Herald of Steel

The previous example was not the only accounting trick Alexander had up his sleeves. Another one was his funding of the Tibian cities.

This money that was given to the local nobles to run the cities was of course not free but was either treated as a lump sum loan that was to be slowly repaid or to give Alexander some other type concession- such as letting him place troops in the noble's personal lands, marry off their daughters to people loyal to Alexander, or even converting to the Gaia faith and swearing fealty to him both in this life and the next.

Thus really Alexander was converting much of his money into influence- it was not an expense but an investment.

And the third and last reason why Alexander's 'official' revenue was so small was because- well Alexander was rich enough to be able to afford it. He did not need this money right now.

'If I can run the country by myself, why should I tax people? Rather than the coin gathering dust in my treasury, it is far better for the people to spend the money on themselves and boost the economy!' Alexander naturally thought, and then a bit schemingly added,

'Also, it is not like I am spending the money purely out of altruism. Having so many men directly on my roster… gives me far more power over them.'

'People who pay taxes naturally expect something from their government. So conversely, with no taxes, hehehe... 'No taxation without representation!' as once a great nation said!'

'If I do not rely on their money, I won't be beholden to them. Rather I can use my own funding to steer policies the way I see fit. I am sure the various trade unions and even the nobles would never be as docile as they are now if I was dependent on them for money.'

Thus it can be seen the lower taxes were also a part of Alexander's domestic policy against the nobles, aimed at subduing them.

This was a very important lesson he took from history- that kings tended to lose power whenever they began to go bankrupt and had to beg for money from their retainers.

History was laden with such examples.

The Magna Carta of 1215, which laid out some rules for what the English king could and could not do was formed in part due to excessive taxation by King John.

King Charles I was beheaded in 1649 because he refused to heed parliament's advice on various matters, including taxation.

The catalyst for the French Revolution was the bankrupt King Louis XIV recalling the parliament to raise taxes and then having the nobility and clergy repeatedly ignore the demands of the Third Estate (the group in parliament representing the common masses and thus paying almost all the taxes.)

While the Russian Revolution created a wholly different economic system after the broke Tsar Nicolas was unable to provide for his people.

And this list could do on…. almost every event which eroded the power of kings and monarchs had to do with the economy and thus taxation.

People tended not to revolt when they had food in their bellies, a fire in their house, and a roof over their heads. In the same way, nobles had a hard little colluding with each other to overthrow their reign unless things were going really bad for them.

They needed a justification to break their oaths.

And if the nobles tried to go against this tide… well things usually ended up very bad for them.

We can look at the example of Julius Caesar as perhaps the best illustration of this.

The Roman General and senator was extremely popular with the people as he was seen as someone solving all the dying Republic's problems but conversely hated by a part of the senate due to ideological differences.

These conspirators could never accept a 'Dictator'.

So despite the cost and not having an explicit advantage in the court of public opinion, they killed Caesar.

What was worse, they killed him in probably one of the most sacred places in Rome- the senate!

Imagine a modern president getting killed in the halls of the Parliament by a group of opposition leaders. Shocking would not even begin to explain the events.

And despite being separated by nearly two and a half thousand years, the event similarly caused stunned shocks to ripple across the people of Rome and even the empire.

Instead of being hailed as liberators, the conspirators were quickly labeled as killers.

This inevitably led to a civil war, the end of which led to the formation of the very thing those senators had tried to stop- the dissolution of a Republic and the rise of the Empire.

Thus by ignoring the people, Brutus and the others unknowingly fulfilled Caesar's dream.

In fact, due to how shocking his death was, they had made him so much more than a mere dictator or even a martyr.

Even Ceaser must have been unable to ever imagine that his death would cause his name to become the sign of autocratic rule in Europe for the next nearly two thousand years.

The title of Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire and then Germany and Tsar of Russia are all thought to have come from the Latin word- Caesar.

Thankfully, most nobles were rarely this desperate to oust their lord. There were very few in the world who were as zealous as Brutus and his brothers.

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Hence Alexander believed by keeping taxes as low as possible, he could solidify his position.

….

While Alexander reminisced about his tax structures, and the justification of keeping his books extremely red, the two ladies were having their own thoughts.

One of them was still busy taking in the fact that despite Alexander's house being basically an infant in front of the other much older, established noble lineages, he had a much bigger treasury than a lot of them.

At least those houses had the excuse of time on their side, sometimes with literal centuries behind their back that let them accumulate such huge riches.

While Lady Parthia was more shocked to find out where most of the money came from, i.e.- the fact that more than half of it came from the produced iron,

She always figured it would have been the sugar, given it, especially the white kind went for nearly ten times that of the sold steel and she had been literal piles of the stuff being carried out by the carts.

However in reality the export volume of white sugar was actually quite limited.

This was one- due to current production capacity constraints- Alexander required much more labor and various plant facilities to expand production.

But primarily it was because Alexander simply did not want to export more.

He intentionally kept his supply low in order to make this product seem as something ultra luxurious and exclusive.

Thus the official explanation behind why white sugar was so rare and hence expensive was that it was very hard and time consuming to refine the brown sugar. Which was also a convenient shield for anyone wishing to steal or in the case of someone like Ptolomy demanding Alexander's technique.

Due to all this, the stuff was rarely exported outside of a very select channel.

Only Pasha Farzah, the Adhanian and Tibian royal families, the southern warden of Tibias Lord Theony, and a few of Alexander's very close friends got the white sugary stuff.

Everyone else had to make do with the brown stuff or buy from him at the market rate, which was around 250 to 300 ropals a kilo.

And despite the astronomical price- many nobles still did!

In fact, there was no shortage of demand as the white sugar proved quite addictive, making the nobles hanker for that never before felt sugar rush.

Much of the nobility even regularly tried to suck up to Alexander for this, with some even having their wives ask Cambyses and the others to see if some could be arranged through them.

There was even apparently a growing culture of nobles displaying piles of white sugar at their parties as a way to show off.

While seeing this intense want for his product, Alexander regularly had to fight his desire to increase production and cash in on the craze.

But at the end of the day he managed to hold himself back, knowing the cons far outweighed the pros, especially politically.

Alexander instead chose to focus on the much more low key steel production, knowing it had till now remained out of the limelight, as proven by Lady Parthia's own reaction.

The main reason for this was mostly because it was just not as flashy as the sugar, and outside of a handful of experienced blacksmiths, the vast majority lacked the relevant knowledge to appreciate it.

Yes, they knew Alexander's steel was very high quality and were very impressed by it, but their curiosity ended there.

How it was made?

How did Alexander make so much steel so quickly?

How was it so cheap?

All these questions were secondary.

And all this made Alexander very happy as he could rest assured that he would be able to rely on this income far longer without drawing jealous eyes.

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