Herald of Steel

As September closed in, the farmers quickly finished reaping their harvests and started the process of storing them.

Which for grains like wheat and barley meant heating them in giant pots to kill them so that they do not start to germinate once they are stored in the granaries.

And the whole of Zanzan seemed to be busy doing that.

And every household there seemed to have a huge grin on their faces, for they never had this much of a bumper harvest.

‘Praise the lord! Long live his rule!’ Many cheered.

Though for Alexander, 900 kg per hectare was not anything special.

It was only to be expected given the use of the heavy plow which actually managed to dig up the nutritious soil that lay dormant underneath the heavy clay ground.

Whereas before, with the light plow, the farmers really could only plant their seeds on the top thin layer that was very low quality.

It was hard for anything to grow on it and so most seeds would die before their roots could reach the good part of the soil.

But still, Alexander was quite happy with the amount of grain collected, as from the 27,000 hectares of land that had been planted with wheat, oats, and barley, he got around 22,000 tons of grains, which was enough for six months for his city of around 200,000 people, and close to 10,000 draft animals.

And this was in addition to the remaining 15,000 tons of grains Pasha Farzah had bought.

So, with a bit more buying of grain from the outside Alexander knew there would be no food shortages.

Which was why Alexander ordered a lot more of the farmlands be opened up for cultivation and had many of the harvested seeds be re-planted to increase his next year’s production.

All to be done under Menicus’s supervision.

Because Alexander did not have time to oversee these policies.

As Lady Inayah kept nagging him to finish his work as soon as possible and get ready, saying or else they would be late for the Jtaama due around the second week of October.

And this date was with Ptolomy having pushed back the event back at the last minute by a month due to having trouble arranging the accommodations for all the pilgrims, both noble and civilian, given the state of the city and country.

So this made Alexander regret it a bit that he would not be able to celebrate with his farmers over the new bumper harvest and take credit for his work, as a propaganda drive to boost his image in them.

Or invite the other nobles to his land to show off and socialize as a way to show the benefits of staying with him.

But he ultimately decided that the meeting with Ptolomy was too important to pass up.

Hence, on one sunny morning in very late August, a crowd was seen gathering around the harbor.

It involved some of the all-time big shots of not only this city but the whole country, and many of them were seen boarding their ships.

Even the lord of the city, Alexander seemed to be leaving and was seen giving some last-minute instructions to his wife, and three women, all of whom had come to bid him goodbye.

Alexander had wanted to bring at last one of them with him, even as a bed warmer.

But all four had work here in Zanzan, and could not really leave the city right now for four to six months with him.

And so Alexander here was seen exalting them, urging all of them to be good and prudent in his absence.

“I’ll be back by spring. Preferably before.” He reassured them, before turning to urge his wife Cambyses one last time,

“And remember, Pasha Farzah has bought a lot of messenger birds from Adhan. Be sure to send them if anything happens.”

And then added, “And send multiple pigeons in case of an emergency. That way even if some get lost or eaten by other predators, at least one or two will surely reach me.”

“Yes, yes, Alex, you have repeatedly told me this…. a hundred times over,” Cambyses let out a little sigh of exasperation at Alexander’s slight hankering.

She felt like he was treating her like a child.

But for Alexander, leaving his city and everyone he cared about all alone for the first time was proving to be a difficult and anxious one.

Though his spies and head reassured him everything would be alright and Zanzan being attacked was minuscule, his heart was still worried.

And so, even when Cambyses seemed to think he was a worrywart, Alexander still pointed to a very large number of cages being uploaded to a ship using his fingers to say,

“And I will also let you know if anything happens. I’m taking a lot of messenger birds with me.”

This was how messages through birds worked.

You trained a chick from birth to identify the place it was raised in using special trainers.

And then, when you took it to another place, and let it go, it would fly back to its place of origin.

So it was only a one-way type of messaging system, and so if two sides wanted to keep constant communication, they needed to exchange birds from time to time.

So, when Alexander had first come to Zanzan, he had bought a lot of birds with him that could fly to Adhan, the same was with Pasha Farzah when he had come, and now Alexander was going to refill Adhan’s stock of ‘Zanzan going’ birds.

Of course, to be able to do this Alexander had raised a lot of birds.

All nobles did, as evidenced by the fact that his mansion had not just one but two aviaries, all to breed and raise messenger birds, which he could then give out to other people.

But anyway, with these said and getting a swift nod from his wife, Alexander bid farewell to his four women, and at last boarded Pasha Farzah’s flagship- The Layla.

In there, he spent mostly the entire time on the ship engaging in talks and games with the people there, which included all the nobles- Pasha Farzah, Lady Inayah, the Queen Mother and Hellma, and even Mikaya and her two maids.

Now, how much of a safety concern was it to put every single important person in the fleet in one ship?

Very!

It was very concerning.

But such doctrines as dispersing important personals to other ships had yet to be developed, and Alexander did not feel like educating Pasha Farzah.

Besides, he could easily guess what the old man would say.

“We are in the Layla! The biggest ship in Adhania. If we go down, our entire fleet will be going down.” The old man would have probably boasted.

And which indeed was somewhat true.

And besides, this ship also had the best facilities out of any other ship out there. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒆𝒕

Which was a great plus for these noble ladies who even under normal circumstances had trouble living in ships.

Eating and relieving oneself was a pain even for men, forget about the women with their many, many layers of clothes.

And besides, Pasha Farzah had placed the giant trireme in the middle of the fleet, so Alexander felt pretty safe, knowing that if this went down due to external forces, he would have died regardless of which ship he was on.

And so, Alexander made sure to relax himself in the following days and even spent some quality time with Lady Inayah who seemed to have grown a particular liking for him as she would visit his cabin regularly every few days.

And besides pleasure, they would also engage in business, with the woman being particularly pushy about the recipe for cement.

Now, Alexander had changed, or more accurately modified his previous thoughts about the Portland cement.

Because after thinking a while he felt he had been too uptight about the whole thing.

And with his new idea, he felt he had found a way to increase production without revealing the recipe.

And that idea was to sell the clinkers mixed with the gypsum directly to his allies in bags, and then have them grind it up themselves.

That way Alexander could increase his number of kilns without having to increase the number of waterwheels, which was the thing that was holding his production back.

In fact, if done correctly, Alexander felt he could import cement to increase his capacity.

But these ideas were still in their infancy, and so asking the lady for some more time, he then assured her that he would try to fulfill her requests as soon as possible.

So in this way, after around 40 days, the large fleet completed its 3,000 km journey from Zanzan to the port city of Agnirat, with the extra time needed due to the ships having to many times travel against the wind, thus slowing them drastically down.

After landing in Agrinat, Alexander only stayed in the port city for three days for rest and found it a lot of the same, just a bit livelier given that the drought was over and fall harvests had come in.

Here Lady Inayah acted as the perfect host and entertained them all with fine food, and great wine, and for Alexander even with the best woman the city had.

After which the carriages were prepared, and five days later, Alexander was staring down the magnificent walls of Adhan.