As the next day started, I didn’t really do a lot other than checking with the projects that were going on.

CG1 and 2 were building the houses as usual, and CG3 was making a proper resting place for the lumberjacks, which had grown in number recently as preparing for future was just the right thing to do.

Other than that, I’d ordered 4 of the 12 smelters to start working on the plate and chainmail armours a few days ago and they were doing good progress, tough they wouldn’t be done for some time.

So, the only thing left for me to do was... well, just train with the guards, and wait until my projects were done, so I could start even more projects and then wait for them to be completed.

It really wasn’t exciting, but I had gotten used to the monotony of life as a ruler, so it wasn’t that bad after all.

Though, day 758 was kinda exciting as it was the day I finally reached population 200!

Not counting the babies and myself of course.

If we counted the babies my empire’s population was 215, and counting myself too, 216.

And 2 days after I reached 200 population, CG3 completed the lumberjack’s hut.

And now I had a few choices on what to assign them to next. I could send them to construct more houses, expand the flood barriers, or I could tell them to go and reinforce both the copper and iron mines.

I, of course, assigned them to reinforce the mines as the lives of the miners were more valuable than more houses. Not that the mines were not reinforced at all, they were, but sending proper construction workers to go over the reinforcements and add more of them as necessary would just be a better thing to do.

After they were done with the mines, I’d probably send them to one of the nearby hills and make them start on the construction of a quarry as, while wood was good for making houses, stone houses would be better.

Though I can’t say for sure how long reinforcing the mines will take, it will at least take a few weeks for each of them as they are a few hours deep in the forest, so even if the reinforcements needed to be made are small, they will still take long.

So maybe a month, or a month and a half for both mines, and another month for the quarry itself, and the huts near it which would be used by the miners to rest and eat.

And I need to get another group of miners to start using the quarry too... eh, I’ll deal with it when it comes to it.

For now, I am just going to summon more and more farmers whenever I have the time as I want enough farmlands for 300 people by the end of the year. And to work those lands, I need 60 farmers, and I have 50, so after 10 more, I should be set for the year and can put all the new people into the other jobs.

I also need to start the economy sometime soon... I should probably order the smelters to start smelting copper coins, right?

Afterall, the earlier I have the economy going, the easier its going to be!

Easier to manage the empire, and easier to transition into a mercantile economy that is, as the current command economy we have is too hard on me! And I cannot even fathom how I would manage 400 or 500 people like I am currently doing with 200.

But first... I have to wait for more houses to be completed and the smelters to be freed as minting coin right now would be hard with all 12 of the smelters being occupied with more importing things, like making and repairing tools, and progressing quests.

Then I just waited for things to progress as I waited, and on day 813 I was able to summon the last 2 farmers to hit a total of 60 farmers, meaning I could feed 300 people a year without a problem!

And I already have enough to feed 200-300 people in the granary, so it should be fine even if we have a year with bad harvest, or two!

And now that I have 60 farmers, I can redirect all the new people to other jobs!

Though I’ll need to send the first 8 people to the mines, as the quarry construction has already started, and the smelters are not getting enough ore from the miners.

The ore deficit isn’t much, a unit or 2 at max a day, and thanks to the small stockpile of iron, and large stockpile of copper we have, the deficit is not that noticeable.

But I’d still rather have a surplus of ore rather than a deficit, so to the mines go more people!

Though, I am talking about only 2 people going to the copper and iron mines as I need the other 6 people to start operating the quarry, as I want to start getting a steady supply of stone too!

And after a few weeks, both the copper and iron mines were fully staffed and I waited till day 840 for the quarry to be done to summon the other 2 miners to start staffing it.

And I also send the guards to defend them as I feared that there being only 2 people there might give some of the animals some ideas.

And about how much the quarry workers can mine in a day... if the information from masonry I got is right, a quarry worker should be able to mine a cubic meter of stone a day, or around 1.6 tonnes of stone.

And there’s already a small workshop in the quarry site where masons can shape the rocks into chunks to be used in buildings, but we will also be doing a bit of masonry on construction sites after we start using stone in our buildings as the stones that were shaped on the quarry grounds may not always be the exact size or shape we need.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Though right now they will only be mining stones, and I will be sending the masons later!

Now, what to order CG3 to do... I think just assigning them to home construction like the other 2 construction groups is the way to go as I don’t have anything for them to do... other than expanding the flood barriers that is but I want to get a few more guards before I do that, as I want every outpost to have some form of protection right now... and I need to send people to defend the iron and copper miners too, not that their areas have an abundance of wild animals, but one or two may always go out of their way to cause some problems... but that’s for later.

For now, CG3 was going to join the others in making houses, though they were going to take a few weeks longer to do the same job as they only had 22 workers, with 10 of them being temporary workers and only 12 being permanent construction workers.

Then I let the people continue working and summoned more people and give them work as they were needed.

