POV

The MC of the story(king of the kingdom of Mainz)

"Your majesty, the Kildarians and the Lombardians have landed in the southern coast of the Rostok empire and are engaged in fierce fighting. The southern coast of the Rostok empire has mostly second rate troops who can't fight due to the corruption within their officers and the bureaucrats. The Rostok empire is starting to withdraw from Miklagrad and are 1*entrenching in Bulgaria to not overextend themselves. Should we help the Rostok empire." asked Franz, the foreign minister.

I honestly want to stay neutral and make money from this war, a bit like the United states in the starting stages of the first and second world wars. At the same time, I don't want Rostok empire to lose. For my strategy to work, I need the Kildarians to regard their main enemy as the Rostok empire and oppose them which means I will have more clout in diplomatic affairs. The Rostok empire is weak, that is undisputable in my eyes. They still have serfdom in their country and their army isn't well trained and maintained. Their mobilized soldiers aren't even payed, how can you expect them to have high morale.

You can't ask them to ask patriotic enthusiasm as when you ask them, they say that the country is for the nobles, capitalists and the emperor not for them. This is infact true as the Rostok empire treates most of it's population as Slaves and does nothing for the people.

People in this era don't know the advantages and disadvanteges of serfdom. They can't see that the Rostok empire is strong on the surface but weak in the inside like a 2*baugette. I wonder if there are baugettes in this world, I really used to like them. Anyway, people are scared of the Rostok empire due to their huge population and their seemingly high war potential. The problem is that, they don't have a large war potential. They have a large population sure, but they don't have the industry to back it up. A huge population isn't gonna do you much good when you can't arm them.

That's one of the reasons that Germany was so strong in WW2, they had the second biggest industry in the world after the United states. This meant that their war potential was at the start, much higher than the allies. That's also one of the reasons defence experts oppose moving the US industry to other countries. It weakens their war potential. Some people say we can just buy it, not gonna do you much good when all the people you can buy it from are your enemies, isn't it.

"What is your opinion, Franz. Should we support the Rostok empire or should we stay neutral." I asked Franz.

"Your majesty, I think we should provide them with some support in form on loans. We don't want them to lose but at the same time, we want to make some profit. The best way to do this would be in the form of loans which the Rostok empire can't default on as they need our international support."

I expected Franz to say this and I think this is the correct option, making money while supproting the Rostok empire. I could have just said this to him but I wanted to test him and make sure he is not getting lax.

"Start providing loans to the Rostok empire. The royal bank will support you."

In this era, bank actually used to follow the governments diplomatic inclinations and provided loans to certain country even when there were more lucrative options. If they did not do that, there would be disastrous consequences for them and if you give loans, you will get some benefits from the government.