“Are you sure?” I asked. I was still concerned about claiming the entire island. The Empire would ignore me breaking away if I only claimed my Barony, but Clement and Alpha had convinced me that it was safer to claim everything but Four Element Sect.
Their reasoning was sound enough. If I claimed the entire island, the Empire would need to attack across an ocean. If I left other territories in play, territories that owed fealty to the Empire, those areas could serve as staging areas to attack. I would have to visit each territory that had been claimed, and either I accept a Cultivator’s [Oath] the person ruling that Fief would join my Kingdom or depose them.
We had just finished the last of a series of meetings that would shape how the Kingdom I was about to create would take. This final meeting had to do with currency and taxes. I had decided to implement a coinage system based on copper, silver, and gold. Cores and Spirit Stones could and would still be used, but using coinage made more sense for everyday items. Plus, it would help keep cores from devaluing as more and more entered the market from Lodoicea plants.
A drink at the local bar should not cost a low-quality core anyway.
Most of the Empire relied on barter to function. Cores were not exactly rare, but trickle-down economics didn’t seem to work, and only a few cores found their way into the hands of the poor and impoverished. Trade of goods and services allowed those without access to cores to survive. This method worked, but unfortunately, it also allowed people to fall into so much debt that they might find themselves forced into serfdom.
I planned on restructuring the economy. Serfdom would still exist, but working your way free would be much easier. We had just finalized the exchange rate between coinage and cores with this meeting. Ten copper per silver, Ten silver per gold, and ten gold per core.
Ten low-level beast cores were equal to one mid-level, and ten mid-level was equivalent to one high-level beast core. The base ten remained the same, and each new coinage was based on that. The only deviation from this base-ten method happened when exchanging cores for spirit stones. Ten high-level beast cores were comparable to only one low-level spirit stone, but the exchange rate was much higher from that point on. One hundred of each tier in exchange for one of the next higher.
“Unless you have new concerns that need to be addressed, then yes, I am sure. Alpha is sure. The Hindel agrees that by claiming the entire island, you increase your chances of protecting everyone. Even if there are a few Barons that you might have to duel and kill,” Clement replied. “It is better to fight and kill one or two people in a personal duel than risk losing citizens you would have to conscript to form an army.”
“Now, concerning today’s topic. I think we have identified and solved any major issue we might encounter,” Clement continued, changing the subject. “There are going to be problems. Educating the populace will take some time, but we have the framework for a starting point- a foundation to build on.
“The real pushback is going to come from merchants and traders. They will see the changes as a direct attack on their profits. When you factor in the laws that you plan to enact that will deal with price gouging and price setting, things are going to crop up we haven’t planned for.”
“How is the production for the new coins coming? And do we have the people hired to staff the booths and banks we will use to convert goods into cash?” Ploy asked.
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Ploy was a recent find. A young woman Clement had recruited from the Sect when I’d informed him of my plans. She was as much a bureaucrat as she was a Cultivator and was well-versed in Empire law. Her knowledge of tax practices had been vital in resolving the issues we knew we would encounter with transitioning to a new monetary system.
“Xui and Ming have managed to create a forging and array system that allows for ore to be added, metal ingots to be extracted, and those ingots converted to coins,” I replied.
Xui was a journeyman-level Blacksmith that I had found in my first recruitment drive. He was a driven young Elf and kept mostly to himself. When I approached him asking for his help in creating a factory that would allow ore to be converted into ingots, and ingots converted into coins quickly and easily, he jumped at the chance.
He had needed Ming’s help with the arrays. Still, it was his idea, his blueprints, and his methodology that had produced a factory that processed the ore, separating and extruding metal by type and then sending copper, silver, and gold to three different processing plants.
He had implemented a conveyor system and stamping process to create the coins themselves. Using Qi forge presses to flatten the metal into the required thinness to be stamped.
His process worked better than I’d hoped and had an unexpected byproduct. The mountains from which we were mining the jade were also rich in other metals. Copper, Iron, Silver, and Gold were abundant, while Mithral and Adamantine were only found in trace amounts. Those amounts added up with the tons of ore we were processing.
Lin Li’s idea of adding crushed cores to food was implemented into the creation of each coin. By mixing crushed cores into the final product, we were able to create a Qi resonance that was attuned to mine. This would allow coins to be tested and forgeries to be discovered early enough that someone flooding the market with coinage with a lower purity than mine could be discovered and detained.
“Xui is ramping up production,” I continued, “the latest production records he presented showed we were approaching a hundred million copper coins, thirty million silver, and ten million gold.
“How much do you estimate we need when this monetary system goes live?” I asked Zui.
“It is hard to say,” Zui admitted. “There are seven other territories that have been claimed, including the territory you hold in vassalage. The other six Barons have concentrated their attention on a primary city. They’ve barely surveyed their land, and those surveys have been more focused on resources than people, towns, and villages.
“You might have had to spend a great deal of time locating and identifying those communities, but the Kingdom stone will help and do some of the work for you. It will provide you with a census and the location of every community above a certain number.
“Fifty people are the smallest group it will track if my research proves out. The amount of coinage you have stored is a good start, but depending on what the census numbers return once you place the Kingdom stone, it might be just that. A start.
“You should proceed on the assumption that it is going to take up to five or ten years to introduce, convert, and change over to this new monetary system.”
“What have we found about the six Cultivators that have claimed territories?” I asked.
“They are each talented,” Clement informed me, “Four Element Sect only recruited the best and the brightest, as you know. The six Barons are still Qi Gathering Realm Cultivators.
“All of them claimed the territory they rule as a first-time Baron. There has been little interest by Cultivators willing to swap their established Fiefs for new lands.”
“That should work to your advantage,” Zui offered. “These Barons haven’t had any real contact with the politics of the Empire. They are isolated enough that any attempt to bootstrap their territories on the back of those well-connected is sure to fail.
“They aren’t powerful enough, important enough, or located strategically enough to make a difference.”
“I agree,” Clement said. “I believe they might offer some opposition at first, but the establishing of the Kingdom will be a fait accompli. There will be nothing they can really do, and they will quickly learn that a peerage in a local country has many more benefits than a barely acknowledged territory to the Empire.”