TheLifeandTimes19
patreon
Population Problems
🕑 Added 2023-04-30 04:39:26 +0000 UTCPopulation Problems
Bear Island- 289AC
It had been a fortnight since Hadrian arrived at Bear Island. He and his uncle would be leaving the next morning, to go back to Winterfell. Today though, he found he found himself sitting beside Meage Mormont and her daughters Jorelle and Lyra, on a small alcove overlooking the sparring yard, where his uncle Benjen was sparring with his future wife. Each of them had drinks in hand as they watched the pair fight in their seventh spar that morning so far.
Over the last few weeks, Hadrian had watched Benjen and Dacey closely. The last thing that he wanted was to force his uncle into an unhappy marriage. So he wanted to make sure that he made the correct decision. Marrying Benjen to Dacey might have been smart politically, as the Navy will be on Bear Island and the financial power of the Western coast will be at Sea Dragon Point. Making sure that the two Houses have a strong, positive relationship can only be an advantage going forward. Despite that, he would cancel the wedding without regrets if he thought Dacey would make Benjen unhappy.
Thankfully it seems his instincts were right in this case. Benjen had been a quiet man since the war, prone to smiling less and hardly ever joking. Not like he used to. Hadrian didn’t think Benjen would ever pursue a woman if he didn’t nudge him.
After he and Maege Mormont confirmed the betrothal between Benjen and Dacey, he left them on their own to get to know each other, while he was shown around Bear Island and kept company by the rest of the Mormonts. At first Benjen was awkard and shy around his betrothed but Dacey didn’t seem to be put off. She seemed accepting of the betrothal and actually seemed to put her all into it. Breaking through Benjens shell with pure determination. Harry found himself growing to like her and the rest of the Mormonts a great deal.
By the third day, Benjen seemed to have an almost permanent smile on his face at breakfast and Dacey seemed to take a particular joy in teasing him. He continued to leave them on their own and explored Bear Island as much as he could with Meage, Jorelle and Lyra in the time he had.
Bear Island was large as far as Islands go. Filled with rolling hills, pine and oak trees as well as an abundance of wildlife. It was perhaps larger than any of the Iron Islands and had many resources that those islands lack. Bear Island had many rivers, streams and bountiful forests filled with edible berries and animals. It was a beautiful island that probably made most Lords in the Iron Islands jealous.
With the resources found on the island, it would easily be possible for it to host a Navy. Wood for ships could be chopped down from the island or imported from Sea Dragon Point with ease. The biggest issue was the Bay of Ice was said to freeze in winter, freezing the ocean on the northern part of the island. He could easily have the Navy and shipyard built on the Southern part of the island, the only issue would be random chunks of ice in the water. He would see how the Navy handles the winter before he decides anything else. Worst case scenario, he can just move where the Navy is based after winter if ice proves to be a problem.
Hadrian decided on a place to build a shipyard and port within the first few days of arriving on the island. In the end he built it at the South-eastern corner of the island in one of the natural bays that the island had.
There was just a lot of work that had to be done to build that Navy. While the command structure, pay, equipment and training for the Navy would be decided at the same time as the Northern Army’s, when the Lords arrive back from the war with the Iron Islands, there are still a few things he can decide upon for the Navy without the presence of the Lords.
The first decision he made was choosing Bear Island to host the Western Navy. He didn’t think any of the Lords would disapprove. The Mormonts are an old House and are known for their loyalty. The second thing he started to do, was start work on the port for the Navy itself. He also created plans for some of the defences, such as watchtowers along the shore that can look for signal fires from ships out in the ocean, in case of an Ironborn attack. Those watchtowers would eventually be spaced all along the Western shore and will each have signal fires, so they can signal each other and pass word of Ironborn, long before any ships make it close to the coast. Giving time for the Navy to react.
He knew it would take a long time to build up some of the infrastructure, especially with the low population of Bear Island and the Western shore. The sooner he starts the sooner it will be done though.
Everything would have to be built out of wood. There wasn’t really any other choice. Stone would eventually replace it once everything is stable. The issue now was getting men to join the Naval Academy in any type of numbers. He would have to recruit from all over the North if he wants to build the Navy quickly and that would take men away from other places he needed them.
Gold wouldn’t be a problem for a little while, House Stark received a decent influx of Gold thanks to the new farming practices and access to the Gift. This has saved them a lot of money and kept a lot of gold in the North, having a positive impact on the rest of the economy. As smallfolk now have cheaper food and can more often spend their hard earned coin on other things. Unfortunately all the projects he is running has increased their expenses tremendously, meaning they are still losing money. They can last for a few years at this rate, thanks to his ancestors who would rarely spend any gold and constantly save. It was thanks to them that House Stark had access to over a million gold dragons.
