Chapter 35 Slave Market

After entering the gate of Nolan, Richard first showed his noble coat of arms to the city defense officer.

Seeing that he was the son of a noble baron in the North, the city defense officer was very polite. After carefully checking the luggage of Richard and others, he gave Richard a customs clearance document.

Arriving in Nolan City, Richard first found a large hotel to settle everyone down. Then he learned the location of the slave market from the innkeeper.

The slave market is located outside the South City. It is large in area, but it is messy.

The planning is not very good, and the sanitary conditions are very poor. It stinks and is full of human and horse excrement.

Many slaves behave very numbly and seem to have no shame.

Richard saw some female slaves urinating and defecating everywhere, not caring about other people's eyes, and even exposing their private parts.

Strong slaves were displayed in the most conspicuous place. Some guests went up to pry open the slaves' teeth to check the health of the slaves.

Richard frowned, held his breath and walked around, and roughly found out the price of slaves.

A strong young male slave costs about twenty gold coins.

A strong young female slave costs about twelve gold coins.

Slaves over thirty years old will have some health problems and their prices will be half the price. Old slaves over forty years old are money-losing goods like underage children, and their prices vary from one or two gold coins.

Craftsmen such as warriors, veterinarians, blacksmiths, carpenters, barbers, etc., are more expensive than middle-aged slaves.

Beautiful female slaves basically do not appear in the slave market. Such precious slaves basically appear in high-end places such as auctions and trade fairs.

Professional contract slaves are also provided in the slave market.

Contract slaves are different from ordinary slaves. To buy such contract slaves, you need to discuss the treatment of contract slaves in advance, and then sign a contract, which is more like a hired service.

After the service period expires, the contract slaves will regain their freedom.

These contract slaves are basically captured officers, caravan guards, mercenaries of the mercenary group, hunters, adventurers, etc. Without family members to pay the ransom, they fell into the slave market and became contract slaves.

In the slave market, every contracted slave is very popular and the price is very high. The ten-year contract of a third-level professional can even reach about 300 gold coins.

Such a high price made Richard feel dumbfounded and his spirit was a little dazed.

This time when he came to the capital, Richard brought a lot of gold coins.

In order to buy enough people, the Harland family tried their best to raise funds.

Many assets in Black River Fort were sold, including the water mill run by stepmother Mrs. Aura and a farm of dozens of acres. Mrs. Aura even took out all her private money to raise this amount of funds.

Mrs. Aura was born in a merchant family and still ran a lot of businesses after marrying William. His brother Rand Marsal ran a grain store business and bought a large farm near Black River Fort, and his assets were also rich.

In order to preserve his wealth and find a backer for himself, Rand married his young sister to William, a widower.

Now William has struggled to become a hereditary baron, and Mrs. Aura's children have also become nobles.

In the Kingdom of Grant, there is a world of difference between nobles and commoners.

The laws of the kingdom clearly stipulate that judges, prosecutors, auditors, and senior civil servants in counties and towns can only be selected from nobles.

Becoming a noble is legally considered the superior and ruler of this country. Only then can you hold important positions and have a future in life.

For ordinary people who want to become nobles, there is only one channel in the Kingdom of Grant, which is to obtain military merit titles through war and change the fate of their family.

Even if Mrs. Ola's children cannot inherit the title, William will arrange a good future for them.

This time when Richard went to Nolan, Mrs. Ola's brother Rand also took out a thousand gold coins and lent them to the Harland family.

In addition to the money accumulated by Powell, William and others for many years. In addition, Richard's uncle Soros used his own property as a guarantee to borrow 2,000 gold coins from the Mercenary Union for the Harland family.

This time when Richard came to the capital, he brought the liquid funds accumulated by two generations of the Harland family for 20 years, totaling 9,600 gold coins.

This also includes a debt of about 4,000 gold coins.

Richard found the largest slave trader and gave him his seal.

The seal is a token of nobility, with Richard's name engraved on the front and the emblem of the Harland family engraved on the back.

After becoming a hereditary noble, you must have a noble emblem.

The Harland family emblem depicts a majestic knight wielding a spear and riding an iron-horned horse.

The knight's appearance has many similarities with William. Seeing this emblem, you can know part of the situation of the Harland family.

The Harland family has just been knighted. Except for scholars who specialize in emblem studies in the Kingdom of Grant, most ordinary people are not familiar with this emblem.

"Is the young master's family a new noble in the North? From the royal territory or the Duke of Jonathan's territory? My name is Smail, from the Duke of Gis in the west, and my great-grandfather is also a hereditary noble."

Discovering that Richard is a hereditary noble, the slave trader Miles was very polite and greeted Richard enthusiastically. However, he still wanted to get some information from Richard, in order to find out more about him.

During this orc invasion war, the Kingdom of Grant only conferred four hereditary barons.

One is an ordinary noble with military merit, one is the famous Baron Harden in Gascoigne Province, and the other two are the sons of Duke Jonathan, and they are considered to be the branches of Duke Jonathan.

The influence of these three families is almost worlds apart in Nolan. Although Richard is young, he will not be greedy for petty gains and pretend to be a member of Duke Jonathan's family.

Doing such a thing will not only lose the status of a noble, but also become a laughing stock of the Grant Kingdom and bring shame to the honor of the Harland family.

When it comes to the occasion, it will also become a huge trouble. Maybe Duke Jonathan will treat this as a joke and will not pursue it. But the Harland family can't afford to owe a favor to a great noble.

"My name is Richard, and I come from the Harland family, which is directly under the royal family. Our family has just been promoted to hereditary nobility. I want to buy some slaves from the royal capital to develop the territory. Mr. Byers, you are the largest slave trader here. Do you have enough slaves?"

"I am not the largest slave trader in the royal capital. The largest slave trader here is the military. Secondly, several noble families have slave caravans, and their scale is much larger than mine.

The total number of slaves in my hands is only more than 300 people, and they are slaves captured from the Kingdom of Delong following Duke Guise."

The Duke of Guise's territory is located in the southwest of the Kingdom of Grant and borders the Kingdom of Delong.

Because the northern border of the Kingdom of Grant has been short of population for many years, there is a large market for slave trade.

The market size is large, and the profit must be not small. The people in the kingdom cannot be captured, and the slave traders can only go to the nearby territories to do it.

Besides, the Kingdom of Delong and the Kingdom of Grant have territorial disputes, and the Duke of Guise and the Marquis Hubble and Marquis Isaac of the Kingdom of Delong are enemies.

Although the war on the southwest border is not as large-scale and intense as the war in the north, there have always been fierce conflicts.

Especially in the recent hundred years of the development of the northern border of the Kingdom of Grant, the Duke of Guise crossed the border almost every year to capture slaves from the Kingdom of Delong.

The Duke of Guise was once a hereditary duke family of the Kingdom of Delong. Because of a civil strife in the Kingdom of Delong, the Duke of Guise failed to stand on the side. In order to avoid being liquidated, he joined the Kingdom of Grant and became a great noble of the Kingdom of Grant.

Capturing slaves has become a very important income for the Duke of Guise.

In the outside world, the Duke of Guise is even called the Duke of Slaves. The vassals of the Duke of Guise all follow the Duke to engage in the slave trade.

The merchants in the slave market in the capital are mostly nobles of the Duke of Guise.