"Has everyone understood that? Anyone need another explanation?" Corco asked, as if to imply that anyone with a question was an idiot.
"Please spare us, master. We have all understood," a tired Fadelio whined. "You plan to use cultivation as an incentive to prevent an accumulation of private power through the use of an inheritance tax."
Maybe, Corco thought, his explanation had been a bit too thorough after all? No, that was impossible. How else would Fadelio have been able to summarize his plan so succinctly? Not to mention, his officials would be able to endure a slightly longer presentation from their king, right? Those were so much fun after all.
After their return to Saniya, the king and queen had been briefed on the current state of affairs, as well as all new developments during their absence. Only days later, Corco had to face this year's year-end review. By this time, the King of the South was already in full control of his lands again.
With great pride, he looked across the old-familiar table, into the eyes of his collected privy council. Unlike last year, when their meeting had happened too late and only in an improvised manner, the participants were now well-established. Since the country's intelligence service was meant to stay out of politics, there was no longer a representative of the ghost warriors present this time. Instead, every ministry had sent a representative, as had either branch of the military.
There was Fadelio of course, the prime minister in charge of coordinating all the ministries and drafting the kingdom's new laws. Lord Makipura had been rewarded for his continued loyalty by handing him the Ministry of Agriculture. Lord Huaman had been similarly rewarded with the Ministry of Infrastructure. After he had taken charge of the army's logistics throughout the war, the old lord of Vallunaraju had become quite familiar with the country's infrastructure system, so he was perfectly capable of taking over this job.
Though of course, that also meant that Lord Huaman was forced to travel around the country these days, to complete the construction of roads and beacon towers in the new territories. Thus, he had been forced to send one of his assistants to this meeting, just as the Ministry of Finance had done. After all, Brym was still busy selling his bonds to the lords of eastern Medala.
Apart from these two absentees, everyone else was present: Doctor Itzali in charge of the Ministry of Health, and Asiro the former blacksmith in charge of the Ministry of Industry. Even Scolo and Atau had come as the heads of the army and navy respectively, even though one of them was still busy reforming the army, and the other was still fighting a war in the western waters.
By now, Corco himself only still held three of his ministries directly: The Ministry of Education was of course still the responsibility of the man who had personally taught most of the kingdom's officials, and the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs had so far been too important to leave in the hands of any one person.
Recently, Corco had planned to leave foreign affairs to Tama, who was smart, a good talker, and had an appropriate status to represent the kingdom in his stead. However, after their meeting earlier in the day, the king had developed serious doubts about her suitability. She just seemed too stubborn — and far too cold-hearted — for the post. Thus, he would have to continue holding the position himself for now.
"King Corco?"
Fadelio's question made Corco realize that he had been staring into nothingness again, while his ministers had patiently waited for him to continue. He took a deep breath to steady his mood. Rather than worry about the future, he would focus on the immediate issues of the kingdom at hand. Thus, he pushed his concerns about Tama to the back of his mind, and got back on track.
"Right," his hands patted on his armrests, in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. "Since everyone's understood the plans, are there any reservations? Is there any critique? Any jokes, maybe?" he asked again, and leaned back in his chair to stare down the members of his council.
Of course, his question — as well as the pause which followed — were no more than formalities. No one in this room would criticize the king's plans, at least not this very moment.
Even if they had fully understood the somewhat novel and complex idea Corco had for restructuring their tax code, there hadn't been any time to digest the details or implications. No one would openly contradict the miracle king based on any half-baked concerns, not without some time to mull them over for a while. Thus, the king could quickly move on to the next topic, just as he had planned.
"All right then," Corco concluded after a short pause. "In that case, the inheritance tax plan will be entered into review."
At this point, not even the powerful king of the south could just decide on a policy and have it enter into effect immediately. Such an approach ran completely counter to Corco's perfectionist — and idealist — nature, so he had formalized the legislative process over the past years.
