Enlightened Empire

Chapter 437: A King's Evening

"Urgh, I am so done with this shit."

In a childish gesture of defiance, King Corcopaca Titu Pluritac threw off his long cloak as soon as he entered his private quarters, before he proceeded to throw himself face-first onto the first couch he could find.

"For today we are, yes," Fadelio said, as always behind him, like a malicious spirit of work and decorum haunting every waking hour of Corco's life. At the very least, he didn't have to remind him of tomorrow's obligations this very moment, did he?

"No need, I will handle it," he heard his angel wife say. Though he didn't know what she was talking about, what with his face down on the couch, she was probably addressing Fadelio, rather than himself. At least that was what he could tell from her distant, polite tone. Anyways, he would not dwell on her words. Rather, he was more interested in complaining some more. Otherwise, his heart would shatter from all the bottled-up rage.

"I can't believe I have to do this shit again tomorrow," he said as he thrashed his legs a little. "I would've never exiled those lords from their territories if I knew I'd have to spend every day at parties with them."

"But... that was the plan, wasn't it?" Fadelio sounded confused. "Get all the lords to Saniya, and organize one party after another, to keep them here. Since they are all trying to impress you and each other — in order to reduce their sentences and rebuild their political standing — they will have no choice but to focus on these parties. This way, they stay away from their territories and can no longer control them, which gives us the chance to move in and slowly replace their rule. Wasn't that the idea?"

It was textbook Louis XIV. On top of the defeated lords who came to the parties in hopes of a pardon, other nobles also came in order to gain economic benefits. Only last week, the kingdom's great manufactory auction had been held. However, even before the start of the auction, several supporting industries which weren't critical to the kingdom's stability had been sold off to several of the lords who had supported Corco during the war.

These lords would take these businesses back to their territories and rebuild them there. Not only would this reward his allies, it would also relieve Saniya's tense workforce situation. Even more, such a move would strengthen the economic ties between the different territories of the southern kingdom, especially since most of the transferred industries were parts industries, like a lye manufactory. Thus, the local estates would become more reliant Saniya, with reduced ability to organize further rebellions.

Back when he had planned it all, Corco had felt really clever. He would just spend his days drinking and dancing, while the power of the kingdom would just naturally fall into his hands. He even got a historical reference out of it. By now however, he wasn't so enamored with the plan any more.

"Well, it was a shit idea," he surmised succinctly. "I don't wanna do it anymore."

As he spoke, he felt careful hands brush through his hair and take off his crown. When the weary Corco finally sat up again, he saw his darling wife stand in front of him, holding his crown in one hand and his neatly folded cloak slung over her arm. Meanwhile, her other hand was busy reorganizing his messy hair.

"Teacher, do you want something to drink?" she finally asked, to complete the tender moment. For Corco, the words were like rain in the desert.

"Yes. Please," he sighed. "Save my weary soul, my heart."

"You only call me your 'heart' when I bring you alcohol." Sumaci chuckled and walked towards the inner room, where the two of them had set up a small, private bar.

"I was talking to the brandy," Corco quipped back.

Finally, the mood was getting better and the king could feel his tensed shoulder muscles relax. However, before his wife could continue their banter, the rude Fadelio chimed in. An ill-timed throat-clear stole all the attention.

"Oh, you were still here?" Corco packed as much sarcasm into his voice as the sound waves could carry. "Didn't you see we're having a moment here?"

However, in the face of the king's reasonable accusations, the very much unreasonable attendant simply stiffened his chest.

"Yes, well, there's still a few things left to report," he insisted.

"See, this is why I hate this job." Corco turned towards Sumaci, just in time to see her return with two glasses filled with ice and an amber-colored liquid.

"Let's just listen to the report," his wife helped out the servant. At the same time, she sat down next to Corco and handed him a glass. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we'll have some alone time."

Once she was finished enticing her husband, the two clinked glasses. At the thought of alone time, Corco immediately perked up.

"Right, my motivation's maxed out." he shouted, and took a deep swig from the glass. The cold drink slid down his throat and warmed up his core. Finally, he felt at ease again, so he turned towards Fadelio, once more ready to tackle his country's endless problems. "Go ahead."

"There has been an issue with the worker cooperative project."

Immediately, Fadelio led with the bad news.

"What, has another manufactory changed its mind?"

Seconds into the reports, and Corco's mood was already ruined again.

In his eagerness to create as many worker cooperatives as possible, the king had taken great care. Usually, he would no longer be involved in the details of law-making. This time however, he had made an exception. After all, a successful start to the cooperative project would be crucial. If their project could succeed and a significant portion of Medala's private businesses could be transformed, it would result in fundamental changes to society, with especially great benefits to the country's long-term stability.

To facilitate as much, Corco had done a lot of preparations. Long before he had explained the concept of worker cooperatives to anyone, he had already organized the villages of his territory in the same manner.

For that purpose, he had made use of his hold over high-quality iron tools and fertilizer. Both had been given out to villages as a whole, rather than to individual farming households. At the same time, the local children had all been sent to school and thus could no longer help with the harvest. As a result, the villagers had been forced to work their fields together, and the grain tax they paid to the crown would also be calculated on a village-by-village basis.

Thus, the new worker cooperative laws had only formalized this already existing relationship in the rural areas. Thus, the new law had focused on incentives to transform his old, non-performing manufactories into cooperatives, as well as offering cheap loans to found new ones.

