Game of Thrones: Rise of the Supreme Dragon Queen

On the third day after breaching the city gates, all the pyramids had fallen into Dany's hands—eighteen in total, excluding the peculiar, domed Great Temple of Graces.

The tallest pyramid belonged to the great slave master Grazdan, standing at 100 meters, while the shortest was just over 50 meters.

Eight noble families were completely exterminated, while four others were left with only a few children under five years old. Three families lost all their adult members, leaving only minors under fourteen, and the last three were spared entirely due to the intervention of the Green Grace.

Over the next week, the Unsullied conducted a thorough sweep of the entire city. The combined population of the newly freed slaves and the original Ghiscari citizens amounted to approximately 123,000.

Additionally, the eighteen pyramids, along with the attached fighting pits, yielded tens of thousands of additional slaves.

The ratio of freed slaves to native Ghiscari citizens was nearly 20:1, placing Astapor firmly under Dany's control.

When registering the freedmen, the scribes categorized them into five social classes: soldiers, scholars, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants.

To put it simply, skilled artisans were classified as craftsmen. However, like the weaver Lysana, they could also choose to start their own businesses and become small-scale merchants.

Those without skills or literacy, especially those with family ties, were allocated farmland—dozens of acres each—on the Worm River plains outside the city to work as farmers.

As for those who lacked skills but were unruly—such as former slave soldiers and gladiators—Dany assigned them to the militia, with Ser Jorah in charge of training them into a proper army.

This militia would undergo a selection process: the best fighters would be transferred into elite forces, while those unfit for military service would take on roles similar to city guards or constables.

For now, the Unsullied continued to serve as the city's police force, but their true strength lay in field battles, making their deployment within city walls a waste of potential.

The Gentry That Could Never Form

Literate individuals were categorized as "scholars" (士), though under Dany's rule, the term differed vastly from the concept of the gentry in traditional societies.

In this world, true power remained in the hands of the nobility—those who wielded swords and had the ability to kill. A scholar class with real political power, like the gentry of ancient China, could never emerge.

The reason was simple: this world had an open social structure. Unlike the isolationist empires of China, where a scholar-bureaucrat system could be sustained, the societies here were in constant flux.

There was no doubt that a class of gentry would help consolidate imperial rule. If one aspired to absolute centralization, where the emperor held ultimate authority, then scholars were the ideal administrators.

However, history had shown that whenever the gentry gained too much power, the strength of the state inevitably declined.

In contrast, when warriors controlled the government, instability often followed—but military power remained formidable.

In a closed system like China, where a unified dynasty could endure even during periods of decline, the empire would still be stronger than its neighboring barbarian states. As long as the bureaucracy remained relatively efficient, the empire could maintain its position as the dominant power.

But in this world, where the competition was constant and ruthless, a weak military meant total annihilation.

This was why the Citadel had existed in Westeros for thousands of years, why nearly every noble house had a maester, and why the maesters possessed knowledge and wisdom far surpassing that of ancient Chinese scholars. Yet, despite all this, they never formed a ruling class akin to the gentry.

To be clear, this isn't to diminish ancient Chinese scholars or to overly glorify the maesters.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, the maesters were incredibly skilled. Arts, literature, mathematics, and agriculture were only their foundational knowledge. Beyond that, they studied philosophy, archaeology, astronomy, medicine, anatomy, magic, and even the occult.

Moreover, maesters weren't merely bookish intellectuals. The process of becoming a maester was extraordinarily rigorous, and their practical abilities were unparalleled.

They served as doctors, teachers, advisors, scribes, and stewards. In times of war, they could even act as military strategists. Whatever role was required, a maester could fulfill it.

Most impressively, they were fearless in the pursuit of knowledge, often venturing to the farthest corners of the world to seek out new discoveries. Take Maester Marwyn, for example—the mentor of the shadowbinder Mirri Maz Duur—who traveled all the way to the mysterious lands of Asshai.

A Scholar Class Bound to Serve

In Dany's system, anyone who could read and perform arithmetic was classified as a "scholar" (士).

Essentially, this was the same "scholar" as in "maester"—a class meant to serve others.

Dany herself assembled a team of 200 advisors, all of whom were former slave scholars who refused to embrace full freedom.

She treated them relatively well, allowing them to reside in the Great Pyramid, granting them two attendants each, and providing them with meals that were only slightly inferior to her own.

Of course, their attendants were no longer slaves; they were contracted workers with wages, pensions, and full healthcare—true, comprehensive medical coverage.

Even with these benefits, maintaining a scholar as a servant was still far cheaper than hiring one as an independent scribe.

If these scholars were to shed their slave status and negotiate a labor contract with Dany, their salaries would far exceed the cost of maintaining them as dependents.

"I really don't understand their thinking," Dany complained to Ser Barristan.

But the old knight assured her that this was entirely normal. In Westeros, maesters lived in a similar fashion—they worked without wages and served their lords for life, while the nobility, in turn, provided for them.

A noble was expected to ensure his maester lived a respectable life. If a lord dared to mistreat, humiliate, or arbitrarily dismiss his maester, the Citadel would intervene. At best, they would refuse to assign another maester; at worst, they could persuade the Grand Maester in King's Landing to advocate for royal punishment.

Without a maester, a noble house would struggle even with basic communication, as there would be no one to manage the ravens.

Moreover, the Grand Maester, as a member of the Small Council, had direct influence over the king's decisions.

An Unbalanced New Social Order

Although Dany had defined five major social classes, they remained highly unbalanced in practice.

Including service industries, workers made up over half the population—more than 50,000, the majority of whom were women.

The soldier class numbered 30,000, with some as old as sixty and others as young as eight or nine.

