Herald of Steel



Alexander would decide to postpone making the choice of his subjects until later on.

Instead he for now concentrated on finally getting his school started.

Because it had taken him an entire year to finally get everything in place.

The school had to be built, the students selected, the printing press set up, the books printed, and lastly, the teachers and administrators chosen.

For the last one, Alexander even held a few interviews, choosing the thirty men among the few hundred who would be getting the position.

After that, Alexander even trained these men for three months on what he wanted them to teach and how to teach them.

Because a lot of the things, especially regarding some concepts in math were new to these people.

And it was only after this, being satisfied with their level of teaching that Alexander allowed them to join the school's roster.

So with everything set, the school only started on the start week of August, being currently only a month old.

And with everything being so new, it still needed Alexander's input from time to time on big and small matters.

But the thing that really needed Alexander's attention was the start of his campaign against Tibias, which was scheduled to start right after the fall harvest but seemed on track to be derailed.

And the reasons for this delay were myriad.

First was the formation of a good army, which Alexander needed to start the invasion in the first place.

And to achieve that over the past year, Alexander's military officers were indeed hard at work drilling new recruits into shape, putting them through the wringer.

And though they had made great progress, the reality was expanding the army from a permanent force of 5,000 to a fighting force of 10,000 presented itself with a lot of new challenges- in recruiting, training, and accommodating.

Over the last twelve months the officers and commanders did their best to overcome these, but it seemed the army still needed more time to transform itself.

It seemed the brand new legionary formation was proving to be not so easy to master from scratch within so little time.

This was the first problem.

And this very organically tied together to the second problem, which was organizational.

With many of the nobles joining the army ranks as officers, many hours were spent in the parliament discussing their position in the military, as the number of officer positions was limited and many of the bluebloods felt entitled to a lot more than they deserved.

Even after Alexander had made his position clear, many petitioned to be moved from regular infantry to officers or have their ranks elevated.

So Alexander had to again haggle a lot with them to come to a somewhat more reasonable arrangement.

He first dispersed the new recruits among various units under loyal commanders.

And then as to not to be seen as too harsh, Alexander also transferred some of the more obedient ones to form new cavalry units, which was seen as a much more prestigious position, increasing the total to 3,000 riders.

And lastly he made Jamider (Earl) Tikba and Talukder (Viscount) Prantik named the commander and vice commander of the new legion as the permanent army was increased to 10,000, or two legions, thus matching their authority with Menes and Menicus.

And speaking of Menes, after his promotion, the man seemed to have entered into a work frenzy, taking it upon himself to specifically teach the new noble officers all the minute details of the legionary formation.

He was so strict in fact that it even resulted in a few small altercations, though it was nothing serious.

With the shuffling within the army accomplished, Alexander faced the problem of training enough of the levies.

A total of 30,000 levies were supposed to be trained by now, but due to the aforementioned problems, only 10,000 had received their basic 4 months training, all of whom came from Alexander.

The 20,000 that was supposed to be given by the nobles, due to various infighting, mismanagement, and unforeseen problems had yet to come.

And this was one of the heated topics in the parliament building for almost the entire past month, with Alexander repeatedly asking his nobles what was the hold up.

"My lord, we will send them right after the harvest is done." While the noble faction could only reply as such.

This frankly was a little bit too late, but hey, better late than never, and Alexander could only purse his lips and accept.

He also knew behind all the feet dragging, there was also the fact that many nobles felt attacking Tibias through Thesalie was just a waste of time and good men.

Forget the 40,000 regular men and 5,000 local mercenaries Alexander was planning to use to assault the walls, numbers close to triple that had tried and failed to take the walls when attacked head-on.

So many of the nobles had very openly urged Alexander not to do this.

And when Alexander posed the attack as revenge against Tibias breaking the treaty and burning his house down, they instead suggested he do the smart thing like Amenheraft and use a naval route to bypass the fortification.

After all, only a fool tried to smash a rock by repeatedly bashing his head against it.

Hence to the nobles, this seemed like a no brainer 

And after Alexander had seen the walls of Thesalie for himself,  he had to certainly give some very heavy weight to those suggestions.

He had gone there to scout the defense for himself, disguised as a merchant accompanying Camius up to the outskirts of the city.

And when Alexander saw the fortifications, he understood the man had not really exaggerated.

The terrain and the wall were truly daunting, with steep cliffs, dense woods, and a large moat filled with wooden spikes protecting the walled city.

And it was not even single walled.

That would have been too easy.

It was a double walled city so that even if one wall was breached, the defenders could still fall back to the second line.

Seeing it Alexander felt like he was Mehmed I, gazing upon the formidable walls of Constantinople.

Except Mehmed I had one of the largest cannons in the world with him to smash through the walls whereas Alexander's military engineers were struggling to get even the catapult going.

Looking at the thickness of the city's walls, Alexander doubted whether even trebuchets would be able to breach it, especially given it was double walled.

Alexander would have to give it to them.

The Tibians had really outdone themselves here, making one of the most impregnable defenses in all of antiquity.

And seeing the daunting challenges, Alexander was half tempted to take the nobles' advice and call off the attack.

Because breaking through it by force seemed impossible for him.

But that thought was only a fleeting feeling.

Just because smashing through it was impossible, did not mean Alexander would not be able to conquer it.

Alexander decided he would simply have to go over it, by getting his siege towers right up to the walls and clearing the walls of the defenders.

As for how he would convince the enemy to let him do that when everyone else tried the same method but failed, well, for that, the very first thing he did was call Diaogosis to build a good road from Zanzan right up to Thesalie.

There was already a road nearby that connected Jamider (Earl) Tikba's land to Zanzan, so Diaogosis only needed to build a diversion, going left toward Thesalie, an endeavor he was currently pursuing.

And until the road could be finished, Alexander was reluctant to start his campaign.

Then there was the preparation regarding the type of siege Alexander was planning.

For that he was glad he had asked for those 10 million crossbow bolts from Lady Miranda because he felt he might need all of them.

And along with that he also ordered massive amounts of stone, bricks, and most importantly cement to be stockpiled, for he would need them during the siege.

And going by the latest report, the stocks were yet to reach the desired levels, meaning it would be too hasty to launch the attack.

And lastly, there was the ever present question of money, or more specifically, who was going to finance this war. 

It had to be remembered that Zanzan did not produce even a tenth of the money it spent from the taxes it collected.

So more than ninety percent of it had to come from Alexander's personal coffers.

And though Alexander was glad to spend it previously to help Zanzan get up on its feet, well there had to be a limit on it.

Zanzan was already three years old and Alexander felt it was time the others started to pull their weight too.

Especially given the large bill the campaign was sure to generate.

But that was easier said than done.

It was very easy for people to get used to being given money and once they became accustomed to it, it was very hard to make them pay.

And this was the problem Alexander was trying to solve, because he reasoned that if the nobles did not pay, well then they should not get any share of the booty.

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