Chapter 19: -Chapter 17-
-POV MC-
"Samwell, when you go to Highgarden, you can make all the allusions you want, but under no circumstances do I want you to sell me as a fucking low-tier whore," I said, giving him carte blanche to negotiate anything but his marriage.
He nodded, and I continued:
"You are all my brothers, and in due time I will honor you with all the rewards you deserve, but now it's time to fight and not to count our purses. I hope you remind our soldiers, they will receive their purses full of silver or gold according to their ranks every 6 months, not before, not after."
Everyone nodded, and then I added: "I also want you to spread the word, if someone tries to bribe them, they must accept the money given to them and tell whatever they want to the person paying them, but they must immediately inform their superiors who will reward them according to their information, of course, any fraud will be considered treason, and treason..."
"Is death," they said in unison. I nodded, proud of them all, and said:
"I want you to requisition all the city's forges and all the blacksmiths gently, reassuring them with the king's protection and good payment, for they will now be part of the Royal Forge Workshop."
"And if they refuse?" asked Jonothor, the 218cm tall giant, blond with a red beard and green eyes.
"Arrest them, put them in the Red Dungeon cells, find reprehensible acts they have committed in the past, and punish them for that."
"And if they haven't committed any reprehensible acts?" asked Cedric this time, one of the youngest of our group at 18 days of age, about 175cm tall with a pair of dark eyes and black hair, and he had excellent sword skills learned from a water dancer.
"Fraud, rape, theft, murder, just find a pretext to put them in a cell, and then take all their possessions, do the same with all the possessions of the nobles of King's Landing, Valeria, I want you to seize all of Littlefinger's assets, his brothels, his gold and silver caches, and his properties, I want everything."
-20 days later-
It took me a whole week to completely control the city. I had spread the rumor that a Targaryen was back, my men sang my praises in all the bars and brothels of the city, saying that I was a dragon in human form come to punish the usurper for all his crimes and that the gods themselves lent me their strength.
In short, a lot of bullshit that the people drank up like mother's milk, I needed to create a quick, almost legendary image to smoothly impose my authority on my people. I opened the nobles' granaries to stop the famine threatening the capital.
I used the past 20 days to recover and integrate all the capital's forges little by little into the single Royal Workshop and had armor forged day and night.
Identical armor for my men, I wanted the best for them, and I knew that by pooling the resources at my disposal, I could arm all my men with the best in a short time.
All this took place under the supervision and direction of the Master of the Royal Forge Tobho Mott, a Qohor blacksmith who had worked in Volantis, and just by being at his side, I felt that he too was a mage.
He wasn't a powerful mage, but a mage who knew the secrets of working with Valyrian steel, unfortunately, working did not mean creating, but it was enough for him to supervise and teach some of his secrets to the young blacksmiths of the Royal Workshop to raise the quality of everything that came out of my forges.
It wasn't very difficult to convince him, as he left Qohor under threat from powerful enemies of the Qohor blacksmiths guild, he decided to finally settle here in Westeros to be out of reach of the Magister's family that threatened him in Qohor, of course here in Westeros where magic is hated he couldn't fully exercise his talent because it required human sacrifices.
Parallel to the creation of the Royal Forge, the looting of the goods and establishments of the nobles occurred without any problem, I collected 3 million gold dragons just by looting Littlefinger's chests, and in total, I had 4,567,004 gold dragons.
That was more than enough gold to arm an entire city like King's Landing, but gold without any channels to buy or sell would soon be of little use to me as it would not turn into food, and neither the Riverlands nor the Reach had yet shown signs of submission.
I released most of the nobles after a day in a cell, of course after accepting their oaths of loyalty, however, they did not have the power to leave the Red Keep and remained there as hostages under the constant guard of 5000 soldiers of the White Dragon Army.
As soon as I took the Iron Throne, I summoned Tywin Lannister and Olenna Tyrell to court, along with her son, the Lord of the Reach, Mace Tyrell, threatening the lives of the hostages I held in my hands (Loras, Renly, Cersei, Jaime, Myrcella, Tyrion, Joffrey, Tommen).
I sent ravens to all the lords of Westeros assuring them of hospitality and assurance that they would be well treated and that all their rights would be respected.
While reminding them of their oath to House Targaryen, I sent special letters to the lords who fought in the rebellion for my father, thanking them for their loyalty and assuring them of the unwavering friendship of our houses, I also hinted to the rebellious houses that even they would not be punished for the terrible acts of my grandfather who had caused the war.