannister. Looking down at the horrid creature disdainfully, he spat, "You're in my seat, imp."

Tyrion made a displeased sound, somewhere between a hum and a grunt. As he vacated his seat, Tyrion replied, "Forgive me, your grace," coming from Tyrion the 'your grace' sounded more like an insult than a title of honor, "We were not expecting you. And to what do we owe this unexpected… Honor?"

The sarcasm heard faintly in the 'your grace' strengthened throughout the sentence until it coalesced into a near physical force at the word honor, causing Joffrey's eyes to narrow. "Watch your tongue, imp, lest I have it removed." Without waiting for Tyrion to reply, Joffrey continued, "For your information, I will be attending all meetings held by the small council from now on. As will the High Septon." Seating himself in the chair Tyrion had vacated with as much poise as he could Joffrey looked up at his council. Pretending not to notice their discomfort, he steepled his fingers and asked, "So, what news of the war?"

There was a brief silence as the members of the small council considered what to say to this. Ultimately it was Vary's that spoke in his high effeminate voice, "Forgive me, your grace, but did you mention that the High Septon will be joining the small council?"

"I did. It was a part of a deal that I've worked out with the faith. What news of the war?"

Not thinking it wise to ask the King to clarify a second time, Varys instead decided to answer his question, "Not well, I fear. Robb Stark has won a great victory at Oxcross, a mere forty miles away from Casterly Rock. The Lannister host raised by Lord Stafford has been shattered by the Stark host, leaving them unchecked in the heart of the Westerlands."

The council braced for the kings anger. They knew him well enough to know that plenty of screaming and threats were soon to follow, most along the lines of 'I'll have his head,' and what-not. That expectation served to compound their surprise when all their king did was allow his lips to curl into a satisfied smile and let out a whispered, "Fool."

Louder, King Joffrey said "Correct me if I'm wrong, but this means, in order to reach King's Landing, he would have to travel through the hills of the Morelands, through the mountain pass of Deep Den, before once more crossing the hills of Drox."

Glancing down at the map, Tyrion was surprised to note that his nephew was correct, but "All he has to do is follow the Gold Road. Perhaps more importantly, Paynehall, Byford, and Bramsfort are all flat terrain. Plains. The Stark army will have a very easy time crossing over when the time comes. More importantly, at this rate, we won't have an army to challenge his when he does."

To this, Joffrey was characteristically dismissive. "In the entirety of the North, there are less than a million people. In King's Landing alone, we have more than that, never mind the other great cities sworn to us like Rosby and Duskendale. We can raise another army from our smallfolk. The Stark boy can't. The army he has now is the army he will die with."

Joffrey briefly though back to two other great generals who suffered similar fates. The first would be Hannibal Barca, general of Carthage, during the second Punic Wars, one of the best generals in the history of the Earth.

He delivered devastating blow after devastating blow to the Roman armies. The Romans sent out a legion at Trebia. He annihilated them. The Romans raised another legion. He ambushed and annihilated it at Trasimene. The Romans fused four legions and sent out their mega legion at the Battle of Cannae. Cannae would be remember as the bloodiest day in Roman History.

What did the Roman Senate do? They raised more legions and tried again.

To Hannibal, it must have felt like battling a hydra. The more legions he killed, the more legions the Romans raised and deployed. Even while he was winning every battle, Hannibal was bleeding skilled soldiers that he couldn't replace, while the Roman horde seemingly multiplied. Eventually they defeated him through sheer overwhelming numbers.

Another example of this being true could be seen in the American Civil War, where Union General Ulysses S. Grant did the same thing to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The Confederates won every battle they fought against him, but Grant recognized the Confederates were at a severe disadvantage in men and material.

In order to exploit this, Grant settled on a hyper-offensive strategy. He would go on the offensive, attack the Confederate troops, lose, move towards Richmond to force the Confederates to stay close, rinse and repeat.

