It is easy enough to govern a people when the country is rich. One can build up a strong army to keep the peace and expand its borders when necessary. Yet it takes much work. To dislike hard work is natural to these men. They are not ashamed of it one bit. Thus they must be pressed, morning to night, for the very future of the Empire depends upon it.
If we do not supervise them, and leave them to their own devices, they will neglect their tasks and not properly exert themselves. Then there will not be enough, and extremity and beggary will fall upon the people. Privation will result, and while they will not freeze to death under the blazing sun, there will not be enough food. Even lords lose their sense of purpose when faced with starvation, and will engage in dishonorable acts, because privation changes every heart and weakens the will. Gold and silver will not avail when there is no food to be bought.
Then the future of the Empire will be troubled and uncertain, for the people's wrath will be stirred up, and the heirs and followers of Castamir the True King will be overthrown from their rightful places, if we are not slaughtered outright. While we have strength and vitality far greater than that of other men, the intermingling of our blood has caused our numbers to dwindle severely, so that we are now outnumbered ten thousand to one. We will be cast out, sundered from our homeland once again, and forced to live as those despicable itinerant Rangers.
Therefore a wise ruler will not suffer idleness, for slackness is the enemy of the Empire. He must see that each of his subjects fulfills his special destiny. Some must farm crops, some must make implements, and some must travel around buying and selling these goods: all are equally necessary to a country, if not equal in terms of freedoms. It is akin to the soil of the earth: some soil is more fertile, and some plants can be grown in one kind of soil but not another, and just like the soil, not all men are created equally the same: those who profess otherwise are not familiar with the way of the world.
