Herald of Steel

Chapter 678 A Year into the Passing (Part-1)

Alexander named his son Philip, which got a strange look from Cambyses when she heard it the first time.

This was because being the head of the city guards, as well as getting to sit during some of Camius's reports, she got to know the crown prince of Tibias, who was effectively ruling over the country currently, was also called a very similar Philips, and wondered if there was a connection.

Now, Philips or Philip was not an uncommon name, nor was it uncommon to have two powerful people have the same name.

Just look at history, it's full of repeating names.

Trying to count how many Edwards, Henrys, and Georges the English had will easily make one's head spin.

But even then the name did sound a bit strange to Cambyses, though she did not fight it, as the power to name a child belonged solely to the father.

As for Alexander, the reason he chose the name had nothing to do with Tibias, but with his own name.

Since he had taken the name Alexander after Alexander the Great, he felt it would be funny to name his son Philip in a kind of reverse twist.

He had actually oscillated between this or Macedon since Alexander the Great's father was called Philip II of Macedon.

But ultimately chose the former because he felt the people of these lands might struggle to pronounce the latter.

"Perpahs if Cam has another son,' He then mused to himself, thinking it would be funny to have two boys named Philips and Macedon.

Alexander of course could never tell Cambyses this as she would not even understand the context, so instead he made a random excuse relating to the meaning of the word.

The celebrations Alexander held for his son were of course a lot grander and flashier than his daughter's, with almost all his retainers cheering ecstatically over the fact that they now had a clear heir, bringing much stability to Alexander's rule.

"Hahaha, the birth of Lord Alexander's son is an auspicious sign. This means our campaign against Tibias next year will be a successful one,"

One of the noblemen loudly toasted.

And no, he had not made a slip of the tongue in his drunken state when he said this.

The campaign that was scheduled for this winter did get pushed back to next fall or at the earliest next spring.

In fact, this was exactly what Alexander and Camius were busy discussing when Cambyses had first heard the name Philips.

As to why Alexander decided to push his campaign back about six to twelve months, well to know that, one had to go to see what Alexander did in the past year.

These past three hundred and sixty-five days had been a relatively quiet one for Alexander, one where he was content to let the wheels of time turn almost eventlessly.

He took few major policies and instead mostly let the already ongoing projects catch up, only occasionally stepping out to check each of the ones' progress.

Hence during this time, more and more roads were roads both in and around Zanzan, more of the apartment buildings were opened, a few of the major aqueducts neared their completion, and lastly the endeavor of bringing the port to life carried on.

On the trade side of things, as summer came, Lady Inayah and Pasha Farzah's ships had already finished making two trips, netting Alexander a large amount of gold, grain, draft animals, and a seemingly innocent item, linen fabric, but in alarming volumes.

Alexander had plans for that.

Along with that, the 8,000 to 10,000 free men that Pasha Farzah had promised him also arrived, who were put to good use opening new farmlands.

And in combination with that, Lady Miranda's ships also arrived carrying his promised payment laden with both goods and men.

Much of the former, depending on what it was either stored or sold on the open market, while the latter was paid much more closer attention by Alexander.

Because the first batch of men was very important to him.

So the various experienced miners that were sent here were instructed to go look for new mines in the Cisran hill.

While the new blacksmiths were at first asked to make numerous iron cast molds of alphabets, numbers, and signs for his printing press that he was in the midst of designing.

Originally they should have been employed at Alexander's new, gigantic casting workshop, but he seemed to have run into unforeseen difficulties, resulting him in being forced to delay its initiation.

This was because he found it hard to recruit the necessary skilled manpower.

Especially, finding a couple of hundred twelve to fourteen-year-olds eager to be a blacksmith's apprentice proved much more difficult than he had anticipated since most such youths were currently already engaged in other professions.

And they had to be within that age group because the blacksmiths were insistent on it, with all flatly refusing to take anyone below or above that, even when Alexander pressured them.

They knew their status of being from Sybarsis gave them some leverage.

And with some being unhappy that they had been forced to move here against their will, this was their subtle way of protesting.

They claimed "Any younger or older, and they will be too stupid. We need apprentices around that age."

Now, there was some truth of this, as young people had the ability to learn things much quicker than adults.

But they also could not be so young as to be unable to understand his master's instructions.

That would be too dangerous given they worked with fire and sharp tools, and posed a danger to both themselves and the people around them.

Also, they needed to be mature enough to have some muscle on them.

After all, smithing required some serious power to operate the bellows or beat the iron into shape, or even just move around the heavy tools

So if they could not properly all those, they would not be really of much use.

Alexander knew all this to be the case, which was also why he did not push the blacksmiths to teach older men.

Another reason why Alexander did not force them too hard was because Alexander wanted to maximize the lifetime of his blacksmiths.

By which he meant he wanted to get the largest number of years of service possible from each of them.

And of course, to get this, it was best that they started as young as possible.

Now, the average lifespan of an artisan was fifty, and given a twelve or fourteen year took anywhere from 5 to 10 years to become even decent at his craft, that left him with 25 to 30 years of workable years.

Which sounded like a lot, but in reality, this was actually 10 years less than that, because past the age of 40, many men would start developing problems with their sight.

Now, in modern times a simple pair of glasses could have fixed this innocuous problem.

But given prescription spectacles were a long, long way off from existing in this world, most aged artisans in their twilight years found themselves mostly delegating their work to their apprentices and being content with only overseeing the creation, rather than actually making them themselves.

Their eyes simply could not keep focus long enough for such intense work.

And this especially referred to complex works, which was even more of a shame as the works that people would want experienced experts to make would be these kinds of sophisticated pieces.

All of which meant that if Alexander made a 20 or 25 year become an apprentice, he might just get a decade or even in the worst case just half a decade of value from him.

So Alexander decided to wait.

Especially because he knew he would likely be getting some of such people when the 50,000 people promised by Lady Miranda arrived.

Surely some of the men coming here had to have eligible young children eager to work in smithing.

And Alexander's prayers were indeed answered eventually, as there were a few thousand young men of that age among the 20,000 Lady Miranda had sent this year.

So Alexander planned to start the construction of his workshop as soon as this fall harvest was over.

With some of the men arriving from Galiosos engaged in this workshop, Alexander transferred the rest to work in the recently opened new mines or employed them in many of his already established workshops, all of which were in dire need of expansion.

Alexander knew he had told Lady Miranda that these men would be employed as farmers, but now, these men were more urgently here.

While in exchange, he also transferred the 2,000 future shipwrights to the Margrave family, and going by the letter he received, it seemed he would be getting his first ships soon.

Those letters seemed to be full of praise for Alexander's idea, and they even then went on to say how great of a help the men he sent there were.

However Alexander seriously doubted the authenticity of these words and felt it was mostly written to placate him over Lady Miranda's sudden marriage.

And he would not lie, when he first read about it, he was a bit peeved.

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