Summoning Total War - Chapter 32
Chapter 32: Slave Trading (Part 1)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In the span of two weeks, Athens seemed to have returned to its former prosperous, bustling state.
This was because all the supplies needed to build the new town had been brought over from the old territory, and not much time was needed to build a new town. The trees and branches that had been chopped down could be recycled and reused, not to mention that one to two months of training had enabled the citizens to cultivate some decent construction skills!
At least in terms of carpentry, their improvement was evident.
Murphy had made many changes to the construction plans for the new town. He divided the scaled prototype of the town into two areas. One area was the large port, and the other area was the newly-planned town.
Murphy divided the town surrounded by the highlands into three large districts. These were the residential area, the temple, and the military barracks.
As for the commercial area that had originally been planned, Murphy alone decided it would be best to make it a top priority, together with the construction of the port.
Murphy’s plan was to make the port the main area where trading would take place, while the town would be a tight and semi-closed area for the time being. He would use the port as a buffer in order to reduce the town’s exposure to outside groups. This would largely minimize the impact the aborigines could have on the town! It was normal for disagreements to occur during a cultural exchange, and with his current strength alone, Murphy didn’t at all plan on opening his doors and facing the aborigines.
This was why Murphy was trying his very best to relegate everything related to foreign trading to the port area. In fact, he was thinking of building a smaller-scale Governor’s Office at the port.
The port and the newly constructed town were roughly 300 meters apart. The road had already been constructed. It was five meters wide and was covered with gravel and silt. It would be able to safely allow any horse carriages and goods to be smoothly transported across it.
For the port, Murphy had planned a commercial area, and he also intended to build a blacksmith shop.
Of course, all of this was still in the prototype phase.
In actual fact, Murphy’s plan was to build Athens and the port in a terrain that was similar to that of Xia Pi and Xiao Pei’s from the era of Three Kingdoms, and make it so that they were complementary to each other.
As the port would be used as a trading hub, there was no need to spend too much energy on its defensive capabilities, as the purpose of the port was merely to find more trading opportunities. In the future, the establishment of a fleet was inevitable, so Murphy didn’t have any plans at all to build a wooden palisade for the port. Also, as for the center of all of this, the newly-established town that would be built at the top of the highland, Murphy’s plan was to make it a semi-open private territory that wouldn’t be open to the outside world.
All the other people who would be entering and leaving the town would be subject to strict checks. On top of that, military weapon training, the establishment of the temple, and all sorts of other activities would have to take place in this semi-open town.
The distance between the port and the town was roughly around 300 meters. Hence, Murphy wasn’t afraid that the citizens would be left unable to retreat or seek assistance if an enemy appeared.
As long as they still had people and all their materials, Murphy would immediately start evacuating the moat and use the port as the perimeter of the town to build an inner city.
This was a construction plan that would allow them to advance or retreat, depending on the situation.
This was because the port could be expanded as an outer city pool in the future and had been built for this purpose.
Murphy’s eventual goal was to build a large river city. This way, the large river city would become a trading hub. The port would also play a huge role in making this happen.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
The citizens of the town were building their houses in the scorching heat. This was because the trading passage Lady Elizabeth had opened up had led many aborigines to make their way to the port to engage in the trading of slaves.
Murphy wanted to build a batch of hotels and expand the original commercial area.
Two teams of Greek infantry, who had extensive experience when it came to battling the gnolls, would be responsible for maintaining law and order. The injuries on their bodies and the determined looks on their faces were a good way to show the aborigines that they were indeed strong warriors. They were soldiers who had experience killing, and who had taken part in many bloody battles!
The soldiers would act as a deterrent, even without using any weapons, and were one of the most important factors when it came to maintaining law and order!
Murphy once again realized that he had underestimated Lady Elizabeth.
This was because of her outstanding abilities. Even Murphy himself couldn’t help but be amazed at what she was capable of!
This woman had extraordinary and outstanding business acumen. On top of that, her sophisticated communication skills earned her many points. This woman sold more than 900 gnoll slaves in just a week and had also successfully created an uptick in slave trading within the southern plains.
From here on, a detailed explanation is needed.
