46 Chapter 46 Meeting 2 With The Generals (1/2)
Court was cancelled the next day as the king had decided to meet with his top advisors to discuss Duke Winston's plan. Joseph was very amused as everyone arrived for the meeting in his rooms. General Peter was acting rather bold, as if he should be patted on the back, because everyone knew that he was the one who leaked the information to the duke.
Joseph was able to find out, after discussing with Charles late into the night, after they were done practicing dances, that Peter was married to the niece of Duke Winston. He was used by the duke in many political maneuvers and was rewarded by various promotions and rewards from his uncle. Charles and the king a.s.sumed that they skimmed at least 5% from the kingdom on finds for battalions needing urgent resupply whenever they went through Winston's territories, but had no way to prove it. Joseph figured they were swapping the weapons and armor in guise of repairs whenever they were at the capital armory. Charles was surprised at the idea and had left to meet with the king about it.
Apparently, word had not trickled down to Peter yet, as he sat smugly in his chair this morning.
”So, the road problem has been taken care of, the next thing to review is all of the doc.u.mentation regarding previous barbarian wars, especially long-lasting ones. The long wars obviously divert a lot of able-bodied men from the field work, leaving the young children and women to do all of the farming. Now, we all know that there are plenty of men who dodge conscription and become brigands, so the public order suffers as you then have to divert people from the war front to deal with the increase in bandits.” Joseph didn't pause long enough for anyone to jump in and stop him.
”According to these doc.u.ments here, there have been at least two times, in the history of your kingdom, where the losses during the war were so severe, the king allowed polygamy, though in my opinion, the man favored his second wife over his first, which is why he allowed the polygamy. No king has done it since because the kingdom was almost destroyed by the civil war that broke out. Fortunately, both the oldest princes died of mysterious causes and the single male heir was able to avoid a.s.sa.s.sination.”
Everyone in the room was looking very uncomfortable with his report, but again, he didn't give a single one of them a chance to speak up.
”So far, I have discovered an average decrease in crop yield of 10% every year the war continues. It generally goes: 90%, 81%, 73%, 66%, 59% and then stabilizes around 50% during non-war times, but depending on losses can take around 30 years to recover. Unfortunately, the amount of food actually required by the kingdom remains the same, unless the casualty rate of the men is very high, so ma.s.sive starvation occurs. The increase in banditry and lack of public order only makes the issue worse. This leads to secondary plagues as starving people get sick more easily and recover more slowly. A loss of a lot of men also delays recovery.”
He paused to take a drink, but strangely no one really wanted to speak up, so he continued.
”These reports here, back up what I have stated. The king didn't bother preventing me from reading them, because they are all over 30 years old.”
Timothy looked rather disturbed. ”What do you plan…
Daniel interrupted him, ”So, what can we do with so many men being pulled from the fields?”
”Well, I intend to conscript your mages from all across the kingdom. They will bless the fields, heal the peasants and work for free or cheap, summoning elementals for harvesting crops and building public buildings. Whatever we need.”
All of them broke out laughing.
”You can't be serious,” chortled Peter, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.