Lightning Round V
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X][Successor] The ancient urban manufactories of the core
[X][Revival] Long neglected diplomacy
The cities had to be fed.
All but the nearest farms that had fed them were in ruins, the farmers scattered or killed or in revolt against central authority for the failure to protect them. This posed a considerable problem. The surviving cities were going to eat out their larders and then eat themselves and everything would fall apart. They had too many citizens who no longer would have anything to do, the supply networks torn apart. There were too many smiths for the ore available and not enough call for their products anyway.
The cities should have just disappeared.
Instead, drastic action was taken. The remaining warriors were equipped with absolutely exorbitant amounts of equipment, just to give the smiths something to do, while massive numbers of conscripts were drawn up from the no longer useful segments of the urban population. Their task was simple: get enough food for everyone by any means necessary. Some of this was going out to the parts of the rural areas that were no longer paying taxes to force compliance, some of this was mercenary work to pay for food shipments one way or another, and some of this was protecting the food shipments. Those who objected were declared traitors and rebels and put to the sword, gutting much of the priesthood that refused to get in line. Citizenship drastically shrank, requiring either noble birth or to perform service in the form of being a journeyman in the guilds or complete a thirty year mercenary contract for the kingdom. Farmers either prevailed to their local nobility for protection via generational indenture contracts, or found themselves replaced with criminals and war captives taken from further afield.
This outright bullying and conquest rapidly stopped when the trade of food was sufficient, the neighbours and former vassals deciding that selling their excess grain for the products of the Redshore and Valleyhome arsenals was preferable to exposing their backs to their other neighbours to fight off the cities. For their part, the core cities weren't interested in gambling what they had trying to bring the wealthier trade cities of the west or the lowlands directly under their control. So long as they got fed they were good with what they had, especially since they possessed a number of sophisticated manufacturing facilities that let them maintain a number of profitable trade monopolies. The only major conflicts for generations were the fighting over the Trelli strait and control of the entire length of the Great River, but the metal foundries soon found that their casting abilities could be turned towards the production of cannon, which was useful for smashing up the fortifications of those that defied them, while also being a great product to sell.
Thus it was that the People survived. While much was lost, the core remained intact; the knowledge within preserved, even if its living implementation faded. The great sophisticated state of old was gone, but something that served many of the same functions remained. Trade replaced taxes, state armies that protected all were replaced with mercenaries that demanded payment, and except in the very core the complex infrastructure that had allowed bumper crops year after year faded from lack of local expertise and funds from elsewhere to maintain them. Free farmers and yeomen were replaced with serfs, indentured servants, and slaves, but the guilds continued to run and the academies of old were not abandoned. While some found this no comfort at all, within a century of the passing of the war, plagues, and famine there were already those arguing the philosophies of old, and how the People needed to turn away from their paths of greed. While the diplomats and traders did much to keep all the various neighbours surrounding them focused on fighting each other rather than the People - both for protection and to ensure that there was always a healthy market for the excessive amounts of arms the People made to keep their smiths busy with the ancient infrastructure - they also fostered ties of friendship and family. While some might call them pirates themselves, the People also heavily suppressed pirate activity on the Yllthon, and out past the Trelli strait when they controlled it.
And then one day the traders in the Southern Sea at the end of the Great River reported an oddity. Among the monsoon merchants that came from the Spice Lands and the Far East by ship, a new flag was seen in those waters - curiously one not unknown to the People. In the Far West the successors of the successors of the successors of the Saffron Islanders (all those to the west of the Trelli straits called Syffrynites, generally) plied their primitive trade, but apparently they had found their ways around the vast deserts and jungles to the south of the Khemetri (who truly were no longer the same people as those mentioned in the primordial writings of the People) by sea. Curious... and annoying as it bypassed the People's status as middlemen in the spice trades. Something needed to be done.
How did the People respond to the development of transoceanic trade?
[] Stop relying on intermediaries, and muscle in on the trade themselves
[] Aggressively secure the slower but more easily policed land routes to the east
[] Finance anti-Syffryn piracy to make it not worth making the trip
[] Directly seize more farmland so that loss of profits will not be as much of a threat to securing food supplies
[] Deepen diplomatic ties to ensure that the foreign traders aren't going to get the deals they expect
[X][Revival] Long neglected diplomacy
The cities had to be fed.
