Iroh learned early while serving as heir apparent about the importance of timely communication. He also learned at great cost about the importance of having all briefs in hand whenever he appeared in court, especially when he was dealing with Raizu.
The boy had finally stopped holding back, as he put it, when he finally shared all the knowledge and theories he had amassed to the rest of the royal family half a year ago. Anything and everything was written down in those pages: floating farms that could be pulled by boat to make use of the booming metal working industry, likewise metal water reservoirs for farms for year-round irrigation, using air ships to seed clouds and promote rain, tanks repurposed into farming implements to aid with tilling and seeding the soil, there were so many things there that it might have taken a lifetime to see all of that to fruition.
And that was just a few of them.
There were even plans on how to win the war by bringing down Ba Sing Se: one involved using airships to fly in and bomb the farms far above the reach of any earth benders to starve the city, and another involved a small team of infiltrators that would incite rebellions from the lower ring leading to its destruction from within; even further, was a long-term plan to destroy all other settlements around the great city to force its collapse from within by the number of refugees that must go there since there would be nowhere else to go.
Also, that the North Pole was a non-factor because of their extreme isolationism.
However, what really concerned Iroh now was the very concerning direction the discussion on the colonies were going.
"We must not release our colonies to the Earth Kingdom yet. I agree we should eventually allow them to leave, but the decision must come from their own leadership while allowing individuals to choose for themselves in case their decision is in conflict with the consensus.
"I argue this coming from two main points: first, our economy right now is extremely dependent on food tributes from the colonies, and it will take time for us to achieve a respectable stockpile before we can support ourselves until those colonies finally decide for themselves whether they still want to be part of the Fire Nation. My teams are already working on that problem with the ongoing Aquaponics and Refrigeration projects, but it will take until the second quarter of the next year for us to yield any respectable results.
"Second, those new colonies will have their identities challenged and as much as they might want to avoid it, they will have to choose a side: whether that is with us, with the Earth Kingdom, or if they wish to become independent. We must honor the identity the colonies have fostered for themselves otherwise we will send a bad message to the rest of the world with our newfound benevolence with ending the war and could later spark retaliation after a time—or the other countries might try to destabilize us by instigating a civil war by feeding long thought buried grievances."
"For the first point, I agree," said the Fire Lord, "for the second, it will mean our armies need to continue guarding those borders even if the consensus is against staying with the Fire Nation. It will be a drain on our efforts towards self-sufficiency for the mainland, what is the benefit to us besides moral capital?"
"I agree, it will indeed be a drain, but instead we must treat this as an investment since we will need to continue trading with these territories anyway regardless of whether that's with the mainland or an assimilated colony. Our technology is too attractive to any previously held territories and will be our main product in exchange for their food production.
"From the surveys we've performed only Yu Dao is capable of matching the quality of metal working by our royal academy and we have yet to fully implement air ship technology and the engine retrofits for our navy. This means knowledge of those things should be safe for another three or four years at worst and allows us to control the value of our export. Should Yu Dao choose independence, we can contract them to produce non-essential parts and import those back and create any finished products here to sell abroad to further lower costs."
Iroh saw just how different the Fire Nation he would inherit was going to be.
Just the technologies released from the past year alone would already change the way all nations understood logistics with the introduction of the airship, but with the added boost in production capabilities thanks to the standardization of time and staggered work shifts, the Fire Nation was well on its way to fighting off the economic slump after military spending was reduced—since it would be redirected to what Raizu called a Nationalized Industrialization.
"Also, and really this is the biggest reason why we don't need to release those colonies at all: its because we basically won the war."
"Even if Ba Sing Se still stands?" Sage Shyu said.
"Ba Sing Se and the North Pole are said to be the last strongholds of resistance, but they've never had the good sense to actually fight back. If the North Pole was really serious with winning the war, then our blockades at the North Sea would not have held them back and there's also nothing stopping them from intercepting a ship and replacing the crew and using that to sneak in.
"Sure, they wouldn't have been able to pass any identification checkpoints, but they don't need to. They just need enough water benders to keep a ship safe even during a storm and they could have sailed all the way to the capital with none the wiser. They can push their ships really fast when they're serious.
"But all that hinges on whether they can deal any serious lasting damage with that. Both the North and South don't have the manpower to defeat us, and neither do they have the means to do any lasting damage. Wars are ultimately won by whichever side has most of the resources that count against your opponent, and we basically outnumber them at a conservative fifteen or so to one.
"As for the Earth Kingdom, good luck with them actually displaying any initiative to bring a proper fight. They just need to get enough earth benders and ride a big enough rock and make that thing go fast enough that none of our strongholds could stand in their way. How many of our men know how to shoot lightning? How fast can our catapults and trebuchets respond to speeding boulders?
"And yet none of them have ever done that because they all can't think past their own tiny borders enough to realize just how powerful they are together. As a whole. And they will never do that because their nobles don't want that to happen. Their nobles are still under the notion that there is an end to the war instead of devoting their resources into ending the war.
"Their nobles also don't want their armies to go beyond the sea because they can't bend there and are practically useless unless they weight their ships down with rocks. Which is too expensive to carry enough of to make a difference.
"Remind me to never appoint you as a general," Iroh said.
"Right, anyway, we can practically say we won the war since everyone's plan was to just wait for the Avatar to fix everything. Which is a stupid plan, by the way. And since we, the people who started the war, are also the ones ending the war, then we can do so on our terms. Which is the best way to end a war."
Iroh also decided there and then that his nephew made a terrible diplomat.