His grandfather considered that money emergency gold in case of a long winter and his uncle Ned felt the same, but Harry would much rather use that money to make the North more self-sufficient. The problem is that building a new castle wasn’t cheap. Hopefully in a few years, Sea Dragon Point will start attracting merchants and will turn a profit. The building of so many ships for the Navy and the training of troops for the Navy and army is sure to eat up a lot of funds too.
Hopefully Lord Manderly will have a decent amount of ships built for the voyage his uncle Benjen will take on his behalf. After a lot of thought, Harry decided to send half of the Ironborn ships he captured around Westeros to White Harbour. They would be added to the trade fleet. Those ships would be filled with furs first though. The men would trade on their way around Westeros, hopefully earning a decent amount of coin. Hadrian was just hoping that once his uncle Benjen got back from Yi-Ti, with the fleet and goods for trade, that they would have earned enough gold to keep up with demand so that House Stark can start earning more coin, instead of losing it as it currently is.
He knows the costs are just temporary though. Once the infrastructure of Sea Dragon Point was built and the trade fleet returned and sold their goods and attracted some merchants and smallfolk, and once his new tax reforms are fully implemented and all the farms are set up, there should be a decent economic boom that House Stark will be fully prepared to capitalise on. Gold will be much easier to come by, until he inevitably sinks it into his next project.
No, gold wasn’t currently the biggest factor holding him back.
Harry takes a sip of water while watching Dacey beat on his uncles shield with a mace and tries to think of ways around his biggest problem at the moment. The thing that is restricting him the most.
He lets out a small sigh and shakes his head as his uncle is swept off of his feet and has a mace held to his head. Next to him the Mormont sisters cheer. “Show him, Dacey!” “Tame your wolf girl!” Harry can’t help but blush slightly at how shameless the Mormont sisters are. Maege glares slightly at her daughters but does little else.
When Benjen looks at the stands and meets his eyes Harry can’t help but tease him. “I guess we know who will wear the pants in the relationship!”
Everyone laughs while Benjen throws him a weak glare. It fades off his face soon after, when Dacey helps him to his feet and challenges him to another spar.
Harrys thoughts soon drift off again to his current problem as they begin to spar. He is being heavily restricted by the Norths most valuable and hard to come by resource. People. He just never seemed to have enough people. He has countless projects that he wants to get done but even the first major one was giving him a massive headache with all its obstacles.
He finally got his first comprehensive report of everything he set in motion at Sea Dragon Point the day before. The report was over a moon in the making, it wasn’t very good and required him to send a list of instructions back. Unfortunately the man he put in charge of the operations at Sea Dragon Point wasn’t the most well educated. He was educated enough for what he needed though.
He put an elderly man named Jem in charge whom was a Glover bastard, who lived in one of the villages near House Glover. Jem apparently spent some time as a scribe for the citadel in his youth after having a very basic education. Meaning he learned to read and write and do basic numbers. As well as being more educated than most smallfolk. Unfortunately he never qualified to be a Maester, having spent less than a year in the Citadel before leaving and moving back North. Honestly Hadrian preferred it that way, he never had a chance to swear any vows and he can teach the youth to read and write, which will make it easier for Hadrian to eventually open his own Citadel and kick the Maesters out of the North.
Jem wasn’t an ideal choice. He got what Hadrian ordered done, but he had no sense of initiative. He would do until Dacey could leave to go and take command of her future holdings though. After which Hadrian would offer him a job in Winterfell teaching some of the orphans how to read and write. He would need as many competent scribes as he could get in the next few years.
Building a castle from stone is not an easy or cheap process. What the report showed was that Harry severely underestimated how long it would take with the level of development in this world. Mining the stone is slow going and transporting it is also incredibly difficult. After all this time, they still hadn’t gathered enough to do anything significant with. At the current rate the building of the castle was going, it would be half a dozen years at least before the castle was built.
Still, he decided he would continue building the castle out of stone. It would need to be done eventually; he might as well just do it from the beginning. Eventually he would try and build roads to make transport easier, but even that would take many years to achieve throughout the North. There just aren’t enough people to really speed the process up.
Unfortunately getting more people is not an easy process. He has taken steps in the right direction by increasing the food available to his people, unfortunately it will take a few years to make a significant impact on the Norths population. Even then, it will take a few generations for the population increase to really show its full results. It doesn’t really help him with his problem now.
As it is, he desperately needs more people. He needs more merchants, more scribes, more builders, farmers, sailors and soldiers. He needs more people to build important infrastructure. Getting those people is a problem though.
He doesn’t have the time to wait for the Norths population to rise to the numbers he needs it at. At this rate it will well over a decade before Moat Cailin is anywhere near completion and that was meant to just be the start of his plans.
