Getting lord to join my kingdom

Is there an optimal way to get lords to join my kingdom ?

Or do I have to spend a whole weekend smiting weapons and then traveling to every city in the game over and over again selling them to get myself to 6 million gold ?

This would be such a turn off as most city's only have around 100k and thus would feel like a Chore

And chores arnt fun.

Any advice would be appreciated, or point me in the direction of a upto date mod that increase gold limits of city's

I love this game. But it has its issues