Re: Paying the Lunar Army

From: jeffrichard68 <richj_at_...>
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 05:11:56 -0000

First thing, this is simply a crude model so that folk have some approximation of how much it costs to maintain the Lunar Army in Dragon Pass. Second, it is a model for a short, discrete time period - 1603-1613. Issues such as inflation would have an impact on a more detailed financial model, but probably not within the extremely crude parameters of this model.

If you really want to go into that sort of detail, I think that there is just insufficient information out there. Hence the extremely wide ranges I've given.

> >In 1610, there are somewhere around 20,000 soldiers (at least on
> >paper - the real number is significantly less) in occupied Dragon
> >Pass and Prax. That costs about 120,000 lunars a year.
>
> 1,200,000 lunars surely, maybe as low as 900,000 if the pay for the
> missing troops is abstracted while still in the heartlands.

My assumption is that a Lunar soldier is paid about 60 lunars in coin on average. The actual source material (Mark and Martin's article on the Lunar economy) suggests that a Lunar soldier is paid a little less than this (1 lunar a week or 52 lunars a year). 20,000 soldiers is about 120,000 lunars a year. Give or take a fair amount (again these are crude figures).

> But let's look at the effect on the Sartarite economy of an influx
> of even 70,000 lunars in 1610. Because let's face it those
soldiers
> are going to spend most of it locally even if merchants start
> importing wagon loads of quail's eggs from the heartlands. Now let
> us assume there's enough silver in Sartar to actually pay the Lunar
> taxes - 25,000 lunars worth.[1] Even if we assume less than half
> the influx gets into the local economy it will double the amount of
> silver there. So yes, it becomes easier for the Sartarites to pay
> the taxes in 1611 but it also means that local goods will cost
> twice as much in silver - so the cow becomes worth 40 lunars. This
> is just in one year - 100% inflation.

Most of the tribute is paid in cows, sheep and grain. And then must be converted into silver coin for the troops. Presumably there are folk who underwrite the tribute, farm out the tax collection and pocket the difference. And then sell part of the tribute back to the soldiers.

Inflation would be an issue over a decade or two, but would be concentrated on the goods sold in silver to the soldiers. It would have a big impact on the cities, less of an impact on the tribes. Less than the impact of having the cities becoming largely foreigner - in several cities, the soldiers and their dependents likely outnumber the local population.

Jeff