Herald of Steel

Done with the military matters for now, Alexander raised another concern – concern about governance.

“The city administration posts are all empty and it’s not possible to run a city with so many vacancies,” Alexander said with a frown.

And then declared, “So I have decided to temporarily assign you some administrative positions until proper replacements can be found.”

The military leaders all looked at each other at this announcement, wondering what they knew about outside fighting.

And the answer they came up with was not much.

But Alexander didn’t seem to think so as he first turned to Menicus, “Menicus, you have done a fantastic job securing the fields before winter, *clap*, *clap*, *clap*.” Alexander applauded.

“And so I intend to hand over the administration of the farms up to you,” Alexander designated.

“I will work by my hardest, Lord Pasha,” Menicus crossed his arms on his chest and bowed a bit, his voice somber and serious.

“Um, good.” Alexander nodded and then emphasized, “Food is our most important resource and all of Zanzan city will depend on you.”

“I will not fail you,” Menicus again seriously vowed.

Alexander lightly smiled, pleased, and then asked Theocles, “Theocles, the temple of Gaia needs an archpriest. Are you interested?”

Theocles body visibly shook and his eyes widened in glee.

Plop.

The man then immediately prostrated himself before Alexander and cried, “It would be my life’s utmost honor, my lord, my savior.”

“Haha, good, good. Then I will rely on you to spread the faith of Gaia,” Alexander grinned in glee.

“Yes, I swear to bring salvation to all the lost lambs,” Theocles zealously declared.

“Um, we will discuss the details later. For now please sit down,” Alexander gestured, while internally he wondered if Theocles might be a bit too enthusiastic.

Only time would reveal that, but for now, Alexander decided to move on to his next candidate.

“Heliptos, you will be in charge of the coin and t will be your job to oversee the economy.” Alexander made a controversial appointment.

Giving the greedy mercenary the responsibility to oversee the state’s money might sound like asking the fox to guard the chicken but Alexander saw it differently.

He saw it like giving money to a miser, who will think thrice before spending a single coin.

And given the current situation of the economy, Alexander needed such a penny-pincher.

Also, Heliptos was realistically the only man for the job.

Because according to Heliptos himself, he was once a peddler, who made his fortunes supplying goods for Damious and his mercenary company.

But after a few unfortunate incidents he had gone bankrupt and so, using Damious’s goodwill, he joined the mercenary group to escape his creditors.

Though here he claimed that his entire incident was orchestrated by Damious and a few corrupt officials in his city-state because they were jealous of his wealth.

Alexander of course had no way to judge the veracity of this information but decided to take it at face value nonetheless.

Actions spoke louder than words and if it was all true, then there would be no problem.

But if he lied, if Alexander found Heliptos to be incompetent or corrupt, he would simply sack him.

Hearing Alexander’s appointed Heliptos produced a huge grin and his eyes lit up in glee, making Alexander wonder if he could see illusory dollar signs in his eyes.

“Thank you, pasha. I will guard the vault with all my life!” Heliptos said giving a military salute.

“Umm, remember your job will be hard,” Alexander decided to put some pressure on the over-enthusiastic mercenary.

“You will have to oversee the tax collection, enact policies to attract businessmen, find ways to boost the economy, work out trade deals with various third parties, and many more.” Alexander gave Heliptos a list of things he was expected to do.

“That….” Hearing what the actual job entailed made Heliptos stammer a bit as he didn’t know half the things Alexander asked him to do.

In fact, he didn’t even understand half of what Alexander had said.

‘What does ‘enact policies to attract businessmen,’ and ‘boosting the economy’ mean?’ Heliptos asked himself.

Alexander understood these were all brand-new concepts to everyone in the world and seeing Heliptos look at him dazed and confused, he reassured the man, “Don’t worry, I will teach you what to do. All you need to do is follow my instructions.”

This produced a happy smile on the man and Heliptos thanked Alexander for his troubles, overall very happy at being offered his dream job.

