Suhlen did not directly take out the white sugar to trade with the Skylark Chamber of Commerce. In his eyes, white sugar was a luxury item. White sugar was different from salt. It was fine even if ordinary people did not eat sugar, so sugar was basically prepared for the nobles.
Robert's caravan brought a variety of daily necessities. In addition to a small amount of food, there were also wine, tea, and so on. Their arrival solved many problems in the territory. When Suhlen came to develop the territory, he had limited funds, so he only bought the most important materials and did not bring anything else.
The simplest example was clothes. The wilderness did not produce clothes, so when the clothes were damaged, many people wore leather clothes. These things were hard and smelly, uncomfortable to wear, and smelled bad. Before Robert came here, he deliberately learned about the situation in Suhlen's territory from Zeon. Then he prepared the goods, which were naturally very popular.
Poor Suhlen had already run out of money for the first few purchases, so he could only barter to buy Robert's goods. Fortunately, the blacksmith had made a lot of armor and weapons during this time, so he could trade with Robert.
.....
Robert was very curious about Northguard Castle. It was a small town about three hundred miles away from Blackstone City. From what he could remember, there weren't many territories that could survive for more than three months in the wasteland. The few that could survive for three months and finally gain a foothold in the wasteland were all heavily in debt. Every year, they would need a large amount of money. After all, maintaining a regular army of more than a thousand people in the wasteland was just too expensive.
But Northguard Castle was different. After arriving here, Robert's first impression was that it was clean and orderly. Yes, it was clean and orderly. Even in the royal city of Florence, except for the noble district and the wealthy district, it was common for people to urinate and defecate everywhere. The streets in the city were also muddy, and no one knew when human excrement would fall from the sky.
The town was unexpectedly clean. The streets were neat and tidy, and the roads were paved with stones. Some places were even paved with stone slabs. There was no garbage on the streets, and the pedestrians did not throw away their garbage. Even the goblin slaves and gnolls slaves did the same.
Later, he learned that this was the request of Lord Suhlen, and those who violated the rules would be severely punished. They would have to clean the streets and toilets under the supervision of others with shackles. There were also those who were caught urinating and defecating everywhere. Not only would they have to pay fines and do hard labor, but they would also be hung up and beaten. Those who refused to change their ways would also have their tools confiscated.
There was a bathroom at the corner of every street. Everyone had to go to the bathroom to relieve themselves. In addition to being clean and tidy, there were many rules here. For example, the road was divided into two in the middle, and everyone had to walk on the right side.
Although the whole town didn't look big, it was orderly. Several roads divided the town into several parts, and all the houses were of the same style. Although it didn't look good, it looked very neat. Some of these houses were already occupied, but most of them were still empty.
Although each house was not big, with only three rooms, the layout was very reasonable. The houses facing the street were all two-story attics. These houses should be shops. There were also drainage ditches on both sides of the town's roads, and there were also special sewers inside the houses.
There were more people living in the south of the town, and the other places were very empty. Many of the open spaces were built with fences, which looked like reserved places. No one was allowed to get close to the town's barracks, and the Lord's mansion was also prohibited from getting close. However, the square was free to come and go.
Compared to other towns and cities, not only were there fewer residents, but the number of soldiers was also shockingly small. For a pioneer town like this to establish itself in the wilderness, it would need at least eight hundred soldiers. But what about this town? There were only less than 100 barbarian warriors.
Even if these barbarian warriors were strong, there were too few of them. In a large-scale battle, the barbarians could be drowned by the sea of soldiers. But even now, this town was still alive and well. This made people think that they had some kind of trump card.
However, these barbarian warriors were indeed very strong. The barbarian warrior named Johnson on the way here was very likely to be a knight captain. Robert didn't expect that in such a remote place, there would be an immortal knight that surpassed knights and grand knights. If he was willing to pledge his loyalty to the kingdom, he could at least become a viscount.
Apart from these, what surprised him even more was that this town had a large number of slaves. Apart from the serfs, there were also more than a thousand goblins, kobolds, and gnolls. The number of slaves was already several times the population of the town, but none of them had escaped.
There were very few free people here, and most of them were the Lord's slaves. However, the slaves here were completely different from those in other cities. In other places, the slaves were not very enthusiastic about their work. Most of the time, they had to be whipped by supervisors. However, the slaves here were very enthusiastic and didn't need to be whipped at all.
After discovering this, Robert was very surprised. After asking some people, he found out that the Lord of Suhlen had promised that as long as the slave worked hard for the territory for five years, he would pardon the slave and let him become a free person. Robert was stunned when he heard the news.
After all, the slaves were his personal property. Wasn't it enough to make the slaves work hard with the whip of the supervisor? Why did he want to release the slaves? Did he think that he had too much money? Robert couldn't understand this at all. They even established a contribution system for the slaves. They could earn points by working hard every day, or by joining the army and participating in battles.
Only when the points were enough would the slaves be set free.
In fact, the reason Suhlen did this was to increase the number of free people in the town. After all, if a slave knew that he would always be a slave, how could he expect the slave to work hard? It was impossible. Suhlen used this method to successfully motivate the slaves.
Even if the slaves became free people five years later, they would still have nothing. They would have to continue working for Suhlen in order to get paid. It was just a more subtle way of exploitation.
Aside from these, what Robert was most curious about was the city's workshops. There was a blacksmith shop by the river outside the city. It was a place where weapons and equipment were produced. However, when Robert wanted to enter, he was stopped by someone. There were a few other places like this. One of them was a workshop next to the Lord's castle. It was also guarded by barbarian warriors.
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