Herald of Steel

In order to introduce his new farming techniques, Alexander planned on selecting a few thousand Tibian farmers and providing them with all the 'modern' tools.

He would then offer them a contract promising them a fixed salary for their work, as well as a portion of the harvest as a way to remove their uneasiness over the new technology,

In this way, Alexander hoped to showcase the effects of his innovations to all the nearby farmsteads and nobles, thus making them adopt the new way by themselves.

That was the plan for now, although Alexander kept it to himself, and quickly rejoined the conversation in a concluding tone,

"Is grain and other produce all that Tibias produces? Or are there some more local specialties I'm not aware of?"

"Of course, there are, my lord!" And Philips's quick response to Alexander made his voice sound almost a bit offended at the innuendo, as the Crown Prince then quickly went on to list,

"We also produce figs, wines, dyes, and various pottery."

"We also trade extensively with the other countries."

"Papyrus, linen, spices, perfumes, ointments, precious metals, gemstones, and slaves. You name it! We got it all, Lord Pasha."

Many of these named products were of course imported products- local specialties of Sybarsis, the nearby warring states, Thesos, and even Zanzan.

But their availability was still something to marvel at.

Because it had to be known many of the things you could get in Tibias, you could not get in many parts of Adhania, since the latter country was quite closed off to the rest of the world.

Thus Tibias came to manifest itself as a hub of major trade of commerce, with many of its port cities being quite rich, such as the city of Lilybee, which was the third largest city and second most prosperous city in the country, right after the capital.

It also helped that many of these port cities were situated right next to various tributaries of the Diannu, allowing small ships and boats to travel to and fro inland very easily and cheaply, being laden with slaves, intricate jewelry, pottery, metal tools, and textiles designed by skilled craftsmen, all to be sold and exchanged for bales of linen, sacks of grain, baskets of fruits, bags of exotic spices, jars of wine, and many more.

Even ignoring Tibias's own produce, just this extensive waterway trade network would have made Tibias a very rich and desirable country to conquer.

"My lord, Tibias is also a great producer of papyrus. Our scrolls are renowned throughout the world for their quality." But then right after Philips's answer, not willing to be left behind, Lord Theony also quickly chimed in this fact, claiming in a proud tone,

"The marshes and wetlands around the Diannu are ideal for growing the plant. So it's produced in our country by the droves."

"I myself possess several hundred hectares of papyrus fields, along with several thousands of workers who grow, harvest, and process it."

"And even then I cannot keep up with all the demand. Haha, it seems insatiable."

The large lord healthily chuckled at the thought of all the gold he made selling that.

Papyrus scrolls, the material chosen for their durability and flexibility, were in high demand throughout the surrounding counties, where it was used for recording various official and administrative documents, books and works of literature of the time, religious scripture, and even just for private use.

And since Tibias had a near monopoly on it, it allowed them to wield significant economic influence and profit from its trade.

15 to 20 million ropals per year in fact!

Tibias's large domestic supply of papyrus also meant lower prices for its citizens, which helped to spread various ideas and concepts more easily.

It was primarily because of this that Alexander had come across various large collections of books and even huge full fledged libraries during his travels through the country, them dotted around the large cities and settlements.

There was nothing like that in Adhania in its entirety from what Alexander had seen.

And in that aspect, the crown jewel had to be the Capital Parthenigh.

The volume of books contained within it was particularly impressive, with just the imperial palace having not one but two fully stocked libraries, one in each wing.

While the city itself had two more semi private reading facilities that people of certain status were allowed to enter for a certain fee.

Alexander estimated the price of the total collection to be anywhere from 100 million to even 1 billion ropals, to being even priceless.

All of which had led to a much greater presence of scholars and philosophers here than in Zanzan.

At least that was Alexander's experience as he had noticed quite a few such people being employed in the Tibian court.

Neither Zanzan nor Adhan had such people of such numbers.

Although it was also possible that Alexander might have simply come at an inopportune time then, as when he took the capital, it was in rebellion, and Zanzan was a ghost town.

But still, it was an undeniable fact that Tibias's general population was more educated than Zanzan, and thus towards these learned men, Alexander, fueled by greed, had offered two options.

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Or be fired from the royal court!

All but one had chosen the former, the odd one being a die hard pure Tibian who did not budge even with the threat of starvation.

Alexander thus let him be.

Instead, given the abundance of books here, Alexander's mind was much more preoccupied with the thought of setting up several large scale printing presses across the country, intending to make copies of all these books both for domestic and foreign consumption.

The ideas and knowledge stored within those leather bound papyrus pages would be truly enlightening for the masses of the time.

But when Alexander thought about the book, suddenly, he remembered something.

These books were made of papyrus.

Tibias was famous for the papyrus industry.

But right now, that famous industry was like the dinosaurs, on a straight collision course with a meteor named the Paper industry.

The only reason Tibias's papyrus industry had remained unaffected till now was because Alexander's paper production was still in its infantile stages and the volumes produced were not even nearly enough to meet market demand.

So the market share it dominated was too small to be felt easily by most of the large players.

But once the technology spread and people saw how much easier and cheaper it was to produce than papyrus, this antique industry would be ground to dust almost instantly.

The raw materials of paper were just too available, its production much faster and simpler, and it was simply a much better writing surface over papyrus to make any practical sense to use the latter instead of the former.

Thus Alexander had no doubt about the extinction of the papyrus industry, even assuming that it could be as close as to a decade or two.

And this made him wonder what would become of this once thriving industry that employed so many people, and so many skilled artisans who expertly prepared those scrolls.

Sure many might switch to paper making.

But still, Alexander wondered if there would be enough vacancies.

And then there were the nobles who earned a lot of their income from this.

Such as yours truly- Lord Theony.

But all these were only momentary concerns for Alexander.

He was of course not going to stop the advance of his civilization just because of fear of unemployment.

Those people could either keep up or fall behind and be lost to the wheels of history.

Alexander would not wait for them.

And right now, for Alexander, the good thing was that most of the nobles had yet to wake up to the danger that paper posed towards them.

He felt that he could use this information to his advantage when dividing up the spoils among his nobles.

Thus keeping this realization to himself, Alexander responded positively to Lord Theony, chuckled,

"Hahaha, oh yes, how could have I forgotten? Zanzan also imports a lot of papyrus from Tibias. Yes, it's of very high quality. Perhaps I have even used your own papyrus, Lord Theony, haha."

This was a complete lie as Alexander's own paper supply was mostly sufficient to meet his personal demands, meaning there was no need for imports.

But the comment did manage to produce its intended effect- a grin from Lord Theony, "Hehe, I'm honored, my lord."

And it was with that that Alexander found these were all the specialties of Tibias, and thus decided to end the meeting there, clapping his hands and saying with a light smile,

"Okay, if there is nothing else, then I think that's all there is to it for today."

"Thank you Lord Theony and Prince Philips for all the hard work. It could not have been easy."

"Over the next few days, we can go through some of the land I want to gift my nobles and thus determine their value."

"I will send you the details soon."

"Of course, no problem, Lord Pasha."

"Anytime Lord Alexander."

As Alexander formally decided to end the meeting, the two men quickly replied with some courtesies, before excusing themselves with a bow.

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