Chapter 1051: Chapter 994: Slaves of Long Embankment City

Sure, here is the translated text:

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Amidst the jolting, suddenly and inadvertently, Horn’s eyes saw the sprawling plantations transform into the canals inside Long Embankment City connecting Ibe River.

On the canal, which was several dozen meters wide, besides the sampans floating about transporting goods, there were rotten vegetable leaves, fruit peels, and other garbage.

The pungent smell, though from a distance, still forced Horn to cover his nose.

"Why does it smell so bad?" Jeanne, sitting inside, also covered her nose.

Dass glanced outward, shrugged helplessly, and said, "Black Snake Bay is hot and humid in summer; it doesn’t matter what you leave out, it’ll start to rot.

Moreover, Long Embankment City is a trade center, densely populated, so naturally, there’s more garbage produced; you’ll get used to it."

Actually, Long Embankment City has been actively constructing sewage and drainage systems, but due to the climate and geographical environment, the construction scale and difficulty are much greater.

The water flows stagnantly, wrapped in eddies and water plants, reflecting the embankments along the canal that could barely be considered orderly.

Horn shaded his eyes but could see rows of houses along the bank, here was already the outskirts of Long Embankment City.

These squat, two-or-three-story stone brick buildings were square and adhered to conspicuous red-tiled gable roofs.

The walls were painted white or left exposing grayish-brown bricks.

Most of the narrow windows were tightly shut, resenting the fierce sunshine even Horn felt scorching, and even the flags of the Holy Alliance and Black Snake Bay drooped weakly at the doorway.

Unlike Celestial Maiden City, filled with Black Snake Bay-style buildings everywhere, Long Embankment City, as the window for external exchanges as well as the Spice Company’s location, gathered all sorts of buildings large and small.

Falan-style, Leia-style, native Black Snake Bay, and the recently popular Ail Revival style.

These red-tiled brick buildings were evidently learning from Joan of Arc Castle’s Ail Revival style houses.

Soon the rough gravel bumps turned into the smoothness of a stone road, and the coconut and banana groves gradually transformed into stilt houses and buildings paved with colorful bricks.

Further ahead, after rounding a corner, the view suddenly broadens—the market of Long Embankment City arrived.

Even before Horn could see the scorching square clearly, his nostrils were already instantly stung by the mixed and intense smells.

Before him was the market of Long Embankment City and the Spice Company’s warehouse location.

On the square, piles of cinnamon, cardamom, durian, sugar blocks, and wheat freshly unloaded from spice boats mixed with the fishy smell of river fish and crabs.

Various people crowded within the market, like a dyeing vat boiling with colorful dye.

Beastmen dock workers wearing loose linen pants and wrapped in dark red scarves to cover their ears and tails were staggeringly carrying cargo boxes.

Passing by them were anxious-looking, hurried tax collectors and company employees, wide-brimmed hats pressed on their sweaty foreheads, hands tightly clutching ledgers and documents.

Secret party vendors wearing all kinds of chaotic masks held up potion bottles, shouting loudly to sell.

There were even dark-skinned natives from the Xilan Islands.

Their facial structures resembled Imperial People and even looked a bit Asian, just their skin was darker.

However, most of these Xilan people were slaves, closely following their master’s side, carrying big and small packages.

Apart from Xilan slaves, the streets couldn’t do without other slaves dredging sewers and cleaning roads.

But compared to the slaves seen earlier in plantations, these cleaning slaves were dressed and looked much better.

Jeanne seemingly noticed this point: "Why do those slaves look different from the ones outside the city?"

"Because those slaves are freed indentured slaves."

Louise had been trying to push for slave reforms, and one experimental measure was the freeing of slaves by purchase.

According to the previously discussed tariff distribution, Horn would allocate a substantial amount of money to Black Snake Bay’s infrastructure construction and provide subsidies.

Regarding municipal construction, Louise established a dedicated labor office to specifically buy out slaves sold cheaply by plantations.

