Primary: Administrative reform (2x)
Secondary: Education reform (0.8x)
Primary: Continue to assist the Black Sheep in having control over their internal and external policies (1.2x)
Secondary: Collaborate with the Khemetri on mutually strengthening measures (1.5x)
For the People, sending advisers and teachers to the their most strategically significant neighbours to help fine tune institutions there was the most sensible of ideas. They wanted their neighbours, and the Gylruv portion of their increasingly intertwined dual kingdom, strong, stable, prosperous, and looking away from the People militarily. And while early efforts with the Gylruv showed great promise, issues began cropping up right away in certain segments. In particular, while efforts to bring about bureaucratic reform in the Gylruv lead to early success, a number of stumbling blocks soon cropped up. While one of them was finding enough locals with sufficient education to run the new institutions the People and the Patriarch were trying to grow - mitigated in part by the flood of teachers sent in to try to address the issues, another was that graft and corruption was in so deep that trying to pull it out might crash the economy.
Simply put, when everyone was on the take, you had to set the taxation levels punishingly high to get what you actually wanted out of the population. Lowering the taxes before you had sorted out these corruption issues would crash out the coffers, while tearing out the corrupt officials and tax collectors would lead to the new ones dutifully taxing the peasantry into famine and revolution. Given the recently acquired collection of not-exactly-happy-to-be-Gylruv peasants in the Wyrmyn Territories, this was seen of as a major problem. The only really viable solution was to lower taxes on the less developed areas while bringing in a proper bureaucracy, and have the healthy regions subsidize them.
While doable, the People's budget was looking remarkably threadbare as they were stretched out to subsidize so many: anti-Syffrynite groups in the Monsoon Sea, trade and diplomatic envoys to the Black Sheep and Khemetri, educational and administrative assistance to the Gylruv, and now outright subsidy to economically unhealthy segments of the Gylruv. Fundamentally, the People needed an influx of cash to pay for all the things they wanted to do. Thankfully they were not trying to do these things with hostile powers on their borders, even if their sea lanes were often a mess of skirmishes between various factions of merchants, privateers, pirates, and outright war with ships-of-the-line. Many political and economic rivals had to deal with their own internal and external issues, so at least no single group was outright dominating everywhere. The People had a significant set of advantages with their North-South trade corridor, but many of their trade practices still lagged behind the Syffrynites, and the Syffrynites still had numerous colonies that the People were unable to touch due to being eternally behind in naval traditions, even if their technological prowess was only a little behind the Syffrynite average.
Fortunately, relations with the Khemetri had helped significantly. While they had been diminished from prior eras with their gold mines no longer bringing in huge amounts of wealth to the king's coffers and their flood plains no longer something a large chunk of the Saffron Sea depended on to feed itself, support from the People had seen them through to a new sort of stable. The Khemetri had discovered that the world had a large demand for cotton and sugar that grew well in their flood plains, as well as the coffee and chocolate and spices that could be supported in their southern jungle holdings. While they had supported anti-slaving measures in their southern and western neighbours to hinder the economic exploitation of such groups by the Syffrynites who were their rivals, the Khemetri had invited many thousands of refugees into their territory, adding new peasantry to work the fields and plantations cropping up. While some of the more vocal priests and scholars were most displeased with this, most found this a win-win situation for everyone. Another wealthy anti-Syffrynite and pro-People trade partner in the Monsoon Sea was only a good thing.
The collaboration between the People and the Khemetri also brought up the potential idea of some form of canal system between the Saffron and Monsoon Seas within Khemetri territory that would make both kingdoms fabulously wealthy by cutting down trip lengths immensely, but the surveyors were distinctly uncertain about the possibility. It would be intensely expensive if it could be done, and there were probably better ways to go about facilitating trade anyway. Perhaps lesser canals and dams within the Khemetri to facilitate internal trade and agriculture first to build up local expertise and funds?
Actually, there were more than a few calls for a proper 'company' of some sort to help alleviate the financial issues, as well as build up some prestige given the major companies of the Syffrynites were often their face to the world.
Choose a company
[] Ymaryn Crown Bank (1x)
[] Monsoon Sea Trading Company (1.2x)
[] Greater Khem Trading Company (1x)
[] Ymaryn-Khemtri Canal Company (1.1x)
[] Hung Sea Trading Company (1x)
[] Far East Trading Company (0.8x)
[] North-East Fur Trading Company (0.8x)
