Chapoter 509 - Official Meeting (Start of Book 8) (Patreon)

Much had changed since last year's year-end review, which had now officially been renamed to 'Annual Budget Meeting', mostly because Corco thought it sounded more official.

For the first time, the meeting no longer took place in the king's study, with all the members of the privy council crowded together along the walls. Instead, the council was meeting in Rapra Castle's new large meeting room, a dedicated space for important government meetings.

The room itself was longer than it was wide, large enough to accommodate at least thirty people, and was dominated by a giant, elliptical table in its center. At one end of the table stood a large, ornate chair reserved for the king, flanked on either side by two more chairs reserved for the queen and prime minister, respectively. The table's sides were also lined with further chairs, one for each department of the kingdom, as well as another two for the heads of the army and navy, with enough room left to add more later, depending on necessity.

Along the edges of the room, behind each chair, small alcoves with more chairs and desks were set into the walls. The insides could be manned by minute keepers who would take a written record of the meeting for each department. Although for now, most departments still hadn't brought anyone due to a lack of manpower, such conveniences were prepared in advance. Even if the departments wouldn't take advantage of the amenities, at least the seat behind the king was always occupied, to create a record for the kingdom's archives.

To guarantee optimal lighting at any time, a bright oil lamp above every chair, even those in the alcoves. Even the position of the room within the castle itself had been carefully picked. The new meeting room was close to the castle's archives, in case someone needed to look up some crucial information mid-meeting.

All in all, this new location had a much more proper and official feeling than Corco's study in the past.

In keeping with this new, more official setup, the attendance of the meeting was more complete than it had ever been. This time, every single department representative had arrived on time and in person. Not only had Lord Huaman returned from his travels around the southern kingdom, but even the elusive Brym had finally returned from his long trip through the northern kingdoms — and his subsequent extended holiday with his new wife Inti.

"For now, Scholarly Court remains cautious. Before they become bold again and start checking our actions once more, we will continue to make good use of their timidity," Brym summarized the current state of their actions in the northern kingdom. "As we were distributing some goods and people in the north this year, we received adequate help from the local nobles, as stated before. However, some of them have already made demands about the future, in anticipation of a southern victory. Not only do I have to suspect that they are playing both sides, they are also making demands on territory and authority which I am not qualified to handle, neither as the Minister of Finance nor in my function as the Wonders of the World's vice-president."

"Yes, yes. I get it," an annoyed Corco cut off the minister's whining. Brym had more than once complained about his work in the north, even though he had volunteered for it.

According to the man himself, he had been forced to take on work that no one else had been willing to do, even though such work would have otherwise been the duty of a foreign minister. However, there was nothing Corco could do. At least until he had a proper minister appointed, someone had to do the job, and the king himself could hardly just travel around in enemy territory. Since he had heard similar complaints from his little brother many times before, Corco was routinely dismissive.

However, before he could make any more sarcastic comments, a cough from the side reminded the king of his position. Although he gave Fadelio a dirty look for interrupting an oncoming rant, he knew that his attendant was right. They had finally managed to make this budget meeting look official, with a proper setup and everyone present for once. This really wasn't the place to be sloppy and treat his finance minister like a little brother. Instead, Corco would have to do things by the book, and follow the pre-determined order of things.

Such strict etiquette was something Corco despised, even though he understood that formality became necessary as the kingdom grew in scope and ambition. Luckily, he had shown no other lapses so far, and the meeting was almost over by now.

At this point, all departments had already presented a summary for their work over the past year, and they had also shown off their plans and their expected budget for the next one. Such summaries would become a standard item on the agenda of every budget meeting from now on, as it became increasingly formalized. In fact, this time, this part of the meeting had been handled very quickly compared to previous years. After all, most of the work in the various departments was simply a continuation of long-established policies.

The ministry of health was still busy consolidating all the results from their new hospital. They wouldn't have to do anything new or ambitious for years, at least not unless there was another emergency like a sudden plague. Beyond that, they could only wait for more doctors to finish their training before they could even consider more hospitals in other parts of the country. Until then, they would simply continue to steadily advance their research and improve their reputation in the population with the resources they had.

Meanwhile, the ministries of infrastructure and agriculture were still busy with the integration of the new territories. Until all the roads and beacon towers had been built, until all the new migrants had been settled, and until all the villages had been reorganized, both ministries had no operational capacity for extra work. The same was true for the ministry of the interior, which was still struggling with the influx of migrants and the constant threat of spies, as well as their plans to expand the role of the police force into the new royal territories.