Just like any other piece of legislation coming out of Rapra Castle, the inheritance tax plan would also be sent to the new Review and Statistics Department, which would come up with theoretical models and then make small-scale tests in parts of the kingdom to test the viability of the new legislation. Only when such tests showed no problems would the new plan be written into law. Of course, the department would also fill out many details on the law's implementation and consider edge cases which had otherwise been overlooked.
While their work was in progress, the department had the power to delay the law's promulgation until all of their questions were answered. Though of course, the king had the power to supersede such delays, in case the department was deliberately making trouble.
"Very well, master," Fadelio simply replied, and took the basic draft Corco had been working on during their return journey.
Over the past year, the prime minister had been busy dealing with the establishment of the Review and Statistics department, on top of his regular duties. Even after its establishment, the work inside the department had taken up most of his time these days. Still, it was important for Corco to formalize their legislature before he made any crucial mistakes out of arrogance, so he could only let his attendant suffer from overwork, even more than before. At least the king would join him in his suffering.
"I know it was a bit sudden to shove this idea in before the start of the review meeting, but I just wanted to get this out of the way, before I forget about it again. It's been spooking around my brain all vacation," Corco explained, before he added in his head: And of course I also wanted to reestablish some kind of initiative.
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After all, the King of the South — Saniya's supreme leader — had left his seat of power unoccupied for several months. Who knew how many in this room had forgotten about the king's authority during this time? How many of them had begun to brew unrealistic thoughts? Now however, the king had reappeared and immediately decided on a massive new law on a whim, as if it was nothing. Yet none of the ministers dared say anything in response to such a sudden order out of nowhere. After such a move, they would all remember the power relationships in the kingdom.
Of course Corco wanted to trust them all, but after the events of the last war, such trust was harder and harder to come by. Not to mention, the only true way to guarantee loyalty was to give no one an excuse for treason.
Since the respective positions of everyone in the room were now reestablished, the king sat up in his seat to show his majesty. Once more, he looked over the collected top officials of the kingdom, as a regal silence filled the room. Finally, Corco spoke up again, to break the tension as if it had never existed.
"So, since my thing's over with, let's start the year end review proper. Which department will go first?" he asked flippantly.
Unsurprisingly, none of the officials mirrored his levity. Instead, they all looked first at each other, and then at prime minister Fadelio, who doubled as the king's attendant and usually was the one to give structure to these meetings.
"I believe it would be reasonable to start with a recount and update of last year's unresolved issues," he said, which immediately reminded Corco of last year's meeting.
"Oh yeah, so how is our takeover of the new territories going?"
Although he asked in the same, casual tone as before, he was actually quite eager for answers. After all, the sooner they managed to take over those new territories, the faster they could stabilize their leading position in the country. Only once they had full control of the southern kingdom could they begin to deal with the two northern kingdoms as well.
So far, only about four of the roughly twenty million people of Medala were living in the southern kingdom, which meant that 80% of Medala's population was still living under the inauspicious rule of his brothers. He wasn't willing to let them suffer forever. Thus, cleaning up the new territories quickly was of vital importance to pacify their home front and increase their national power. Luckily, Fadelio's next words brought almost immediate relief to the king's worried mind.
"Over the course of the year, the takeover progressed more quickly than our estimates assumed," he said, and checked his notes as he spoke, as usual. "There are two major factors which caused such a change: First, and most simply, we did not properly factor the passing of time into our calculations. Without their lords around, those local warriors can only keep up their resistance for so long. Eventually, some ran out of money, and some ran out of warriors willing to sacrifice themselves as fake bandits to slow us down. Others eventually just lost hope without their lord's support. Ultimately, all of them came to some arrangement with our newly sent officials to secure their futures."
Fadelio paused for a moment and looked around the room, before he continued.
