Guilds Make Policy Demands

our ruler has granted many privileges and concessions to the Vaishya merchant guilds. Wielding almost unchecked power over the nation’s economy, they have become a force to be reckoned with in our politics.\n\nSensing an opportunity to accumulate even greater power, the most powerful of these guilds have sent an embassy to our capital with a series of polite but emphatic policy recommendations. Our financial advisors see some commercial merit to these policies, but note that they entail granting an outrageous degree of autonomy to the provinces where the guilds are most powerful, essentially making them into merchant-princes. Refusing these demands would anger the guilds greatly, though it would go a long way towards curtailing their power.