Chapter 225: Balancing the Budget

With the rebellion crushed, Berengar had secured his rise to power. As the official Duke of Austria, Berengar now set his armies to protect the borders from possible incursion, and of course, assist with internal security. With this, Berengar had established an era of peace and stability in Austria where he could successfully implement his reforms with little resistance.

As such, the young Duke was currently sitting in his office reviewing expense reports drafted by his House of Lords. At the moment the greatest matter of his military expenses was the expansion of the Navy. As for the Army, Berengar had halted its conscription and maintained its current size. In a time of peace, he allowed for voluntary recruitment only. As such, it required far fewer funds than it previously had.

As for the expenses that were delegated to conscription in the army, they were now set to fuel his Agricultural reforms across all of Austria. At the moment, the Agricultural and Educational sectors were the two most significant portions of his newly established peace-time budget.

By focusing on creating a self-sustaining, mechanized agricultural system across the land and increasing the education of the standard population, Berengar would theoretically be able to drastically improve his workforce and the draftable portion of his society.

At the moment, Berengar's focus was to implement the four-field system, irrigation piping, and phosphate fertilizer across the realm. Though Tyrol had begun to develop such strategies to a wide margin, the rest of Austria undoubtedly lacked agricultural reform. Thus Berengar started with the most simple focus. Mass implementation of mechanization would have to wait a few years for the system to catch up.

While Berengar was hard at work, he heard a knock on his door, and as such, he quickly responded.

"Come in"

to nobody's surprise, the person who had visited Berengar during his work was none other than Linde. As usual, she was ravishing, and at the moment, she was wearing a sky blue dress with white embroidery. This dress was in the typical fashion style that Berengar had introduced to the realm. It was primarily based on Tudor and Elizabethan-style dresses from his previous life.

However, the curious part about all of this was Linde's extravagant jewelry; it was white-gold with sky blue diamonds embellished within it. White gold was not a naturally occurring material; it had to be created by mixing yellow gold and other materials like nickel, silver, or palladium. As such Berengar had introduced the lavish substance into his jewelry industry as a way to replace silver and increase the demand. After all, such luxuries could only be found in Austria at the moment.

As for the magnificent jewels, they were the exceptionally rare blue diamonds and Berengar had paid a significant expense to import these precious gemstones from India via his Byzantine trade contacts in order to provide Linde with a set of Jewels fitting for an Empress.

The dress and the gems paired with her sky blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair perfectly. As such, Berengar was quite shocked at her appearance when she arrived in his room, so much so that his jaw dropped.

This was the first time she had shown the new set of jewels since she had received them, and Berengar was more than impressed. He had every desire to get out of his seat and make love to the woman then and there, but he was not an animal who lived on pure base instinct, and thus he calmed himself before putting such notions aside.

"Love, is there something on your mind?"

Linde did not answer. Instead, she slowly approached the desk where she sat upon it. After enticing Berengar by showing off her mighty cleavage, she slapped his head with a file in her hands that he had not noticed before teasing him.

"Darling, where are you looking? My eyes are up here!"

Seeing that the girl was toying with him, Berengar began to chuckle before grabbing ahold of the file and reading into it. The document requested an increase in funding towards Foreign Aid. However, both Berengar and Linde knew what this request was really for.

Foreign Aid was the expenditure report that Berengar filed for all of his Intelligence expenditures. The reason for this was simple; his spy network officially did not exist, even though everyone knew he had one. To fund this network, he needed a front. Otherwise, there would be a giant gap in the accounting of his government spending which would immediately draw suspicion by any potential onlookers.

Thus Berengar opted to allocate a particular portion of the national budget into "Foreign Aid." Of course, all of these resources went to funding the recruitment, training, deployment, and other resources Berengar's intelligence Agents needed. Berengar quickly signed the request for funds before handing it back to Linde with a smile on his face; after doing so, he made a request of his beautiful young lover while giving her a document of his own.

"Sweetheart, I need you to do something for me. It is time to reform the crude spy network we have developed into a full-scale intelligence department. This is a list of the basic structure that shall be established, and you can make any changes to it that you see fit."

The structure was loosely based on a diagram he had once seen online of the CIA's basic system in his previous life. Linde's official rank and title would be Director of Intelligence, and she could fill the ranks with anyone she saw fit for the positions available. The other important feature of this structural overhaul was the establishment of a training facility for new agents.

Linde looked at the design and nodded her head before agreeing to Berengar's request.

"It might take a while, but I assure you, it will be done in at most two years."

Berengar smiled and nodded at this; the overhaul he was asking for was to create a semi-modern intelligence agency in the medieval era; it was not an easy task to accomplish. However, he trusted Linde was competent enough to fulfill the mission and merely pet her head before responding.

"I know you can do it!"

Linde immediately had ideas to modify the structure to allow for two sub-departments, internal and external intelligence, and adjust the system so these two groups can regularly communicate.

Linde was a prodigy when it came to intrigue, and thus Berengar left the complete product to her imagination. After all, this area of governance was not Berengar's strong point, he had an outline from his previous life, and that was it.

With that said, Linde was about to leave the room and get to work when Berengar held her up.

"Oh, by the way, I have a present for you!"

Linde quickly turned around and looked at Berengar with a hint of suspicion in her eyes. However, when she saw Berengar grab the present from beneath the table, her sky blue eyes grew wide with excitement, and tears instantly began to form within them.

In Berengar's hand was a tiny black kitten with golden eyes. It was precious, and Berengar brought it over to Linde before placing it in her hands.

"I found this little girl on the streetside and figured it was about time you got yourself another pet. I hope you don't mind. I promise this time I will allow no harm to come to it!"

Linde immediately began to pet the little kitten with tears flooding down her cheeks and a broad smile on her face as she hugged it dearly before speaking to it in a soft tone.

"Hey, there little pretty kitty! What should I name you?"

Berengar thought about it for a moment before coming up with a name he felt was appropriate.

"How about Nightshade?"

Linde gave him a stern look before commenting on his naming proclivities

"After the poison? Seriously? You are terrible at picking out names!"

After gazing at the cat with affection and rubbing its chin, Linde came up with a name.

"I am going to call you Midnight after your beautiful dark coat!"

Seeing that Linde was happy, Berengar smiled, and after doing so, his lover hugged him with the kitten placed on her shoulder. As Linde hugged Berengar tightly, she thanked him from the bottom of her heart.

"Thank you!"

Berengar began to pet her glossy strawberry-blonde hair as she thanked him and nodded his head.

"Anything for you..."

After saying that, Linde released Berengar and took her new kitten out of his office. She had much work to get to; aside from looking after Hans and her new pet, she also had to work on overhauling and expanding the intelligence network, and thus she had little time to spare. She would properly thank Berengar for this gift later at night when the couple had finished their daily work.

As for Berengar, he returned to his desk, where he continued to approve the national budget. For the time being, he had many reforms to enact. While signing documents all he could think of was how happy he was to be reincarnated into this alternate world. If he had not died in Afghanistan in his previous life, he likely would have spent the rest of his life alone and in the military.

Yet now he had everything he could ever ask for, and yet it was not enough. The fires of his ambitions had been stoked, and there was no rest for a man such as himself. Thus he would work tirelessly in the upcoming days to advance the Duchy of Austria into a new era.

The age of industry was on the horizon, and he had only just begun to breach its surface. However, before the Industrial Revolution could occur within his lands, the Agricultural revolution had to take shape. Thus, for the time being, he was once more focused on Agriculture.