Keeping a standing army was expensive.
In fact, it was bloody expensive.
And a very simple math could be used to demonstrate that.
The average peasant would earn a hundred fifty roplas per month.
A soldier would need at least two hundred (200) a year because of the dangerous nature of the work.
And cavalry would demand at the bare minimum three hundred (300).
So in a year, a legion of four thousand eight hundred men and the five hundred cavalries would consume more than ten million roplas!
And this was the lowest estimate, with little said about the servants, food, equipment, and pack animals.
A more realistic number would be twice or close to three times that amount.
And for context, a pasha from his entire province, which was on average roughly three hundred thousand square kilometers, would get in the ballpark of two to three hundred million roplas, whereas the area around Zanzan under Alexander's control was just a thousand square kilometers.