This strategy killed 88,000 men over six weeks, 55,000 on the side of the Union and 33,000 on the side of the Confederates. Despite losing close to 22,000 more soldiers than the Confederates did, the North had far more people and could afford to lose that many troops while the South could not.

The end result? A Union victory.

Drawing on the examples of history, Joffrey was confident that the North could not win. They didn't have the numbers. Given the skills of Robb Stark, the eventual victory would be bloody, but it was near inevitable.

He couldn't explain this to the council though. Joffrey wasn't familiar enough with the history of Westeros to give equivalent examples, and they didn't look convinced either way. Instead, he said "Oxcross is 790 miles away from King's Landing. At it's fastest, an army can move 12 miles a day, so at max speed it would take 65 days, or just over two months to reach the capital. They'll be slowed further by terrain, weather, and the need to scavenge.

"Stark depends heavily on being in unexpected places to win his victory. He has no supply route reaching his army now, and he requires… How big is his army?"

The council looked shocked, none more so than Tyrion. "You've been studying," he noted.

Joffrey considered how to reply to this before shrugging lightly, "'Engines of War' is a good book. We are at war now, and as king, I saw fit to familiarize myself with the topic. I have a loose idea as to how we might win the war, if I may."

"Please," Baelish said with a laugh, seeking to flatter the king, "We are your small council. We serve at your pleasure, and we will see out your will."

"In that case, Pycelle," Joffrey turned towards the deceptively frail man, "Write to Lord Tyrell. We will attempt to appeal to both his sense of duty and his ambition. First, duty. Tell him that the Faith has declared this a holy war against heathen gods. The tree Gods of the North, the Drowned God of the Ironborn, as well as the Red God Stannis has taken to following. As a stick, tell him that if refuses, then he runs the risk of being excommunicated by the Faith."

Several eyes turned towards the High Septon to see if he would object. When he didn't, they turned back towards the king who continued, "As a carrot, as of this moment, I'm setting aside my betrothal to Sansa Stark. Instead offer my hand to his daughter, Margaery Tyrell, as well as the position of Master-of-Laws to Lord Tyrell himself.

"Write a second letter to Lord Randyll Tarly, offering him the position of Master-at-Arms of the Iron Throne. The position has laid vacant since Lord Jamie has been captured, and given that we are at war, that can't stand. Tarly is one of the best commanders we have available. We ought to use him."

"Once you are done with the letters bring them here. I'll sign them personally. I'm sure the High Septon wouldn't mind cosigning them, to demonstrate the support the Faith holds for my reign?"

"I'd be honored to help, your grace." The High Septon smiled kindly. Despite that, it was clear that he was in deep thought.

"If they choose to help, where shall we tell them to head?" Baelish asked, "Stannis is in the Stormlands besieging Storm's End, Stark is in the Westerlands, and the capital lies open. Even if Stark stays in the Westerlands for the next few moons turn, this still leaves the issue of what Stannis will do. He has enough ships to carry his entire army directly towards King's Landing, does he not? If we order them to head towards the Stormlands and Stannis attacks here, then the city may fall. If we order them to come here, then we allow Stannis to solidify his position. If we delay too long, the Stark boy may bear down on us from the West, while Stannis marches on us from the South."

Varys picked up from here, "Not to mention the strain hosting the Tyrell army will place on the city. We have little enough food as it is. Can we support them as well?"

Then Varys went ahead with his suggestion, "Courtney Penrose has sent a letter to various kings, offering to declare for whichever one relieves the siege of Storm's End. My suggestion is we order the Reach army to march on Storm's End and relieve the siege. They'll take control of the castle on the behalf of the King. From there, we'll have the greatest castle of the Stormlands as a base from which to operate, and we'll have undermined Stannis's legitimacy."

The council devolved into relative chaos, as all the council members had their own opinion on what the Tyrells ought to do. Ultimately, Joffrey was king, and his word was law.

