Blackpine Fief's Strategic Self-Sufficiency

Shien gave a soft laugh at Emon's question. "Because you can't govern a fief by gut feeling."

"You can't tell how many days the granary will last by having a quartermaster heft a sack. You can't have a sergeant guess who can still stand on the wall and who's about to collapse.

"If orders from above are shouted down and losses from below are guessed at, sooner or later something will go badly wrong."

Emon did not interrupt. He simply listened.

Shien kept walking. "The most important reason I made these ledgers was to lay out exactly what Blackpine Fief has left, so I can see it clearly.

"How many people, how much grain, how many arrows. Which stretch of wall will fail first, and which reserve unit can reach it fastest. I need to know all of it."

They passed a public notice board. Several Recorders stood on wooden ladders, nailing up a new breakdown of work credits.

Dozens of convicts gathered below, excitement on their faces.

Most could barely read, so the board held no complicated accounts—only simple characters and marks, broken down as clearly as possible.

Another Recorder stood beside it, pointing along each line with a wooden stick and explaining who had earned extra credits and what rations they could exchange them for today.

Shien glanced over. "And during the Long Night, what people fear often isn't Demonic Beasts. It's not knowing whether they'll have food tomorrow.

"Once no one can tell who gets what, craftsmen hide materials and soldiers skim supplies. If someone gets an extra piece of black bread today, tomorrow someone else will think their own share was stolen.

"Once that suspicion takes hold, people scatter faster than they do before Demonic Beasts. That's why I have everything recorded and posted, item by