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How could a city be viable if the soil surrounding it has become hostile to any kind of crop? What would the options be?

I came up with the idea of establishing settlements around the city, miles away, where the soil allows to plant and which would send the most part of the harvests to the capital. But, first: how could you protect those settlements? They are far away, too far for news of an attack to travel to the capital and then the reinforcements get to the settlement. In any case, imagining those settlements grow into proper villages or towns with the capability of self-defense, without being dependent on the capital in that regard, at this point we would be facing another problem: these villages/towns now need more food for a larger population, so they can't send as much of their crops to the capital, so they longer fulfill their purpose.

Let's say there's no revolt, no movement against the capital. I need the capital to survive because it's key to the story. How can the capital not only survive, but be solvent? I mean, to have some kind of response capability against an attack (resources-wise), and not just being an agonizing place that can be taken over by a bunch of crooks.

Well, that was my idea, I'd love to read yours! Any politics you can think of that could be put in practice? Any take on the matter will be welcome.

Thank you all in advance.

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    $\begingroup$ Welcome to worldbuilding. You are asking too many questions in a single post, as you can read in our help center we accept only 1. Please narrow down the scope of your question. $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Commented Jul 25 at 10:16
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    $\begingroup$ First question, to what distance has the soil become toxic? Further "medieval" refers to a wide time period with a lot of technological changes many of which alter the viability of answers to this question massively, so when exactly? Also medieval where exactly? And that's before we get into the issue of multiple questions asked and the tone which doesn't really ask for an answer but rather a discussion. $\endgroup$
    – Ash
    Commented Jul 25 at 10:19
  • $\begingroup$ Around 15th century. Inland location, maybe access to a river. The soil is toxic 100%, no way you can grow anything in there. Iceland-ish location. $\endgroup$
    – Josué
    Commented Jul 25 at 11:54
  • $\begingroup$ Typical medieval way to protect your outlying settlements would be to build castles. You don't need to keep big garrison in them, because sheltering villagers would help to defend them and they would definitely hold long enough to muster a relieving force. $\endgroup$
    – byMaelstromer
    Commented Jul 26 at 5:43

2 Answers 2

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This is definitely possible if the city is in a strategic location for trading.

For example, port cities allow settlements further inland to export whatever they're producing, this can then be taxed.

This was a huge source of income in previous civilizations and still is today.

If you wanted to take this to an extreme, you could go full Dutch East India Company and monopolize certain commodities. For example your port city has an exclusive agreement with the largest producers of certain spices across an ocean, you can undercut your competitors and become immensely wealthy.

Wealthy enough to simply purchase whatever resources you need elsewhere. In fact, seeing as it's a port city, they can just import whatever they need via sea routes which is substantially cheaper than by land.

So not only would the other settlements be reliant on you, but you wouldn't necessarily rely on them for anything.

And if the other settlements are sick of you and revolt? Who cares, you're rich, buy the best soldiers you can afford led by the best strategists money can buy.

And if they did attack you, just cut them off from trading through your port to cripple their economy.

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  • $\begingroup$ That's one of the possibilities I had considered. It's a city in the middle of a plain that works as a funnel gateway inland from the coast. But the possibility of taxing goes hand in hand with your capability to enforce compliance, right? And that's problem: it's an agonizing city that hardly manages to keep their heads above water, how could they retain enough military power to control that area? $\endgroup$
    – Josué
    Commented Jul 25 at 12:09
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    $\begingroup$ Have you ever heard the phrase "Don't bite the hand that feeds you"? In this case the city is a major intersection for multiple other cities to engage in the broader economy, its in their best interest not to cause trouble. Attacking the city would mean slowing down or stopping trade for other cities too, so they'd be making enemies from more than just the capital. They might not even need a massive army, just enough influence that nobody touches them. $\endgroup$
    – ChellCPlus
    Commented Jul 25 at 13:03
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    $\begingroup$ Related, there is the medieval institution of staple rights: "It required merchant barges or ships to unload their goods at the port and to display them for sale for a certain period, often three days. Only after that option had been given to local customers were traders allowed to reload their cargo and travel onwards with the remaining unsold freight." (WP) The German city of Cologne thrived from that for more than a millenium, helped by the fact that it controlled the only river crossing for hundreds of kilometers. $\endgroup$
    – ccprog
    Commented Jul 25 at 18:17
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah... I can work with that. Thank you so much for your help. $\endgroup$
    – Josué
    Commented Jul 25 at 19:30
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    $\begingroup$ @Josué Don't forget to mark questions as answered by clicking the tick mark if you're satisfied with an answer. $\endgroup$
    – ChellCPlus
    Commented Jul 26 at 8:10
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Port. A river or sea shore.

Transporting goods by a river was about 5 times cheaper than by the roads. Transporting over sea - about 5 times cheaper than by the river.

E.g. Rome BC had population of 500k to 1 million in 50 BC, it would be unsustainable without grain from Egypt.

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    $\begingroup$ Even in the modern world water transport is by far the cheapest. $\endgroup$
    – Ash
    Commented Jul 25 at 11:08
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    $\begingroup$ Only 5 times cheaper to carry goods over water than over land in medieval times? Citation needed. And most grain consumed in Rome came from (Roman) Africa and Sicily; and in 50 BCE Egypt was still an independent kingdom and did not export all that much grain to Rome. (In fact, at all times Egypt exported much more grain to Geece and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean than to Rome.) $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Jul 25 at 11:15
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    $\begingroup$ @AlexP 5x cheaper by river agrees with what I've read, with 10x cheaper by sea are the numbers for ancient times. 25x cheaper by sea seems excessive, I didn't think that medieval deep sea vessels were improved that much compared to the ancient ships, though it could reflect really rubbish roads at some time and place in the vast scope of "medieval". $\endgroup$
    – KerrAvon2055
    Commented Jul 25 at 13:01
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    $\begingroup$ @KerrAvon2055 Sea allows more efficient usage of sails, larger ships and free selection of destination. I find it plausible. I think I seen these numbers from few sources when I was researching the question. Naturally, these are generalized estimates, it would be a miracle if it was exactly 5 everywhere every time. $\endgroup$
    – D'Monlord
    Commented Jul 25 at 16:33
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    $\begingroup$ Roman roads, at least the highways, were generally better than medieval ones $\endgroup$
    – thegreatemu
    Commented Jul 25 at 22:56

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