In The Crag, all the servants were busy preparing for Jeyne and Gregor's wedding, while in Lord Gawen's study, a rather unusual military mee
In The Crag, all the servants were busy preparing for Jeyne and Gregor's wedding, while in Lord Gawen's study, a rather unusual military meeting was underway.
Unusual because there were two guests who really shouldn't have been there: Lord Leo Leford of Golden Tooth and Lord Damon Marbrand of Ashemark.
Damon Marbrand's severed hand had been treated, and the wound was healing at a rare speed. This surprised The Maester quietly but put Gawen and Lord Leo in good spirits. Damon himself had shifted from despair and bitterness to a cold, aloof sharpness in his speech.
Gregor had invited both lords to join his conscription plan. Leo accepted gladly, while Damon gave a slight nod with a look of disdain.
In The Crag, all the knights who had been captured by Gregor overnight were released, including Ser Addam Marbrand of Ashemark. All the family lands taken from the Westerling family had been fully returned. Damon stayed behind only because his severed hand required further treatment from The Maester.
In this world, once a wound gets infected and festers, there is only one outcome: death.
There were no anti-inflammatory ointments here. Once the Maesters did all they could, whether a wound would become infected and fester was left to an even greater healer, the Seven Gods.
Damon's bleeding had been uncontrollable at one point, but after Asa stopped the blood, his follow-up treatment caused the wound to heal unusually fast, something that surprised Damon, Leo, Gawen, and others who had seen many battle injuries.
So Damon stayed in The Crag for further care.
Even Asa himself was puzzled by how quickly the injury healed. lord
Yet Gregor treated both lords with respect and warmth, as if nothing unpleasant had ever happened between them. Damon's lost hand seemed unrelated to Gregor at all.
Gregor's plan was to establish a thousand-strong infantry force on his father-in-law's lands. The first step, of course, was conscription. He invited Lords Leo and Damon because both were skilled military commanders, and Gregor wanted their input.
Damon was more than happy to join. With the feud between Ashemark and Westerling families, knowing the enemy's troop strength was an undeniable advantage.
Leo was the only guest Gregor invited to his family wedding. With nothing else pressing and the wedding still five days away, he accepted the invitation.
Lord Gawen had originally opposed inviting both Lords to the meeting, but facing Gregor's towering presence, he found himself unable to protest and simply nodded.
Training for Clegane's garrison and guards, as well as the Westerling family's recruitment efforts, were all led by Gregor. Both Gawen and Lady Sibyl were reluctant about such large-scale conscription, and the reason was simple: money.
Maintaining troops costs a fortune.
Feeding, clothing, weapons, armor, training, and wages, every aspect drained resources.
The Westerlings struggled just to maintain their 180 professional soldiers, let alone suddenly adding a thousand infantry.
At least infantry were cheaper than cavalry; horsemen were even more expensive.
In peacetime, aside from the four great families and a few high-ranking nobles who maintained thousands of troops, most nobles kept only the essential guards.
Because every subject was effectively a soldier.
They had their people earn money, farm, mine, hunt, or fish, supporting themselves and the nobles' armies. When called upon, a conscription order meant these subjects would bring their own weapons to war. This saved nobles vast expenses and earned them tax revenue.
Having militias live off the land worked well, especially for a declining noble house like the Westerlings. But it had one major flaw: these hastily gathered troops lacked the fighting power of professional armies. When generals or centurions fell, or if they suffered setbacks, these militias easily collapsed.
Professional armies were different. Well-trained, professional units replaced fallen commanders immediately with deputies and centurions to keep fighting. Even in retreat, they had leaders to organize orderly withdrawal.
A snake can't function without a head, and troops can't fight without commanders.
But a snake also can't survive with only a head and no body, an army needs both generals and soldiers training, living, and growing together professionally.
Gregor insisted the Westerlings could no longer be just generals without soldiers. Both must be trained and nurtured as professionals.
Because in just one short year, war would ruthlessly break out.
In the previous timeline, The Crag fell easily to Robb Stark's northern forces. This time, the city would burn the enemy's home instead.
And what about money? What could bring faster income than forging private currency?
When a nation is chaotic, civil war raging, with clans fighting each other, who cares if your Gold Dragons are privately minted or state-issued?
The national financial system wouldn't collapse because gold, silver, and brass had always been hard currency. Whether in thousands of years past, the Targaryen's three-century reign, or the current sixteen years under Robert Baratheon, gold, silver, and copper remained the continent's hard currency.
Across the Narrow Sea in Essos, it was the same.
Gold in any form, be it the round Gold Dragon or the various gold coins minted by different countries and peoples, circulated freely as the strongest currency.
Gregor spread out the map of Clegane's territories on the desk and began reviewing population numbers, households, and gender ratios district by district.
He noticed an important issue: the subjects living on lands mortgaged or sold to surrounding nobles were wealthier, more numerous, and had higher birth rates than those still under Westerling leadership. The total households had increased by about two hundred beyond initial estimates.
Because of this higher birth rate, the population has grown.
What was originally estimated as 1,300 households had risen to over 1,500.
In a sense, although the Westerlings sold their lands cheaply, these lands had appreciated by the time they were returned.
This was a more subtle, "legal" source of income than outright extortion, but it also showed the Westerlings hadn't done enough for their own subjects. Or perhaps, due to their decline, they simply neglected them to fend for themselves, just like Gregor once treated his own people: collecting taxes, but offering no other aid.
That couldn't continue.
War would break out in March next year and drag on, a long, drawn-out civil war that would last year after year.
Such prolonged conflict required steady, strong tax income to sustain it.
So alongside conscription, enriching the people was an urgent priority. Only a prosperous population could support a strong army.
In this half-nomadic, half-agricultural era, nobles sending troops to war had to bring their own food and supplies. The peasant soldiers had to provide their own weapons, armor, and equipment. If the people were poor, they couldn't afford decent swords or armor, and their combat effectiveness would naturally be low.
Without a doubt, conscription had to be paired with a plan to enrich the people, an urgent, non-negotiable task.
But how?
This problem had plagued the Westerling family for generations. No solution.
Until Gregor, coming from a civilization several levels more advanced and steeped in Eastern Chinese history and culture, found wisdom and inspiration.
Enrich the people and strengthen the army. He had thought about it even before coming here.
Hard things are not hard once you know how.
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