NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 207: Reform.
After finally explaining why getting rid of all taxes on food was a good idea for a city that was starving to death… I continued on to talk about incentivizing fishermen and attracting adventures to hunting monsters in the sea, as well as helping the adventurers guild to re-establish their guild hall in the city, even making a new one out of our special wood and offering rental ships they could use for monster hunting under the condition they pay for any serious damages.
From there, we moved on to incentivizing more farmers to work the land and sending patrols out into the farmlands to make sure monsters were staying away, and that the smaller ones weren’t stealing crops.
Next, we moved onto the topic of exports, The immediate issue being we only had one, the wood growing in the bay, and I guess products made from it. Expanding on that I came up with a quick list of a few other things. Seafood, a fabric made from the same thing my bowstring was woven from, and of course bows. Not only did everyone in our country love weapons, but making bows from wood strong enough to double as a bludgeon without worrying about it was a pretty appealing idea… Well, at least to everyone else… Those were still made from the trees in the bay, but still vastly diversified our economic portfolio away from essentially just timber.
I also had other plans though that were more personally motivated. Biterweed farming for instance. If we did that we could easily secure enough fibers to weave the soft mats like the one I had in my room at the castle. And there were certainly plenty in the surrounding area.
Finally, I wanted to bring the armorers and leather workers to our town. They weren’t very highly valued, but if adventurers would visit our town they would have better luck in Nayana than the rest of the nation combined, seeing as how adventurers weren’t idiots who didn’t believe in protective gear. The town had plenty of things to see from the tourist perspective, so that wasn’t a problem, and if we actually managed to attract half of the things I wanted that would naturally bring the other half with it.
“Any questions?” They all looked like zombies, except for my brother who was aptly writing everything down. “Alright, moving on then.” My voice started to crack as my throat dyed and started to hurt from all of the talking. ‘With the economy taken care of the only problem left is foreign relations… “We need to reestablish trade with the orc tribes to the east…” ‘Realistically, that would kick everything off in a big way.’
The people slowly started questioning me with their eyes. ‘Alright… I’ll explain this too… “First of all, Orcs as a species need much more food than humans, but if I’m not mistaken they try to only eat meat, and so grow an abundance of grains and other things to feed their livestock. If we can purchase that abundance it would temporarily fix the issue and allow for growth. More importantly, their diet means they would have to have a ridiculous amount of animal hide, which would be perfect for us. We could go not just into armor, but tailoring, making clothes from soft leather, rather than just throwing it out as useless or turning it into soft rugs.”
They slowly looked around. “Ok… But, how are you going to convince them to trade with us?” One man asked.
‘Fairy dust… This would be easy if I was going over to negotiate myself, but I’m heading to the academy, which is in the opposite direction…’
My brother tugged on my pant leg from behind and leaned forward on the table next to me. “The nation's reputation with the orcs has been rocky, but Nayana apart from the nation is on relatively good terms with them. If we sent a diplomat that was honorable, liked meat, and didn’t disrespect their ancestor magic, we should be able to get them to trade pretty easily.”
I walked over to the edge of the table and squatted down to look at him face-to-face. “Ok, but how are we going to find someone who isn’t averse to magic?”
“Someone like… That new knight you just appointed? Not only is he now in a position of authority, but he is also strong, and most importantly grew up outside of the nation where magic was commonplace, right?”
“So he wouldn’t be biased against magic, much less hate it… We can’t really send him alone though can we?”
“Send the reptilian knight with him, he used to be an adventurer and fell in love with a person more so than the culture.”
‘Does that mean there are half-lizard men running around here somewhere? I wonder what they look like.’
I slowly stood back up, my knees starting to ache from standing so long. ‘This is exhausting…’ “Leave the negotiations to a representative of mine, he will be able to handle that. This will also free us from having to rely on lord Elianara for fabric, so if he raises his prices in response to us doing the same, we won't care.”
They seemed uneasy, but agreed nonetheless, if not only because I was stronger than them… The final topic was perhaps the most touchy, and one I was trying to avoid until I got a better feel for how they might react.
“Lastly… Let’s talk about slaves…” Once again everyone's attention was grabbed instantly. It was a good thing too. I wouldn’t have been able to project my voice enough if they weren't all listening so intently. “Slaves might be illegal in this country, but they aren’t in the nation on our southwestern border, which leads to slaves from there often running to us if they escape.”
