(For previous parts in the series, see here)
For rather idiosyncratic reasons, I’ve probably written more about the economic development of the Iron Islands (before starting this series) than any other part of the Seven Kingdoms other than the Westerlands – see here, here, here, here, and here. And one of the things I’ve learned is that the Iron Islands is a region that had a successful economic development strategy – the strategy of the Hoare Kings and Vickon and Quellon Greyjoys – and pissed it away.
Which of course complicates any future economic development plans, because all of your neighbors hate and mistrust you. So how do we proceed? In this case, I’m going to be taking on the role of Balon Greyjoy, but let’s say that in the wake of the disaster at the Mander, I have a Dickensian vision of the future that shakes me to the very core and causes a sudden conversion. So what do I do now?
The Hoare/Vickon/Quellon Model
So what is this successful model of development? If we look at the practices of the Hoare King and the successful Greyjoy lords, there are certain common themes:
First, they all limit and control reaving:
“The Hoare kings also discouraged the practice of reaving…Vickon Greyjoy, enthroned on Pyke on the Seastone Chair, proved a stern but cautious ruler. Though he did not outlaw reaving, he commanded that the practice be confined to distant waters, far beyond the shores of Westeros, so as not to provoke the wroth of the Iron Throne…Quellon preferred to walk the road of peace. He forbade reaving, save by his leave.”
Notably this isn’t the same thing as banning piracy outright. As we learn later, “Both reaving and trade played a part in the restoration of the pride and prowess of the islands…Reaving continued as well…but the “wolves of the sea” no longer hunted close to home, for the green-land kings had grown too powerful to provoke. Instead they found their prey in more distant seas, in the Basilisk Isles and the Stepstones and along the shores of the Disputed Lands.” By confining reaving to farflung regions, the Ironborn gain the benefits of piracy – namely, large amounts of essentially “free” wealth – without the downsides of being hated and mistrusted by all of their neighbors. In addition, they can use their naval combat skills legitimately, by acting “as sellsails, fighting for one or another of the Free Cities in their endless trade wars.”
Second, they all engage heavily in trade:
The Hoare kings also discouraged the practice of reaving. And as reaving declined, trade grew…Merchants and traders sailing from Lordsport on Pyke and the harbors of Great Wyk, Harlaw, and Orkmont spread out across the seas, calling at Lannisport, Oldtown, and the Free Cities, and returning with treasures their forebears had never dreamed of…Both reaving and trade played a part in the restoration of the pride and prowess of the islands. Other lands now built larger and more formidable warships than the ironmen, but nowhere were sailors any more daring.
Trade has two main advantages for the Ironborn – first, it plays to their maritime strengths while potentially adding a lot to national wealth. Second, it also plays into their political agenda – building relationships with their larger and more powerful neighbors who otherwise have no reason to do anything but go to war with the Ironborn.
At the same time, trade also allows the Ironborn to build up their military strength: “Qhorwyn had spent his entire reign accumulating wealth and avoiding war. "War is bad for trade,” he said, infamously, even as he was doubling, then tripling the size of his fleets and commanding his smiths to forge more armor, swords, and axes. “Weakness invites attack,” Qhorwyn declared. “To have peace, we must be strong.”
Third, they engage in cultural reform with a view to enhancing human capital and political alliances:
Harmund the Host was the first king of the Iron Islands known to be literate. He welcomed travelers and traders from the far corners of the world to his castle on Great Wyk, treasured books, and gave septons and septas his protection.
His son Harmund the Haggler shared his love of reading, and became renowned as a great traveler. He was the first king of the Iron Islands to visit the green lands without a sword in his hand. Having spent his youth as a ward of House Lannister, the second Harmund returned to Casterly Rock as a king and took the Lady Lelia Lannister, a daughter of the King of the Rock and “the fairest flower of the west,” for his queen. On a later voyage he visited Highgarden and Oldtown, to treat with their lords and kings and foster trade.
And since Aegon had accepted the Seven as his gods and been anointed by the High Septon in Oldtown, Lord Vickon allowed the septons to return to the islands once again to preach the Faith.
Lord Quellon Greyjoy, the wisest of the men to sit the Seastone Chair since Aegon’s Conquest. …brought maesters to the Iron Islands by the score, to serve as healers to the sick and tutors to the young; with them came their ravens, whose black wings would tie the isles to the green lands tighter than ever before.
