Chapter 4: Repaying Loans (14 AD - 17 AD)

This is the world in the year 16 A.D. Rome rules uncontested over the continent, with a few Germanic tribes in the north being their only real opposition, though slight. The british isles remain divided between multiple tribes.

The most important of which is, of course, the Ordovices. Obviously.

The loan taken from merchants had to be repaid eventually, and king Maredudd knew this. Hence, he set the repayment of these debts as the next goal for the Ordovices.

In order to produce more income to pay off these loans, he organises the construction of various building projects. Roads, farmlands, and clearings are built all across the Ordovices, generating income for the king.

In the meantime, the Ordovices also married into the noble families of Domonia.

However, despite the good events, this came tied in with the bad. Maredudd's increased centralisation of the realm in order to generate more income to supply the ships and the loans angered the nobles, who demanded increased privileges in their land.

Not wanting to face a costly rebellion, Maredudd decided to grant them more control over their own plots of land.

King Maredudd receives news of a new city, formerly a minor trading post, raised to significance by the Romans. Antwerp, a city on the northern coast of the Roman Empire, has became a major centre of trade, and King Maredudd wants some of this trade. He sends several merchants there, and becomes one of the dominant trading powers there - as with Rome, second only to the Romans.

The king orders the building of a corduroy road in the city of Liverpool. Only after handing over the gold to construct it, he realises his blunder - with the money spent on the construction of the road, there is none left to repay the merchants, who will soon be demanding their money paid back in full.

Maredudd runs to the treasury, and demands the minting of more coins. This will cause a lot of inflation in the economy, but the price of failing to pay a loan could be much worse.

This pays off, and by the time the loans need to be repaid, there is enough money in the treasury to do so.

Chapter 3: Marriages (13 AD - 14 AD)

The royal marriage went off without a hitch, with king Maredudd marrying the sister of the king of the Trinovantes. A lavish celebration went on in Liverpool, at the end of it the king of Trinovantes being thoroughly persuaded that the Ordovices were a peaceful and fun-loving kingdom.

The Silures, on the other hand, were not so easy to achieve a royal marriage with. They identified more closely with the celts of the continent than the celts of the isles, and didn't want to lower themselves to marrying with the less civilised people north of them - the Ordovices included.

Even when offered a gift in exchange for the marriage, they were still reluctant - the gift was not large enough to fully sway them, and accepting influence in their kingdom's affairs in exchange for money was something that the lords of Silures did not want.

It was only when Maredudd showed the king of the Silures the might of his army, and offered to protect the Silures and support them in any of their military campaigns, was the king of Silures swayed to allow the royal marriage.

As the details of the marriage were sorted, Maredudd decided to focus more on domestic affairs. He organised the clearing of land in Liverpool, to obtain more wood and to increase space to build houses.

He also sent some merchants to Antwerp, a new centre of trade that had expanded from a minor coastal town to a booming city. Directing the trade towards Liverpool early would limit the amount of competition they have, with only the Roman Empire having merchants truly established there.

From Antwerp also came new styles of literature and dress. It was a golden age for culture in the Ordovices, with more artists and poets than ever before - if he was so inclined, king Maredudd could hire them to his court, but he did not yet feel any need for such.

Eventually, the marriage with the Silures was prepared, with new music from Antwerp taking a foremost role in the celebrations in Liverpool.

Chapter 2: Maredudd's Debt (12 AD - 13 AD)

Following the defeat of Llewelyn, king Maredudd realised that his armies were weaker than they could be. Especially given that they were diminished in the battle, it was unlikely that the Ordovices would be able to face any external threats. Even if it was so much as Llewelyn returning from Oxford with more troops, the capital would certainly crumble.

Internally, the Ordovices were very stable, but externally, they were more fragile than ever. Maredudd decided to upgrade the military's equipment, equipping them with axes that were much more intimidating than the former light archers. With the new military, he claimed, nobody would wish to even enter a battle with the Ordovices.

After equipping the current army with axes, he also organised the training of another thousand axemen, in order to refill the damaged reserves. They would be trained in Liverpool following the construction of the Triremes for the hopefully to-be-great Ordivican navy.

Finally, he revised the focus of the kingdom's armies to be more focused on attack rather than defence. He maintained that  the rumours spreading among other countries that the Ordovices were craven would soon be proven false.

What's more, two great men of the court of king Maredudd, the ambassador Celyn and the artist Cadoc, were hired by the neighbouring kingdoms, for a large sum of gold for the kingdom of course. This was followed shortly afterwards by a royal marriage with Nagantae.