Though I was still very much aware that the command economy we had going on here was... not the greatest. But I couldn’t even start minting coins as the smelters were occupied with—

Quest Shining Armours completed! Rewards, 20 Exp + 2 Research Points

have been granted in the Empire System!

“...I really need to tell these guys to not cut me off mid thought by completing quests....” I muttered, remembering the first time this happened a few months ago with them completing the plate armour I had given to Jonathanne.

Though I didn’t bother going to them and checking out the armour they made this time as there was already a dedicated armoury hut they’d be putting the last of the chainmail armours in.

So, ignoring all that, I simply opened my system and clicked on my research tab and once again re-read one of the researches I had my eyes on.

Basic Economics – An information packet about basic economics and includes how to set up a currency system. – Costs 2 Research Point

“...Is it worth it?” I muttered to myself, and started thinking what an economy exactly was, and if I was confident that I could set one up without researching whatever this was.

An economy was, according to my uneducated self, just an exchange of resources in exchange for something that was accepted as valuable.

Like dollars, liras, or metallic coins. Hell! Even tulips were once really valuable! So, a currency can be basically anything!

But they need to have a perceived value, even if that value is false like in the case of tulips, or like... all types of cash really.

I mean... what can you use a metallic coin or a paper bill for if you are an office worker? Nothing! But thanks to its perceived value, you can go to a store and buy anything you want with that useless bill!

And the first ever economies didn’t even have coins or tulips or paper bills with no value. The first economies were based on bartering of goods and services.

Aka food, housing, tools, etc.

But... we just don’t have any of that here. I like to say I own everything, and this is a command economy where I control everything but, it is not. It is just a communal pooling of resources, where I simply manage the resources, and who collects it and when. I don’t actually have any control over it... well, I kind of do, thanks to the 3 guards I have, but I most definitely could not force people to hand everything over to me even if I wanted to.

If you are hungry, you go to the cooks and ask for something to eat as they are the only ones allowed in the granary other than the farmers who put the food there, and the hunters.

If you want a tool, you go to the smelters and they give you a newly made tool, or one from back of the shed.

And if you want a weapon, you just ask me, or one of the smelters again, and we take one out of the armoury and give it to you if necessary.

And without a bartering system as a base, I can’t really set up an economy with actual coins and bills.

But... how do you even start a bartering system? And what’s there to barter with? Everyone is doing their part already so would people even be okay with the idea of starting to pay for things they were getting for free just a few hours ago?

“...Okay, maybe I do need that research...” I muttered and clicked on the research after a few more moments of thinking about it.

Then as the knowledge of how to set up an economy and a tax system and such flowed into my mind, I realised that the main reason currency even existed was because people needed a reliable, easily transportable, and sharable method of paying for goods.

And, as the bartered goods were usually perishable food or tools, people started using coins as they simply were more durable than the other methods they had at hand.

I mean, if you were a farmer or a hunter, you had to quickly get rid of the excess food you had at hand, and barter it for repairs to your tools, or help in building yourself a better house.

And if you were not fast enough, and your food rotted before you were able to barter it... shit luck really.

But with coins, you don’t have to worry about them rotting when you are not using them, so you can just hoard them for a few years, and spent them on the things you need without much of a problem.

“...I can see a way this works... though for me to be able to create an economy based on coins I’ll have to be at the centre of everything...” I muttered as an economy system materialized in my mind.

It wasn’t anything revolutionary as I literally just thought that introducing coins out of nowhere might actually not be that bad of an idea.

I’d be introducing them as coins to cash in whenever you were getting food from the cooks, or tools from the smiths, and I’d be paying everyone for a few months.

But after that, I’d start introducing a few government officials, who’d be paying the smelters, the guards, the construction workers, and the miners, and managing their supplies from the budget I allocated to them.

So, the only way a farmer could get more money to buy more food from the cooks, which would become independent, was to sell their farmed goods to the officials at the granary.

I’d be basically paying everyone, and everyone’s money would eventually make its way to me once again, but I’d only be nationalising a few industries, and letting most people go free, so some trade between individuals would start, and, hopefully, people would start opening their own shops and businesses to make more money.

I’d be, of course, helping out anyone who didn’t have enough money, but even that wouldn’t be done directly by me as I didn’t want people to think that they could just come up to me and ask for more money.

I’d be opening banks in the future, or letting them open by themselves, so people could get in debt, if necessary, but hopefully I won’t need to start government programs to help people in need only a year after I introduce coinage.

And, yes, there is definitely space for corruption as I will be giving a lot of money to a few officials, but if they ever go corrupt for some reason, and don’t expect me to put them in lifetime prison, they are surely mistaken.

Though I’ll also have to start writing laws, and making a court system as, if any crimes or corruption is committed outside of the walls of... the capitol, whose name I will not be saying out loud for reasons you all know, I will not be able to oversee them personally and punish the criminals.

“...For some reason I feel like I am purposefully creating space for crime and corruption, even though this, literally, is the only way for my empire and civilization to progress further....”