To increase their wealth and power, traditional rulers had three main options. The most foresighted encouraged peasants to plow up unfarmed land and urged merchants to seek out new commodities. But many sought more rapid gains by using two riskier and more coercive strategies. They could press harder on their own populations, at the risk of popular uprisings or economic breakdown. Or they could gamble on taking wealth from neighboring states by sending in their armies. This was dangerous, but it often worked, and that is why most traditional elites were warlike. That also explains why, when
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