Alexander then addressed three men, “Menes, Melodias, and Grahtos, all of you will be in charge of the military. You will be our bulwark against all external threats.”

“Yes! Pasha Alexander,” The three men cried in unison, extremely glad that they would not have to dip their toes in civilian matters but instead could continue to do the things they were the best at.

There was also the selfish reasoning that it was far easier to accumulate merit in the military than in the civilian sector.

“Um, remember we have four thousand mercenaries and thousand Cantagenan soldiers. That means we need to recruit three hundred more,” Alexander reminded.

A legion was after all five thousand three hundred soldiers strong with seventeen hundred servants.

The servants could be taken from the recently freed Cantagenan slaves, but currently, there was a small deficiency in the number of soldiers in the unit.

“Hmm, some of the Adhanians who came with us fought pretty well in the last battle. How about them?” Menes asked for Alexander’s consent.

“Good, then I will leave the recruitment up to you,” Alexander easily handed over the job to his general, adding, “Prioritize those that were officers.”

After getting an affirmative nod from Menes, Alexander turned to Grahtos, “Captain Grahtos please take your best five hundred cavalries to be in the army and change the others into infantrymen.”

“As you command, pasha,” Grahtos easily accepted.

Alexander then at last turned to the three new men that were invited to join this meeting for the first time.

These were the representatives of the various artisans and normally civilians like them would never be allowed a seat at the conference between a noble and his retinue.

But Alexander was no normal noble and thus this meeting fell upon them.

“Blacksmith Harun, I heard the mines around the Zanzan are very rich in ore. And I want you to be in charge of them!” Alexander made an announcement that shook everybody in the room.

This was a very heavy responsibility and nobody expected Alexander to hand it out to a relatively unknown person.

Even the man being offered the job was flabbergasted and attempted to turn it down, “My…my lord, …I…I’m not confident that I’m….not the man for the job.”

The artisan was so overwhelmed that he was having trouble forming coherent speech.

But this time, Alexander didn’t need to convince the man as soon the characteristic gruff cough echoed across the room

“Ahem, since the pasha has chosen you, accept it. The pasha has a good eye for people,” Menicus addressed Harun.

And as soon as this senior veteran expressed his explicit support, the other military leaders also voiced their assent to Harun’s position.

“Haha, Brother Harun, you used to oversee the mines of Adhan too. Only you can do this,” From the side, Harun’s colleague, a tanner named Krishok too expressed his support.

And thus the blacksmith was ushered into his new role.

“Lord…lord Pasha, this lowly ..this blacksmith will spare no effort to keep the mines going,” Harun still couldn’t believe that this huge pie had fallen out of the sky and directly into his waiting hand.

When Alexander had called them to attend the meeting, they reasoned that it would be to issue them some new projects.

But who knew it would be to make him oversee the mines, the most important sector of a country after agriculture. 𝒷𝓭ℴ𝓋𝓵.𝒸ℴ𝓶

Although Harun had experience in running mines, such a critical sector was usually kept close to a noble’s heart and not given to any random person, no matter the qualifications.

Not to mention even skimming off a tiny portion of the mined ores or the slaves’ food would make one rich, filthy rich, but some of these mines were gold and silver mines too, meaning Alexander had put the man literally in charge of a money printing machine.

And this fact was not lost on anyone as Harun distinctly could feel the jealous gazes of his colleague, even Krishok’s, for this grand prize.

But strangely, for Harun, these gazes didn’t seem to offend him.

He would have felt jealous too if one of the other two were to be chosen.

Instead, he felt proud to get such gazes as it only made the reality even more pronounced, a validation that it was all real and not one of Harun’s delusion.

Harun looked at Alexander full of smiles and infinite gratitude in his eyes, while the latter sang in his heart, ‘Haha, nothing in this world is free my man. nothing in this world is free.’

This was because he planned to make Harun work to the bones to pay for his promotion.