Basileus's Imperial Court Council

With Cairo taken, there would be no more hard battles in Egypt.

Fayoum's governor, Buri, had been captured. The province was already in Lothar's grasp. Turanshah, in the Nile Valley, had suffered heavy losses while reinforcing Cairo; upon learning that the city had fallen, he would likely flee overseas at once.

After that came the slow, painstaking work of sorting out domestic affairs and establishing rule in Egypt.

Now that Lothar intended to send troops to Constantinople, he had to lay down a framework before leaving, so that even in his absence, his kingdom could proceed in an orderly fashion according to his will.

That night, Lothar convened an Imperial Court council in the palace at Saladin's Castle.

What the overseas kingdom lacked was not wealth or resources, but bureaucrats capable of governing a region.

Imperial Knights could serve as local vassals—the so-called gentry or lesser nobles—but they could not act as bureaucrats who collected taxes, governed cities, managed commercial hubs, developed handicrafts, and ran shipbuilding industries.

For now, they could only hope that the knights would recruit clergymen themselves to serve as local tax collectors, clerks, and the like.

Even Anna could not help him in this regard. The Eastern Empire's bureaucratic system had already collapsed, and Constantinople's bureaucrat-training system had been abandoned. Besides, what suited the Eastern Empire might not suit Egypt.

No wonder that throughout history, in both East and West, people had favored tax farming. It was simply a convenient policy that both saved administrative expenses and ensured taxes could be collected.

In recent days, guild alliances in the cities had also sent representatives to Lothar, hoping to secure his continued recognition of their autonomy in exchange for an enormous annual tax payment.

The commercial port the Venetians wanted to build followed the same logic. A