Herald of Steel

When Alexander announced the treasures he had up 'for sale', it naturally produced a torrent of rapacious cheers from all the victorious nobles present, who were excited with swirling trepidation by the prospect of all that could become theirs.

The list of rewards that the Pasha had for his nobles were vast, including all types of real estate in the countryside.

This ranged from various good, fertile farmsteads to wide open lush pastures perfect for animal husbandry.

From large lakes and ponds for fishing to sprawling plantations perfect for growing grapes or different kinds of dyes.

From pristine, immaculately cared for orchards to dirty, unclean marshes and wetlands used to grow papyrus.

Alexander's carving of Tibias included all of its beauty.

And the allure and value of these lands were determined using a variety of factors.

The size, the product it produced and the quantity, the kind of people residing on those lands- whether skilled artisans or unskilled farmers, and most important of all, its location.

Being close to a city center was always better than a remote, mountainous nowhere.

Being next to the river was even better, as then one could utilize the artery of the country that much more easily.

While the best was to have both a river and a large port nearby, thus making buying supplies and selling commodities much, much cheaper.

And if one wanted to have his cake and eat it too, then such land could preferably be close to Zanzan.

But such plots were very rare and only reserved for Alexander's close inner circle, being gifted to Menes, Melodias, or his women such as Gelene and Cambyses.

Thus it was mostly the other types of land that were presented to the nobles, the type and individual size of land being awarded was very dependent on the men's contribution and their perceived loyalty to Alexander.

Of course, among all these plots, farming real estate was not the only thing that Alexander had for sale.

There were also entire villages, towns, and even cities that were up for grabs, prime centers of trade of commerce bursting with wealth.

There were sprawling palaces, evergreen gardens, luxurious villas, and expensive and expansion vineyards of various sizes and qualities where the elite of Tibian society reveled in luxury and opulence.

While the streets below bustled with merchants, artisans, and traders, selling and trading goods from all over the country.

Such industrial centers were very lucrative as they were large gathering spaces for wealth and so the governance of the bigger cities mostly went to the Jamiders (Earl) and other heavy players residing in Alexander's inner circle.

But amongst all of Alexander's offers, it was not land or cities that moved his nobles the most.

No.

What had to be the most darling of all to the nobles were undoubtedly the various metal and jewel mines laid sparsely strewn about here and there.

This was because incomes from mines, unlike agricultural farmlands, were not affected by external factors like weather and natural disasters which no mortal could ever have a hand in.

Meaning as long as you had the people to dig the stuff up, there would always be a constant stream of metal ore and thus a constant stream of wealth.

At least until the mines ran dry.

But such were only long term concerns and there would be clear signs beforehand.

So in the short term, the peace of mind mines brought was greatly appreciated by any and all nobles.

However, the tragedy here was that these easy taps of wealth were also in quite short supply for Tibias was quite flat and resource barren in its geography.

Which of course did not mean the nobles giving up on their dreams.

That would be foolish.

Instead, it simply meant that the nobles were even more zealous to get what they wanted from this limited supply as they started to debate and argue among themselves ruthlessly for them, like quarrelsome housewives, trying to grab as much of the most lucrative lands for themselves as possible.

The result of such argument could easily be imagined, as the royal courtroom, where all these discussions usually took place, would regularly turn to almost resemble a fish market, with the loud hollering of fishmongers being replaced by the shouts and screams of dignified and esteemed nobles.

They could be heard loudly shouting choice words such as,

"This silver mine should belong to us! We deserve it!"

"Bah! You already got so much good farmland and you still want more! Greedy pig!"

"You…. hook nosed Adhania… *uggghhhh*!"

Or perhaps it would be no longer accurate to call these nobles dignified, as forget the civility of courteous language, the men here not only started to curse in the most base words known to them but sometimes even started to have full fledged fist fights amongst themselves.

And if the argument was particularly heated or involved a high enough noble, then many times additional men from both sides would rush to join in, each trying to support their side, as well as their own separate claims

While others would be fueled with righteous fury after hearing the demeaning insults being thrown at them, many of which would be very racist in nature and derogatory to all the people in that class.

When that happened, and there were several instances where such a thing did happen, it turned the small altercation between just two individuals into a full fledge brawl as men dressed in fine, expensive clothing punched, kicked, spat, and swore each other with wild abandon, producing many black eyes and numerous bloody, broken noses.

Most of these 'events' would end with an intervention from the surrounding guards, who tried to quickly pull these men apart and restore order.

While Alexander, being a witness of all these from his part of the room, would only purse his lips and look at the bunch of 'overexcited children' in the guise of grown men with disapproving eyes.

This was quite contrary to how he had reacted the first time this happened, where Alexander was shocked out of his wits and even a bit scared, as he genuinely feared a bloodbath.

The energized mass of men clashing against one another with unrelenting fury seemed to truly give him such vibes.

And if the act of Tibian and Zanzan nobles slaughtering each other were to truly occur, Alexander might very well lose Tibias even after conquering it.ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ NovelEnglish.net

Because then- guerrillas and ambushers would become the word of the day for the foreseeable future for him.

"Stop it! Stop it! What are you doing? Guards! Guards!" Thus at that time, Alexander had shouted as such, in an admittedly unmanly voice, as he sought help from the men stationed around the room, while he and his small entourage of bodyguards quickly entered the fray to break up these angry men and prevent any accident.

But subsequent repeats of such events would prove that Alexander's worries were exaggerated,

These brawls and physical exchanges were really ordinary occurrences in Tibian courts and few took these little scuffles seriously.

In fact, it was even seen as somewhat manly by some.

And it seemed many of Alexander's Zanzan nobles were also very eager to get their hands dirty.

Thus the Pasha let them be, only banning them from carrying all types of swords and other weapons into the room to evade any sudden escalations, such as: a hot headed noble suddenly slipping and stabbing someone in the middle of the heated brawl.

Along with this, Alexander also tripled the number of guards in the royal courtroom to deal with any unforeseen consequences, the end result of which was that the guards actually outnumbered the nobles almost two to one.

With that safety net in place, Alexander let the nobles figure out the finer details of their bestowal by themselves, as he over the next two months slowly and surely worked through all the reviews and requests to deal out the appropriate rewards to all individuals the nobles.

And by the end of it, the results were such.

As a general rule of thumb:

A shordar (baron) or his Tibian equivalent was awarded 10 to 20 sq kilometers of land (1,000 to 2,000 hectares) or an equivalent territory that could generate at least 100,000 ropals annually.

A talukdar (viscount) was given 50 to 70 sq kilometers of land, (5,000 to 7,000 hectares) or an equivalent territory that could generate at least 500,000 ropals annually.

Jamiders (Earls) and the big shots of Tibias got hundreds of sq kilometers added to their collection, enabling their incoming to increase by at least a few million ropal as well as various jewels of administrative power, such as Philips's and Lord Theony's position as governors of Tibias.

While lastly, the top dog Alexander, and his family that included Gelene and Cambyses got altogether around 3,000 sq km, the largest of the share by far, thus bringing the house's total personally owned land to around 10,000 sq km, and much, much more by proxy.

Thus in total, Alexander gave about 15% of the country, roughly 50,000 sq km of combined land to his Zanzan and Tibian nobles to become part of their fief.

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