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Anno Domini 827, April-15-may-15
I hadn't even spent a full day on land, and the work was already piling up without pause. The moment the eighty transport ships entered the harbor of Heraklion, the disembarkation of people and animals began, and with it the immediate task of settling them. I decided not to concentrate them inside the walled city. I had already settled around thirty thousand Greeks there, most of them devoted to cultivating the wide plains that stretched beyond the walls. In those same areas, improvised dwellings began to rise around water wells, taking advantage of every spot where the soil could sustain life.
The city walls, though repaired, were still a patchwork. What had been done so far was little more than clearing rubble that blocked access points. True reconstruction would have to begin soon, once the quarries of Crete resumed operation. Stone was, by far, the only local resource of real quality—good for carving, strong, ideal for sealing the perimeter permanently and, later on, even considering a second defensive belt.
For the moment, I focused my efforts on the harbor of Heraklion. It was the only one capable of receiving ships, and once word spread through imperial and European markets that the pirates had been expelled, maritime traffic would inevitably increase. The current harbor, which could barely accommodate one hundred ships at a time, would become obsolete very quickly. That was why one of my first orders was the construction of a new harbor on the beaches near Heraklion, far larger, capable of receiving up to a thousand ships.
The problem, as always, was manpower. Workers of every kind were lacking, especially because the immediate priority was the harvest. Most of the population was concentrated on sowing and preparing the land to secure sustenance, applying the crop-rotation system I had ordered implemented across the entire island. To facilitate the work, I distributed horses to improve the use of plows and handed out sickles and basic tools, trying to ensure that each family could work as much land as possible.
At the same time, I began analyzing a more ambitious project: diverting the river of Knossos to bring it all the way to Heraklion. With that, I could establish irrigation systems far more efficient than constantly hauling buckets of water just to allow seeds to germinate.
With the few transport ships I still had available—after sending the soldiers of the themata back to their homes—I dispatched captains in search of markets from which to import iron and volcanic ash. I needed both to produce cement and steel, to set in motion the construction and reconstruction work the city urgently required.
For now, all those projects would remain pending until more workers arrived or we managed to find them. Until then, they would have to be financed out of my own pocket. The emperor would not send funds until the following year, so in practice the island would have to sustain itself for quite some time. The miserable rat had saved himself a full year's worth of gold that could have served me well now—though, to be fair, the imperial coffers were nearly empty, and I didn't know how much he could realistically have sent me anyway.
That meant one thing was clear: I needed to generate income immediately.
Without sufficient iron, armor production in Knossos would be severely limited. Even so, I had to fill Hakon's ships so he could sell goods in the northern kingdoms. For now, I could continue sending him swords and spears as before, reusing the iron captured from the sarakenoi, melting it down and transforming it into Roman-style weapons. It wasn't ideal, but it would work in the short term.
In the long run, the problem remained the same. I needed a stable source of good-quality iron. If I failed to secure agreements with external mines, I would have to resort to the local hematite, fully aware that I would be working with inferior material and that this would make everything more expensive and slower.
As I walked through the city, thinking about how to raise buildings and generate fast income, I came across the owners of a local press. They were crushing olives—grown across much of the island—to extract oil, which they then stored in amphorae for sale.
It was an extremely lucrative business. Almost all food involved olive oil in one way or another. You could tell you were in Roman territory simply by looking at the landscape: where there were olive groves, there was Roman civilization. It was almost a cultural marker.
As I watched them work, something clicked in my mind.
I saw how they placed thousands of olives into baskets, how they were then pressed and the oil flowed slowly into containers. At that moment, I remembered how the Gutenberg press worked. It wasn't the same, of course. The system would have to be different, adapted. But the basic idea was identical: a press, controlled pressure, solid pieces transmitting force evenly—metal pieces instead of letters.
A book was incredibly expensive.
I remembered it well. When I had checked the price of a copy of the twelve volumes of the Strategikon, a single book cost fifteen nomismata. That was the annual salary of four or five people. An absurd sum for almost anyone.
What if I changed the process?
Instead of the traditional method—scriptoria filled with scribes who could read and write and spent their lives copying books letter by letter—I could replace that system with workers who didn't know how to read or write at all, dedicated solely to operating presses. With metal letters and several presses working in parallel, a single book could be copied dozens of times in a matter of hours.
I began thinking through everything necessary to establish a printing operation until I reached the critical point: paper. Or papyrus. There was no way to obtain it locally. I would have to import it, because I didn't know how to manufacture it. I knew, in broad terms, that paper was made from cotton or from wood cellulose, but the entire process required to take that raw material and turn it into a usable sheet was completely unknown to me. I had no idea where to begin.
I needed talent. And I needed it as soon as possible.
That was why I began offering large sums of gold to anyone who could bring useful knowledge to the island: engineering, advanced productive capabilities, specialized artisanal techniques. Anything. In Crete, there was only basic labor: quarrying stone, working the land, casting nets into the sea. The only exceptions were a few urban workshops, my blacksmiths, and the shipbuilders.
