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"Welcome! Welcome! My friend!"

Black Wolf Clan

The chieftain, Valkia's father: Moloch, received Aenarion warmly. After all, the other party helped him rescue a large number of people who had become Ottoman slaves, and now he has become a local lord and is worthy of making friends.

Aenarion sized up the Black Wolf Chieftain. The last time he saw him, he was filled with suffocating murderous aura. Standing next to him, one would feel as if one was trapped in a sea of ​​blood. The tremendous pressure would even affect one's breathing. But now, the murderous intent of this Chieftain of Khorne had disappeared so much that he was almost becoming an ordinary person.

"Come on, let's go into the castle and talk."

Moloch gave him a friendly smile, and on the way to the castle, he proudly explained to Aenarion everything he had done over the years.

“Look, I built a fishing port near the port and encouraged local people to go fishing. Now the fishing industry in Ochakov is very developed, and all kinds of fish can be seen and eaten everywhere in the city.

There used to be a forest there, but I organized the locals to burn the forest and open up farmland. Now, the golden wheat fields stretch to the end of the sight! With this fishing port and farmland, the Black Wolf Clan has never fallen into famine again, and we no longer need to risk our lives to plunder. "

Morlock strode through the fishing port and into the city center, where there were actually long commercial streets with flags of Genoa, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire hanging on them.

"I don't understand business, but these Ottomans and Italians do. I rented them the most prosperous piece of land in the city and let them do business here. Wow! The rent collected every year is a huge sum of money. The looting income is nothing compared to sitting at home collecting rent and taxes!"

The boss of Khorne laughed loudly and enthusiastically showed off the prosperous city under his governance, but he did not notice that two of the guards following behind him showed extreme disgust.

Combined with Valkia's words, Aenarion probably knew what the powerful Khorne leader had done wrong - yes, you are developing the economy in this way, which makes your people live better, but, but your base, your direct soldiers are all Khorne believers! You let them farm, fish and build infrastructure every day? You like this kind of stable and peaceful life, but do your subordinates like it too?

Forget it, it’s hopeless.

The group came to the castle built by Moloch, which was only slightly larger than the small castle in Marathon. It seemed that this Viking liked the local civilization very much. The castle was built in an orderly manner, and the interior decoration was similar to the Polish style, making him look like a real Polish aristocrat.

"Ah, my friend, why are you here in the Black Sea with two huge ships?"

Moloch asked curiously as he ordered the cook to prepare the best meal.

"My territory lacks labor and population, so I'm coming here to buy some white slaves."

Aenarion spoke straight to the point.

"But you are the only one I know on this side of the Black Sea. Do you know where I can buy slaves?"

"You can do it here! I have plenty of slaves here."

Moloch said happily.

"Valkia, that little girl, leads a group of restless tribesmen to rob every day. The people in the nearby castle just lost a battle to us. We plundered a lot of captives and people. The farmers working in the fields outside are all my slaves. If I give them a bite to eat, they can help me harvest countless grains. A few days ago, a group of Viking pirates from the north came to rob, but we took care of them all and captured them!"

"Well, I remember that the last time we met, hundreds of your compatriots were captured by the Ottoman Empire and sold as slaves. You were so angry that you led all your soldiers south to chase them."

Aenarion said teasingly.

"I haven't seen you for just three months. How come you're also involved in the slave trade?"

"How can you say that?"

Moloch spread his hands and said with great grievance.

"You are not from my Black Wolf clan, so how can you be considered my compatriot? The freedom and life and death of other Vikings are none of my business."

The author says:

Author's words: Woohoo, please give me some monthly tickets. You can use the free coins in the [Discover] and [Black Market Store] of the APP to exchange for monthly tickets. This is really important to the author. Thank you so much.

Chapter 163: Output of Silver Mine

"Okay, I have no intention of interfering in your clan's affairs. How much is a slave here?"

Aenarion demanded.

"Thirty kilograms of wheat for one slave, fifty kilograms for a young and strong man."

Aenarion nodded. This was a fair price.

"So, how many slaves do you have here?"

"There are probably more than 30 vacancies. We plan to kill them all after we have slaves and sacrifice them to the Blood God. However, city development requires food and money. During this period of time, I plan to expand the port and commercial market, develop more trade with the Venetians, recruit carpenters, and build more ships. All of these require food. If you have any, I will sell these slaves at kg each.

I'll sell it to you at the price of one wheat."

