With all the red robe wizards retreating and the Zhentarim Order completely collapsing due to Mansoon's murder, Luskan finally fell completely under Zuo Si's control.
To be precise, it is controlled by the core members of the organization - the lichs.
Because he himself has never been interested in business and management, he often just sets a basic policy and leaves the rest to his own initiative.
Especially Vanessa, who has become the de facto second-in-command, is for some reason very keen to take charge of this kind of thing, and never tires of it.
Using the large number of people and immigrants brought from Mintan Island, he easily defused the attempts of the local residents of Luskan to resist the new rulers through non-violent non-cooperation.
After all, the original permanent residents of Luskan were only about 15,000.
Counting those who died in battle, those who were transformed into undead creatures, and those who were thrown into quarries and mines for hard labor, there are almost several thousand young adults in total.
Therefore, most of the remaining residents in the city are women, children, the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the few merchants, guards, and members of the thieves guild.
So after the Thieves Guild members and the Ratmen in the sewers were cleared away, the entire city had actually lost the capital to resist.
If they do not choose to cooperate, they will soon be completely replaced by immigrants and become the lowest level of society.
As for the unscrupulous businessmen, they were arrested one after another in less than two or three days and all their property was confiscated.
Then use these wealth and materials to hire people to renovate houses, repair roads, and restore the ruined battlefield to its original state.
When people have money, they can naturally buy daily necessities such as food and clothing, thereby revitalizing economic activities that have completely stalled.
Not only that!
Xinbu, who has always hated slavery, personally took Storm Silverhand with him outside the city to liberate those farms that relied on the exploitation of slaves, and gave slaves the status of freedmen.
Under Zuo Si's instruction, if the freed slaves are willing to stay and continue doing this job, they will not only receive generous rewards, but will also be promised safety.
The reason why he did not distribute land to these people was that Luskan was located too close to the mountains at the Spine of the World, and various monsters and barbarian invasions emerged one after another.
Human beings must unite together to build a fortress, a fortress-like manor, in order to barely resist threats from the outside and ensure that their lives and property will not be violated.
If you take it for granted that land is distributed to independent families one after another on a household basis, you may find out in a few weeks or even months that all these families will most likely be dead.
As the saying goes, the best one is the one that suits you best.
If you just mechanically copy other people's successful experiences without understanding the actual situation, it is basically no different from murder.
Although the confiscation of the properties of unscrupulous merchants caused Luskan to temporarily lose the ability to conduct sea trade, with dozens of large ships from Amn, Waterdeep City, and Nelanthel Islands laden with various goods, the city fell into a dead silence.
The city is once again full of vitality.
A large number of special products from the Far North shipped from Icewind Valley were purchased by southern merchants at high prices, and hunters, middlemen, adventurers and loggers also made huge incomes.
Standing on the top of the recently repaired Arcane Brotherhood tower, Xinbu watched with great interest the drastic changes that had taken place in Luskan in a short period of time. He smiled and praised: "I have to admit, you are indeed a master in this regard.
An excellent ruler. Because you always understand what people from all walks of life need and are able to give them what they want."
"No, you are wrong. It is not me who is excellent, but the efficient bureaucracy established by Vanessa. If there are no grassroots executors who can implement the policy, then no matter how good the policy is, it will be misinterpreted, exploited, and become a
An excuse to exploit the people at the bottom and commit corruption." Zuo Si replied nonchalantly.
As a modern person, he may be the one in the entire Faerûn continent who can clearly understand how important an efficient and well-organized bureaucracy is to a city and even a country.
And when it comes to dealing with corruption and abuse of power, the witches won't tell you about laws, human rights, evidence or anything like that.
Once they find a suspect, they often directly choose to use prophecy magic to confirm it, or use truth serum, lie detection and other medicines and spells.
Anyway, as long as this guy has really done it, it is absolutely impossible to escape.
Therefore, from its establishment to the present, the bureaucracy of the Nelanser Islands has maintained an efficiency and integrity that is unimaginable to the outside world.
Even those who have transformed from businessmen to mayors and officials know that there is a pair of eyes in the dark that they cannot detect watching everything.
If anyone dares to cross the line, he will surely suffer the severest punishment.
As for running away, don’t even think about it.
"Vanessa? That lich?" A trace of curiosity flashed in Xinbu's eyes.
She has always believed that lichs, like red-robed mages, are a group of extremely cold, selfish and cruel bastards.
Otherwise, I would not have made a bet with others to see who could kill a hundred lichs first.