“Depravity…” One of them mumbled, and it seemed everyone shared the sentiment. For better or for worse, even though society was built on the principle of being better than those weaker than you, it was also built on the principle of the strong doing more of the work and carrying a larger burden. It was… Certainly unique in that regard.
“For now… We should welcome all foreigners wishing to find shelter in our lands, at least in regard to runaway slaves or refugees, although that policy will change if we start to get too many of them. We have to make sure the infrastructure of the city grows in kind with the population in order to prevent things like homelessness and poor living conditions, which would only raise crime and cause other problems. Originally though the concern will be food. We have to feed ourselves before we can feed refugees… Hopefully, it will never come to that being an issue, but if it does become one we will have to keep them moving along the routes they are currently traveling.”
“And if they are spies? You said we might end up at war didn’t you?”
“Right… This policy will likely cause friction between us long term, likely causing war eventually, but I don’t see that happening for a few years at least, and we are currently not on good terms with them anyway if I’m not mistaken.” Airsidh gave a nod as I looked back at him.
‘It was an educated guess. The cultural difference is just too big if the general consensus is that they are depraved…’ “Anyway, We can’t just let anyone in. Like you said, there could be problems… But at the same time, we kind of can… Let me explain.”
I looked down and picked up another large parchment, slowly turning so that everyone could see it. “Here we have a diagram of one of our navy ships, the secret to these ships is so well guarded that I probably couldn’t even find out about it, much less a foreigner. Similarly, it would be hard for them to find any national secrets… The only issue would be our battle plans being leaked if we were to go to war, in which case… Well… We’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it. But certainly before then, we don’t have to worry about spies.”
“So… We just let them all in and give them work, that’s the plan?”
“Right, treat them as any native. Any time a refugee shows up at the gates, evaluate them and let them show us their skills. Many of them were slaves, so I expect a lot of them to be farmers, which is unironically perfect for us at the moment don’t you agree?”
One of the men stood up, stroking his beard. “So what you’re saying is, we get the manpower to work the fields, and they produce the food for us, selling it internally because it isn’t taxed… The more we welcome, the more food we produce for ourselves.”
“Right, and they will sell it locally because it would be more profitable than paying taxes for it in some other city as an import. And to prevent other cities from taking advantage of us not having a tax, we only get rid of the tax on locally produced food… Until we can fix the land this will mostly apply to fish, but in the long run, it should allow us to build more farming infrastructure we don’t have yet.”
“Oh, I do like this…”
‘I’ve been talking for over two hours… And that’s all the response I get? And only from one person too…’ I let out a small groan. ‘That’s all of the big things anyway… “Hey brother, you understand right? You should be able to take care of everything from here, yeah?”
“What? Why would you assume that?”
“Wha– Well, I mean… You’ve been writing all this down right?” ‘If he goes over his notes he should be able to grasp it right? It’s a little advanced, but not that complicated.’
He showed me his paper with an indifferent glare, lifting up an unexpectedly good drawing of me standing on top of the table with the others all intently listening, all of us debating amongst ourselves.
‘I’m gonna freaking kill you…’ That is what I thought, but my brain was too fried to say any real words letting out a few dull whimpers instead.
His mischievous smile came back as he handed me a glass of water, seemingly grabbing it from out of nowhere. “Only kidding, I can handle everything from here. You really surprised me. Made my job a lot easier too. Following a plan isn’t so bad, but coming up with one and explaining it is a hassle.”
I slowly climbed down from the table so worn out that I almost just layed down on the floor right there to rest my body. “I know what you mean…” I muttered. As I finally started to relax my voice crumbled and crackled like sandpaper, and my movements became sluggish, rather than confident.
‘I forgot how easy it is to wear out this body doing things I’m not used to. Should I have been using magic this whole time to reinforce my voice? I’m still feeling the after-effects of that dragon's blood thing too… Oh, I guess I never ate lunch either… Well, whatever. I should be able to rest easy tomorrow. I can’t lie… It’s going to be exciting to see how this city changes… Well… I guess that’s assuming I didn’t just screw everyone over because I overlooked something…’