It was Lord Quellon who freed the remaining thralls and outlawed the practice of thralldom on the Iron Islands (in this he was not wholly successful). And whilst he took no salt wives himself, he allowed other men to do so but taxed them heavily for the privilege…
As much as this strategy has been hated by hard-liners, it’s undeniably effective. The presence of the Faith creates some basis for fellowship with greenlanders who otherwise might view us as hostis humani generis; trade alliances with House Gardener and Hightower and marriage alliances with House Lannister means that the Ironborn can go to war with allies as opposed to fighting a united Westeros. Maesters provide education, health care, communications, and a lot more.
But most of all, moving away from thralldom means that, rather than trying to hold the majority of the population in bondage, the Ironborn can make use of the whole of its limited population.
Rebuilding the Iron Islands’ Credit
As the newly-enlightened lord of the Iron Islands, my first step will be to build on the work of Quellon in restoring the reputation of the Ironborn, and trying to get back to where our political credit was in the time of Harmund the Haggler. In this, my main advantages are: having technically been on the right side of Robert’s Rebellion, and having a good number of kin (three sons, one daughter, and two brothers) available for marriage alliances and fosterages.
While maintaining a degree of flexibility – it’s hard to know what connections you’re going to need not just at the time but twenty years from now – there are certain things I should shoot for:
- acquire land/timber in the North. As I’ll discuss down the road in my asoiaf analyses, Asha Greyjoy’s idea of acquiring land in the North isn’t a terrible idea. It’s just that it would never work in the wake of an invasion of the North. However, it might work as part of a combination fosterage/marriage alliance – perhaps one of my sons to one of Eddard’s daughters, or Asha for Robb, or maybe Victarion to Barbrey Dustin. The objective here is to get coastal land which allows for both the traditional fishing and commerce of the Ironborn and farming, preferably somewhere with access to timber (or at least work out a good trade deal with the Glovers and/or Forresters) – because I’m going to need that timber later on.
- better trade with the Westerlands. As one of my closest and by far my richest neighbor, good relations with House Lannister is historically a winning strategy for the Iron Islands, especially if down the line I’m going to want a rather sizable loan from Casterly Rock. Now, Tywin’s a hard bastard, but a combination of fostering and/or marriage alliances (Asha/Tyrion might not be an ideal marriage, but it might be our way in here; alternatively, maybe some lesser Lannisters might do?) could help to prize out some gold from the Rock.
- establish royal connections. Another target for fostering and marriage alliances is the new Baratheon regime, which is going to be looking for followers to fill up the royal court, and given the historical status of the Greyjoys as wild cards, we’re good targets for recruitment to keep us loyal. Getting some sons fostered – preferably with Stannis, as (as with the North and the Westerlands, one objective I have is to make sure that any Greyjoys fostered out of the Islands receive naval training, either with the Lannisport Fleet or the Manderlys or the Royal Navy). Down the line, I’m going to need royal backing for some of my plans.
Iron for Gold, Gold for Iron
So now that I’ve rehabilitated the reputation of the Ironborn somewhat, it’s time to make some money, because as Qhorwyn knew, gold can buy strength. In terms of exports, there’s really only one way to go:
Some say that the Iron Islands are named for the ore that is found there in such abundance…There was still a wealth of iron ore to be found beneath the hills of Great Wyk, Orkmont, Harlaw, and Pyke, and lead and tin as well. The ironmen’s need for wood to build their ships remained as great as ever, but they no longer had the strength to take it wherever they found it. Instead they traded iron for timber. And when winter came and the cold winds blew, iron ore became the coin the kings of House Hoare used to buy barley, wheat, and turnips to keep their smallfolk fed (and beef and pork for their own tables)..
As in previous installments, the key to economic development here is to climb the value added ladder – rather than selling iron ore, the Ironborn need to be selling finished products, and grow that market as much as possible. Thus, selling ironmongery and pewter goods to the civilian consumer market is a much better direction than exporting weapons and armor (we’re still going to make and sell those, but as much as possible for the domestic market) because of the much larger potential for market growth.
Another thing we’re going to want to do is improve the quality of our product by acquiring the best smiths we can from Qohor, Lannisport, and King’s Landing. And given that we’re Ironborn and not particularly touchy about honor, no reason we can’t bribe, purchase, or kidnap our craftsmen as a particularly violent means of industrial espionage.
