Herald of Steel

Hearing Lady Miranda's reason for not wanting to send the blacksmiths, Alexander very quickly pointed out the archaic thinking they were under, saying, 

"I'm afraid the secret that your family has is not applicable here, my lady." 

  A bold statement that drew curious eyes from both, who heard Alexander explain, 

"Because the smithing techniques you have developed were only for iron extracted using the traditional way."

"That process that has a lot of impurities, we call slag."

"But the way we make iron is different. It has much less slag."

"So our iron's properties are totally different from the traditional ones."

"That's why it is so strong."

"And that is also why the way to forge them is also very different."

"You can ask any blacksmiths if you do not believe me. my lady."

"But the fact is the secret forging techniques you have is not useful to us. So you can sleep assured, hahaha,"

Alexander lightly chuckled after knowing the reason why they did not want to do it.

A chortle that slightly got onto Lady Miranda's nerves as she then in a slightly frosty tone replied, 

"Still….we are willing to fulfill my lord's request in some other ways." 

She did not like Alexander slighting her family's proud smithing history and so made this choice anyhow.

"...." Which made Alexander pursed his lips.

It was hard to be reasonable to an unreasonable person.

He did not think the other side would be so boorish.

"I agree with Lady Miranda here, Lord Alexander. We cannot hand over those secrets, useful or useless. Please, is there any other we can help?." 

And Lord Janus too expressed his solidarity with his partner, feeling Alexander was exaggerating the differences between the techniques.

'Or why else would he want our blacksmiths?' He reasoned as he thought their expert knowledge was definitely still valuable.

And he was right in thinking that because Alexander did try to pull a bit of wool over their eyes.

Perhaps the iron he produced was not as difficult to work with as the traditionally produced one, but you still needed some expertise to handle it.

And he had hoped he could get the Margrave blacksmiths who had generations of experience in forging iron tools to teach him these.

"Hmmmmm," But since that 'free' lesson seemed to be not an option, Alexander got to thinking while humming.

He could ask for other stuff, perhaps like precious gems or good timber, but he also really wanted those blacksmiths.

And at last, he made up his mind.

"Since we are talking about revealing secrets, then how about we exchange one from each other's." He enigmatically proposed, and facing the pair's curious glances delineated,

"Zanzan has developed a farming method that has seen its agricultural output double in the last year. We are willing to share that secret in return for teaching our men your smithing and forging techniques."

"How does that sound?"

Yes, Alexander had decided to reveal three of his farming tricks- the heavy plow, the three-crop rotation system, and the horse collar.

This was primarily because it was not really a secret per se.

His council members all knew it, as well as the nobles who joined him.

And by that reasoning so did the farmers under them.

So it was not really a secret when almost all your farmers, which accounted for ninety percent of the population knew about it.

This meant anybody with a sufficiently open eye and ear would be able to figure out most of the stuff if they just tried looking into it for a bit.

Furthermore, the heavy plow could be bought at stores, so could the horse collar, and the three-crop rotation was out in the field for everyone to see.

The only thing that Alexander kept to himself was the use of manure and compost as fertilizers and his selection of crops in certain fields, such as peas which added nutrients back to the soil.

So Alxx felt it was totally worth it to reveal these techniques that were pretty much out in the open if it meant he could get so many experienced blacksmiths! 

These hundred blacksmiths from the Margraves could get him seven to eight hundred new blacksmiths five to seven years from now.

And those could get him another seven to eight times their number again in the next half a decade.

And with that many experienced artisans, perhaps he could finally start making his full body plate armor.

He was really looking forward to that.

But since that process was still such a long way off, Alexander felt he should start right now.

"......."

Alexander's big claim naturally drew astonished looks from the opposite side,

If not that Alexander had shown himself to be a trusted ally, they might have even sneered at his face.

Because doubling anything was very, very hard.

But since Alexander had spoken, they had to take what he said with weight.

And it took a while for Lady Miranda to finally gather her thoughts and speak up, 

"If what my lord says is true, then that is certainly a gift from the gods."

"But I also heard you are the one who came up with the way to make iron so cheaply. Would it be possible to exchange that secret instead?"

To call her greedy at this point would be an understatement.

"Or how to make the sugar?" And her partner seemed even more.

"No. It's this or nothing." But Alexander was unequivocal in his reply.

The two that they wanted would have been out of the question no matter what.

And it appeared the other side likely knew this which was why when his reply got only a wry smile, not a crestfallen look of disappointment.

So then Lady Miranda asked something more reasonable,

"....what you said.about our techniques not being so useful. Is it really true?" She wanted confirmation again, reasoning that since Alexander had discovered a new way to make iron, he must know something about crafting it.

'Yes. I swear by the gods!" And Alexander was very clear in his reply.

"And the farming technique….. can really get us double the produce?" Lady Miranda then sought this confirmation, still sounding a bit skeptical.

"It did for us. Hopefully, it will for you too."

"Even if it does not double, I guarantee it will at least increase it substantially." Alexander did not try to be a snake oil salesman and was as clear as possible about the technique's efficacy.

"Then we accept." And hearing such, Lady Miranda at last agreed.

"Great!" And finally having achieved a lot of what he wanted, Alexander cheered.

And then listed, 

"So to summarize, I will give you the products that you wanted and in exchange get money, 10,000 men and their families to work the fields, new miners to open new ore veins, and a few of my men will learn shipbuilding from you."

"Right?" Alexander posed.

And almost immediately the obvious omission he made of course got pointed out.

The two nobles could not believe Alexander missed the thing they were talking about just now.

  But Alexander here produced a sly chuckle as he breezily waved his palms and said, 

"No, no, how can that count? I'm getting that in exchange for my agricultural secrets. That is a separate deal altogether, haha."

At Alexander's rhetoric,  Lady Miranda and Lord Janus felt tongue-tied.

That was technically true, but somehow also not.

But Alexander did not seem to notice the strange face at all, as he went on so, 

"So it seems that only three of my five requests have been made."

"And to make up for them I want the more precious gems, expensive stones, and the following weapon in these quantities."

"30,000 crossbows with 10 million bolts."

"30,000 swords" And 

"20,000- halberts."

Half of Alexander's demand for these weapons was in general for his own consumption.

For the crossbows, he intended to have 10,000 to 15,000  of his men be equipped with them during his upcoming offensive with Tibias.

And to make sure he had enough ammo, he ordered that massive pile of bolts.

The same went for swords, to equip his men with enough equipment.

Many of the swords in his shorage were starting to show their age and Alexander felt it was high time he changed them. 

As for the halberts, well Alexander wanted it mainly because Cambyses had informed him that the city guards were asking her for a complementary weapon in addition to their primary weapon- the sword.

Because although the sword was good in close-quarter fights such as in a tight alley, but the men also felt it would be nice to have something that had a longer reach.

Something with which they would keep the enemy at bay.

And the weapon they came to prefer was the halbert.

As for why they wanted that particularly instead of a spear, well it could do everything a spear could do, poke with the pointy bit at the end and shove a group of people back by horizontally holding the wooden shaft and using it as a bar.

But they could also do this additional task, which was to use the huge metal axe head to easily smash through wooden doors.

And this was not only useful for breaking into criminal hideouts.

As said previously, cities had a dangerous tendency to catch fire as well.

And this tool could be used to not only kill and maim but also save trapped victims by smashing open doors and windows.