But the lichs of the Arcane Society are obviously very different.
Although many of them still give people a very selfish and evil feeling, they have been doing things according to the rules and rarely affect the lives of ordinary people.
Zuo Si smiled and nodded: "That's right. Vanessa is a very good executor and is always able to perfectly implement my intentions and orders. Without him, I think there would be no Nelansel Islands."
With the current prosperity, Luskan's renovation plan will not go so smoothly."
"Got it. You're using these powerful undead spellcasters to intimidate the bureaucrats and ensure that no worms ever appear among them."
As the queen of Aglalon, although Xinbu's control over politics and power is far from as good as Alustriel's, she is not an idiot. She immediately understood the position that the lich occupies in the ruling structure.
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Many times, they are not managers, and do not even directly participate in the processing of daily affairs. They only exist as a role to convey orders and supervision.
Only when some people try to launch a rebellion, or when there is a lot of corruption in the bureaucracy, will the lich come forward to carry out a ruthless cleanup.
In this way, with such a Sword of Damocles hanging above their heads, officials will naturally maintain a sense of awe and will think twice before accepting bribes.
In fact, the fundamental reason why graft, corruption, and bribery occur on a large scale is that there are serious problems in the supervision and judicial systems, causing bureaucrats to lose their most basic respect.
Coupled with a fluke mentality that the law does not punish the public, it will be difficult to restrain it once it spreads.
But as undead lichs are different, they don't care about the law and don't blame everyone, and they won't be merciful just because there are too many people who have made mistakes.
Therefore, the deterrent effect is directly maximized.
"Yes. In fact, I originally wanted to enter the justice and trial system of the Church of Tire, the God of Justice. However, due to the large use of undead as labor, this idea had to be abandoned." Zuo Si shrugged and replied.
Out of curiosity, he once visited a judicial trial hosted by the Church of Tyr, the God of Justice, when he went to Neverwinter.
The whole process, whether it is the submission of evidence, defense, appeal, or the final verdict, has a bit of the meaning of a modern social court.
And because the presiding officers are all pastors and believers of the God of Justice, both the legal provisions and the sentencing are very appropriate and beneficial. They are neither too harsh nor have loopholes that allow criminals to take advantage of.<
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If possible, Zuo Si really hopes to bring this judicial system into his own sphere of influence.
Unfortunately, it is impossible for both parties to reach an agreement on the use of undead creatures.
In contrast, the Church of the Goddess of Magic and the voters have a high level of tolerance in this regard.
At least Kelben, Ximbu, Alustriel, Storm Silverhand, Dove Silverhand and others did not show too obvious signs when they saw a large number of undead being sent to work in farms and mines outside the city.
Disgusted.
"Hahahaha! Many people say I am a madman! But in my opinion, you are the real madman. You have recruited so many lichs as your subordinates, and you also transform undead on a large scale, and you even try to follow
Cooperation with the church of Tyr, the God of Justice? I really want to pry open your brain to see what weird ideas are inside."
Xinbu laughed so hard that he was out of breath.
She suddenly found that the young man in front of her was very interesting, and his personality and ideas were unexpectedly compatible with hers.
Especially in terms of their attitude towards the enemy, they all advocate killing them all without leaving any consequences.
This is completely different from Elminster's view that he always likes to be merciful, while Kelben prefers to maintain a balance.
In fact, the Storm Queen is the most alternative among the many voters of the Magic Goddess.
The reason why the outside world thinks she is crazy all day long is actually because most people cannot keep up with her thinking speed.
"Don't laugh, I'm serious."
Zuo Si shrugged helplessly.
"In my opinion, killing and turning those pirates, bandits, orcs, goblins, jackals and the like who only know destruction but not production and creation into undead can alleviate the common problem of labor shortage in the entire Faerûn continent to the greatest extent.
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Moreover, with these free immortal workers who do not need to eat, drink or rest, they can produce an astonishing amount of food, steel, stone, wood and other necessary materials in a short period of time, thereby ensuring the continued stability of prices.
There will be no famine or skyrocketing prices caused by natural disasters or other reasons.
The most important thing is that the undead can be transformed into an army to resist the invasion of external forces when needed.
Taking Luskan as an example, I arrange two hundred undead laborers in each farm to provide a certain degree of protection for those farmers when monsters or wild beasts invade.
If it were humans, not to mention how much it would cost to recruit and train so many soldiers, the daily food consumption alone would be a staggering amount, and it would also bring a heavy burden to the farm itself.
To be continued...