"I hear you, Lord Varys. Storm's End is the castle of my ancestor, and believe me, the decision to abandon it doesn't come easily. That said, it is a castle almost as far from King's Landing as Casterly Rock is. What does holding it accomplish? Can I use it as a naval base for the non-existent navy at my command? Can I use it in order to store supplies for my soldiers? No.

"Order the Tyrells to rally towards King's Landing. Ask them to bring food to alleviate starvation.

"In the interim, the High Septon will be declaring a holy fast during the day to ensure our food supplies last longer. The explanation we'll be giving is that the fast is to regain the favor of the Gods. Every night, the fast is to be broken with a minor public feast." At the looks he was getting, Joffrey explained, "A single large meal is a lot easier to provide than three decent meals a day. The chance for merriment and dancing will also help keep the people content and raise morale."

It was the same strategy used by the church officials during the First Crusade. During the siege of Antioch, things hadn't been going great for the Christians. Earthquakes and aurora's had convinced many crusaders that they had displeased God. Coupled with the onset of starvation as food ran out, the siege hadn't been going well. As a solution, the church ordered the crusaders fast in order to 'regain the favor of God.' In truth it was a blatant attempt to frame the fact that they didn't have any food and couldn't afford to feed the army in the first in a slightly better light.

Regardless, it had worked then. Joffrey hoped it would work now.

After a second, Joffrey continued with orders for the rest of his small council, "Until the time the Tyrells reach us, we will be raising a new army in the crownlands. With that, let us discuss the details of how, as well as set up plans and contingencies for each of the likely scenario's that are going to be coming up in this war."

It was a very long meeting, in which Joffrey startled his council multiple times by not being a blithering imbecile.

An army in any era was more than just the soldiers. Oftentimes the battle was decided not when the sword was sheathed, but before the swords were drawn.

An army marched on its stomach. Soldiers need to be fed.

In the modern era that Joffrey remembered, food contractors would be responsible for it. The United States government would shop around for a good price, hire a company, who would deliver the food to them in the quantity ordered. Afterwards, the food would be brought to the army by railways or trucks.

Given the era he was in, food contractors didn't exist, and neither did railways and trucks. The fastest anything could move was by horse, though donkey and oxen were better at carrying large amounts of resources, even though they were slower. This freed the horses to carry soldiers.

How much food had to be carried? A single Roman legion consisted of 4,800 soldiers, between 600 and 1,200 pack mules, and 1,200 slaves to carry supplies. In order to feed the legion for a single day, the army required 18,000 pounds of grain, 12,000 gallons of water, and 40,000 pounds of fodder.

Joffrey's army would be far larger than that. At his height, Joffrey intended to have multiple corps. Once the war was over, he would have complete control over the entirety of the continent and all the resources within. Supporting an army would be much easier then, but for the moment, he would have to make do with what he had.

Feeding an army wasn't easy. In order to accomplish it, most generals divided the procurement of food into multiple phases.

Firstly, at the outset, most soldiers would be carrying some supplies with them. On average, this was enough to keep them fed for a single week. The baggage train that came with them carried an additional three to four weeks of supply. This granted the general some flexibility and allowed them to do things like declare a 'Forced March' where the army would march without stopping to rest or forage.

Secondly, the army could gather supplies as they went through foraging, requisitioning, and pillaging supplies. Foraging is hunting, requisitioning is ordering peasants to give up food, and pillaging is killing enemy peasants and stealing their food.

Finally, they could establish supply lines.

The first part of the supply line was the strategic base of supply. This was where your food was coming from. In the case of Joffrey's army, he was depending heavily on the pending alliance with the Reach to provide food. As far as the Crownlands went, the two most fertile spots were the Sow's Horn further north, and King's Landing itself.

Sow's Horn was right on the border of the Riverlands, Stark territory, so he wasn't sure how long he would have control of it. To be safe, he had sent a missive to the loyalist forces stationed there to divert as much food as possible from the province to the capital. The shipment should arrive in a weeks' time, given that the province was right on top of the King's Road.

