bookandnovel Chapter 76: Batch Production
Chapter 76: Batch Production
As the Border Count's steward pulled out a huge wooden blackboard displaying the prices of various goods, Ron became thoughtful.
Timber is priced at 20 copper coins per cubic meter, with a minimum purchase of 10,000 cubic meters.
Stone costs 40 copper coins per cubic meter, with a minimum order of 10,000 cubic meters.
Ron instinctively glanced at Harland beside him.
"Don't look at me, you can buy on credit. The Border Lord is the guarantor, you just need to pay interest," Harland said with a smile. "Of course, the interest won't be cheap."
Lorne has no say in the trade of bulk commodities; he can't afford to buy them, nor can he ship them back.
For bulk commodities, the main sellers were domestic nobles.
It's not that no one bought it; for example, Haaland and De Gea bought tens of thousands of cubic meters of material.
Ron couldn't help but marvel at their wealth.
The curtain on the side of the banquet hall was slowly drawn back.
Iron cage.
Dozens of iron cages were lined up along the base of the wall, and the people inside were dressed in rags, including men and women, young and old.
They wore wooden tags around their necks with their numbers, ages, and skills written in charcoal.
The blacksmith, the weaver, the farmer, and a few young women wrote nothing, only a red horizontal line drawn at the end of the wooden sign.
They were kept alone in the innermost cage, which was secured with an iron lock that was a size larger than the other cages.
No one in the room objected to this classification method, just as no one would object to the pens for mules and horses in the livestock market.
"Number seven, Treda prisoner of war, 24 years old, blacksmith, starting bid 15 silver coins." The butler stood next to the first cage, his voice as flat as if he were reading a menu.
"Twenty," a nobleman in a grey robe held up a sign.
"Twenty-five." The other nobleman didn't even lift his eyelids.
When the price reached thirty-five silver coins, a one-eyed middle-aged lord raised his sign. He was wearing a faded old military uniform with his left sleeve hanging loosely at his waist.
The butler nodded to him and brought down the gavel.
The blacksmith was dragged out of the cage, and the one-eyed lord skillfully tied a thin hemp rope around his wrist from his waist.
The blacksmith didn't struggle; he just glanced back at the cage next to him, where a woman holding a child was imprisoned.
The woman didn't cry; she buried her face in the child's dirty hair, refusing to watch the blacksmith being led away.
"Number two, a northern refugee, who can write, starting bid eight silver coins." The steward had already moved on to the next cage.
Two nobles from within the territory began bidding against each other.
The price was raised from eight silver coins to fifteen, and then an old man in a dark blue robe directly called out twenty-five. The entire room fell silent for a moment, and no one raised the price again.
Behind the old man stood a young apprentice, holding a thick stack of account books, clearly the accountant of a certain chamber of commerce.
The woman holding the child was in the last round of bidding. Her wooden sign had no skills listed, only a red horizontal line at the very end.
When the butler announced the starting price, two nobles from within the country simultaneously raised their paddles.
The price rose from five silver coins to twelve, and then to eighteen.
The middle-aged man in silk robes raised the price slowly and deliberately each time. When he raised his paddle, the ring on his finger would flash briefly under the chandelier before he put it down, waiting for his opponent to decide whether to follow.
His opponent was a lean old man with meticulously combed hair, and his gesture of raising the sign resembled ordering food at a restaurant.
"Twenty," the middle-aged man said.
"Twenty-two pieces." The old man didn't look at him.
"Twenty-five pieces." The middle-aged man raised the price, then turned his head and glanced at the woman in the cage with the scrutinizing look one would use when picking beef at the market.
His gaze moved from the woman's face down to her chest, then to her waist and hips, before he nodded in satisfaction.
The old man put the sign down.
The middle-aged man nodded to the butler, who then brought down the gavel.
Harland never raised his paddle. He stood next to Ron, a wine glass in his left hand and his right hand in his pocket, watching the middle-aged man pull the woman out of the cage, his expression no different from watching a boring performance.
"Don't rush, the best is yet to come. These slaves are all brought from within the territory. Only the alien slaves from the Blackthorn Wasteland are valuable. I occasionally buy some slaves to take back. These slaves are all carefully selected. Of course, these are just samples. In reality, each purchase starts at a minimum of one hundred!"
Ron placed his wine glass on a passing waiter's silver tray and turned around abruptly.
"You mean these are all samples, and you're actually buying hundreds of units each time?"
Harland nodded matter-of-factly, "Buying just one isn't necessary, even if we, the lords of Blackthorn Wasteland, are poor!"
"Twenty silver coins?"
Harland rolled his eyes: "You think a hundred of them cost 20 silver coins?! It would cost more to support them all."
Thun stood behind him, his eyes lowered, his fingers gripping the hilt of the Embroidered Spring Blade at his waist tightly.
Harland glanced at Thun unexpectedly, not expecting that this Grimm had already broken through to the Earth Knight level.
The butler stepped back to the blackboard and gestured with his hand.
Several waiters in black uniforms pulled back all the curtains on the side of the hall.
The second batch of cages was brought out; the iron cages were larger and the bars were denser than those used to imprison human slaves.
The torchlight shone into the cage, illuminating pairs of eyes that gleamed in the darkness. They were foreigners, all of them foreigners.
"Five orc prisoners of war, starting bid as a group, starting price three hundred silver coins." The butler's voice remained calm, but the atmosphere in the banquet hall had changed.
Orcs.
Ron had only seen goblins in Ashwood Territory; he had never seen any other alien races.
I've never seen orcs before. The five orcs in the cage were almost two heads taller than Fanta. Their skin was grayish-green with bulging muscles, and they wore thick iron rings around their necks with densely packed runes embedded on the inside.
They wore identical rune shackles on their wrists, the runes glowing a dark red in the firelight.
An orc looked up and glanced outside the cage; his amber eyes looked like two burning coals under the chandelier.
The middle-aged man in the silk dress was forced back half a step by the gaze, then realized he had lost his composure and angrily raised the sign.
"Three hundred and fifty!"
"Four hundred." An elderly man in a dark blue robe held up a sign.
"Five hundred." The Silver Shield Merchant Guild's captain of guards spoke for the first time. His voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the room heard it.
The price soared to eight hundred silver coins.
Harland muttered to himself, "Last year, orc prisoners of war sold for six hundred!" and then continued drinking his wine.
The five orcs were finally bought by the Silver Shield Merchant Guild for nine hundred silver coins.
The captain of the guard put down the sign, whispered a few words to his deputy with a blank expression, and the deputy hurriedly left.
The subsequent batches of foreign slaves each drove prices even higher.
Two beautiful night elves were auctioned off to a nobleman within the territory for 120 gold coins. The lord had a scar on his face that ran from his brow bone to his jaw. After the auction, he did not have the elves brought out. Instead, he walked to the cage, squatted down, stared at the two elves for a moment, and then had his shackles removed.
It's not about replacing it with something looser, it's about replacing it with something heavier.
"Elves, one can live for hundreds of years. It's true that when you go back, the elf is still there even after you're gone. One elf can live for three generations."