Herald of Steel

Metztil mulled over the various excuses Alexander presented to him to try and justify the 'displacement' of his men.

And even after racking their head, the gathered delegation found the three reasons provided too robust to rebut.

They of course tried to haggle even then, but Alexander had come prepared.

He especially used the destruction the natives had caused while marching to repeatedly deny all their claims and insisted that they be scattered in groups of a few hundred.

And as Alexander cleverly unveiled his net, it got to the point that Metztil began to quickly suspect whether that was Alexander's plan all along.

To use the facade of generosity and let them do whatever they wanted just to trick them into riling the common people up against them and then use this excuse to divide them.

It was unknown whether Metztil himself truly accepted this highly circuitous multi layered scheme or simply thought he was being paranoid, but in reality, the man had really hit the nail right on the head.

Although he might not be as skilled as Lady Parthia, Alexander had intentionally pitted his allies and worked to deny the natives any significant land bordering the northern walls.

He had done this because he feared that if a lot of natives started living there, it would only be a matter of time before those lands naturally became an extension of their homelands that lay just beyond the stone walls.

Then there was the issue of security.

Alexander was worried that if somehow conflict broke out between the tribesmen and the Sybarians living in these border areas, those natives living just past the wall might choose to militarily intervene in favor of their opposed brothers.

And given the bad blood between the two groups, Alexander could write it in blood that it was not a question of 'if' such acts of violence would erupt, but only when.

Despite his best efforts, Alexander knew there was no realistic way to stop the people from clashing given the centuries piled up bad blood. It was bound to happen due to even the most banal things.

Thus his only hope was to contain the flares whenever they popped up and see that they did not spill over to the rest of the lands

It was thought in this way, over time the scars would heal.

However, all these optimistic notions would be shattered if the overzealous natives someday decided to push their armies into sovereign Margrave's land.

Or it could also happen in the reverse direction.

Enraged by the works of a few bad apples, the common people might go attack the tribes near the border on their own or under the leadership of a few rough lords, noble acting on their own with no authority from the Margraves.

It should be known that it was relatively easy to cross the northern wall.

Because it was nothing like that structure one conjured one when they heard the 'wall'.

The impressive name 'Northern Wall' might cause one to imagine huge, towering solid behemoths like the Walls of Babylon or the Great of China, or even the Ice Wall in that fictional series, but in reality, it was nowhere as impressive.

This wall was more like a stone 'fence', merely a couple of feet high and something even a decent sized child could climb over.

The goal of this obstacle was not to altogether stop the barbarians from coming in and raiding as they pleased, but more to offer a kind of roadblock.

It was stop them from easily taking back their loot to their tribes.

And indeed, when you were laden with carts full of grain, jewelry, or metal tools, followed by immense herds of cows, bulls, horses, pigs, chickens, and other livestock, even just a one meter wall seemed like Mount Everest.

Getting any animal to jump over only this waist sized blocker was surprisingly tricky and carts usually had to be unloaded, picked up, moved over, and then reloaded again.

All while they were under the imminent threat of an armed response from the surrounding lords and rulers.

For what it cost to build and maintain, this small northern wall was perhaps even more effective than the immense 10 meter walls surrounding Zanzan.

But although it was very efficient at stopping raids and small skirmishes, what it could not stop were large scale incursions by huge armies.

Those were what Alexander was most worried about. .net

Because the carnage and blood split during such an iteration would cause the grievous wound in both the people's hearts to become even more inflamed.

Alexander would be foolish to leave such a vulnerable gate open.

And speaking of security vulnerabilities, placing the natives so close to their border would also present a very high threat of sabotage and espionage, with various dark powers trying their best to destabilize the situation.

Perhaps this concern was even more pressing than the former, as it would be far more frequent and far too insidious to easily stop.

At least it took quite a large time and effort to raise an army. Even if the natives wanted to go to war with the Margraves for the sake of their oppressed brethren, they would have to calculate the cost of winning and losing.

On the other hand, it was far too easy to pit one side against the other.

A few subtle nasty whispers in the winds, a few erratic killings, a short spree of high profile robberies against one group… there were literally hundreds of various ways to pit people against each other.

And Alexander of course did not mean this could happen only one way.

Just as the various other jealous tribes might want to cause chaos for the Sybarians, the reverse was perhaps even more real.

Many of the common folk would certainly not look kindly towards these 'barbarians' living among them, and much greater than that, many of the powerful lords ruling the lands would certainly hold grudges against them.

Being close to the border, they of course had their fair share of barbarian trouble and like Lady Miranda, many had lost their kin to the attacks.

So Alexander's wish to remove the natives from these highly hostile areas was perhaps also a form of protection for them.

According to both Lord Janus and Lady Miranda, the people were further inland and were far less xenophobic. They still hated the northerners, don't get me wrong, it was just that they lacked that personal connection.

And lastly, the reason why Alexander wanted to break up the natives and scatter was them was to better assimilate them into the Sybarian society.

By isolating these men from their core areas, he hoped to 'drown' them with this 'outsider' culture, thus slowly neutralizing this dangerous element.

Alexander naturally could not reveal all these hidden reasons behind his act. Even the security issues would cause Metztil to question Alexander's promise to guarantee the lives of his people.

Hence he played the lack of enough available land and the nobles' unwillingness to hand over even more land.

But it was easier said than done, as unwilling to let their people basically vanish into the jaws of the Margrave's controlled land, Metztil's delegation pressed Alexander that this was not the deal they had come in mind with.

"With our brothers thrown to the wind like this, they will be too divided. How can they live all on their own? They don't even speak your outsider's language. How can we be sure they will not be persecuted? How will they contact us?"

All these were indeed valid criticisms, especially about the concern about keeping in touch.

The tightly knit tribal folks preferred to be among themselves.

But given the roads around these parts were hardly developed, almost all consisting of rural earthen roads beaten into rough shape, save for a single wide highway that led to Caira, such communication would truly be hard.

So the natives living far away would indeed start to feel isolated once they were away from their kin for a while.

Now the reason for such poor roads was largely intentional, and the reason had to do with the presence of the natives.

The top brass of the Margraves feared that if the natives ever broke through, a good road network would be to their own detriment.

So to prevent the possibility of simply one day waking up to a barbarian army knocking on the walls of their city by using thier own stone roads, the Margraves purposefully kept the norther parts less developed than its souther parts.

After all, why spend so much money and effort developing such a vulnerable land that they could lose any time?

Towards all these complaints, Alexander did not bother to promise them to build better roads or even start a postal service.

He knew what truly moved these men and so in a cool, finalizing voice chimed,

"We understand all your concerns. So to compensate we are willing to give each family 100 acres of land, among which 20 acres will be good arable farmland."

:..."

It was like an immense bomb had gone off in the room as soon as he said that. The Helvati elites could not believe that they were hearing.

It did not take long to wrap up the discussion after that.

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