However, even with the money offered for the services of the two men, the naval and military construction that the Ordovices were conducting was very costly on their economy. By April, 12 AD, the coffers were empty, the king himself having no gold with which to pay his troops and craftsmen.

Despite ordering the minting of more coins, that wasn't enough, and the kingdom was forced to borrow money from rich Celtic traders from the south. Eventually, they would come to claim their money back, and this concerned the king. Going bankrupt would cripple the kingdom, and without any money to provide for weapons or provisions, the troops would surely desert and the navy he had dreamed to build would rot without craftsmen to maintain it.

To take his mind off the stressful matters of the economy, Maredudd decided to perform some other activities.

With a clear head, the king devises a strategy for restoring the economy of the realm. He sends his best merchants to Rome, to drive trade towards the Ordovices. There is a lot of gold passing through that great city, and hopefully at least some of it will reach Liverpool with the help of these merchants.

In the meantime, a new heir to the throne is born. The king being unmarried has led many lords to doubt the legitimacy of the heir, however, and many believe that he doesn't truly have royal blood. For now, they stay silent, since the current king is no doubt royal, but some whisper of some sort of rebellion when the time is right.

Beyond dynastic affairs, Maredudd's mercantile machinations pay off, and the merchants return some linen to Liverpool. This is put to use in constructing the ships, with the large supply of Roman linen making the ships cheaper to build than they would be otherwise.

Soon, the Ordovices are the pre-eminent merchant power in Rome, second only to the Roman Empire itself.

With the new imported linen, the ships are completed, a proud fleet of Triremes at port in Liverpool. With that complete, king Maredudd has achieved his naval goals, and sets his sights on the diplomatic arena. The first step is to tie his dynasty closer into those of the neighbouring kingdoms.

Chapter 1: Llewelyn's Revolt (11 AD - 12 AD)

It is Friday, the second of January, 11 years after the birth of somebody who nobody yet knows about. The sun rises on the land of the Ordivices, spreading across England from Liverpool to Lincoln.

We are a despotic monarchy, lead by a single Ordovicarian king who rules above all others: King Maredudd III of house Rohan. He is an adequate king, more an administrator than a diplomat or a general, and on this day he has announced that a navy be created for the kingdom, to defend against threats from overseas.

Many doubt the ability of any navy the Ordovices could field to protect against the other nations on the isles, given the Ordivice's lack of experience in naval engineering, and not a single person thinks there is any chance of defending against the great Roman empire in Europe, but Maredudd remains strong in his convictions for the nation.

However, he made a grave misstep against the lords of his country when he decided to centralise his kingdom further to increase its strength. Of the chiefs of his nation who were disappointed by the restriction of their otherwise unfettered powers, none were more enraged than Llewelyn Pees, lord of Coventry.

Upon receiving his letter, outlining the new laws of the land, he raised an army of a thousand of his most loyal peasants, and declared himself the rightful king over all of the Ordovices. He first began by seeking those loyal to king Maredudd, and driving them away from his lands or even executing them. 

An insult as grave as this did not go unnoticed by King Maredudd. Not a general himself, he instead picked the most distinguished soldier of his army to lead them. This was general Dilwyn Thomas, an Ordovicarian nobleman moderately good at leading his soldiers to victory. He was tasked with taking Llewelyn's lands from him, and granted an army of a thousand archers directly from the king's military to achieve this.

As they marched down to Coventry, lighter news approached Liverpool. Caledonii had offered a royal marriage. A son of Maredudd Harcourt, king of the Caledonii, married a daughter of Maredudd III Rohan, bringing the Caledonians and the Ordovicarians closer together. This was followed by offers of marriage from the king of Domonia and the king of Belgae, both of which were accepted.
  

The battle in Coventry raged on for a long time, but eventually Dilwyn Thomas was able to take down the armies of Llewelyn, despite with heavy casulaties. Llewelyn managed to escape the armies sieging his fortress, and escaped with eighty men, but knew that he would be sent to the dungeons and stripped of his titles if he ever returned. Fleeing south, he asked for mercy from the king of the Trinovantes, and became a minor courtier in Oxford.

Even before his secession and ultimately doomed rebellion, Llewelyn was a thorn in the side of king Maredudd. With him gone from his seat in Coventry, the realm was able to be managed more efficiently, boosting its stability and reducing the risk of any more rebellions. Furthermore, other nobles saw the defeat of Llewelyn, and were confident that Maredudd III had the ability to fight against any threats to their land, internal and external.