1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 225: How To Spend Big Bucks

For the horses, Antonius cannot help but to keep these cute, practical but troublesome creatures over here in Anatolia under the custody of Sultan Orhan. Whereas for the chests after chests of gold the different captains under Antonius broke into a series of debates on how to spend this tremendous amount of money that they rarely sees, some suggests distributing it between the soldiers and sailors, some suggests using it to fund the market, some suggests to use it to build more ships. 

However, their admiral got some thing else in his mind, especially after he saw the local population getting enslaved by the dead Ottoman ferik to build those super projects with days with little food and rest, and their houses getting demolished by the Ottoman commander to get first hand building resources to reconstruct those ports and the two towers. Without any outside aid or support and the pitiful amount of food given by their Ottoman masters, it is incredibly doubtful whether these local peasants can live through the incoming winter.

"I" Antonius hesitates as he stops the debate between his captains and leaves the place back to his own tent, he too does not really knows how he can spend this huge amount of money on. Actually speaking, if the money he received today is not such a tremendous amount he would instantly think of distributing the wealth with his soldiers increasing their loyalty and boosting the army's morale, but it is simply way too much, giving too many gifts and rewards would not only not boost the army's loyalty and morale, but it will also in turn increase their greed and make them lose the will to fight.

Actually, after seeing how the commoner in this region lives under Ottoman lordship, by instinct he is thinking of be charitable and distributing the wealth among the people to improve on their lives. However, when he really thought deeper on this idea, he found himself caught in a dilemma, an entangled web.

Antonius has no foundation here in these lands to supervise the local population, which means that even if he made the decision to split part of his wealth with the local commoners, how is he going to do it? Send his men to find those people and ask them line up one by one to collect the money? That is not gonna work obviously, and how will his men see this act by their admiral? Oh, you are giving these ignorant peasants these amount of money and not giving it to us who sacrificed so much for you?

And besides Antonius knows that he is going away after a while, and who knows whether the local land lords or the Ottoman authorities are going to rob the local commoners once more, making the entire thing totally meaningless.

Thus, this idea remained as an idea, it never came out of the admiral's mouth.

Though it seems like some one else have caught the admiral's idea even without him saying it.

"Admiral!" Just as Antonius is grinding hard about this in his mind, Yuri came reporting in. "That new guy called Alexios says that he wants to see you."

"Let him in." Antonius lifted his eye brow upwards knowing the intentions of Alexios coming.

"My lord." Alexios came into the tent asking in a straight forward manner. "Are you thinking of using the money to aid the local population?"

Hearing the straight forward question Antonius also gave a straight forward reply. "Yes, please tell me with your opinion and idea."

Alexios signed placing his documents and papers on the table. "Please ignore my rudeness, admiral, but the idea of distributing the wealth between the commoners here are plainly an idea of stupidity which instead of solving the problem it will deepen it."

Antonius is not angry by a single bit, he stood up straight and bowed slightly towards Alexios with a serious face, which and later hurriedly jumped away dodging the bow while the admiral asked. "Please, enlighten me Alexios, you are the expert here."

"Admiral, I know that you are a great man of dignity with concerns and care about the local peasants, which is of course a very good thing, but you must also know that in these chaotic times you cannot test the durability of a human heart and greed. Even in peace times these local lords and officials will always try to take these peasants for granted taking away what they have bit by bit, at least they know to sweep it under the carpet trying to not seem to be obvious. But in times of chaos and war they will turn into vampires sucking up the blood of the peasants dry without even trying to hide their intentions If you are here supervising them, this might be applicable, what you are going to leave soon."

"Any ideas in your mind?"

"Yes, admiral." Alexios laid a paper on the wooden desk showing to Antonius. "I have made a calculation and summary on the total stock pile of the supplies we have, and listed down all the trade net works available in the region. Instead of giving them money we can give them grains, seeds, food to at least make sure they can survive through the incoming winter and have the seeds to plant the next year's crops, that would be worth more than any thing else."

Antonius' mind suddenly became clear, he has always been thinking about the coins just now neglecting the fact that he still has a large stock pile of agriculture products. A smile re-emerged on his face as he gave Alexios a pat on the back. "Indeed, if that is the case, may you go back and re-calculate on how much grains can we spare."

Then Antonius returned to his seat like he has solved a major issue.

"Admiral, maybe you can also use your influence to suggest to the Ottoman rebel Sultan to cut off one year of taxation on this place." Remembering some thing Alexios turned back and suggested.

"I have included it in the letter, two days back when I gave him the news of victory." Antonius continued looking at the report without lifting up his head. "He should be considering this thing now."

"I see, thank you my lord." Alexios remained silent over there hugging his pile of files looking at Antonius' facial expression for a long time standing there, and after a while he could resist no more and asked. "Admiral, we have done what ever we could, why do you still look like you are doubtful and morose about some thing?"

Antonius shook his head, then nodded his head slightly replying earnestly. "Because although we can provide them with the necessities to live through this winter, but we cannot guarantee them to return to normal life Just like how we dealt with the land lords and Ottoman officials who are like the swamps of locusts, never goes to extinct. What do you think?"

Alexios remained silent standing in the middle of the tent.

"What do you think?"

Alexios looked up looking at the darkening Autumn sky and commented. "I know your concerns, but if you, admiral, wants to return peace, justice and stability you cannot always rely on violence, it will get you addicted to it, this is what we Romans learn since we are young from age old Greek philosophies."

"What can I rely on then?" Antonius kept on questioning.

"Law and order." Alexios answered. "You need a full set of judiciary laws and a supreme court to make a full set of laws for you writing those crimes and punishments clearly on paper setting the border line for humanity, and in order to enforce the law you need more power, which means you need more soldiers, control more land, have more ships, expand your sphere of influence so that people will listen to you."

Antonius sat here holding the paper tight.

"Right now, admiral, we are still far too weak, far too weak for others to listen to us."

"Indeed." Antonius accepted the bitter piece of advice.

Just as the two men speaks, Yuri came into the tent again reporting in. "Admiral! Captain Abraham is here requesting to see you!"

"Call him in!" Antonius replied, in a slightly more relaxing tone after the burden in his heart have been laid off.

Abraham came in still in armour, startled a bit when seeing Alexios. The two men greeted each other first and then straight forwardly turned to the admiral asking. "My lord, how are you going to deal with the fifty thousand pieces of Ducats?"

"What do you think, Abraham?" Antonius smiled and questioned back.

"I suggest that we divide a portion of these money equally among all of our sailors, soldiers and varangian, I know that Admiral as no concerns about money, so why not we take these money out and gift them to our men, increase their morales?"

"Exactly." Antonius tilted his head looking at Alexios. "Our professor of money here was also thinking of the same idea."

Abraham looked at Alexios again, walking up giving him a hug and a strong pat on the shoulder.

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