At the same time, the war in the west was still steadily progressing as planned, which kept the navy busy. While the army reforms were finally coming to an end, there was no land war anywhere on the horizon, so they didn't have any great plans either. Even the ministry of finance, which had been so enthusiastically raising money over the past few years, was now mostly trying to manage and consolidate the growing financial market of Saniya, as well as regulate the new stock exchange as problems arose.

After all, Brym and his officials had sold an exorbitant amount of bonds over the past two years. By now, the government had more than enough money to continue the running projects, and limited wiggle room to take on any more debt. Luckily, the bonds wouldn't start to generate returns for their holders until five years after their sale, so they had plenty of time to grow their income before they had to set aside part of it for debt repayment.

Only the Ministry of Industry had shown up with some impressive results over the past year, as well as more ambitious plans for the next. First of all, the new worker cooperatives were quickly spreading in the capital, inspired by the success of early adopters. As more and more migrant craftsmen arrived from the north — and as many soldiers left the army and had to start looking for new work — these new styles of company organization continued to replace the old-school workshops. By now, similar ideas had spread to surrounding cities like Harkay. At this point, some laws to regulate the management of these new types of manufactory had become necessary, as friction with established businesses and abuse of government policies were already being reported. Such laws had to be carefully considered, so their penning and implementation would take a long time.

On top of that, and most importantly, the kingdom's steel mill was finally running at full capacity. Due to a lack of high-quality coal, the mill had only been running for a few days at a time, followed each time by days of inactivity. This had been the case ever since its construction, and had been caused by the southern kingdom's lack of good coal. With the ever-increasing size of the kingdom's industry, the manufactories had experienced a severe lack of iron and steel, which had begun to drive up the price of both and had threatened to slow down the kingdom's economic development. Even though the current mill should have been able to meet demand based on its size, the lack of coal had been a constant threat to their continued progress.

Now however, with the progress in the western war, the new trade routes to the Chutwa Empire were properly established. Together with the improved finances of the kingdom, they could now import enough coal from the west to run the steel mill around the clock, which had greatly improved their iron and steel output. In anticipation of the new coal mines on Rasacopa, Minister Asiro had even planned to build a second steel mill. The new mill was planned to be even larger than the first and would secure the country's industrial demand for years to come.

Though even such grand plans were nothing more than a slight adjustment, meant to right the country's predetermined course. All in all, the country's path had been largely set years ago, and now most of the departments were fully occupied by their mere attempts to keep up with the country's growth. Thus, since the inside of the country had finally been stabilized after the horrors of the civil war, Corco felt like it was time to look outside the country for future progress.

There was only one problem, which finally brought the king back from his thoughts and back to the meeting room, where Brym still stood at his seat, waiting for an answer.

"I know you're not normally responsible for foreign matters, Minister Brymstock," Corco finally replied to Brym's complaint after a prolonged silence. This time, he took care to sound more formal. "But until now, I still didn't find anyone else who could take over such an important task. As a temporary fix, I've tried to distribute the responsibility among several of the kingdom's most trusted servants."

Although it was a cheap compliment, Brym still struggled to keep a straight face against an oncoming grin. As he watched his little brother's familiar expression, Corco himself stifled a smile and moved on.

"So far, that strategy of distributing the tasks to capable people has been good enough for our purposes," the king explained. "It didn't hurt that most of our foreign affairs have been with Arcavia, the Verdant Isles, and Chutwa alone. Many here have spent a long time in Arcavia, so they have no problem negotiating with people from there. For the other two places, Sumaci and my sister Yasimi in Hueatlan were all the support we needed. But now, our focus has shifted. As the Verdant Isles have become part of our dual kingdom, and we've established a firm presence in eastern Chutwa, we will need to spend more time on those false kingdoms my brothers have established in the north. Since our internal position has stabilized now, we will have to move north someday soon, to reunite the Yaku people under one banner and reforge the empire's silver crown, which has been torn apart by my greedy brothers."

As he looked around the room, Corco could see the excited faces of his council react to his speech with fervor. After all, many of them had been there when his brothers had conspired with the forces of the capital to steal his father's crown. As for the rest, most of them were southerners, who had a long-standing feud with the northerners and were eager for revenge ever since the last civil war some thirty-five years ago. Among the crowd, only Doctor Itzali looked indifferent, but Corco didn't expect him to do any more work outside the country anyways. At least not ever since the doctor had been involved in an assassination plot against his will last time.

Though apart from Itzali, the king's words had had the desired effect on everyone else in the room. Now that everyone was brimming with patriotic fervor, it was time for the king to bring home his speech and convince everyone to take on some more extra work for free.