So, with my head full of ideas and no way to execute them yet, I had no choice but to wait.
The waiting lasted almost an entire month.
During that time, we filled several of Hakon's drakkars with the swords we managed to forge, and at last I secured a stable supplier of iron from a mine in Attica, near Athens. Every month they sent several tons—enough to keep the forges of Knossos supplied. Charcoal was also secured, this time without intermediaries, as it came from a nearby region. With that, armor production began to recover steadily.
Agricultural work remained intense. The four-field crop rotation system began to be applied systematically, alternating different crops to allow the soil to recover nutrients and increase yields. In addition, I organized the Greek peasants into cooperatives, working communally rather than in isolated family groups. That way, far more arable land could be covered, and large tracts were no longer left unused.
One of my dromons confirmed that some of my ships were returning, and I hoped they would bring someone with real expertise. I was at the harbor reviewing progress, keeping mercenaries and soldiers busy with useful labor instead of pointless drills, when I noticed something odd.
Sigurd was eating something.
"What are you eating?" I asked, seeing him chewing enthusiastically for quite a while.
"I don't know," he replied, putting it back into his mouth. "I just know it's sweet. Very sweet."
I looked more closely. He had several pieces tucked into a pouch.
"Wait… is that sugarcane?" I asked, tilting my head as I recognized the shape.
"I honestly don't know," Sigurd said, shrugging. "Some people working in the south gave it to me. Apparently there were a lot of these plantations that the sarakenoi had. They cut some and handed it to me. Want some?"
He passed me a piece.
"And I'm only finding out now that there are sugar plantations on the island?" I said, squeezing the cane between my fingers.
"Ah… I didn't know," he replied, unconcerned. "I thought it was something the Romans planted… or the sarakenoi."
"Sugarcane requires very specific climates," I murmured. "But it makes sense. The sarakenoi are major sugar producers. Of course they brought the plant." I smiled. "To hell with everything else. Let's go see those plantations."
Without wasting time, I mounted a horse and rode south across the island, toward the lands held by the Varangians. With more careful inspection, I checked areas near old irrigation channels and quickly found extensive sugarcane plantations. Several Varangians were cutting the cane and chewing it directly, enjoying the sweetness.
They were literally tearing it out of the ground and biting into it, laughing among themselves.
"Here we are," I said after examining the fields. "It's sugarcane, without a doubt."
No one really seemed to know what it was. They had probably mistaken it for some strange plant. One couldn't expect much from soldiers accustomed only to barley and wheat.
I looked over the rows stretching out before me as the Varangians of the area greeted me.
I began to assess the true size of the plantations, and it became immediately clear that they were not being properly maintained. They must once have been sustained by the constant labor of numerous slaves. Without them, the cane had been left almost entirely neglected.
I didn't waste time. I mounted my horse again and rode through the region, searching for everyone who had worked those plantations for years. Until then, they had been slaves, and I had never bothered to ask what they knew how to do beyond working the land. This time, I did. I gathered those who understood the cultivation of sugarcane and ordered them to teach the Varangians how to maintain it, how to cut it, how to replant it, and—above all—how to expand its cultivation.
From that moment on, the Varangians were put in charge of the existing plantations. I also ordered the crop to be expanded into other suitable areas of the island. If I could sell sugar in the imperial markets, it would be liquid gold.
As all of this got underway and people began moving back and forth, I searched the area for places where the cane could be processed. In the ruins of an old local city, we found the facilities where sugar had apparently once been produced. Everything had been abandoned when we took control and the sarakenoi were enslaved or expelled. Without delay, we began searching for workers to restart production.
Fortunately, many had prior experience. By offering wages higher than those of ordinary agricultural labor, I secured around three hundred people to work directly in sugar production. At the same time, several thousand were assigned to maintaining the plantations, learning the techniques once used by the sarakenoi. Now it would be us who grew rich from that luxury good.
Beyond honey and grape must, there was nothing that sweetened like sugar. The nobles would pay fortunes for it—even if their teeth fell out from consuming it.
While I was organizing all of this, one of my riders appeared at full gallop. It was obvious he had been searching for me for some time.
"My strategos… here you are. I bring news," he said, barely catching his breath. "It seems the sarakenoi are attacking Sicily. And in the city of Miletus we've found several artisans who work with papyrus.The man who brought them says he paid them a large amount of gold to carry out their work on the island. In addition, a large shipment of raw materials for papyrus production has arrived. Nearly a thousand gold coins have already been spent."
I paused to think.
"Well… problems," I said calmly. "But that sounds more like the emperor's problem than mine. For now, there's nothing I can do to help with that."
Without wasting another moment, I turned and headed back to the harbor. I needed to see those papyrus-makers with my own eyes.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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