Spring had arrived, bringing everything back to life, and the assassination attempts against Chris had finally eased off a little. He also planned to visit the King's Plain and inspect how the farmers under his rule were living.
There were many reasons the assassination attempts had eased off, but two mattered most.
First, the people funding the hired assassins-the names on the ever-growing list of traitors-had nearly all been killed by Inquisitor Street-Sweeper and his player followers.
The efficiency and ruthlessness the players had shown Chris and the Bagnians when it came to killing had genuinely frightened quite a few people.
Nobody was a fool when their life was on the line... and anyone who was had surely been eliminated by "nature" long ago.
The second reason was that, as Chris rolled out his policies across Bagnia, his rule over the country grew increasingly stable.
Chris planned to make agriculture the focus of this year's policies.
Nothing mattered more to human beings than having enough to eat. Especially this year, when the King's Plain, Bagnia's main grain-producing region, was certain to suffer a sharp drop in output, food self-sufficiency had become a major problem.
Still, every loss came with an opportunity. Conditions on the King's Plain were so terrible that the great landowners were losing confidence in what their land could produce.
Chris took the opportunity to buy up their land at market prices while it was at rock bottom.
Some knew which way the wind was blowing and sold their surplus land to Chris. Even when they inflated the price a little, he did not quibble. He had already bought coin-minting machines and opened several mints, making silver dollars even cheaper to produce than before.
Had circumstances permitted, Chris would have introduced paper currency. That was the ultimate weapon