First of all, the more than one thousand gnoll furs were the easiest to sell.
Black market merchants gladly welcomed this kind of thing because they wouldn’t have to worry about the fur coats not selling, even if the furs were from a kind of humanoid. This would only make the manufacturing process easier and would help cut down on manufacturing costs!
For the poorer civilizations at the bottom of society, as well as the people living in poorer areas, ten or so silver coins were only worth roughly two sheep.
Two sheep weren’t enough to help someone get through a cold and chilly winter.
However, gnoll fur would be able to help them with that!
The coats of these creatures were more than two meters long and could cover a human being from top to bottom. On top of that, it was natural, real fur.
Selling these gnoll furs had already helped Lady Elizabeth earn more than ten thousand silver coins!
And the ten thousand silver coins she had earned marked the start of her next plan.
As a noble, this woman had a political mind that matched her high status. In the following days, she confused the humans in the noble circles and successfully provoked the anger of the nobles who had lost their territories. She also triggered the anxieties of the nobles living in the territories.
It went without saying, then, that the arena ordered over 900 gnoll slaves in the blink of an eye!
If this was all Lady Elizabeth was capable of, then Murphy likely wouldn’t have been that amazed by her. On the contrary, what really made Murphy impressed with her was the fact that she had some way or another found a way to get the noble council to agree to allow them to get rid of the gnolls!
As many people already knew, the kobolds in the southern plains were causing trouble in the rear of the humans’ forces. This had led to the humans in the southern plains failing to combine all their strength together to break through the gnoll army’s front lines. As the logistics support was being hindered, the allied forces of the city-state were forced to be in an embarrassingly passive defensive position. It wasn’t that the humans didn’t want to attack, but with enemies right in front of them and behind them, any sort of action or movement could possibly lead to irreversible disaster!
Of course, it would be good if their current situation dragged all the way until autumn. This was because the new troops would’ve already completed their training by then. Combined with the humans of the southern plains, there would be a population of more than three million people. Even if there were two lines of attack, they’d still have the forces to fight back.
However, the lack of any actions taken by the military had also provoked the anger of the younger nobles, who liked the military.
In order to quietly break this deadlock, they didn’t hesitate in agreeing to the plan of getting rid of the gnolls that was suggested by Lady Elizabeth.
In actual fact, Lady Elizabeth’s scheme was really very simple.
Her plan was to receive the nobles’ support and greatly promote the trading of gnoll slaves.
Regardless if the gnolls were dead or still alive, as long as you were able to bring them back to trading posts, you’d be able to earn a large paycheck!
The best way to motivate people to take action was to play on their selfish desires.
As many people already knew, slave dealers had rather decent and strong armed forces.
These armed forces would only work for their own self-interests. So, if you wanted these armed forces to take any kind of action, you would have to provide them with something that appealed to their own self-interests!
The number of humans along the front line far exceeded two hundred thousand, and their hatred of the gnolls would ensure that they would sustain the slave-trading scene.
As long as they stood to gain from slave trading, both civilian slave merchants and risk-takers would flock to it. These people were only concerned with turning a profit and would carefully avoid the gnoll army. They would only attack the weaker gnolls at the rear!
All of this was more than enough for the noble council to agree to Lady Elizabeth’s proposition.
The total number of gnolls barely exceed a hundred thousand. Even if you got twenty coins for each gnoll, at the most you would only be able to get two hundred thousand silver coins for one hundred thousand gnolls. In contrast, this amount of money, when compared to the amount consumed by military spending and compensation payments, was a lot less.
On the other hand, the loss of a hundred thousand gnolls was absolutely crippling for the gnolls!
In actual fact, Lady Elizabeth’s perfect daydream was beyond the scope of the noble council’s thinking.
What they really valued was the psychological impact they could potentially have on the gnolls.
As long as this sort of trading took shape, fear would slowly creep into the back of the gnolls’ heads.
Even though they were beasts, when they saw that their own kind had had their own furs stripped from their backs and were being treated as goods to be sold, they were bound to become afraid, no matter what! This was the outcome the noble council hoped to achieve before the new soldiers finished their training.