Hopefully the Children of the Forest are able to find some Giants that are willing to bend the knee. If they are willing to help build castles they would probably save a lot of time, effort and coin. Depending on how many of them there are.
Even still, they won’t make a large difference to the Norths population on their own. Hopefully within the next year, trading with the wildlings can begin. With any luck, a number of them would be willing to bend the knee, increasing the Norths population. Even with the most optimistic estimates though, he doubts he would get more than a few thousand people.
Hadrian would be lying if he said he didn’t contemplate trying to get more people to move North from the South. He believes there would be a lot of people who would be willing to take the risk of moving North. Many smallfolk from Flea Bottom in Kings Landing would probably leap at a chance to earn enough coin to live comfortably. Even if it meant moving to the North.
Unfortunately that would bring its own problems. They would want to build Septs for the Seven and that wasn’t something Harry was willing to allow. He won’t let The Faith get even more of a foothold in the North than it already has. He actually has to think of ways to loosen its hold on the North. If he could guarantee that only followers of the Old Gods moved North then it would be a different story. Hopefully the appearance of the Children and Giants will help give resurgence to the faith of The Old Gods in the North. He just has to keep them protected until such a time as Northerners are used to them.
The problem is, he knows that once the Giants and Children are known to the South, there will be some extreme reactions. There are a lot of Lords and Ladies South of the Neck who are very religious. There are plenty of smallfolk who are fanatics as well. He expects the Faith will throw a fit, some of them may even become militant again. Jon Arryn would probably try and soothe tensions as he always does. He is an Arryn though, historically they are a very religious House. They can even trace their roots all the way back to Andalos itself. They led the conquest of the Vale for the Faith.
Hadrian isn’t sure what Jon Arryn and the King will decide, but by then it won’t really matter. Harry plans on having the Children of the Forest and Giants bend the knee to him. When he accepts their oaths of fealty he will be taking them under his protection. If Jon Arryn or the King decide to side with the Faith and they order him to do something he doesn’t agree with, he will have no choice but to declare independence.
Jon Arryn should know that he can’t really push the North in this. Not when it comes to a matter of religion. Almost every Lord in the North would be happy to declare independence in such a scenario. Hells, most would be happy to declare independence now. Not that Harry can blame them with the south extorting them for so long. But the North isn’t ready, not yet.
Once he has access to Children of the Forest, Giants and hopefully a few dozen mammoths it will be a different story. Any army travelling up the Neck would be decimated under the combined power of himself, the Children of the Forest and other skinchangers from the Neck. Once they get to Moat Cailin, they will face waves upon waves of arrows, thousands of men behind a fortified fortress and giants. It would be a slaughter, even with the Moat damaged the way it is. If he manages to repair it quickly enough with the help of giants? There’s no chance of any southern army breaking through.
The coasts are a lot more vulnerable though. The eastern coast is decently strong with the Manderlys having good defences and a decent sized fleet. Over the next few years the fleet should grow in strength as the fleet on the Western coast will. An army that is determined enough and has enough ships and men could probably break the Manderlys fleet and take their city. It would cost that army a lot of lives though and the Manderlys could probably get most of their smallfolk and some of their soldiers to retreat into the North. The Western coast was much more vulnerable for now. In the next few years that should change as Sea Dragon Point developed and more ships were added to the Western Fleet. It would still take many years before he is confident in those defences though.
If any army does managed to actually land on their shores and get a good position to garrison their troops, they will be marching into death traps no matter which direction they march in. Skinchangers will keep his armies one step ahead and giants riding mammoths would probably break any formation any southern armies will have on the open field. Especially if he manages to properly arm and armour the giants. Then they will be an incredible force multiplier. Charging mammoths and giants would be better than any cavalry force by a significant margin.
Hadrian almost drools at the thought of it.
Any southern army that tried to attack the North in the North where they are strongest will have an incredibly difficult time. As long as there are no internal issues amongst the Northern lords, the North would crush most armies that marched on Northern soil. Only if most of the southern armies attack together would they have a chance of defeating the North through conquest and there are ways to turn southern lords against each other and ruin their cohesion. With the help of his skinchangers, it should be easy to turn Southern Lords against one another. The biggest problem would be from traitors. His skinchangers would help deal with them though.
So while Harry was a bit worried about the reaction of the King and Jon Arryn towards the North gaining Giants and Children of the Forest, he isn’t too worried about them. Jon Arryn and Robert Baratheon should know that the Baratheon Dynasty can’t afford to make enemies of House Stark, especially so early into the start of their Dynasty. They already have enough enemies.
Hadrian decided that he would push the construction of the fleet, army and defences as fast as he could though, just in case. As while he doesn’t think the King would be foolish enough to start a war with the North, there are definitely Southern Lords who would be happy to try.
Then there are the Maesters.
