Chapter 316: Increasing Revenue
Just like the upward spiral of civilizational development, all stories seem bound to encounter setbacks. The unexpected death of Jeor Mormont caused the human defenders at the front line of this life-and-death struggle to dawdle for months without making any major moves. If there was anything to be thankful for, it was that almost every faction in this election maintained a baseline level of perspective and restraint—the pace of humanity may not have advanced, but at least it did not retreat due to excessive infighting.
Now, everything was finally back on track... or more accurately, on Egger's track. Adopting a spirit of optimism, it occurred to him that having the man with a belly full of ideas personally taking the field, rather than standing behind someone else, might lead to this game of chess being played more thoroughly.
Egger had forced Cotter Pyke to wait for permission before returning to Eastwatch to await the arrival of the grain loans from the Iron Bank. His motive was simple: following the principle of caution, he wanted to turn the last potential variable into a certainty.
Nearly twenty days after receiving the unofficial tip from the Iron Bank, the long-awaited grain fleet finally arrived at the Night's Watch harbor without mishap. With several hundred men previously deployed from Queenscrown stationed at Eastwatch, the scene was steady and secure; the entire unloading process was exceptionally smooth. In just a few days, grain worth tens of thousands of Gold Dragons—enough to feed the entire population of the Gift for weeks—was hauled off the ships. Under the power of man and horse, it was quickly transported to a newly reopened fortress filled with reformist Watchmen and mountain clansmen who fully supported and obeyed Egger's command. With not a single dissenter in sight, the grain sat ready to be moved to Queenscrown as soon as the weather improved.
With this, the transfer of top-level power in the Gift finally reached its conclusion. No one, whether operating in the light or the shadows, had any way left to ruin the grand plan. After sending word to Cotter that he could return to his post, Egger packed his bags and, accompanied by his retinue, set off for Queenscrown—a place that was a ruin just a year ago but was now the only town in the Gift and the newly upgraded headquarters of the Night's Watch.
Inside this fortress filled entirely with his own people, the first Lord Commander who was not a native Westerosi, the first not present at the site of the election, and the first who did not command from the Wall itself... would now remotely direct the entire Gift. He would do everything possible to establish this northernmost frontier of the Seven Kingdoms as the tenth major region of Westeros, following the Seven Kingdoms, the Iron Islands, and the Stepstones.
Ambition is a fine thing, but reality is often lean. The inability to produce grain seemed to be the greatest obstacle to Egger's burgeoning independent power, but the fact facing the Gift now was that it didn't just not produce grain—it produced nothing at all.
In truth, it had yet to engage in any activity that could be called production. To date, the entire operation of the Gift's residents and the Night's Watch had been sustained by blood transfusions from the Night's Watch industries and the northern lords. The so-called work being done was entirely foundational: construction, infrastructure, and military preparation.
These things certainly had to be done, but the problem was that they did not create wealth or generate profit; they could not ensure the sustained operation of a system.
The Night's Watch could—and by rights, should—avoid production, but the Gift could not!
The Iron Bank had approved a loan of a hundred thousand Gold Dragons for the Watch. This figure seemed massive, but spread across the Gift's current population of forty thousand, it amounted to roughly two and a half dragons per person. With grain prices only set to rise, even an optimistic estimate only guaranteed that the Gift wouldn't starve. As for developing it into the Tenth Region of Westeros and surviving the coming invasion of the Others without being crippled... the funds, tools, weapons, and armor required for such a grand strategy could never be covered by the few thousand gold earned monthly by the Night's Watch industries.
If he wanted the black brothers—who had been forced to open the warehouses of Castle Black and contribute strategic reserves to fill the Gift's circulation market—to remain loyal to his orders rather than developing the resentment or hostility seen in the original timeline, Egger had to lead his people in finding ways to increase revenue.
To put it plainly, as Lord Commander, he didn't just have to lead the Watch against the Others; he had to act like a technical or intellectual cadre sent to the countryside in his old world, leading everyone to prosperity.
