 Under Sultan Barsbay, a state monopoly was established on luxury goods, namely spices, in which the state set prices and collected a percentage of profits.To that end, in 1387, Barsbay established direct control over Alexandria, the principal Egyptian commercial port, thereby transferring the tax revenues of the port to the sultan's personal treasury ("diwan al-khass") instead of the imperial treasury which was linked with the military's "iqtaʿ" system.Furthermore, in 1429, he ordered that the spice trade to Europe be conducted through Cairo before goods reached Alexandria, thus attempting to end the direct transportation of spices from the Red Sea to Alexandria.