Moloch happily planned the development and construction of his territory.

"make a deal."

Aenarion agreed without hesitation. Twenty-two point two tons of wheat were exchanged for seven hundred and forty slaves of varying quality. As the first batch of miners at the Laurion Silver Mine, this deal was very profitable.

However, just as the zombies were moving the wheat out of the cabin, Sisina refused to work. She started crying and making a fuss, and wrapped her snake tail around the zombies' bodies to prevent them from working.

"No! No! All this food is mine! It's mine, don't move it away!"

"I'm not starving you."

Aenarion was speechless as he watched the little snake rolling around in a coquettish manner.

"I'm not hungry, but I never have too little food. My dream is to dig a big hole, fill it with all kinds of wheat ears, beans, and bacon, and make a swimming pool. Then I can crawl around in it and not take away the food."

Sisina blinked her big star-green eyes and said with longing.

Dragons are very greedy by nature, but their greed is basically on gold and silver coins, as well as expensive treasures, while the greed of this little Gorgon seems to be on food.

Aenarion rolled his eyes and pulled a hunk of bacon from his pocket. He cut it into numerous smaller pieces and laid them out on the deck, stretching from the landing ladder to the bow tower.

The little Gorgon took a hard look at the bags of wheat, then at the bacon on the deck, and finally chose the latter which was higher in energy and more delicious. Like a hamster, she ate the meat all over the deck, all the way from the ladder on the side to the bow. She was hugged by Aenarion, who fed her and took her into the deckhouse so that she could not see the zombies carrying the wheat. Only then did she stop.

Afterwards, he traveled around the northern coast of the Black Sea, looking for other tribes to trade with, and even found a team of Ottoman dark elf slaves who had been hanging around the northern coast of the Black Sea for many years.

When the other party saw Aenarion, the notorious Ottoman wanted criminal, and his two ships, Ulthuan and the Emperor's Pride, which had long been marked as enemies, they did not say anything. As long as you give me money, I will sell slaves - it costs so much to talk about patriotism!

After some trouble in the Black Sea, Aenarion got another 500 male half-giants of better quality and returned to Laurion with 1,200 half-giants.

At this moment, his mother had already deployed thousands of sets of mining tools and ten furnaces for smelting silver outside the mine.

These slaves were lifeless and had no hope for their future. They moved like wooden puppets, and at the urging of a hundred zombies, they came to the ruins of the mining town outside the Laurion Silver Mine. Then, the chains on their bodies were taken off.

Labor under slavery is indeed very cost-effective and efficient if well supervised, but now there is a better option - that is to closely tie the benefits of labor to the workers.

"From today on, this is your home. The cave in front of you is a vein rich in silver. All of you will be mining here. You will not receive any salary, but one percent of the proceeds from the mining will belong to you! The more you mine, the more you will earn. I will provide all the meals. This place will also be rebuilt into a new mining city! It will be your city!"

The half-giants were a little confused. After they walked into the mine, they were shocked to see the silver-rich ore that was shining like stars in the sky. The silver content of this silver-rich ore was several times, even dozens of times, that of ordinary silver ore!

Some skilled miners who had become slaves began to calculate directly. With this kind of silver-rich mine, it was no problem to extract one kilogram of silver from one ton of stone, and it might even be higher.

A conversion rate of one thousandth is very high. Normally, one ton of silver ore can only produce two to three hundred grams of silver, which is the normal level.

If I only mine 0.96 kilograms of ore a month and smelt 2 grams of pure silver, I will have an income of grams of silver. A Venetian Grosso silver coin with a purity of more than is just over grams. Three silver coins a month is already on par with the income of an ordinary worker. However, the standard of kilograms of ore a month is already very low. The more I work, the more I earn!

Not only did I suddenly become a free man from a slave, but I could also make a living by my labor?

These half-giants who had gained their freedom were overjoyed. They began to set up a camp on the site of the Laurian silver mine and dig for silver. A thousand people were divided into two groups, working in two shifts, digging the veins non-stop for 24 hours. They worked happily, and then, the next day, Aenarion received information: a half-giant had defected.

Aenarion gasped. Fortunately, he had built a complete defense system at the silver mine and the two carracks were blocking there, so nothing happened and the escaped person was caught.

Aenarion frowned as he looked at the one hundred half-giants who were trying to seize the ship and escape, and asked them in a cold voice what was going on.

