I was intrigued by Ambassador Wilhelm's words about King Werner dying to meet me. My suspicion was that he believed that because I had only recently ascended to throne that he could take advantage of my naïveté. I had no intention of allowing him to do so and planned to be as well equipped for my audience with him as possible. I had Boris come to the palace for a long discussion about the length to which Dranii's tentacles extended into the kingdoms and what tactics I could expect him to deploy in his attempt to broker an alliance between our two kingdoms.

"Dranii's primary means of exerting influence is through the debt obligations of other kingdoms. You see, Dranii was able to amass a large store of reserves by focusing on exporting their natural resources rather than using them themselves and they've been using those reserves to issue loans to desperate kingdoms at exorbitant rates of interest. These kingdoms of course cannot afford to repay these loans and so in lieu of repayment Dranii gets them to sign over their most valuable assets like mineral rights and farmland, which generates revenue for Dranii that they can then loan out to other kingdoms and further the reach of their influence."

"Well, we are not indebted to them, so they won't be able to use that as leverage against us."

"No, you got them to erase our debt in exchange for you decimating the Volstaff army, a transaction that proved extremely lucrative for Dranii as they got an entire kingdom out of it."

"I had no choice, if I hadn't gotten that debt burden cleared it would've made it impossible for us to make any progress on anything."

"That's exactly my point, the debt that we owed them was miniscule compared with what they were able to obtain, that's how they gain wealth and strength."

"That's a very underhanded way of going about things."

"The term that it's come to be known as is Debt Trap Diplomacy, and however underhanded it may be there's no denying its effectiveness."

"So since we don't owe them any money how do you think King Werner will try to get me to align myself with him?"

"The simplest option available to him would be a political marriage between you and one of his sons, something that I suspect you would never agree to."

"Never."

"Well then, his next best option would be to use the other kingdoms' suspicions of us to put forward the idea that an alliance with Dranii would ensure our security."

"That would make it next to impossible for us to have positive relations with the other kingdoms in the future."

"Making us increasingly dependent on Dranii, which is their ultimate goal."

"Do you think that this has been their goal from when they first started negotiating with us?"

"Most likely, it's how they're known to operate."

"You're saying that it's not possible for me to broker any kind of agreement with Dranii that isn't going to be viewed with suspicion by the other kingdoms?"

"That's correct."

"Then that means that our only option is to work with the other kingdoms to put together some sort of deterrent against any future aggression by Dranii."

"That won't be easy, all of the efforts that have been made in the past to get the kingdoms to co-operate for the common good ended in failure; they are simply not willing to make the sacrifices that are needed to create a large multi-party alliance."

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"Will you explore the possibility of creating one anyway?"

"If that is your wish, it shall be done."

"And have Alfred look into what each kingdom's situation is regarding their entanglements with Dranii, if this is going to work it's going to require the severing of those entanglements."

Our realm consisted of nine kingdoms. Erst, Theran and Dranii were our immediate neighbors and were thus my primary concerns. Beyond them there was Volstaff, Kandalar, Gronden, Grunheim, Menten, and Undria. Volstaff had fallen to Dranii, and Kandalar, after suffering heavy losses in their campaign to capture Grunheim, had borrowed so much from Dranii that they had effectively become their vassal state. Forming the alliance that I had in mind would have to be done with the aid of Erst, Theran, Gronden, Menten and Undria. For the alliance to work, Theran's participation, as the wealthiest of the five kingdoms, was absolutely essential; without them, there was no point in continuing. To increase the chances of Theran agreeing to join this coalition we would not approach them until a detailed proposal had been developed that we could present to them. The main component of that proposal had to be debt relief. Clearing the debt burden that the kingdoms had taken on would have the impact of immediately eliminating Dranii's hold on them, but this was going to require enormous capital, which the kingdoms that had the wherewithal to contribute to were going to balk at, even if our proposal included ironclad provisions by which the debtor nations would have to abide in exchange for debt relief.

"Don't be so naive as to think that this all comes down to simple economics," Ferland said to me when I asked for his input on my idea, "some of these kingdoms have deep ties that go well beyond their transactions with one another. The current political dynamics of the realm were to a large extent established seven hundred years ago when the entire realm went to war. The realm was tearing itself apart with all of the kingdoms suffering heavy losses. In the midst of all of that chaos, the queen of Theran and the king of Dranii agreed to form an alliance and use their combined power to end the war. As a result, the treaty that was signed to bring the war to an official end contained numerous provisions that favored Dranii and Theran."

"You're not telling me anything I don't know, I read all about The Great War in my father's books."

"Then you know that Theran's monopoly on food exports is something that they negotiated as part of that treaty, and that ever since Dranii has worked to maintain that monopoly for them by accepting farmland in lieu of debt repayments and allowing it to go fallow, increasing those kingdoms' dependence on Theran for their food supply."

"Is that true?"

"Yes, and it doesn't end there. Theran's monopoly on food exports is lucrative for Erst, whose maritime industry is largely dependent on Theran contracting with them exclusively to ship their grain to the coastal kingdoms, and for Undria, who provide the slaves that work the fields in Theran, and let's not forget that Theran has an influence campaign of their own that they carry out by selling food to kingdoms at below the going rate, or, in some cases, giving it to them for free."

"I'd thought that I'd be able to count on Theran as an ally."

"I understand why you would think that, Queen Herana has worked very hard to cultivate her image as the most benevolent ruler in the realm, but make no mistake, if she believes that her power is under threat she will do whatever she has to do to preserve it."

"What would be your advice for how I should proceed?"

"For starters, tell Dranii that you have no interest in getting involved in the geopolitical games of the realm as you wish to focus on your domestic agenda of reform. Then you inform Theran that you have no intention of forming an alliance with Dranii so that they don't feel like their alliance with Dranii is under threat. Once you have done this it should be clear to all that you have no ambitions of being complicit in Dranii's goal of domination of the realm."

"I'm inclined to agree with you that your approach would cause the kingdoms to be less suspicious of us, but what is obvious is that the organizing principles of the realm that came into effect in the aftermath of The Great War cannot be sustained for very much longer, and if steps are not taken to create a new rules-based order then there is going to be a second Great War."

"You're not the first to recognize the need for an overhaul of the realm's power dynamics, efforts have been made in the past to get the kingdoms to unite behind a fairer and more sustainable way of doing things but they all ended in failure because Dranii and Theran refused to agree to any terms that would've put the other kingdoms on more equal footing with them. That's the thing about power, it's never relinquished willingly, it has to be taken."