Tyranny of Steel

With the rebellion crushed, Berengar had secured his rise to power. As the official Duke of Austria, Berengar now set his armies to protect the borders from possible incursion, and of course, assist with internal security. With this, Berengar had established an era of peace and stability in Austria where he could successfully implement his reforms with little resistance.

As such, the young Duke was currently sitting in his office reviewing expense reports drafted by his House of Lords. At the moment the greatest matter of his military expenses was the expansion of the Navy. As for the Army, Berengar had halted its conscription and maintained its current size. In a time of peace, he allowed for voluntary recruitment only. As such, it required far fewer funds than it previously had.

As for the expenses that were delegated to conscription in the army, they were now set to fuel his Agricultural reforms across all of Austria. At the moment, the Agricultural and Educational sectors were the two most significant portions of his newly established peace-time budget.

By focusing on creating a self-sustaining, mechanized agricultural system across the land and increasing the education of the standard population, Berengar would theoretically be able to drastically improve his workforce and the draftable portion of his society.

At the moment, Berengar ’s focus was to implement the four-field system, irrigation piping, and phosphate fertilizer across the realm. Though Tyrol had begun to develop such strategies to a wide margin, the rest of Austria undoubtedly lacked agricultural reform. Thus Berengar started with the most simple focus. Mass implementation of mechanization would have to wait a few years for the system to catch up.

While Berengar was hard at work, he heard a knock on his door, and as such, he quickly responded.

”Come in ”

to nobody ’s surprise, the person who had visited Berengar during his work was none other than Linde. As usual, she was ravishing, and at the moment, she was wearing a sky blue dress with white embroidery. This dress was in the typical fashion style that Berengar had introduced to the realm. It was primarily based on Tudor and Elizabethan-style dresses from his previous life.

However, the curious part about all of this was Linde ’s extravagant jewelry; it was white-gold with sky blue diamonds embellished within it. White gold was not a naturally occurring material; it had to be created by mixing yellow gold and other materials like nickel, silver, or palladium. As such Berengar had introduced the lavish substance into his jewelry industry as a way to replace silver and increase the demand. After all, such luxuries could only be found in Austria at the moment.