Subsequently, these slaves would be introduced to the City Hall to serve as cleaners, construction workers, dredgers, restaurant waiters, and so on. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

The labor office would transform the slave-buyout fee into interest-free debt, deducted from the slave’s salary, once paid off they could become permanent employees and citizens.

When outsourcing construction projects for various canals and roads, Louise would specifically note this "notorious" requirement.

If detached slaves weren’t employed, even if the marked price was lower, Louise wouldn’t hand the project over to them.

While businesses from the Holy Alliance side managed, merchants from Flanlaya and native Black Snake Bay merchant groups deplored it.

These detached slaves were still doing slave labor, but at least they had wages and minimum life guarantees, and labor efficiency and output also increased.

Horn strongly supported this initiative because it liberated slaves on one hand and slowly cultivated their consciousness as "freemen" and work skills on the other.

But the problem is the progress was too slow, the speed at which slaves were detached wasn’t keeping up with the growth rate of slaves, and the cost was quite high.

"Where do Black Snake Bay’s slaves mainly come from now?" Horn turned and asked Dass.

Dass scratched his head, "I haven’t specifically looked into it."

Edwin sitting next to Dass instead replied, "The largest exporter is Falan, followed by Norn, and Leia is last.

However, currently, the most numerous slaves in Black Snake Bay are actually Leia people."

"Why?"

"Leia Kingdom has been in civil war, now there’s even the Battle of Windmill Fields.

There’s famine domestically, everywhere are people selling their children.

Bankrupted Imperial Knights, to maintain their dignity, initially only sold prisoners, later straightforwardly sold Public Register Farmers on their land.

Black Snake Bay has a significant slave demand here, Falan ship owners would go to the coast and riverside to take in refugees one shipload at a time, then transport them here."

Subjectively, this was Falan merchants involved in slave trade, but objectively, they indeed helped Black Snake Bay import a lot of people.

The Holy Alliance actually did the same thing, just not as extensively nor efficiently as Falan and Norn slave merchants who had cultivated this path for a hundred years.

Mainly, the moral level of the Holy Alliance was still too high, always trying to ensure the personal safety of the personnel along the way.

As for slave merchants, they just directly crammed refugees into the ship cabins, dead ones would be tossed out, the sick ones together tossed.

Once transported, refugees were exchanged for equivalent weight of spices and sugar, then sold back home.

This enthusiasm, speed, and efficiency naturally surpassed that of the Holy Alliance by a lot; the Holy Alliance’s refugee ships were a pure loss deal.

"What about the second most?"

"Falan people, also those Falan Nobility selling, as you know, Falan Nobility forcibly dismantle villages to plant cash crops on the land.

Excess people became beggars and refugees, according to the Enclosure Act, the nobility responsible for enclosing lands should send displaced people to colonies at their own expense.

But now in Black Snake Bay, able to exchange refugees for spices, they naturally sent them to Black Snake Bay first.

On the contrary, Norn people, mostly from cold hardship backgrounds, couldn’t adapt to the climate here, so there weren’t many of them."

Indeed, because the market for spices and sugar currently remains in demand exceeding supply, plantation owners were expanding aggressively.

Whether opening new plantations or caring for old ones, manpower was needed.

Due to external famine and chaos, the slave market had more supply than demand, making prices relatively cheap.

Plantation owners certainly didn’t consider sustainability, depleting resources recklessly, and tread until broken, as replacements were cheaper.

Horn had already prohibited citizens voluntarily selling themselves into slavery, yet couldn’t stop the influx of foreign slaves.

"And the third most?" Jeanne continued to ask.

"It’s the Snake-man, especially spice plantations employing large numbers of Snake-men, but primarily because Snake-man slave prices are higher than human slaves; they’re skilled in cultivating spices and medicinal herbs.

Particularly, many medicinal herbs require stringent growing environments, needing swamps; if humans were to care for them, they’d soak their feet rotten in a few days..."