"I bought you as slaves. I gave you work and freedom. Why do you want to run away?"

"We are captured warriors! Glorious warriors of the God Dog Mastiff! Not hard laborers! Is mining a human thing? This damn place is much hotter than the Black Sea! Every day we huddle in narrow, dark, damp and hot mine tunnels and work desperately. Every breath of dirty air we breathe is filled with slag and dust.

Since you have given us

Freedom, why can't we go home? "

Hundreds of captured plunderers spoke indignantly, which made Aenarion extremely angry.

"Since you are unwilling to mine as free men, then you can mine as slaves."

Aenarion waved his hand and divided the miners into two identities. One was the previous free miners, who could get 1% of the silver mined as a reward. The other was the slave workers controlled by the supervisors. They were shackled and could only walk but not run. They were only given full meals every day and no wages. If they did not work well, they would be whipped.

As a punishment, the slave miners killed chickens in front of the free miners. After giving them red dates, they also gave them a big stick, which stimulated them to work harder.

At this point, the Laurion Silver Mine was initially operational. On September 1, Aenarion calculated the silver mine's income for the entire month of August. There were 1,200 slaves, 200 of whom were women and children responsible for cooking and setting up camps, and only 1,000 of them were actually mining. They dug out an average of 700 tons of silver-rich ore per month, from which 700 kilograms of pure silver were extracted, enough to mint 350,000 Grosso silver coins! After deducting the workers' wages, food material costs, and the loss and expenses of smelting silver ore,

He could make a net profit of 340,000 a month from this large silver mine, which was far higher than the 43,000 taxes of the entire Duchy of Athens.

Even the largest silver mine in the Serbian Kingdom, New Brdo, could only mine 80,000 silver coins a month. The output of the Laurion Silver Mine was nearly four times that! In a month, it could mine almost a carrack with all its crew and 40 cannons!

If I were given enough time, I seemed to be able to recreate the feat of more than 2,000 years ago when the Athenians relied on a single city to build the most powerful navy in the Mediterranean and defeated the Persian Empire!

Chapter 164: The Gorgon Sisters

After getting the money, Aenarion immediately reduced the tax rate from four to three in ten to enhance the happiness of the people in the territory, while attracting people around him to escape from higher tax areas to increase the population.

Since I have such a large silver mine, why should I use the Venetian Grosso silver coins? Let those damn Italians rip me off? I want to create my own currency!

Aenarion did what he said. In the castle of Laurelion, he converted a factory into a mint and mobilized craftsmen to make molds. Each silver coin contained two grams of silver with a purity of 0.965, the same value as the Grosso currency in Venice, but the printing was different.

Speaking of which, he had been the Duke for several months, but still did not have his own flag and family crest. Aenarion began to design his own family crest and flag of the duchy.

Aenarion placed the helmet of Helios, also known as Asuryan, the sun god, in the center, with a sword of Khaine behind him and two bundles of olive branches as decoration on both sides. He used the combination of sword, helmet, and olive as his family emblem and printed it on the reverse of the silver coin.

He looked at Astariel and wanted to be lazy, so he simply copied the double-headed eagle emblem of the Angelos family and printed it on the front of the silver coin as the national flag. In this way, a brand new silver coin was designed.

The double-headed eagle of the Angelos family is somewhat different from the double-headed eagle of the Eastern Roman Empire. It is asymmetrical. The eagle's left head has open eyes, while the eagle's right head has closed eyes, and there is a shackle covered with spikes on its legs - it is said that this corresponds to the two sides of the Angelos family. In everyone's heart, there is a shackled demon sleeping.

After designing the print on the silver coin, Aenarion created a raised ring on the edge of each silver coin, imitating the Han Dynasty's Wuzhu coin. The side was densely engraved with all the serrations and patterns of modern silver coins as anti-counterfeiting marks. If these two things were gone, the entire silver coin would be invalid.

It is impossible for ordinary people to make this thing, which fundamentally eliminates the rubbing and clipping of coins.

A few days later, the mint had produced the template, and the silver dug out from the large silver mine was immediately melted next to the mine. Then the pure silver was sent to the mint and immediately began to be pressed. One by one, Athenian silver coins with a double-headed eagle on the front and a sword and helmet on the back came out of the mint. Aenarion gave it a nice name: Sky Eagle Silver Coin.

After becoming rich, Aenarion continued to recruit blacksmiths at high prices, trying to build a large blacksmith team directly under his command that could supply himself with weapons and armor.

