If I let you farm, will you become the emperor of the empire?

Roman frowned slightly.

"Your father, Selin, has a good relationship with Grand Duke Oak, so will he also be afraid of Grand Duke Fury?"

Selin is a business councillor, which is equivalent to a noble among merchants.

When the merchants of the Chamber of Commerce grow to a certain extent, they will seek dependence.

Or the church, nobles and kings, so as to obtain some powerful guards.

Otherwise, they will encounter a scene similar to Daken.

According to Roman, Selin signed an agreement with Grand Duke Oak many years ago, using Grand Duke Oak's expedition knights to guard his caravan, and he provided them with rich rewards.

Roman is not unfamiliar with this, because there are similar merchants in the Grand Dukedom of the Split Armor Family, coming and going every day.

His brothers and sisters occasionally work as caravan guards.

But he chose to go far away, and those merchants in the Grand Dukedom would not come all the way to the wilderness to help him develop.

Morey smiled bitterly and said, "Grand Duke Oak doesn't care about a son of Selin."

And it is the son of Selin after the separation.

The fact that the great merchant Serin signed a contract with Grand Duke Oak does not mean that Serin's son has also signed a contract.

If his caravan encounters the army of Grand Duke Raging Tide, it is equivalent to encountering the pirate Daken, and he cannot use the name of Grand Duke Oak to intimidate them.

Of course, Morey is not Daken.

The guards of professional merchants are usually private armed forces trained by them. Some of them are not inferior to the knights of war and are extremely loyal to the merchants.

But the number is destined to be small, because merchants have no basic base and cannot afford large-scale armed forces.

Even if they can afford it, if the scale of the armed forces reaches a certain level, it will attract the attention of the nobles.

Do business, do business, why do you train an army? Don't you want to be a leek?

The nobles have power and land. As long as they can afford it, it doesn't matter if a baron pulls out an army of 10,000 people. No one will point fingers.

What's wrong with me setting up an army of 10,000 people?

Your earl questioned my baron?

Should we compare hands?

Either you kill me and my territory is yours;

or I kill you and your territory is mine.

…

Nobles can play this way, but merchants can't.

Morey's guards are the "family separation fee" given to him by his father.

If they encounter pirates, they will fight to the death for Morey.

But encountering the army of the Grand Duke of Fury is another matter.

Roman understands Morey's concerns.

He thinks Morey's caution is a good thing.

If Morey is in trouble, then he can still only allocate these people, and there is no way to increase the population in the short term-he will be disappointed, but it is nothing more than postponing what needs to be done.

It is only a matter of time for Roman to turn the table a year earlier or a year later. At most, he can keep a low profile for a few more years.

Fortunately, Morey is more rational and knows how to avoid risks better than Daken.

Merchants have trade treaties with all nobles, paying high business taxes in exchange for a certain degree of security and insurance.

This treaty will not be effective all the time.

If there is a war, it is reasonable for the merchant's goods to be purchased by the noble army at a lower price, and even worse, they will plunder everything - in most cases, the latter is more common, and the merchant company will not make any compensation at all.

This unspoken rule is also to advise ordinary merchants that if they do not have military relations or do business with military caravans, they should not hang around in front of others.

Morey stayed in Pearl Harbor for a full half month until the situation stabilized, and then he dared to set off again.

During this period, Morey was responsible for the food, drink, defecation and urination of these slaves, which put him under great pressure.

He had never traded slaves before.

In this era, human life was worthless.

The price could not go up, because transportation was a big problem, and the transportation efficiency in this era was extremely low.

Slaves are not dead things like salt, iron, tobacco, alcohol, sugar and cloth. They cannot be stacked up and stored, and cannot be ignored.

Slaves need rations. More than 600 people need at least 1,000 kilograms of food every day.

Sanitation needs to be cleaned, and they have to be let out regularly, otherwise they will mess up his clean merchant ships.

In contrast, Morey preferred expensive and light goods such as silk, linen, spices, wool, salt and steel.

In fact, if Roman had not strongly requested, he would never let any slaves board his merchant ship-except sailors and boatmen.

But the lord was so eager for slaves.

He had to transport a batch of slaves.

Then, the rumor that the Grand Duke of the Wrath had mobilized the army scared him half to death.

Fortunately, the Grand Duke did not take further action, and all the turmoil gradually subsided.

Morey successfully arrived in the town of Sge and brought his slaves to Roman.

"Well, what reward do you want?"

Roman never spared wealth, especially for those who helped him.

The mining of salt mines gave the town of Sge a large amount of starting capital and provided all the nutrients needed for wild growth.

In fact, every salt-producing area is extremely rich land, and many nobles will fight for a salt field until the winner is decided or a cooperation treaty is signed.

Morey thought for a moment, "When I came here, I saw you were doing a lot of construction? You built a lot of red brick houses."

Roman's face turned ugly when he heard this.

"The heavy rain not long ago washed away the huts of those idiots. I had to build them stronger brick houses to prevent them from wasting my time every year because of this."

He was very clear about the benefits of solving the problem once and for all.

For future production efficiency, it would also be twice the result with half the effort.

Living in a clean environment helps restore their strength and saves time in their lives.

Of course, the only one who can make such a big deal is Roman. Not all territories can suspend production for two or three months - whether building a house counts as production is debatable.

Morey was extremely surprised.

"I've never seen any other noble do this."

"Because they are a bunch of idiots!" Roman's attitude was contemptuous, and his words were as harsh and sharp as an awl.

Morey never thought that nobles who could build strong castles and fight bravely on the battlefield were fools.

He looked at the environment of the hall. It was spacious and bright.

But it is indeed wooden.

He made sure of it.

This is just a manor, which is enough for a canonized knight. But it’s a bit disastrous for a nobleman - all the people under his command will soon live in brick houses.

"Won't you build a castle?"

The castle is a military fortification and a symbol of status. Its size often represents the local dominance and financial resources of the nobles.

"Castle? Useless thing!" Roman was not interested in this.

A large-scale construction project, spending a year or two, investing hundreds of gold coins, just to build a small castle?

In Roman's opinion, this kind of behavior was simply taking off his pants and farting.

He sat leaning on the chair, put his arms on the armrests, hummed softly, and clenched his fingers into fists. "If anyone tries to offend my territory, I will destroy them and teach them to leave in defeat!"

If any noble dared to enter Sige Town, he would immediately stop all production, urgently mobilize everyone, and let them take shovels, pickaxes and hoes to join the battle.

Sige Town is easy to defend but difficult to attack, and has natural geographical advantages. The tributaries of the Buro River come from the Yinlong Canyon. There is a river in front of the dock, and there are high mountains on the opposite side of the river, which means there is no broad foothold.

The attacker needs at least 2,000 infantry to charge with a lot of life, otherwise they will never be able to land.

But to transport 2,000 infantry, it depends on whether there are so many ships.

Of course, if the visitor is a warrior knight, that's another story.

If Roman hadn't taken action, 50 fully armed knights would be enough to destroy this land.

In other words, things like fighting knights are unsolvable for today's Sige Town.

Now with the slaves brought by Morey, Roman is confident that this problem can be solved before the end of winter.

When the time comes, it will be useless even if there are 100 knights, not to mention 50 knights.