All the accounts I've read indicate much grumbing about missed and delayed pay but relatively little actual mutiny even among mercenaries. Missing the day's beer ration was more likely to cause a mutiny than missing a pay date. Of course both mercenaries and regular have a problem with mutiny or defection - they've got to find some other way of making a living. I suspect the Lunar officers are doing a balancing act, paying just enough to keep the troops from doing more than grumbling but allowing the arrears to build up for payment when they get home.
>> And the pay is most likely in hard currency, not scrip. Which means
>> that the Lunars have to figure out how to get hundreds of pounds
>> (if not tons) of
>> silver and/or gold (for officers, naturally) through Dragon Pass
>> and into Prax (and down to the siege at whitewall, and into the Holy
>> Country) without it being snatched by the resistance.
>
>Hmmmmm, I bet there are economic implications in that much outflow of
>gold/silver from the empire, and also the inflow where troops are
>stationed.
I'm not sure the continual outflow is going to be that great. What are the troops going to spend all the money on? Locally produced goods and services which mean that there's lots of silver in circulation. If the Lunars don't succeed in taxing it there's going to be substantial inflation. If they do it helps pay the troops. In an area as poor as Prax actually paying the troops their full wages might cause more problems than not.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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