When they inevitably lost control of Sow's Horn, he would be stuck with only King's Landing itself and the Reach to provide food for his armies.

The next segment of his supply line was his operational base, in this case King's Landing itself. It was the point at which his food sources would be massed and accounted for before being sent onwards to the army.

The final segment would be the tactical base of operations. It was generally located right alongside the army, a couple days march away at most. It was from there that the army got its food. As the army advanced, the old tactical bases were converted to supply depots, loosely garrisoned by soldiers left behind.

The supply depots would form a 'line' between the operational base and the tactical base, hence where the term supply line comes from.

The battle was decided not when the sword was sheathed, but when the sword was drawn. The army that had more food could support more soldiers and maintain a higher morale than an army of starving peasants, something that could easily be leveraged into a victory.

Other factors that could influence the tide of battle included armor, quality of weaponry, skill of the individual soldiers, training in formation, quality of the generals, and so forth.

In neither of his lives had Joffrey been a great warrior. In one, he was a twelve-year-old boy, while in the other, he lived in an era where the sword and spear were obsolete. In neither of his lives had Joffrey been a great general. In one, he was a twelve-year-old boy, while in the other, the closest he had gone to a battlefield was a documentary on the Napoleonic wars.

In one of his lives, however, Joffrey was a decent accountant. He had earned his bachelor's degree after four years of hard work, and he retained a lot of his skills.

Joffrey may not be able to command a battle. He may not understand why heavy cavalry went in front of the army, while light cavalry went on the flanks. He may not know where the archers should be placed, and when they should be firing.

What he did know was that supplies were an asset, so when you bought supplies for cash, you had to credit supplies while debiting cash. What he did know was how to record adjusting entries for loans taken from the Iron Bank. What he did know was the importance of an economy to sustaining an army.

Joffrey couldn't match Robb Stark or Stannis Baratheon as a general, and he wouldn't try. He would however beat them both as a King.

He would turn his victory into a foregone conclusion. By the time his army graced the field, it would be led by men like Tywin Lannister and Randyll Tarly, it would be armored better than either of its counterparts, better trained and disciplined, with robust supply lines feeding and sustaining it.

Victory would be his.

Author's Note:

I had trouble figuring out where to end this chapter. I could have kept it going as Joffrey met up with people and asked them 'Where is resource x coming from?' before trying to figure out how to get more of the resource either to the capital so it could be converted into war material in the case of steel, or in the case of food, to the army.

Eventually, I made a list of resources and people Joffrey was going to be meeting up with and concluded that the chapter would take too long to write if I did that.

So for reference, Highgarden is 760.6 miles away from King's Landing, so if both the Starks and the Tyrells headed for King's Landing at the same time, the Tyrells will reach the capital first. As you might have noticed, I'm keeping an eye on travel times. My armies won't teleport.

To be clear on when we are, it is currently 6/27 299 AC. The canon date of the battle of blackwater bay is 9/7 299 AC, so we have a little less than three months to prepare for the battle, plenty of time for our Tyrell allies to arrive and aid us. There is no guarentee that Stannis will be making the same moves, but to be honest it takes time for word to travel, especially if you're on a boat in the middle of the ocean. It is entirely possible to miss out on the fact that the Tyrell armies are on the move. Stannis did so in canon so...

Other things on the time table. A raven flies 50 mph, and I'm not sure how often it stops. That said, at 50 mph, it would take the raven a mere 15.2 hours to reach Highgarden. I'm just going to go out and say that the raven is going to be there within the next three days. Afterwards, if the Tyrells deliberate for a week (we're being generous), then they'll be moving around 7/4, and will reach the capital in 63 days, or on 9/7, right on time for the battle of blackwater bay. Huh, I guess GRRM actually did calculate travel times. Wonder what happened during season 7...