Back when I was a naïve little prince, I met the love of my life. Nadine and I met at a soiree held between our parents. I was a tall and lanky teenager in a well-fitted suit made by our family's tailors. She was like golden sunshine and cool breeze, slightly tan skin, lustrous black hair, bright inquisitive eyes. I felt totally out of my league but we managed to hit it off and spent the rest of the party in each others' company, awkwardly flirting. I never saw her again until the day of my exile, but I held a flame for her throughout the years.
Later, I would discover that our little party was much closer to open extortion than it was any kind of cooperative effort. My family runs a significant portion of all trade between western Europe and the south-eastern hemisphere; they have fingers in almost every pie possible across the African coast, the Americas, and small island nations like the one I am currently heading to. Only recently would I learn that my affection for Nadine was used to oust me as heir to the family fortune. Some of the specifics are unclear but a branch family had staged an effective coup to take over the company, and I was one of the victims. My parents were spared death, at least, but remained under house arrest in a forced retirement. I lost my provenance as Issac Friedmann, and was marrying into Nadine's family, I am now Issac Roche.
Looking at the report in my hands, I knew I was screwed. The Dragon Isle was very successful for a brief period when the titular dragon fruits were popular with the aristocratic and rich who paid unreal premiums for imports, but that fell apart like any other passing fad. Other than that, there is some small trade in spices, especially nutmeg and mace, but little else. Agriculture is the single most important industry on the island, and it was all devastated only a handful of years ago in a record-breaking hurricane. The citizens of my new country were living little better than subsistence. The Roche family had a little bit of cash stored away, but it wouldn't be enough to feed everyone if we had to import food. My heart panged a little thinking about the conditions Nadine was living in. My heart panicked for my self too, this was a fall from grace I never saw coming and I wasn't sure I could cope with it.
"What should I do, Sebastian?" I asked my butler. Sebastian sat beside me with sage tranquility. Sebastian had served my father before me and I had no doubt he would be the single most important asset for my new life, if only for his stable presence.
"I trust the young master." He said simply, "You'll have a better grasp on the situation when we arrive." He motioned to the report in my hands, our people had gathered this information for me but it was necessary to confirm things with my own eyes.
Any more conversation died in the anxious pit occupying my stomach. At least I had some human resources, almost one hundred staff from my family and the company accompanied me on this trip. I was in exile sure, but they couldn't leave me to rot or it could damage my mutinous cousins' reputation. Probably why they spared my parents too. I looked back to the report.
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The island has no mineral resources to speak of. Some of the other islands in the region had decently rich iron veins. Tin could be found, bauxite, small amounts of gold, any of these would have been a ticket out of poverty for the whole nation with enough hard work. Dragon Isle is a volcanic spit of land, a little more than one hundred and twenty square miles large. Unfortunately, most of this rock was available in nodules the size of a skull or in boulders the size of a carriage. Clean granite deposits could have worked, quarried stone would be expensive to ship, and there were any number of quarries on the mainland, but a mosquito is still meat. Such stone was difficult to use for building the kind of sturdy buildings that would survive fierce tropical storms. This was a paramount issue and I hoped to power through it if possible. I was going to be stuck on this island for years to come, I suspected, and I would not risk the massive loss such a storm presented if I could help it.
Secondly, there was little in the way of timber. Exotic hardwoods that thrived on the island were largely destroyed, and wouldn't grow back quickly. I had no idea what my new citizens were using to build houses after the destruction, that kind of information wasn't available in any of our records. We could grow more wood eventually but I still preferred the safety of stone. Cut timber could be a profitable business within a decade, but it could still fluctuate with the fads of the aristocracy. I made a note to investigate the historical prices of mahogany, teak, ebony, and rosewood, as those were the most stably demanded products.
Third, all major animal life on the island had been hunted to extinction. The fur and leather trade was extremely profitable, the Friedmann corporation made obscene amounts of wealth from furs alone. No such luck here. There were, I supposed, exotic birds. If I could get lucky enough to have an exotic bird pet fad rush through Europe, I was in the clear. The other issue with no significant hunting was food. The only readily available meat was fish, maybe chicken if there were still any on the island. There should be fruit available even within the two years since the hurricane, but there wouldn't be any plantations. Vegetables were a total wash, we had no idea what vegetables would be available.
There was a path out of this situation, I was sure. I would need to push hard to restore the country into working order, and get enough food for everyone to survive. Agriculture was the ticket here. Volcanic soil meant nearly anything that could stand the heat would grow explosively, but it needed order. Food was a priority yes, but so were the spice plantations that could fuel other projects in several years. All projects will inevitably require huge amounts of back-breaking labor. Specific details need ironing-out. This was going to be a long-haul race, and I wasn't sure I was up to the task.
Some small portion of the knot in my stomach wondered if Nadine would even be happy to see me.