The roads had been built, and the soil of the Gift was fertile enough, but unfortunately, winter had arrived. Ideas related to agriculture, such as planting or livestock, could be bypassed entirely. Consequently, Egger turned his gaze toward the sale of labor and resources.
Labor was something the Gift had in abundance. Upon taking office, Egger ordered the wandering crows across the land to keep an eye out for regions or activities in need of hands. However—in an age of backward productivity where human life was as cheap as paper—it wasn't just the New Gift residents who were unemployed. Selling cheap labor was mostly a beautiful dream; Egger made other arrangements.
He wrote to the Night's Watch Industries in King's Landing, ordering the obsidian mines on Dragonstone to accelerate their extraction and begin shipping raw ore to the Wall. Polishing dragonglass products required little technical skill; since so many New Gift residents were idle, why hire workers in King's Landing when they could do the job?
Obsidian forged into weapons would serve as combat reserves against the Others, while the leftover scraps could be made into other goods and sold to the North or even across the Narrow Sea. As long as some effort was put into marketing the evil-warding properties of dragonglass and its effectiveness against humanity's ancient foes, it was unlikely to go unsold.
It sounded ideal, but obsidian—this natural glass—was not exclusive to Dragonstone. Egger knew of several obsidian mining areas in Essos. They simply hadn't been mined on a large scale due to supply and demand issues. Even with miraculous marketing techniques making obsidian hot on both sides of the Narrow Sea, Dragonstone's ore wouldn't have a strong competitive edge.
Furthermore, this material wasn't dug up from the Gift, but from King Stannis's backyard on Dragonstone. The Iron Throne didn't collect taxes now only because the Night's Watch Industries weren't yet fat enough to make a monarch envious... but if he truly expected to live off this one product forever, it would first and foremost violate the cautious principle of not putting all one's eggs in one basket.
Obsidian could be a source of income, but it couldn't carry the whole burden, nor was it a long-term solution. Thinking of other paths... Egger naturally thought of mining.
What a backward world lacks is not metal ore, but finished metal. Selling raw ore directly doesn't make money. Thus, the idea of establishing smelting operations in the Gift naturally entered Egger's mind.
Regardless of the considerations, the Gift had to achieve a degree of self-sufficiency in metals.
If there was a surplus to sell for profit, all the better; if not, using it for themselves would surely be cheaper than buying from the outside.
Egger was always the type to think two steps ahead. During the long months of the election, he certainly hadn't ignored his home base at Queenscrown. Masters knowledgeable in smelting had already been invited from the south, and other preparations were in place, waiting only for the certainty that the Gift Settlement Plan wouldn't be halted.
"Our surveyors have headed out to look for mineral deposits, but minerals are rare on the plains, and mountain paths are nonexistent. Between poor transportation and bad weather, prospecting will take some time," Yam, the town mayor, reported on the progress. "But the mountain clansmen working in Queenscrown mentioned in passing that there are open-pit copper and coal mines in the mountains where they live. I went to find the clan leaders; they confirmed this and agreed to let us mine them, provided we guarantee that the workers required for the smelting process are hired preferentially from their clans."
"A reasonable request... but copper? What is the quality and scale? Is it easy to mine? How far is it from the Gift?"
"From the mountain clansmen's descriptions, they only use the natural copper on the surface, occasionally throwing some ore into the fire while cooking to 'smelt' some trinkets or small objects. We won't know the quality or scale until our masters see it, but mining shouldn't be difficult. It's not far from the Gift—less than a hundred miles southwest of Queenscrown."
"Mmm... while copper is more expensive than iron, if I'm to put it to use, I'd much rather find iron ore. But there's no rush. The principles of smelting copper and iron are similar. Since there's a copper mine ready, we'll use it for practice. The most important thing is for the Gift's people to master the process of large-scale smelting first." After a brief thought, Egger gave a decisive order: "Don't stop the search for other minerals, especially iron, but get the copper smelting started for me to see... as soon as possible."
"Understood," Yam nodded.
"Come, show me how the other lines I planned are progressing."
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