But before that, he could only buy weapons, armor, and muskets from the Italians. He spent 90,000 silver coins to buy 600 sets of chain mail and 40,000 silver coins to buy 400 muskets. He recruited 1,000 elves for the third time and trained them into his second Spanish phalanx. The 1,000 unarmored soldiers he recruited in the second batch were border guards specially used to defend the city and would not be armed for the time being.

And these two thousand men, the soldiers of the two Spanish field phalanxes, all of them were in Athens and Thebes and had their own land. The centurions and thousand-man commanders even had manors. Every one of them was a property owner and their morale was high because they had to protect their own land.

Under the temptation of huge sums of money, a large number of blacksmiths came to him from the Aegean coast and the islands, allowing Aenarion to gradually form a huge blacksmith guild and let them teach more apprentices to practice blacksmithing. Everything he had was developing rapidly with the blessing of the silver mine!

The Great Silver Mine of Laurelion did bring endless convenience to Aenarion, but it also brought countless

There were endless troubles. The news that there was still silver in the Laurion silver mine which had been dry for more than a thousand years spread like a plague, attracting everyone's attention. The first trouble came from the mountains.

One day, an urgent report came from Laurion that a worker was missing while mining. When people found him, he had turned into a stone sculpture, and there were traces of a giant snake crawling on the ground.

Aenarion glanced at Sisina, who was eating with a vengeance on her face, and then he realized what was happening.

The Laurion Silver Mine was the nest where her mother had lived for more than 1,300 years. Now that she was mining on such a large scale, it must have attracted everyone's attention. Her brothers and sisters who had already grown up and were driven out of the nest should have received the message and returned to fight for the ancestral home?

Aenarion immediately led his elite troops to Laurin again, taking the little Gorgon and the contract with him. The group arrived at the Laurin Silver Mine in a dusty state, and saw the giant python's body and the traces of it sliding on the ground. Aenarion picked up Sisina and placed her on the snake tail mark left by the other party, and compared the size. Well, the width was more than twice hers, so big.

"It should be Sister Yurielle, or Sister Medusa."

Sisina compared the huge crawling marks and spoke softly.

“The older brothers and sisters probably have a history of building nests for hundreds of years. Even if they knew that their mother had died, they were too lazy to come over. They have been operating their own nests for hundreds of years, and their scale is not much smaller than this one. They are too lazy to move.

It was only a few years since they were driven out. I saw them again after they hatched. The new nest was only a few years old and the sunk cost was very small. I thought it would be better to come back and rob the mother's nest if they continued to develop. The tail mark is not too big. There should only be the mother's descendants nearby. I haven't heard of other Gorgons."

"That's good."

Aenarion felt barely relieved. At least the Gorgons that came should be between teenagers and adults. Monsters over a hundred years old would be too lazy to come. They didn't need human currency, so it would be fine as long as they were not so powerful that he couldn't defeat them.

"So, what do your sisters like and how can we draw them out? How do you feel about them?"

"They like to collect figures of people after petrifying them just like Mom does. Their target should be Mom's main nest, which contains many rare stone figures. If they find that they cannot seize this cave, they may try to take as many of Mom's stone figures as they can. As for the relationship."

Sisina shuddered and subconsciously hugged Aenarion, who could bring her food and a sense of security. The green dragons transformed from her hair hid behind her green hair.

"Woo, woo, woo, they always scare me, saying they want a Gorgon sculpture for their collection!"

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. I'll back you up. They're just one or two underage Gorgons. What are you afraid of?"

Aenarion stroked the little girl's dark green hair, comforting her while trying to find these hidden giant monsters.

Chapter 165: Yurielie

"So where do your two sisters live when they are not leaving the nest?"

Aenarion thought for a moment.

"Yeah, next to my little nest."

Sisina thought about it and recalled.

"take me."

Aenarion waved his hand and set off with Astariel and Alleria. The two leopards were not taken with them. The blood of the Gorgons was extremely poisonous and was a natural counter to these terrifying beasts that fought with fangs and claws.

The four of them went into the Laurion Silver Mine, and followed Sisina as they turned left and right in the dark and stuffy mine, and came to a peculiar cave. Here, they saw a large number of traces of snake tails sliding, and some peach-pink scale powder left on the nearby rocks. The little cubs who came after hearing about the death of old Gorgon were nearby.