In the early morning, the breeze blowing from the sea gently blew over the city, bringing slightly salty and humid air
Since the sun has not yet fully risen, you can vaguely see the white and hazy fog filling the sea level and the dock area.
Normally, when visibility is so low, ordinary ports will not allow ships to approach the plank road.
However, due to the busy maritime trade with the Maztec continent and the opening of new routes with Luskan in the north, the entire Amn is in an economic boom with extremely expanded wealth.
The most direct manifestation is that the loading and unloading of cargo at the dock is many times more busy than before, so much so that we have to take the risk of leaving the plank road responsible for loading and unloading cargo in 24-hour operation.
Not to mention the mere morning fog, even at night it is busy day and night.
The salary of porters has more than quadrupled in less than half a year.
Due to the shortage of young and middle-aged male labor, some chambers of commerce even used their influence to get parliament to pass a bill to arrest all beggars in the city who are able-bodied and capable of working and force them to work at least ten hours a day.
Of course, since slavery is legally prohibited in Amn, these beggars will receive the same salary as dock workers.
But this group of guys who were used to living off donations from the rich still complained. In the end, with the intervention of some Good God Churches and the Knights of the Burning Heart, the six-person council had to terminate the bill.
Instead, a large number of pulleys, booms, primitive cranes and other tools were put into use, and the influence of Gond, the god of craftsmen, began to expand rapidly.
However, these relatively primitive tools alone cannot obviously completely replace the huge gap in labor.
As a last resort, Zuo Si raised and bred werewolves and goblins underground in the mage tower, which became his only choice.
Because even the paladin, who symbolizes goodness and order, will regard goblins as destroyers of civilization and order, a nasty pest that cannot be eradicated.
Even if they would never agree with this kind of behavior that is obviously slavery because of their beliefs and ideas, they would not show too strong opposition.
At present, the entire dock has "employed" five thousand goblin workers working in two shifts, ensuring that as soon as a ship docks, the cargo will be loaded and unloaded in a very short time, and berths will be made available for subsequent ships.p>
Otherwise, once there are obstacles or long queues, the merchants will suffer huge losses.
Similarly, the Amn government will also lose a huge amount of tax revenue and parking fees.
In order to prevent the dock workers' jobs from being taken away by capable werewolves and goblins, Zuo Si specially offered a relatively high price, which was almost the same as hiring a human or dwarf.
In this way, unless there is a real shortage of manpower, most businessmen would definitely prefer to hire their own similar people at the same price.
Of course, the so-called "commission" paid to these werewolves and goblins was naturally put into Zuo Si's pocket.
Although at first, this combination of lycanthropy and goblins caused panic among many local residents, some even strongly demanded that all these monsters be killed or driven out.
But as time went by, with the help of more than a dozen artificial genetic interventions and the high degree of obedience produced by iterations, people began to gradually discover that these seemingly dangerous lycanthropic goblins did not seem to be as scary as they imagined.
Quite the opposite!
Not only are they never lazy, but they work extremely efficiently, and they don't complain privately like human porters from time to time that the work is too tiring and the pay is too little.
It's just that these people don't know that all goblins who are not efficient at work, like to be lazy, and always complain in private have no chance to reproduce and are "consumed" in a short period of time.
Now the rest are selected from the best, and the word obedience is deeply engraved in my bones.
If we use the theory of evolution to explain it, the goblins were forced to choose an unimagined path in order to better survive and continue their genes.
They are just like the intervention of modern humans that have created special-purpose poultry and livestock such as dairy cows, laying hens, pigs, and purebred horses.
Similarly, the Masked Mage Guild quickly increased the number of purchases after realizing the benefits and conveniences these farmed werewolves and goblins could bring.
Naxikai, a small town that developed through mining and metal smelting, even signed long-term contracts to hire hundreds of werewolf goblins to engage in the most dangerous excavation work deep in the mines.
Because this kind of exploration and excavation of deep tunnels often causes collapse accidents if not careful, causing dozens or even dozens of miners to be crushed to death or blocked inside.
The pensions and compensation paid to family members alone are a large amount of money.
Not to mention the staggering costs of organizing rescue operations after mining accidents.
But what about now?
You only need to pay twenty-five gold coins as compensation for the death of one goblin, and only twenty-five hundred gold coins for one hundred.
There is no need for rescue at all afterwards, and there is no need to worry about the negative impact of human absenteeism and death. It is simply killing two birds with one stone.