At the same time, another major source of potential revenue is to go into the mercenary business – the 15,000 or so Ironborn under arms have very limited use in Westerosi warfare atm, but 5-10,000 of them in mercenary service as the Iron Company could earn a princely sum in Essos, as a Golden Company with its own navy. Moreover, we can compensate for the low numbers of the Ironborn by using our gold and iron to equip our mercenary army as dismounted men-at-arms in full plate (which historically were incredibly successful as infantry). We’re never going to out-number our opponents, but we can be superior in quality and maneuverability.
It’s also useful in diverting the cultural pressures of the Old Way, by ensuring that the majority of Ironborn warriors continue to earn their living with iron rather than with gold.
Ships Can Be Used For Many Things
The sad thing about Balon Greyjoy is that the idea of the Iron Fleet is actually a pretty good one. 100 real ships, albeit a third smaller than your standard warship, give the Greyjoys a real naval power. But why stop there? With more money to work with, the Iron Fleet can be a lot more impressive.
The first thing we need to do is to engage in some industrial piracy – get our hands on some swan ships from the Summer Islands and learn the standardized parts/production line methods of Braavos so that we can build a major shipyards on Pyke that can build us a proper ocean-going fleet…or two. (Incidentally, this is where the timber and loans come in)
In fact, that’s exactly what I want. Similar to the Dornish case, I want both a merchant marine (a very well-protected merchant marine that could be converted into privateering as necessary) and a navy that I can use as the sellsail accompaniment to my sellsword company. This in turn needs to be linked up to a marketing and purchasing cooperative, and a merchant bank so that the Iron Islands can get the maximum wealth out of commerce. (incidentally, this is another reason I want the loan)
Incidentally, this is also the point at which I start trading in on my royal connections (we might also want to partner with the Tullys and Mallisters to push a Blue Fork Canal that would speed up our Essos trade). The idea is to leverage our son’s connections with Stannis to start loading up the royal navy’s officer corps with a disproportionate number of younger sons of the Ironborn – with the idea being to channel their martial interests into royal service, to demonstrate the Iron Island’s usefulness and loyalty to the new regime, all the while gaining experiencing in commanding full-size naval vessels (and, as we’ve seen, in the case of a civil war, officers can half-inch royal ships).
Once we’ve built up our credit with Robert, now’s the time to press our big idea – offering the Iron Company and the Iron Fleet to clear the Stepstones of pirates and claim them in Robert’s name, while showing that the Ironborn as now on the side of law and order. This is the exact kind of venture Robert would love, and might well replace the Greyjoy Rebellion in the timeline. Possession of the islands would give us more territory to settle our population, our own base for the Iron Company/Fleet, excellent access to the Essosi market, and a great leaping off point for the next phase of our plan.
Becoming “Legitimate Businessmen”
All of this is very well and good, but probably puts the Ironborn somewhere around the power of House Redwyne or Hightower (maybe a bit more). So how do we go about becoming a continental power?
Well, the first step is to parlay our control over the Stepstones into some real power. In additional to charging a reasonable fee for passage – being careful to give Robert his fair share – we can also set up the Iron Island’s Merchantile Shipping Insurance Company and begin charging the merchants of the Three Daughters, Volantis, and points east premiums to be protected from piracy, while using our Iron Fleet to engage in some privateering against the pirates. (Notably, we’re going to be giving Braavos a wide berth – lower prices, avoid attacking their ships, and making a big deal of abolishing thralldom and attacking slavers – to avoid their fleet and their Faceless Men)
At the same time, there’s an internal purpose to all of this – teaching the Ironborn that there’s a middle way between the Old Way and the New Way, in which we learn to harness the Ironborn love of violence to profit, through the creation of organized crime networks in every port in Westeros:
- smuggling – I’ve got hundreds of longships who are very good at arriving and departing quickly and who don’t really care about excise and customs regulations.
- loansharking – the merchant bank will now have a lot of liquid capital, the merchant classes of Westeros are under-banked and I’ve got 5-10,000 experienced mercenaries to act as legbreakers.
- protection – with a lot of experience working protection rackets against trading cartels and Esssoi governments who don’t pay their mercenaries,
Once we’ve got this up and running, it’s time to buy influence, using many of the same methods that Littlefinger used – start with building up a client base in the merchant classes who fear and yet need me, then buy up the debt of the lesser nobility, and build our way upwards (especially in the capitol, where we’ll eventually want to try to supplant Stannis as Master of Ships). House Greyjoy’s power will not be the same as the Lannisters or the Tyrells. Rather, it will be the subtle power from the shadows, backed up by ruthless efficient use of our professional army and subversion within their own ranks.
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