章 16: Taking the Reigns

After my father accepted my appeal, I summoned the core of my vassals and instructed the same institutions to be built here in Alta too, but this time on a grander scale as befit of a famous capital. I left some of the established industries in Nicea as collecting wealth in a single city is a colossal mistake in the long term. After all, diversification and trade are essential for an advanced civilization to flourish.

The villages around the capital were ever so willing to accept my offers as my reputation preceded me and they knew that the towns and villages under me in Nicea flourished, which is why I could implement new projects such as opening dairy, cattle, and pig farms, introduce and industrialized brickmaking, and facilities for both human and animal feces to compost and turn into fertilizer, which is in turn used with my magic fertilizer to significantly increase the yield and the growth rate of trees and plants that will be used in some of the new industries.

An important newly established industry was soap manufacturing. People here weren't completely ignorant and soap making was known, but most of the soaps came from the Middle East and were expensive. That's why I decided to build a factory for soap making in what is today known as Gallipoli. Ingredients for soap were simple; olive oil, lye, distilled water, baking soda that we made from the soda(sodium carbonate) that I produced in Nicea, and flowers and herbs that were used to color and add fragrance. A similar but smaller workshop near the soap factory was made for candle production. "Scented soaps of Alta" and our candles were both great hits in Europe and we made great profits from the sales.

Another such industry was rubber-making facilities. I obtained a few mastic tree seeds from my merchant vassals and modified them so that they do their purpose and used both natural and magic fertilizer to support their growth in a region where they don't normally yield mastic, a resin of a tree that is perfect to use as polymers. Other than that, I built another facility that made bio-plastic from corn starch, vinegar, water, and various other materials. Since the production rate of our crops is significantly more than before, if we hadn't made corresponding industries use the excess crops then they wouldn't be profitable for farmers as market demand is crucial for any kind of trade good to be profitable.

Speaking of increased production, I revised the tax system so that we can tax the individual adult for their income and land, rather than just taking their crop yields as tax. We also talked about general customs and tariffs, as well as the regulations of the Black Sea trade. Since we didn't have the necessary manpower to implant these changes right away, we decided to prepare the staff and train a new generation of civil servants so that after the laws are passed, we can impose the new ones right away without a problem. That being said, we did establish a grain futures administration and passed a commodity futures act to regulate the price of grains and establish a safe, dependable warehouse and a meeting place for both farmers and merchants to do business.

For the warehouses, I invented magic refrigerators, but they wouldn't exactly be familiar to the people of earth. I used water and air as refrigerants and made the refrigerators as big a room and a mixture of brick and rubber walls to insulate the heat and steal, copper and lead parts and pipes to make the refrigerants do their job in taking the heat inside and making it cooler.

I also held grand seminars with many priests, scholars, and monasteries to explain the importance of science, technology, and hygiene to advance the civilization of the Goddess and how it was her will to me that I will lead them into the future and other embarrassing lies to trick these conservative old men to yield. I convinced almost all of them after showing them the fertilizer magic device, the printing press, and the papers that we made. When I introduced magnets and telescopes they were shouting my name. They lost their minds by the time I taught them how to circulate magic power so that magic can help the body function better, heal faster and be practically safe from most mild diseases, and they almost declared a crusade on the whole world when they saw the artillery and guns that we made. I could sware that Goddess was rolling on the floor laughing at my theatrics. I sometimes wonder how the conservative clergy of various religions of my old world would react if they saw that the spearhead of technological advancement and change was the clergy themselves in this world.

The clergy helped in making me control the masses much more easily and spread the "wisdom" I shared with them, such as the metric system. Especially the magic circulation helped tons of people as even a trivial seasonal disease such as cold was a serious threat to most people. We also opened public baths in most towns and cities and improved public hygiene.

During this time, I requested my father's permission to build a small professional army. Since the revenue from the newly found workshops, factories, farms, and trade went to the treasury and not my pockets, we had a leeway so my father readily gave me permission. Sir Thalandir was against the idea at first, thinking his position might be threatened, but after I explained the concept of a centralized army and the position of knights in this army I envisioned, he ceased his opposition.

I first built the barracks of the army near the capital and then recruited around 4000 motivated and devoted men handpicked by priests in various towns and villages as well as a part of the garrison of Alta into the newly formed professional army.

The army was modeled on the Spanish tercio, which was a flexible formation during a time when gunpowder weapons were not wielded by the majority of the infantry, which suited our situation as we couldn't produce enough muskets for the whole army and the enemies usually had more cavalry, which the tercio was practically the natural enemy.

The majority of the infantry, about 2800 were pikemen, equipped with a 5.5 meters long pike with a hardened steel spearhead affixed, cuirass (normally a thick steel or iron plate upper body armor, but cuirass here is lighter and thinner as most medieval weapons in most cases can't penetrate properly treated steel anyway), and morion helmets. They had a gambeson padded armor made from our strongest linen underneath their armor. They were also told to carry their own swords as secondary.

Around 800 or so were musketeers equipped with muzzle-loading muskets, with a bayonet part on their hips in case they were forced to engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. They weren't equipped with cuirass but wore thicker gambeson armor. They too were given morion helmets.

The rest of the 400 men were equipped with poleaxes, halberds, swords, and shields so that they can fight against enemies who might luckily infiltrate the lines of our infantry, or in case of ambush. They too were equipped with cuirass and morion helmets.

The Pikeman occupied the front line and the sides in a square formation, some of the pikemen kneeled and pointed their pike at a 45-degree angle so that any approaching cavalryman would turn into a kebab. The pikemen in the back would, in the case of engagement, push the men in front of them so that a constant momentum of a pike wall would push the enemy to break their formation. The poleaxe and halberds as well as some of the musketeers were placed within the pikemen formation so that the approaching enemy could be harassed and attacked and lose men in great numbers even before the infantry even clashed. The majority of the musketeers were placed on the sides of the pikemen formation in a compact two-and-a-half line formation, the half being the soldiers kneeling to clear the sight of the musketeers behind them. If the enemy attacked from the sides, then the musketeers would turn and disperse into the formation while the pikemen on the sides would adjust their position. Unlike the phalanx of Alexander, the tercio was made to counter flanking, so it is a flexible formation.

Pikeman= P

Poleaxe, halberd etc.= X,x

Musket= M, m

-------------mmmmmmmmmm

Mm Mm Pm Pp Pm mPp Pxp Pmp Mm Mm

Mm Mm P Px P P P P P P X P P P P Mm Mm

--------- P P P P P P P P P P P X P

--------- P P X P P P P P P P P P P

--------- P X P P P P P P P P P X P

--------- P P P P P P P P P P P P P

Mm Mm P P P P P P P P P P P P P Mm Mm