Meanwhile, only a few thousand native Ghiscari citizens remained, all of whom identified as "merchants," even though most lacked businesses or shops.

Too few people chose to become farmers—almost all of them were "weak" agrarian peoples like the Lhazareen and the Naathi.

These days, aside from the Ghiscari who had homes and businesses, the newly freed citizens of the city relied entirely on Dany for sustenance. Though the pyramid held abundant supplies, this communal way of living couldn't last forever.

She had to restore normal order in the city as soon as possible.

In the new society under the new system, the first priority was establishing clear laws.

The tenth day after taking Astapor.

The morning mist dissipated like an illusion. The crimson sun, resembling an egg yolk, had yet to reach the pinnacle of the Great Pyramid, but the red-bricked plaza was already beginning to warm.

A deep, resonant horn sounded from the top of the Great Pyramid, its somber echo awakening the city with an almost mystical force. Over the past ten days under the rule of the Mother of Dragons, similar summons had been issued several times, so the citizens knew she was calling them to gather at the People's Square.

"I heard that's the sound of the Dragonhorn? The Dragonhorn can control dragons," whispered one of the newly freed citizens to his companion as they walked.

He was a wiry, monkey-like middle-aged black man from the Summer Isles, standing barely 1.5 meters tall. His body was thin and agile, his limbs nimble. Previously, he had been an acrobat owned by one of the Great Masters; now, he was considered a skilled laborer.

"Perhaps," his companion replied. Unlike the acrobat, he was a freed scholar—a middle-aged white man in his forties, of average build, with limited knowledge and literacy. He had never been one of the well-treated high-status slaves, but he was still more knowledgeable than his acrobat companion.

Worried, he added, "I just hope it's not the slavers from Yunkai coming to attack."

"What's there to be afraid of? Besides the newly formed city guard of thirty thousand, Her Majesty still has over ten thousand Unsullied! I'd love to join the Queen's guard—then I could finally take revenge on the slavers! Even becoming the Queen's horn-blower would be fine," the acrobat said excitedly.

"You don't understand," the scholar shook his head. "The Yunkish slavers don't need to defeat the Unsullied. If they burn down the estates outside the city first, the livelihoods of over a hundred thousand people here could become a major problem."

No city could be entirely self-sufficient—it needed the agricultural and pastoral resources from the surrounding countryside. Astapor was no exception. Beyond the city's population of over a hundred thousand, the fertile plains along the Worm River were dotted with slave-owned estates, home to at least two hundred thousand people.

Among them, roughly thirty thousand were Ghiscari. Before she had the time to deal with the estate owners, Dany had already sent Dothraki riders to post the "Four Major Prohibitions" at village entrances:

Any slave owner who slaughtered their own slaves en masse would face total extermination.

Anyone who set fire to granaries, wheat fields, or olive trees, or who killed large numbers of cattle and sheep and let them rot, would be wiped out along with their family.

Anyone who poisoned wells, blocked access to water, or sabotaged irrigation systems and farmland infrastructure would be annihilated.

Any estate owners who conspired together, formed militias, and attacked the patrolling Dothraki riders would suffer complete eradication.

Of course, Dany was not merely ruthless. Following these prohibitions, she also issued the "Proclamation to the Ghiscari" to reassure the populace:

Queen Daenerys solemnly promises that any estate owners who do not violate these four prohibitions will have their families and children protected, and their property—including land and stored grain—will be preserved to a limited extent.

Neither the scholar nor the acrobat knew about this, nor were they aware that, in just ten days, over twenty estate-owning families had already been exterminated.

If slave masters could be frightened off by a few posted decrees, they wouldn't truly be considered "evil" slavers.

Some cunning ones even deliberately set fire to their grain stores and olive groves, hoping to lure in the Dothraki patrols and ambush them.

Unfortunately for them, while their plan seemed clever in theory, reality was brutally different.

Registering the newly freed citizens and establishing their official status was indeed a complex task, but it was handled by Dany's clerical team. Personally, she had plenty of free time—practicing swordsmanship with Whitebeard (Ser Barristan Selmy) and receiving occasional citizen visitors. Her days were quite leisurely.

That meant she had time to act as a scout for the Dothraki riders.

Before each operation, Drogon would take a flight over the rebellious estate, providing a clear aerial view of the Ghiscari strongholds. Sometimes, the black dragon would even land and scratch out a map of the estate's defenses with his claws.

From there, things became simple. A thousand Unsullied would storm in, while two hundred Dothraki archers attacked from a distance. Nearly every rebellious estate was crushed in a single strike.

Then, the heads of the rebellious estate owners and their families were mounted on Dothraki spears and paraded through the villages. After that, the rest of the estates fell into line.

Of course, Dany's definition of "total extermination" wasn't entirely literal. She only executed the adults—children under fourteen were temporarily imprisoned. She would deal with them once things settled down.

The reason she didn't simply send in the Unsullied to raze the estates directly was twofold:

First, she feared that the estate owners, in desperation, would destroy their grain and essential resources.

Second, the cost in lives would be too high.

Even with Drogon's assistance, pacifying just over twenty rebellious estates had already cost 18 Unsullied and 22 Dothraki warriors. Meanwhile, the enemy had suffered over a thousand Ghiscari casualties.

To be clear, it wasn't 1,000 Unsullied + 200 Dothraki versus 1,000 Ghiscari commoners. The 1,700 Ghiscari included many women and children, and they were scattered across more than twenty estates.

In any given battle, the Unsullied typically faced no more than a hundred Ghiscari men, supported by three to four hundred uncertain and wavering slave farmers.

The real problem was that the estates were fortified like miniature castles—easy to defend, hard to attack.

(End of Chapter)

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