If they weren't afraid that goblins would suddenly riot and occupy the entire mine, some mine owners would even want to hire more to expand production capacity.
In short, it is the same as Zuo Si originally imagined.
Breeding goblins, an industry that has never been involved in the entire Faerun continent, not only has amazing development potential, but is also very easy to be accepted by businessmen.
After all, from the perspective of cost control, apart from undead creatures, there is no other thing that can compare with goblins in terms of fertility, growth rate and harsh environment tolerance.
Seeing hundreds of goblins transformed into werewolves carrying boxes and barrels like ants, walking back and forth between the ship deck and the warehouse, Paladin Kaidong couldn't help but sigh slightly, and said with a very helpless expression
He asked in a tone of voice: "Grand Commander, am I getting old? Why do I always feel that this city is changing so fast recently that I am a little confused about the situation."
"No, it's not that you are getting older, it's just that Ascatra is undergoing an unprecedented drastic change. Although I don't know whether this change is good or bad, at least the income of civilians is increasing, and there is food on the table.
It’s becoming more and more abundant." Witherland comforted with a smile.
He actually admires this senior paladin who has served the Knights of the Burning Heart conscientiously for decades and has never betrayed the sacred oath he swore.
Because there are so many temptations in the gold coin city of Ascatra that only less than one-tenth of the members can stick to their hearts until retirement.
The remaining ones basically either made unforgivable mistakes during the execution of tasks, or went astray due to various temptations.
Although some of these people will wake up and become paladins again by participating in the Trial of Atonement.
But from the perspective of the Knights of the Burning Heart, their honor and purity have been stained, and they will never be able to clean it up in this life.
"But what about these goblins? They look like slaves in disguise. Whether it is Tom, the god of loyalty and courage, or Tyr, the god of justice, they all teach us to challenge all injustices in this world." Kaidong
He questioned with furrowed brows.
"I also know that this is a form of slavery in disguise.
But the problem is that Amn's laws have never recognized goblins as a legally protected race, or in other words, there are only a few countries and cities in Faerûn that would regard them as intelligent creatures.
This also means that we have no legitimate reasons to interfere or intervene.
And do you know what these goblins wrote in the city registration list?"
Captain Witherland asked back with a bitter look on his face.
"What is it?" Kaidong asked subconsciously.
"They are livestock. Like cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, donkeys and mules, they are all livestock raised and bred artificially. Not to mention being used as laborers, even if they are all slaughtered, it does not violate any laws."
When he said these words, Captain Witherland had strong resentment in his tone.
Because he knows that this is the six-person Council of Amn deliberately taking advantage of legal loopholes, and its behavior is no different from the devils in Baator Hell.
And this is not the first time something like this has happened.
But the Knights are unable to do anything about it.
Because they are paladins, they must abide by rules and laws, unless the laws of the country and city are hopeless.
Obviously, Amn is still far from the standard of "hopeless".
What's more, whether they are government officials, businessmen, nobles, or civilians from the lowest level of society, they have all tasted the benefits and formed a huge interest network that cannot be shaken by the power of the Knights alone.
The former can reduce some operating costs, make its goods more competitive, and at the same time reduce the negative impact and economic losses caused by accidental death of workers;
The latter can also be liberated from those very dangerous heavy physical labors and do easier work with the same salary, such as working as a supervisor or technical director.
In short, in this magical world where there is no large-scale machinery to liberate productivity, if you want to make the lives of the common people a little better, you must have a huge exploited class.
In most countries, this class is the peasants, serfs or slaves at the bottom.
In the Nelanthal Islands and Luskan, this class is a large number of low-level undead creatures.
In Amn, this class is a special kind of goblin that can be cultivated and reproduced in large quantities.
The latter two have one thing in common and their source - Zuo Si.
Thinking of this unpredictable young elect, Kaidong couldn't help but sigh: "Oh - I really hope this is not the beginning of some kind of corruption. By the way, the Knights didn't send people to follow them some time ago.
Did the merchant ship go to Luskan together? What's the current situation there?"
Captain Witherland hesitated for a moment, and then answered in an uncertain tone: "I can't say it's good, but I can't say it's bad either.
Soth launched an unprecedented great purge there, completely destroying its original social structure and slaughtering all pirates, thieves guilds, unscrupulous merchants, and rat-men in the sewers.
At the same time, all human, elves, half-elves, halflings and dwarf slaves were released.
And they also used very brutal methods to transfer all the residents of Mintan Island to Luskan.
To be continued...