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Her Eternal Excellency, a Genshin Impact and ASOIAF crossover, Raiden Ei Reborn as Argella Durrandon, is 15 chapters ahead
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—
Storm Kingdom
Storm's End
11 BAC
Argilac had thought it was time for his daughter to join him in court to see how the kingdom was run.
Sitting on a chair beside her father's throne, Ei watched the proceedings as people both common and noble came to air their grievances to the king. Commoners requested aid, whether in grain or against bandits.
Nobles had entirely different concerns, however. Border clashes, fights over insults, either perceived or true, and the rare tax exemption requests for projects.
"What do you think, daughter?" Argilac asked his daughter her opinion after listening to Lord Grandison and Lord Fell, who were squabbling over a plot of land on the border between their lands.
Knights of House Grandison had slain one of current Lord Fell's younger brothers, thinking him a bandit hunting unlawfully on their side of the border, while the boy had been chasing a stag and accidentally crossed the border. One thing led to another, and the boy had been killed.
The Knights responsible for this act had been sent to fight at the border with the Ironborn, and a certain plot of land from House Grandison had been granted to House Fell by Argilac's father, Durran.
House Grandison claimed it had been long enough and their debt had been paid, while Lord Fell disagreed, requesting the land be granted to them permanently.
Both houses were strong, and Argilac couldn't afford to choose one over the other.
His daughter had proven to be a genius, at least when it came to learning her letters, and Argilac wanted to see if she could do as well in solving problems like this as she had done in learning.
The lords turned to Ei, who was watching them with a calm and collected gaze.
"Lord Fell, you claimed House Grandison's debt to your house had not been paid. Would your late brother think the same?" Ei asked. In Inazuma, matters such as these would have been solved without any intervention on her part, but she would have to handle them personally for now, at least until she created a proper system to oversee these issues.
"My brother?" Lord Fell asked, confused.
Where was she going with this?
"Yes, your brother. Would he wish for you to continue this feud and risk more people dying?" Ei leaned forward, clasping her hands under her chin. "Would he wish for you to endanger your life if he loved you half as much as you seem to love him?" Ei continued to press. Manipulating a person's emotions would not have been her first choice in de-escalating a developing situation, but she knew appealing to their logic would be an exercise in futility.
"No, of course not." Lord Fell sounded offended by the implication.
Good.
"Then continuing to hold on to a land for a dead person who would not want you to do it if it meant conflict would be an insult to him, do you not agree?" Ei questioned the Lord, using the love he had for his younger brother.
Lord Fell looked as if he was about to burst and say something foolish before biting his tongue and shutting up. He took a deep breath after a while and said, "Yes, you are right, Princess," and agreed to her reasoning.
"Then the land should be returned to House Grandison in the interest of peace," Ei said, turning to her father to see his reaction.
He was smiling, impressed.
Lord Grandison was trying to force down a grin and failing, which only incensed Lord Fell further.
"And Lord Grandison, your House should employ knights who should not be so eager to kill a young man over a stag of all things. Had they been willing to use their heads, this matter could have been resolved easily and not led to a feud lasting decades," Ei chided the other lord and wiped the grin off his face.
"Yes, Princess Argella," he replied stiffly, putting a smile on Lord Fell's lips.
They shook hands after that, agreeing to end the feud then and there.
More petitioners came after that, which gave Argilac more opportunities to test Ei.
Having spent centuries as the "Kagemusha" of her twin sister Makoto, Ei had learned a great deal when it came to ruling, and the petitions that came before her were not matters she had not faced before.
After the fifth petitioner who came in because of a bad harvest, Ei had had enough.
"Maester Larry, please gather everyone who came because of a bad harvest or matters related to farming. I will talk with all of them tomorrow." Ei ordered the aging man, who turned to the king for confirmation.
"Do as she says." Argilac was curious as to what his daughter would do but chose to wait until after they were done to ask.
Maester Larry bowed and left, gathering the mentioned petitioners, and returned after he was done.
Soon enough, the last petitioner came in, and the court was adjourned after that.
—
"You handled the court well today, Princess," her grandfather praised her, though he did look as if he swallowed a whole lemon while saying it.
"Do not force yourself to praise me if it is too hard, grandfather; after all, we would not wish for your health to suffer due to the exertion," Ei said calmly, as if she was actually worried about his health.
She was beginning to understand why Miko enjoyed teasing people like this.
"Why, I would never!" Lord Lucan looked offended, his face scrunching like a wrinkly old apple.
"HA-HA-HA, she got you good, old man!" Argilac guffawed, slapping the old man on the back, laughing all the while.
Quickly muttering an excuse, her grandfather left, grumbling.
"Oh, that was nicely done, daughter. That old man is always giving me grief; it is good to see him put down for once." Argilac praised Ei and ruffled her hair.
Ei's eye twitched, barely stopping herself from slapping his hand away, instead choosing to fix her hair.
