Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 364 Human Traffickers
Although he had seen through Duke Ralph's offensive intentions in advance, and also understood that Grand Duke Saint Valen and the Church had not completely forgotten Harvey, the wizard lord hiding at the border of the kingdom, when facing the Federation's frontal offensive.

But Harvey still felt inexplicably worried about the current situation. He was clearly aware that this faith dispute, which originally originated from the church and the federation, had gradually changed its nature due to the interference of secular nobles. As a pioneer lord who did not even have a noble title, he was no longer as weak as when he first moved to the wilderness. He needed to disguise himself and hide himself to develop secretly.

Even if his own individual strength has not really reached a high level, the cards in Harvey's hand are enough for him to intimidate the feudal lords around him with ill intentions. At the same time, he can also stand on the side of the Federation openly and compete with the church and the nobles.

……

Harvey stayed in Grizzly Castle for two days. After the management rights of Sancha Town were officially handed over to his vassal nobles, he set off and returned to the wilderness.

Arriving almost at the same time as him was the team from the Andrew Chamber of Commerce.

"Your Excellency, we meet again!" The muscular, bearded President Andrew bowed eagerly to Harvey. "Please forgive me for not informing you of my visit in advance."

Harvey didn't care and smiled, "As a close business partner, my wasteland territory is always open to you friends. You can come anytime."

He paused, then asked doubtfully, "The order for the magic stone power machines you placed was delivered half a month ago. Could there be some quality issue?"

President Andrew rubbed his hands together and shook his head a little nervously, "No, no, no, the alchemical equipment we sent is in perfect working order. The repair technicians who came with the equipment are also very skilled. There's absolutely no problem... It's just..."

"It's just that one of my men happened to hear in Montenegro that you were sending people to buy serfs..." President Andrew explained carefully, "We also occasionally dabble in this kind of business...so we wanted to see if we could help the Lord..."

Although slavery and human trafficking have always been banned by the southern countries, many aristocratic families and chambers of commerce with deep backgrounds have made their fortunes from this. Although they no longer openly engage in this gray business, they still secretly cannot let go of this lucrative piece of fat.

It is nothing more than shifting the target of trafficking to capturing already displaced mixed-race foreigners, or abducting innocent people in countries where war has broken out. At the same time, many tenants or serfs who cannot bear the arbitrary taxation and labor assignment by the fiefdom nobles will fall into the hands of these human traffickers and be sold to other countries.

Harvey was not surprised at all that a large mine owner was secretly running a gray industry of human trafficking. After all, before the magic stone power machine became completely popular, all mines had to rely almost 100% on manual mining and transportation.

Harvey didn't want to discuss this somewhat sensitive topic with him right away. "There's no need to rush. It's already lunchtime. Why don't we go back to the castle and enjoy lunch first?"

Andrew immediately put on a smile and flatteredly praised, "The last time I visited your territory, I already enjoyed an extraordinary feast of delicacies... Now that you mention it again, my stomach is immediately growling. During the winter when I was out doing business, most of the time I could only eat wheat cakes and pickled meat. They were cold and hard, and I couldn't swallow them."

In this era, there seemed to be no other reliable way to preserve food except to pickle it with a lethal amount of salt. If dry food was to be stored for a longer period of time, it was necessary to do everything possible to remove the moisture from it and bake it until it was dry and hard. It could even serve as a self-defense weapon during travel and could be thrown out to knock someone unconscious without any problem.

Unfortunately, the cannery in his territory currently has low production, mainly because the tinplate used to make containers cannot be produced in large quantities. There is no direct source of tin ore in the wilderness, which is the most important tin ore in tin-plated iron alloys. Harvey has to rely on importing in bulk from the south, resulting in the canned food produced being barely enough to supply the army.

...After lunch in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, President Andrew patted his stomach contentedly, raised his glass again, and saluted Harvey. "In this icy winter, I can't believe I can still taste such fresh glacial salmon and pine mushrooms. The thick soup made from them almost made me swallow my tongue...And this honey omelet, my God...how do you make bees brew delicious honey in winter?"

Harvey laughed heartily and said casually, "Although the glacier salmon hide under the thick ice in winter, it's not difficult to catch them... As for the bees, haha, I just built a botanical garden for them where flowers bloom all year round."

"Those prominent princes and nobles don't know how to enjoy life as well as you do!" Andrew drank the vodka in the glass and exhaled a strong breath of alcohol.

"My Lord... the human trade I mentioned to you earlier..."

Harvey put down his knife and fork, picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth, and said calmly, "Yes, I am indeed buying people on a large scale right now. How many serfs does President Andrew have for sale?"

"If it's young and middle-aged laborers... there are this many." Andrew raised his left hand and stretched out three fingers.

Three thousand? Young and middle-aged people...

Harvey shook his head and said, "It's too little... How much are you going to sell it for?"

Andrew was a little surprised. Three thousand was not enough? The situation in the central part of the southern border was tense, and food prices were skyrocketing. The trafficked serfs were simply unable to sell them within their own countries. Without the great effort of transporting them to the southern coast, there was no profit to be made.

"Then...how much do you need?" Andrew waited for Harvey to gesture a number to see if he could eat it.

Who would have thought that after a long while, Harvey didn't even raise his hand, but instead heard something that almost made him think he was hallucinating because he was drunk... "I need as many people as you can gather... There's no upper limit."

Andrew smiled bitterly and said, "Sir, don't joke with me... If I could really get tens of thousands of young and strong laborers and equip them with weapons and armor, wouldn't I be able to satisfy my desire to be a great lord... But where would I get so much food to feed them?"

"It doesn't have to be all young and middle-aged men. I'll also take women, the elderly, and children..." Harvey explained patiently. "If you can't handle it alone, you can team up with other human traffickers. But the price must be low enough. I'm sure you all know that once a full-scale war breaks out, these serfs will become increasingly worthless."

Andrew said worriedly, "Even if we could get so many people, we wouldn't be able to deliver them to you in large numbers... It's winter now. If these people traveled thousands of miles north to the wilderness, I'm afraid more than half of them would freeze to death along the way."

"Don't worry about that..." Harvey had already prepared a plan. "You just need to use the fleet to send them to Sancha Town on the Ralph River, and then the fleet I arranged will be responsible for the transportation... We will hand over the people and the money in Sancha Town."

(End of this chapter)