Chapter 40: Mr. Smith
10 December 1259
Dear Diary,
I had conquered the Khergits, exterminating their independent faction and keeping not only quite a few lords in my prison, but also their khan. It's beyond me why they never tried to free him or buy him out: that might have hastened their downfall. Anyway, the war was over, and now I had to rebuild my country and consolidate the conquered area's. All the fighting had depleted not only all the resources, but also exhausted the army. There was a lot of work to be done.
My first action was to appoint fiefs. All my lords had at least one, so no-one would feel left-out. But still I had many unassigned castles and villages, and even a city. I asked chancellor Herfast what my lords thoughts were: that made me give Distar castle to lord Naldera. For the rest he couldn't tell who supported whom for which fief, so I decided to assign some to myself. I expanded my personal space to the south with the villages of Ada Kulun, Bulugur, Dashbiga, Dirigh Aban, Rduna, Tebandra and Tulbuk. The taxes would finally beat the inefficiency. The other fiefs I gave to devoted lords with only a small village yet. The city of Ichamur was reserved for the famous Tredian, while Marmun, Urubay, Alagur and Taisa each received a castle. Vuldrat and Beranz were given another village.
I asked my chancellor Herfast what his intel said about everyone's feelings of Distar castle.
After I had discussed the matter of fiefs in the great hall of my castle, I decided to take a stroll through the city of Khudan. What had the war done to the place? How did the common people survive all that fighting? As I walked the streets, I noticed not only some empty houses, but also land for sale. When I asked the local guild master about it, he replied that the war had scared away quite a few people. Now there was land that was claimed by no-one, and was thus wasted. So I decided to buy the land myself. But what should I do with it? While thinking about this, I walked down the market to see what would be profitable. There I noticed that tools would sell for a pretty high price on the Khudan market. I would have to bring in some iron on regular basis, but that shouldn't be a too great a problem. I returned to the guild master, bought the land for 3500 denars and ordered some workmen to set up an ironworks. The master smith told me that production would begin in about a week. More than enough time to ride through the lands and buy some iron for a decent price.
I set up an ironworks in Khudan, to produce tools. This enterprice starts its production on 9 December. The PPP made a picture of the master smith, while the whole operation was followed by viewers of DPC.
For some decent iron prices I needed to go to the Sarranid lands, and both Curaw and Dhirim. I decided I should go first to the closest two cities, then visit Tulga in order to buy some spice, and then buy more iron in those desert cities. For a week I rode hence and forth, and bought as much iron as I could, while trading spice to create more profit. During my trip I heard that the Nords declared war on the Rhodoks. The Rhodoks already were in conflict with the Sarranids, so I guess their expansion is brought to a stop. Also while riding through the former Khergit lands, I noticed that the amount of fiefs finally started to pay off: I made a profit from my fiefs, even with the costs of my army.
For the first time since long I made a profit with my fiefs.
It was a long ride from the Sarranid desert to my home in Khudan, so I arrived in the morning of 10 December. Immediately I walked to my smith, and filled his inventory with as much iron as possible. He even hadn't had enough storage room for all the iron I had brought with me. But the resources I had brought him were at least a lot cheaper than he could have gotten there in Khudan, even with his good connections. Now he'll start producing tools, and sell them for decent prices in this city, making really a lot of profit for me. I'll need to expand this business to other cities too.
*****
Gameplay notes
Kellick had discovered that when you enable the cheat menu, you can
buy land for a profitable venture. This allowed me to buy the different goods producing ventures. It is only available when you have the cheat menu enabled, but it can be fixed easily (how is displayed in the topic), so I was able to use this without the cheat menu on. Hurray for that!
Here is a picture of Floris' current stats:
Since the map hasn't changed, I decided to show you how my companions look like. A few still need some fancy armor, and a few also need to improve their riding skill so I can give them decent horses, but overall the Winged Warriors look pretty neat.
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