"So how will you handle the farmers?" Argilac crossed his arms, waiting for her answer.
Several factors made farming in Storm King a rather troublesome prospect, especially due to how vital it was.
Weather was one of those factors. Besides the unnatural seasons, the constant storms the land faced, which mostly affected the areas where farming was possible, negatively impacted the yield and quality of the crops.
Which is why the Marches were so vital, as the fertile land provided more than two-thirds of the wheat produced in the kingdom.
Dornish raids mostly targeted the farmlands, and if they managed to advance deep enough, they could target the larger farms, setting them on fire.
No wonder the Storm Kingdom hated them with a passion.
Another factor was the population of the kingdom, which was rather low compared to other kingdoms with similar sizes, owing to the weather and the lay of the land and the constant wars and border clashes, discouraging people from settling in the Storm Kingdom.
However, it was not all grim, as the animal husbandry and dairy farming were more advanced compared to crop farming, due to the abundant water sources and pastureland.
But neither of them lasted as long as wheat and barley did.
"I intend to introduce machines which will make farming easier and faster, as well as teach the farmers how to better make use of the land," Ei explained. Makoto might have taught people better farming techniques and concepts such as crop rotation, but it was Ei who built machines that made farming much easier, reducing the labor necessary.
"What machines?" Argilac asked with a frown. He had not heard anything about Argella building machines.
"I will demonstrate them later; you are welcome to watch if you are interested." Ei offered, not wishing to waste any more time explaining, as she would have to pull an all-nighter to build the machines.
"Will your allowance be enough?" Argilac did not know much about machines, but his daughter had proven her smarts today, and he would help her however he could.
"I have enough silver, but I will need to borrow the forge," Ei asked; after all, her forge was more fit to produce weapons than farming tools.
"Aye, I'll send orders for Hammond to help you." Ei nodded; she would prefer to work by herself, but she could teach Hammond how to build the machines and delegate that particular responsibility to him.
—
Next Day
Hammond was a stubborn man, and he did not like being forced to listen to a little girl and build the contraptions she thought of, even if the said little girl was a princess, but he did it nonetheless.
After all, one did not say no to King Argilac without a good reason.
He began to change his mind, though, as the machines came together.
Maybe she knew what she was doing after all.
—
Storm's End
Outside the Castle Gates
Four Days Later
First light rays of the sun hit his face as Hammond guided the horse, the chestnut mare dragging the seed drill, the reaper, and the thresher, trailing behind the Princess.
He had spent the last four days helping the princess build the machines, and if they worked half as good as she claimed they would, well, even a man like him could see their value.
He yawned as Princess Argella began to demonstrate the machines on cutting down wild weeds and threshing wheat sheaves and sowing whatever seed they had found.
The farmers' eyes were shining, seeing their backbreaking labor reduced to the pull of a horse.
"Each farmstead will receive a set of these machines for free, and those who lack a beast of burden to pull them will be provided one as the silver allows. They will be distributed depending on where the yields were poor as well as the size of the farm." Ei explained the situation as simply as she could and then proceeded to educate the farmers on crop rotation.
The farmers were doubtful, not sure how what the Princess was explaining would work, so Ei gave them an incentive rather than try to explain the process in detail.
"If you suffer poor harvests due to the crop rotation, you will be paid the full price of a successful harvest by me."
—
Ei's next order of business was to train people to build the machines. Messengers were sent to Weeping Town to recruit and train blacksmiths in the process, as well as to buy iron.
None of which would solve the problem of how slow manual smithing was. It took four days to build three machines, only because Ei already had extra steel ingots she was willing to spare, and she worked the nights while Hammond was asleep. Smelting enough steel or wrought iron to build them would increase the time it took exponentially, and buying them, especially with her deciding to give the machines for free to the already struggling people, would strain her finances.
She could ask Argilac for silver, but then again the man was against her stance on not charging the smallfolk for the machines.
A Mikage Furnace would solve the problem, but there was no Tatarigami or any other energy source here to fuel it, and building one from scratch with the current level of technology of this world would take too long.
Alternative means would have to be devised, it seemed.
—
Industrial Growth of the Storm Kingdom
Storm Kingdom Iron Works
Powered by a large waterwheel to pump the bellows and raise the massive trip hammers, the first generation of the Iron Works, built during Her Excellency's youth, had driven a never-before-seen kind of growth in the Storm Kingdom and eventually in the rest of her domain.
Including a blast furnace to produce pig iron and a forge to fine it into wrought iron and then forge it into bars, the amount of iron produced far surpassed the manual means.
The amount of wrought iron produced in these furnaces led to the early mechanization of agriculture and greater armament of the forces bordering the Ironborn-controlled Riverlands at the time.
The second iteration was able to produce more than just ingots and nails, while the third generation, "Sun Forges," could produce arms and tools all by themselves.