Many leaders 'play favorites,' and devote more attention to whatever interest aligns with their own, such as the military, when his army will be forced to raid it's own citizenry (either directly, like those warlords whose men steal air-dropped emergency relief supplies for their own use, or through your oppressive taxes to fund the army, like Kim Jong Il, allowing thousands to starve to death to maintain a military to defend against entirely imaginary threats) if the *farms* aren't given priority. Everything works together, and becomes interdependent.
On the one hand, a military force is *going* to be needed in the River Kingdoms. On the other hand, neglecting 'everybody else' is going to lead to either another failed River Kingdom, or one so oppressive that it makes running off to join the bandits look like a better lifestyle choice.
A Roman solution is to award land to the soldiers, and turn them into farmers, when they aren't soldiering. A Swiss solution is to make *everybody* a soldier, at least, for a time, and require everyone, no matter how long they've been out, to get together once a year to re-qualify with their weapons, so that the 'commoners' remain functional soldiers, with training, chains of command for their local communities and assigned weapons that they have to keep at their homes, in working order, and the standing army can be that much smaller.
The 'us vs. them' that can build up, and lead to military coups in some countries, and wild use of the guillotine in bloody peasants revolts in others, is nipped in the bud by a system where the leader doesn't (egregiously) favor one group over the other, because they are all the same group.
The army shouldn't be able to say, 'he's ignoring defense, we're all gonna die in the next bandit attack!' and the temples shouldn't be able to say, 'he's ignoring faith, we're all gonna go to hell!' and the peasantry shouldn't be able to say, 'he's over-taxing us and taking us for granted to supply his expensive boondoggle heavy cavalry that we can't even use because we live in a bloody swamp, we're all gonna starve!'
Some leaders make gestures like having one day a year where the nobles and commoners all mingle, equal in status for one day, at some grand feast, where the king has to wait in line behind the blacksmith and the midwife before he eats.
Others take a certain number of cases of justice per day, week, whatever and pronounce judgement on them, showing off their fairness. The TV show Kings had an example of such a day, when King Silas would take a half-dozen or so cases, collected from hundreds submitted for him to overturn or render judgement upon, and make rulings (which, in his case, were hand-picked to show off his fairness and egalitarianism, with some cases always being chosen to show off how he cared about the little people, like disputes between farmers over who owned which cow).
In the real world, Governors and Presidents similarly get involved, sometimes by issuing pardons in cases where they feel that justice has been dealt too harshly (or where they've got some shadier motivation, but that's not relevant to what you want to do here).
Having your ruler sometimes be seen as the face of temperance and mercy can make him popular with the hopeful, who begin to see in him someone who respects life, including lives as lowly as theirs. Having him be sometimes seen as harsh and unforgiving can make him equally popular with the fearful, who will be comforted by his willingness to kill anyone they regard as a threat.
Mixing the two is walking a tighrope over a pit of alligators, but there's a time to be merciful and idealistic and there's a time to be ruthless and practical. A leader who can reassure *all* of his people will have to be both.
The dude was a showboater of the first order. Awesome on screen, yes, but not a "servant-leader" as Firelance describes the term.
