Joffrey knew his own limits on the battlefield.
His entire combat experience amounted to dragging the Crownlands' ragtag army up to the Eyrie for a stroll. Aside from slapping the crabmen around, he hadn't fought a single proper battle the whole time.
Even the defense of King's Landing had been run by Eddard. Joffrey had only led a few hundred knights out for the final charges—basically just bullying some archers, hitting them from behind once, and chasing down fleeing troops. And even then, Jaime had been there to keep the formation tight and they were all elite riders.
Looking at the massive sea of over a hundred thousand men camped outside the city, Joffrey wasn't about to spout nonsense like "the more the better." He certainly wasn't going to start micromanaging things like "move the crossbowmen five yards left."
The point of a king riding to war in person was to boost the army's morale. Actual command belonged to the professionals—and Eddard Stark was the real commander of this allied force.
The Starks really were giving everything for this realm.
Before marching out, he had to settle King's Landing properly.
The most important thing was logistics. Joffrey had gone through every appointment with a fine-tooth comb to make sure Cersei couldn't stir up any real trouble.
He appointed the Imp as Acting Hand of the King.
In Tyrion's mind, Joffrey had now risen to the same level as Jaime.
With soldiers from all over the realm camped outside the city and constantly flowing in and out of King's Landing, merchants and tavern owners were making a fortune.
After Edmure took the post of Master of Ships, House Tully gained more weight on paper, and the Riverlands lords had become noticeably more eager to help.
These days, grain was rolling into the city by the wagonload without Joffrey even having to ask.
With the Northern cavalry gone north to deal with the ironborn and the Westerlands cavalry wiped out, the alliance's mobile forces now depended almost entirely on the Vale knights.
Because Robert had originally chosen Eddard as Hand and later needed to compensate the Lannisters, Jaime had been confirmed as Warden of the East with royal backing. Tywin had also struck a deal with the Lords Declarant. After Stannis was driven off, they had fully come over to the crown's side.
For the laborers and camp followers needed to transport supplies, Joffrey had spread word in Flea Bottom: free meals, meat, and pay.
With plenty of coaxing and promises, they managed to recruit over ten thousand men.
It was a double blessing. Joffrey had hated the cesspit called King's Landing for a long time—especially the infamous Flea Bottom. This was the perfect chance to lure out the strong young men and let Tyrion put the whole rotten district through a thorough cleaning.
These past few days he had been riding around inspecting everything and thinking hard about all of this.
Guilds and craft associations in Westeros were underdeveloped. The Alchemists' Guild had once been powerful, but most others were scattered and disorganized.
All the blacksmiths in King's Landing operated under the apprentice system and were crammed together on Steel Street. They treated each other more like enemies than colleagues—competition far outweighed cooperation. Everyone guarded their little trade secrets jealously.
After the war, things would be different.
Joffrey had forced them all to work together forging equipment for the marching army.
The City Assault Force had also been fully reorganized.
Despite the name, Joffrey had never planned to use them for aggressive attacks. Their training focus was simple: hold position and maintain the line. All the damage would be done by the ranged troops.
The tallest, most aggressive men were selected and trained as heavy infantry, armed with short swords or battle axes and given oak shields reinforced with rivets. They received the best plate, brigandine, and mail from the armory.
The rest became pikemen and halberdiers, placed in the middle and rear ranks to protect the crossbowmen and guard against enemy cavalry charges.
Since proper archery took too long to master and wielding both spear and shield was too demanding for most, they were issued two-handed spears ranging from ten to fifteen feet long.
Their armor was lighter—simple nasal helmets and padded jacks, plus any boiled leather they had scavenged.
Westerosi plate armor was already quite advanced, but it was still expensive and hard to produce in large numbers. Joffrey had even considered stepping backward and adopting lamellar armor instead. It was easier to carry and quicker to equip than mail.
Unfortunately, the Iron Throne had no capacity for mass production, and the entire environment of Westeros kept the tech tree severely limited.
Vast empty lands, unpredictable Long Summers and Long Winters, people clustered in villages around castles with huge wilderness in between—it all created a twisted military system.
Lords' plate armor grew more and more ornate, with nobles competing over engravings and coloring. Their household knights received decent equipment according to their lord's wealth.
But those professional troops were always a tiny minority. Over seventy percent of any army was still made up of peasant levies in nothing but cloth.
Every battle ultimately came down to whose elite troops were better. The farmers were just expendable padding.
In thousands of years, no one had ever tried to fix this.
The biggest constraint was still the environment. During a Long Winter, the more men you had, the more mouths you had to feed and the more chaos you had to manage.
Three hundred years ago Aegon Targaryen had united the continent, but he never built a centralized state.
He didn't need to. He had dragons. Anyone who rebelled got a quick visit from above.
So centuries passed and Westeros made almost no technological progress. In fact, it had started declining after magic faded from the world.
Joffrey had considered slowly advancing the tech tree and developing the realm.
Then Robert "died," he survived an assassination attempt, and the Seven Kingdoms plunged into civil war. There simply hadn't been any time.
But the most important reason was simpler:
He didn't know how.
Why did other people reincarnated into other worlds pull out all kinds of advanced technology?
No matter how hard Joffrey thought, he had no idea how to actually build any of it. Water-powered hammers, blast furnaces, cementation steel—he had only heard the names. He had never seen them and couldn't reproduce them.
That was fine, though. He was the king.
He didn't need to know how. He just needed to give the orders and let others figure it out.
As for right and wrong…
After the victory at the Mud Gate, Joffrey's prestige in King's Landing had reached its peak. If he pointed at a chamber pot and declared it fine wine, half the city would fight each other for the chance to drink it.
The man he put in charge of the blacksmiths was Tobho Mott—Gendry's former master.
The image of that black-haired boy had already grown blurry in Joffrey's memory. He only remembered that the features were very similar to Robert's.
He had once considered sending the boy to the Wall or across the Narrow Sea.
But there had been too many schemers in King's Landing back then. If someone stole Gendry and used him as leverage, Joffrey wouldn't even know where to look.
Besides, Baratheon blood was unnaturally strong—it defied normal genetics. The family line carried some kind of magic. Even Targaryens mixed with foreigners produced children with different hair colors, yet every one of Robert's bastards had black hair.
And Eddard knew Robert far too well. One look and he would have recognized a bastard son.
The more you did, the more mistakes you made.
Joffrey had been extremely careful even when changing a few words in the royal genealogies. Creating a bunch of fake children would have been far harder to explain later.
So he had made the hard decision and told Cersei the truth.
After that, he never asked about it again and never interfered.
Very early on—while they were still on the road to Winterfell—Tobho Mott's forge had burned down.
Not just the boy carrying the bull's-head helm, but quite a few apprentices had been caught in the fire as well.
Was it because of the chaos of the times?
Probably not. Jon's death hadn't been either.
But Joffrey knew that in order to protect himself, he already had quite a bit of innocent blood on his hands.
And once you started down that road, there was no going back.
"Dogs," Joffrey said. "Bring me the eunuch. I want to reward his loyalty with dinner."