"In addition, it was only a matter of time until our officials became familiar with the new environment, which allowed them to gain control of the new territories. Lying to our officials about the size and distribution of local villages worked well in the first year, but since then, our officials traveled around the various territories to familiarize themselves with the local estates by themselves. We have also sent additional people to draw accurate maps of the areas. As a result, lying has become a lot less effective, since our people can simply cross-reference their own materials. The locals can't claim to have a bad harvest when our officials can see the wheat harvest for themselves and make their own estimates. Though of course, apart from the matter of time, the final reason for the increased speed of our assimilation are the policies we enacted last year, which have shown an effect in stabilizing these regions. The bicycles in particular were a great help."
"Yeah, I checked out their training progress. It's pretty good," Corco interjected, while trying to suppress a grin at the thought of their training methods.
"Since we equipped our messengers with the first batch of bicycles, our information exchanges with the new territories have sped up dramatically, which has allowed us to react more quickly to the fake bandit teams. Through our swift response, we even managed to catch two of them off guard before they could disappear into the mountains," Fadelio continued in the same matter-of-factly tone as before, seemingly unwilling to engage in Corco's fun, or unaware of the attempt. "Uncovering their true identities allowed us to act against two of the estates directly. Since we now have solid proof of the conspiracies played by the local warrior groups, we managed to clean up many high-ranking warriors in those places. In response, local officials in other estates have become more cautious in opposing us. Furthermore, a decent number of soldiers is already capable of using the new tools. Within this year, we will have enough men trained on bicycle usage to send out organized response teams together with the messengers. At that point, we expect all remaining bandit resistance to our rule to die down almost immediately. Within this year, we should be able to properly pacify the new territories. By then, we can begin with the real work: Finishing the infrastructure projects like roads and beacon towers to connect the new regions to Saniya, building schools to start the education reforms in those regions, resettling all displaced people, and beginning the long work of registering all citizens within the new and enlarged territory. Here is a corresponding report on the plans of the Ministry of Infrastructure."
Again, Corco received one of those now familiar files, and with it, even more work. While the king was still lamenting the dreaded return of his daily administrative tasks, Fadelio had already moved on to the next issue.
"Though even after we have pacified these regions, the work of reorganizing the new territories might be delayed by several years," the minister continued. "This is mostly due to our chronic lack of bureaucrats. However, more and more new students graduate from our schools every year, ready to fill our offices and support us in our efforts. Within three years at the latest, we can expect to fully integrate the new territories into the kingdom's central structure and start benefiting from them, both in terms of taxes as well as in military recruitment."
Although Fadelio tried his best to tamper expectations towards the end of his speech, Corco still couldn't help grin from ear to ear.
"Isn't that great?" he asked with a laugh. "I'm only gone for a few weeks and you guys have already solved one of our biggest issues. Maybe I should go on vacation more often."
"Please don't," a distraught Fadelio replied in a dreary voice, something Corco absolutely couldn't understand. Wasn't this a time to celebrate? Once they had control over their new territories, they could finally begin their plans to take over the north. The prospect alone should have excited even his always stern friend, right?
Maybe Fadelio was just overwhelmed by all the work and thus couldn't focus on their bright future, Corco thought. Rather, hadn't this prime minister asked about dating tips from him before he had left on his vacation? Whatever happened with that story? A curious king stared at his friend, but Fadelio's stony face didn't reveal any secrets, as always.
Although Corco had just remembered some juicy gossip, he would have to suppress his curiosity for now. They were still in a meeting, and he had already wasted too much of everyone's time. Not to mention, his boring, cagey friend would certainly not talk about his dating life during the meeting. Still, Corco gleefully made a mental note to prod his attendant for all the details later.
"Well, it certainly sounds like we don't need to invest any more thought into the new territories, right?" the king concluded instead.
"That is correct," Fadelio confirmed. This time, even he sounded proud of their achievements. "Unless there is a new development, there is no need to worry about the takeover of the new territories any longer. The course has been set. Our officials simply have to follow it to the end."