Over the last fortnight, Hadrian has spent some time in the small library the Mormonts have. At first glance, the library itself was not very impressive, having only a fraction of the books that Winterfell does. It wasn’t until Hadrian started inspecting the books properly that he discovered a few books about legends of Bear Island and beyond The Wall that wasn’t available in Winterfell.
This acted as confirmation of a theory for him. The books themselves weren’t that old, written a little under a century ago. Why then were there no copies in Winterfell? It confirmed a trend he noticed when speaking to Lord Manderly about their respective libraries. Many books about the North are not found in the Library of Winterfell, when they by all rights should be. So far Hadrian hasn’t found any gaps in the books about the South, only books about the North seem to be missing. This led him to believe the Maesters were stealing those books and slowly trying to destroy First Men culture. Either through the destruction of knowledge or through them rewriting history as they see fit.
The Maesters will definitely try and pull as many strings as possible in both the North and the South to try and do as much damage as they can against the Children of the Forest or the Giants as fast as they can. Hadrian would have to make sure he stays aware of any plots from them while working to remove them from the North.
Unfortunately creating an institution like the Citadel will also be very expensive and time consuming. It will be years before he is close to having a viable replacement for Maesters in the North.
Another option he thought of, is instead of looking South for more people, he could look East, towards Essos.
Hadrian really dislikes slavery. No, it is more accurate to say that he has a hatred for slavery. When thinking of how to increase the population of the North, he quickly thought about freeing slaves and letting them live in the North. There are many slaves who have skills that most Westerosi smallfolk lack, those people would be boon to the North as they would bring some much needed skills that would help with Northern development. Another advantage of looking towards freeing slaves was that they were much more likely to be grateful for the opportunity than southerners will.
While Southerners would bring their religion North and would probably create issues with infighting among the smallfolk, slaves from Essos won’t have that problem. Most slaves would probably happily take up the worship of the Old Gods once they are free. Freed slaves would also be much more loyal towards House Stark, out of gratitude if nothing else, than a thief from Flea Bottom ever would.
The problem is freeing slaves isn’t so simple. For a short amount of time, Hadrian thought of having his uncle just buy the slaves and then release them immediately and offer them a place in the North if they want it. The problem with that, is that he will be paying gold to slavers. So while he may free a few slaves, the slaver will use that gold to purchase more. That wasn’t an option that sat very well with him.
Still, there are other options to free slaves. Once his uncle had returned from Yi-Ti, he would question Benjen about each city and their slaves. Perhaps on the second trip to Yi-Ti he could have the fleet smuggle a few slaves to freedom? Or maybe he can set up a system similar to the Underground Railroad from the American Civil War?
He would need someone in charge of operations somewhere in Essos if he was going to free slaves in any decent amount though. As doing so would be neither cheap nor easy.
For now he would just have to build up slowly as his population slowly increased.
Harry shook his head to clear his thoughts. There would be time to think of those issues later. For now, he should just enjoy his last day on the island before he makes his way back to Winterfell.
Harry cheered as his uncle disarmed Dacey before putting his sword to her throat. He turned to Maege when she spoke. “I think they will be good for each other. “
When Harry looked at his uncle and saw the smile on his face as he laughed at something Dacey said he replied. “Aye I think they will be.”
Next chapter Thursday 4 May 2023.
Sorry for such a late update guys. As always criticism is welcome as long as it’s constructive.
To read ahead of the update schedule: Pat_reon(dot)com(slash) TheLifeandTimes19.
Comments
Blake Brown
Very nice character. Is there anyway we could see more different perspectives in latter chapters? I think that it would give an easier time with writing the chapters, and it would help with building the world around what is happening in the North.
Omgitsbakon
same was gonna say that recent chapters have been heavy on the monologue
Kevin Thunder
Excellent story. Since Harry needs gold, he should consider the alcoholic beverage industry. Almost everybody drinks in Westeros, because what else are they gonna do? The glass industry would also be a massive money maker. I know it has been done many times before, but it would churn ungodly amounts of gold. I can't remember, has he introduced the printing press? If not, that would be a good way to undercut the Maesters, bring education to the small folk, and earn a tidy profit at the same time. As for the population, plenty of poor people he might be able to lure there. They may convert out of gratitude once they find a better life. It isn't like the Seven and the South ever did anything for em. Of course, he needs skilled laborers, as well. River gates and chains to block access to the inner North would also be a smart plan. The rivers are how the Ironborn did so much damage in canon. Fishing villages along the coasts would also be useful.
Clephne
Loved it, it's a great story so far, the only critic I would have is that you tell rather than show, perhaps a bit too much. For example, when Harry is reflecting on a subject like slavery, it would be good if he did it while discussing with someone else, so that he could teach them something or he could even receive some valuable advice. I think it would make your fic flow a little bit smoother. Otherwise keep up the great work!
