Being a King is something else, I can tell.

One phone call, one whispered order, or a promulgating a law, anything you do has consequences.

Of course, given the ruling party, and the ongoing Depression my actions were mostly aimed at improving peasant condition and agriculture.

Tractor building companies, truck building companies, insecticide via planes and expanding the fishing fleet, and a few ports.

And since any economy functions in a chain, trucks and tractors need oil, which had to be drilled and refined from the Ploiesti oil-fields.

Crops needed rail transport, which meant trains. Trains needed coal, which was mostly mined at Targu Jiu, but mining coal needed tools and so on.

It would take a full 4 years-plan to get everything working right on the civilian economy side, not that my country had anything going military wise. We were the so-called winners of the Great War, albeit by Woodrow Wilson's intervention, not by any heroic feat. In fact, Romania got pretty much squeezed into a small pocket by German, Austrian and Bulgarian armies once the Russians walked away from the war and into communism.

On the other hand, the newest Iron Legion actions in Transilvania meant that more and more empty farms and jobs were being opened for destitute Romanians from other regions, mostly from Moldova.

Sure, it would have been more civilized to export the Hungarians to Hungary and import whatever Romanians they had, but that option was not available, not historically nor in my game menu.

As for the Jewish problem, my official probing were rebuffed curtly, ironically and sardonically by the British, who seemed quite pleased to let millions of Jews get gassed in concentration camps. Already millions of Jews were starving to death in Ukraine and other parts of USSR, which lead me to create a Famine Society to try and help, mostly by extracting pretty Ukrainian women and some specialists in steel forging, engineering and such.

And if that meant that excess crops from the Romanian farms was sent to hungry Ukrainians, instead of being dumped in a ditch to raise prices, what can I do? Must have been luck.

Of course, the Soviet regime denied any famine was taking place, but they did grab the grain transports and allowed starving immigrants to embark from Odessa and Sevastopol, so nobody was fooled.

Then it hit me. I wasn't speaking with the right people. The big Jewish bankers and industrialists in Britain cared nothing about their poor co-nationals starving and risking Holocaust in Europe. They were the exact opposite of the people I needed to speak with. They were the kind of people to sell Adolf the Zyclon gas at a discount, just to grab more profits.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

By the next month, a dozen big name Rabbis joined me in a secret conference to plan the establishment of Israel in Palestine, conveniently called the Zion Elders Protocol.

I generously asked for only a 30% fee of any asset transiting via Romanian ships, which raised eyebrows and blessings from the Elders, who probably expected full forfeiture of such.

"Make sure you fortify the Golan Heights and the Jordan River bank. Just a guess, but your new Arab neighbors might want to genocide you a few times. Don't come complaining when you're crucified, right?" I asked in a pleasant voice.

"King Carol, your generosity is already abundant, but perhaps some weapons to ensure the safety of our jewish nationals in this new Israel?" an old and shred rabbi asked while tugging his long beard.

"You realize Romania has basically no weapon industry? We still use Great War guns, or shovels. Mostly shovels." I said with a sad voice. Don't dismiss the shovel though, Romania won 3 great victories in WW1 using mostly shovels, Krieg style. Also Krieg style loses, so it wasn't great.

The man nodded and glanced at his Elders. "...But, if some blueprints and funds were made available, factories could be built and weapons produced, right? Perhaps you have heard of the American Thompson Gun? Or the M2 Browning machine gun?"

I sighed a bit disappointed. "Those are patented, and by Western companies. On the other hand, Soviet patents are not recognized, so..." I allowed with a grin.

"Mazel Tov!" The Rabbi saluted me with the same grin.

As expected, the Zion Elders did have access to a large network of informers, as well as hidden funds. The Carol Arms Company was funded and supplied with detailed schematics of Soviet pistols, rifles and machine-guns, even a 23mm twin-autocannon possibly intended for aircraft. It would work great (for tanks Pz 2-like, armored transports, static defense and even ship AAA, once I had ships, or even airplanes, if I ever had any)

With a generous export client already obtained, plus compulsory buy orders for the Romanian military, my arms company expanded in one year like others in decades, much to the chagrin of Soviet leaders. By 1931, CAC had 12000 workers in 4 factories.

Already knowing the future, I also set up a weapons manufacturing plant in Helsinki, Finland. If the Soviet spies stole the plans for the weapons, they would find them useless, since they already had these weapons in the Soviet inventory.

The Ukrainian Holdomor continued, at a slightly slower pace, but the famine was systemic not accidental. Kill or deport enough peasants and there would be nobody left to cultivate the land. I wasn't sure if the Soviets even knew what they were doing, since they seem mostly busy killing each other by the millions. They did have like 200 millions to kill, so it would take time.

As a bonus, the Soviet Jews were sometimes willing to sacrifice one of their own and inculpate dozens of Communist officials (mostly corrupt ones, but sometimes effective Commissars, officers and such), leading to more deaths and carnage among paranoiac communists.

And lastly, after a fake promise to consider an alliance, France did agree to sell me a few ships, including a submarine and a light cruiser.

Nothing that would stop a Soviet Navy bent on shore bombardment, but now we had ships to analyze and begin our own production. I wanted 40 subs by 1940, so it would take a lot of work, but it could be done. I even had a game menu telling me it would work.

If only my dick would stop hitting my chin every time I tried to write a letter.