Herald of Steel

Debasing a coin was the act of reducing its value while keeping its original face, usually by supplanting the precious gold or silver with cheaper metals like copper or zinc, thus in effect creating more money.

It was done in times of need to raise money but it caused inflation for the populace.

However despite its flaws, it was a fairly common practice throughout the past and present world, because it was a very easy and lucrative fix to an enormously complicated problem.

Hence Alexander also believed this to be the main cause why the courts failed in their endeavors to stop coin clippings.

Too many of the nobles themselves were involved in it.

There are even regular instances of rival nobles attacking each other's currencies using this method, hoping to shake the other's economy.

Thus given the enormous benefits involved, Alexander felt there was not a united will to tackle this issue.

And it was this issue of self interest that he brought up next with the two queens.

So giving a small smile, Alexander first chimed in a smooth, pleasant voice,

"Thank you for your praise, my ladies. But this coin design is hardly anything that fantastic. You see it all came to me in a dream one day."

"As you know I had been recently considering minting coin but whenever I thought about it, the problem of coin clippings kept constantly coming up, always nagging me."

"Now I am aware that both the Adhanian and Tibian courts tried a variety of ways to combat this grievous theft with… unfortunately only limited success. In fact, at time point most of us have simply accepted this as a part of life."

"So at first, I did not have much confidence to be able to come up with something new."

"But it was then I had that dream."

"I had been racking my head all day about the problem when I suddenly drifted off to sleep and found myself in a dark cellar."

"It was a cheese cellar and there I suddenly noticed a small mouse eating the rind of a cheese wheel. It quickly ran away as soon as it sensed me approaching, letting me have a look at the cheese."

"It was then I found that although the place the mouse had nibbled on was very small, the spot was very visible… because the scoring lines did not match."

"Hahaha, that was where I got the main idea. First I consulted my coin master about putting a simple line on the coins and then after a bit more discussion, settled on this more elaborate design! Hahaha!"

Alexander was pretty pleased with the explanation he had managed to come up with.. if he said so himself, hence the chuckle.

In fact, the man had always tried to come up with logical… or even just semi logical explanations for all his inventions.

For example, he packaged cement as being just normal slaked lime mortal but mixed with a single mysterious ingredient and heated to a certain temperature to bind the two materials together.

He claimed it was something he learnt it from an old man during his mercenary years in Thesos, when he was designing that special tent for Nestoras.

There was a similar explanation for clear glass- Alexander just added two new ingredients to the production process 'accidentally'- the sand he was using had so coincidentally seemed to have the exact ratio of limestone and other minerals mixed in it.

How fortuitous.

As for paper, well Alexander claimed he once knew a slave who was a papyrus maker and it was him who gave him the inspiration. Alexander even had the cheek to say that the man was made a slave by his master because he invented paper, and the Tibians feared what this would do to their papyrus industry.

He got this inspiration from the Roman emperor Tiberius Ceaser who was allegedly presented with a clear glass vessel that its inventor claimed would not break.

Such as when the emperor threw it to the ground, the bowl dented but didn't break. Tiberius seemed impressed and asked if the inventor had shared the secret with anyone else.

Then when the inventor said no, Tiberius had him executed, fearing that this glass would devalue gold and silver and put all the other glassmakers out of business.

Now this story is mostly considered a myth because no flexible glass artifact has ever been discovered, although some fringe evidence suggests that it might be possible.

However true or not, the moral of the story still resonated with Alexander.

And it also made him aware that if he simply continued to 'pull rabbits out of empty hats' like he was doing now, it would eventually alarm people.

Especially as some of the things he created were too fantastic, like the blast furnace. It was such a complex bit of machinery that just building it without any prior insight was basically impossible.

It did not matter how smart you were- there are some things you simply have to experiment with to find out.

Now Alexander could of course claim divinity to explain everything and most commoners and nobles would agree. Perhaps they would turn even more loyal.

But as one can imagine this had its own set of problems- namely the Royal family.

It did not take even a particularly smart person to guess how the 'God king' would react to be so blatantly challenged. And it was a challenge neither Ptolomy nor Amenheraft had a ghost of a chance of winning.

After all, Alexander surpassed them with more than 2,000 years of knowledge.

So then what would be the consequences of this mismatch?

Well in the worst case scenarios, he could be tried as a magician and burnt at the stake.

Now given he was a pasha and extremely vital to Ptolomy this was a very, very remote possibility. Unless he completely antagonized the royals, Alexander was mostly free to do as he wished.

But being a cautious man, Alexander was still prudent enough to at least try to cover his rear... just in case.

…

"The idea came to a dream?" While the two ladies hearing the claim seemed to suddenly produce a stunned, almost unfocused look, like they had been stuck by lightning. Read new adventures at empire

Lady Parthia appeared particularly out of it, her heart filled with all types of complex and disbelieving thoughts.

While Lady Nanazin turned enormously excited, revealing all her pearly white to wildly grin,

"It is said dreams are one of the signs of divinity! Hahaha, this was a sign from the gods!"

The slightly mad way she chuckled and the way her eyes lit up as she looked at Alexander… it seemed like her entire body had been suddenly set ablaze by an enormous inferno.

"????" And this intense reaction also caught Alexander a bit off guard, as he quickly realized he had forgotten to take this fact into account.

It was a shared common belief among both Adhanians and Tibians that dreams had deeper meanings, that somehow the visions were related to the heavens and the divine.

The two countries only disagreed about what were the sources of these dreams- one claimed it was from the father of lighting- Ramuh, and the other said it was their ancestors.

This was also the reason why Lady Parthia reacted like that.

The mature queen was quite a religious woman and so when Alexander had first clamined divinity, she had only snorted in contempt.

She was no village girl and accurately judged this to be simply a political ploy for the man to gain legitimacy.

But then, she slowly started to have evidence of his 'divinity' presented in front of her...

His various new invention was one of them.

The various infrastructure advancements in and around Zanzan was another.

And lastly his success at Caira and the Galiosos campaign against overwhelming odds laid another strong foundation

However Lady Parthia had not been still convinced because there were many competent kings and generals in history.

Her own husband could be said to be among them but he certainly claimed no such connection to the gods.

So who knew the chink in the lady's armor of faith would come from the unlikeliest of places.

The ridges on the coins might seem very small and even insignificant to us, but to Lady Parthia, it was very different.

This was something very personal.

Because as already said earlier, she and a whole lot of other men had spent quite a lot of time, effort, and sweat to come up with such a solution and then failed, ultimately leading to her current state.

Hence seeing the answer in front of her and such a simple one at that… Lady Parthia suddenly felt her solid faith in the ancestors beginning to sway.

Now this might sound a bit strange given officially Lady Parthia was a priestess of the Gaia temple and thus placed 'The Mother' above all else.

But understandably this was more of show than actual devotion, with no real reverence.

Her true belief lay with her homeland and the Gaia Temple was just a place she was forced to come to because her 'captor' demanded it as part of the peace deal.

However now….

'Oh… if only I had advised you dear.. then Ponti… Lyde… and the others would be alive. We would still have our country.'

If you are not reading this at webnovel.com, then sorry, the content you're reading is STOLEN!

Let us say no to piracy! Don't take part in a crime! Don't patronize thieves!

Please come Here!

=>Link to the original site:

https://www.webnovel.com/book/herald-of-steel_24388579605084705