However, progress in the city had been slow so far. Most efforts to transform his old businesses had failed for various reasons. The workers were skeptical of the new methods, the craftsmen and administrators would often want to take over the manufactories by themselves, and then there were rich outsiders eager to take the thriving business as well. Even his own officials hadn't done a proper job at promoting the new legislation. Apparently, some already punished idiots in the finance department had decided that the immediate gains from selling the businesses outright outweighed the long-term benefits from establishing a cooperative, and had thus actively dragged their feet on the promotion.

All in all, the project had been one huge disappointment so far. However, Fadelio's next words completely subverted Corco's expectations.

"No, this time, no one is backing out of the cooperative project," Fadelio said. "Rather, someone founded a new one. forty-nine workers in total."

"Wait, seriously!?" In glee, Corco jumped a small jump on his couch. He was so excited that he even almost spilled some of his drink before he calmed down, almost. "That's the second best news I've heard all day."

"The best is the alcohol," Sumaci explained towards Fadelio, a satisfied smile on her face. However, the minister's awkward look told Corco that the two of them had been happy too early. With the inevitability of an oncoming avalanche, Fadelio crushed the mood.

"Well, the problem is that they've founded an arms company," he said.

"Well... fuck me." Once his mood had been predictably crushed, Corco thought for a second. Maybe things weren't quite as bad as he thought. "What are they making, exactly?"

"A new type of bayonet that fits around the barrel, rather than inside it."

"Oh, they've invented ring bayonets, nice," Corco commented. Although they were making weapons, at least they weren't building guns, nor anything with particularly high technical content. For now, this still wasn't the worst case scenario.

"Teacher, if you already knew these existed, why not invent them yourself?" Sumaci asked. She was one of the few people who knew about Corco's vast treasure vault of knowledge, and was thus predictably confused.

"Well, what happens if I just invent everything by myself?" the king thus began one of his world-famous rants. "I'll be falsely revered as some kind of genius, right? But I'm not a great person, I just know more stuff than most. That's not only awkward for me, but also dangerous for the long-term future of the country. What would the future of this country look like if I just invented everything? The people would have a god-king for a couple years, and then once I die, everything would stagnate, since I never taught anyone how to fish, so to speak. Instead, it's much healthier for our country if I just leave most of the inventing to others. And it's a lot less work for me, too, which is always a plus." For a few awkward seconds, he resisted the critical look of his student, before he admitted: "Also, I forgot about the ring bayonets until now. I can't think of everything, can I?"

"Well, this particular invention presents us with a problem." Fadelio once again wedged his way into the private conversation.

"They're an essential business," Sumaci guessed in response. "But just the bayonets don't seem all too bad. They won't be able to strong-arm the army over bayonet supplies, will they?"

Of course, Sumaci thought the same as her teacher. However, Fadelio proved to be a stickler for the rules, as always.

"Still, it is national policy to prevent the establishment of private essential businesses as much as possible. Who knows what sort of weapon this company will be working on once their bayonets are a success and they have money to spend? They have called themselves 'Arms Company', after all."

"So just nationalize it..." Sumaci began, before she trailed off and corrected herself. "It's not that easy, is it? I guess it would be bad for our cooperative project if we shut down its first major success immediately."

After a few seconds of thought, Corco's favorite student predictably came to the right conclusion. However, her thoughts hadn't gone quite far enough.

"Not only that, they also haven't done anything wrong," the king had to add. "They've completely played by the rules. Ultimately, it's not their fault that private arms companies are still legal in out country. That's a law we should have come up with before, but now it's too late. Now that they've been established, just nationalizing them — or shutting them down by force — sets a bad legal precedent. It'll also eat up a lot of our goodwill with the public."

While he slowly swirled his drink around in the glass, Corco weighed the options in his mind. Bit by bit, a workable solution to their newest issue formed in his brain. Meanwhile, his two students knew their teacher well, so they both remained quiet until the king continued.

"And it's not like private arms companies don't have any advantages either," he finally said with a victorious smile on his face. "They're not that great at truly innovating anything, since innovation is risky, and squeezing the maximum benefit from existing technologies is more profitable. But for the same reason, they're great at marginal improvements and small optimizations. On a battlefield, these optimizations are often the difference between victory and defeat. So keeping some of these companies around and having them compete with each other to increase efficiency and reduce cost isn't the worst idea."

"So they just get to keep making weapons?" Fadelio asked in a tone which already betrayed his opinion completely. Though of course, his stiff demeanor alone was already proof enough that he was a stickler for the rules.

At least you could sit down in private, Corco thought, before he stopped swirling his drink and replied.

"Sure, why not? But how about we restrict them a little, so they don't form bad habits, huh? We'll simply introduce a new law. Whenever the country is in a state of war, the government has the right to temporarily take over production facilities of military goods. The company runs as usual, just with military supervision, and the owners only get paid production cost. Of course, the owners still get compensated for their effort once the war is over. Once we properly execute such a law, arms dealers would have no incentive to want a war, since they would earn more in peace times through contracts with the army and such. So they won't try to influence anyone in the government to provoke war, which would be a real concern with private arms companies otherwise. At the same time, the country can't be blackmailed during wartime either, and can still produce cheap weapons when they're needed the most."