All but the nearest farms that had fed them were in ruins, the farmers scattered or killed or in revolt against central authority for the failure to protect them. This posed a considerable problem. The surviving cities were going to eat out their larders and then eat themselves and everything would fall apart. They had too many citizens who no longer would have anything to do, the supply networks torn apart. There were too many smiths for the ore available and not enough call for their products anyway.
The cities should have just disappeared.
Instead, drastic action was taken. The remaining warriors were equipped with absolutely exorbitant amounts of equipment, just to give the smiths something to do, while massive numbers of conscripts were drawn up from the no longer useful segments of the urban population. Their task was simple: get enough food for everyone by any means necessary. Some of this was going out to the parts of the rural areas that were no longer paying taxes to force compliance, some of this was mercenary work to pay for food shipments one way or another, and some of this was protecting the food shipments. Those who objected were declared traitors and rebels and put to the sword, gutting much of the priesthood that refused to get in line. Citizenship drastically shrank, requiring either noble birth or to perform service in the form of being a journeyman in the guilds or complete a thirty year mercenary contract for the kingdom. Farmers either prevailed to their local nobility for protection via generational indenture contracts, or found themselves replaced with criminals and war captives taken from further afield.
This outright bullying and conquest rapidly stopped when the trade of food was sufficient, the neighbours and former vassals deciding that selling their excess grain for the products of the Redshore and Valleyhome arsenals was preferable to exposing their backs to their other neighbours to fight off the cities. For their part, the core cities weren't interested in gambling what they had trying to bring the wealthier trade cities of the west or the lowlands directly under their control. So long as they got fed they were good with what they had, especially since they possessed a number of sophisticated manufacturing facilities that let them maintain a number of profitable trade monopolies. The only major conflicts for generations were the fighting over the Trelli strait and control of the entire length of the Great River, but the metal foundries soon found that their casting abilities could be turned towards the production of cannon, which was useful for smashing up the fortifications of those that defied them, while also being a great product to sell.
Thus it was that the People survived. While much was lost, the core remained intact; the knowledge within preserved, even if its living implementation faded. The great sophisticated state of old was gone, but something that served many of the same functions remained. Trade replaced taxes, state armies that protected all were replaced with mercenaries that demanded payment, and except in the very core the complex infrastructure that had allowed bumper crops year after year faded from lack of local expertise and funds from elsewhere to maintain them. Free farmers and yeomen were replaced with serfs, indentured servants, and slaves, but the guilds continued to run and the academies of old were not abandoned. While some found this no comfort at all, within a century of the passing of the war, plagues, and famine there were already those arguing the philosophies of old, and how the People needed to turn away from their paths of greed. While the diplomats and traders did much to keep all the various neighbours surrounding them focused on fighting each other rather than the People - both for protection and to ensure that there was always a healthy market for the excessive amounts of arms the People made to keep their smiths busy with the ancient infrastructure - they also fostered ties of friendship and family. While some might call them pirates themselves, the People also heavily suppressed pirate activity on the Yllthon, and out past the Trelli strait when they controlled it.
And then one day the traders in the Southern Sea at the end of the Great River reported an oddity. Among the monsoon merchants that came from the Spice Lands and the Far East by ship, a new flag was seen in those waters - curiously one not unknown to the People. In the Far West the successors of the successors of the successors of the Saffron Islanders (all those to the west of the Trelli straits called Syffrynites, generally) plied their primitive trade, but apparently they had found their ways around the vast deserts and jungles to the south of the Khemetri (who truly were no longer the same people as those mentioned in the primordial writings of the People) by sea. Curious... and annoying as it bypassed the People's status as middlemen in the spice trades. Something needed to be done.
How did the People respond to the development of transoceanic trade?
[] Stop relying on intermediaries, and muscle in on the trade themselves
[] Aggressively secure the slower but more easily policed land routes to the east
[] Finance anti-Syffryn piracy to make it not worth making the trip
[] Directly seize more farmland so that loss of profits will not be as much of a threat to securing food supplies
[] Deepen diplomatic ties to ensure that the foreign traders aren't going to get the deals they expect
