Chương 386: 381. Plans - I

Once everyone was sitting inside the hall, Kivamus looked at the two people in front of him. Duvas seemed distraught after hearing the plight of the slaves, but he had known for decades that such a thing was happening. Still, he looked nervous, perhaps expecting him to take a rash step. Hudan was still clenching and unclenching his fists in anger, his muscles bulging through his patched-up tunic's biceps. He looked at the majordomo.

"How many slaves do you think there are in this region?"

"Uh... what?" Duvas looked surprised.

"How am I supposed to answer that? I don't even have any idea how many people live in this region in total... Although I'd still say there are a lot of slaves. I remember that when I lived in the north of the kingdom, slaves were less common there. Some of the nobles even followed a similar policy to yours, and didn't keep any slaves themselves on principle, but nobody wanted to be noticed for it, so none of them outlawed slavery outright in their domain like you.

In the south of the kingdom, slavery is far more common. Basically, anyone who can afford a slave keeps one, or more."

"Still, what percentage of people in southern Reslinor would you say are slaves?" Duvas thought for a while.

"I would really, really be extrapolating here... You still want me to guess?" Kivamus nodded. In this world, rumors and past experiences of people were the best and most reliable source of information, as much of an oxymoron as it was.

"Go on." Duvas continued.

"The situation differs vastly depending on what kind of a place it is. If we take the example of a big city like Ulriga, I'd say most people living there are free men, since a city is obviously richer than the rural areas. The people living in cities are usually merchants or craftsmen, and rarely need to sell themselves or their family members into slavery, although most of them are still not rich enough to own a slave.

But the wealthier people—especially the nobles—certainly keep slaves there, usually as household workers. Still, the percentage of people who are slaves in a city like that would be very small because of its sheer size." He scratched his short white beard.

"In south Reslinor, I'd say... maybe 5% to 10% of residents in big cities are slaves? That's my best guess anyway. If it's a town like Cinran, the average resident there would be poorer than those in Ulriga. So in towns, I would say maybe 10% to 15% are slaves. Perhaps. In villages like Tiranat and Kirnos, there may even be a quarter of the population who are slaves, whether belonging to a merchant or a rich landowner or a noble.

Lastly, in the countryside, like in farmhouses, where a landowner and his family stays, with a lot of people tending to fields, the percentage of slaves may be much higher. Perhaps more than a quarter, and maybe even approaching a third of the population. I'm really guessing wildly here, mind you. But that's my best estimate."

"That's OK," Kivamus said.

"It still gives me a general idea." He tried to estimate the population of this kingdom. He used his memories from the past years, to think of a comparable population density based on a relevant time period from Earth. Based on the scale of the map he had seen in the duke's palace in Ulriga in the past, and the size of this whole kingdom, he estimated that the population of this kingdom would be above 15 million on the lower end, and up to 25 million on the higher end.

It was still a very, very vague guess, but it was the best he had to go on. He began, "I am also just estimating here, but I guess that in southern Reslinor, which occupies somewhere around a quarter to a third of the area of this kingdom—which is basically the whole Duchy of Ulriga—the total population should be around 6 to 8 million. Considering that there is just one big city and barely half a dozen big towns in this region, most of the population lives in and around villages, or in the farmhouses and farmlands.

Then based on what Duvas said, it means there might be more than one million slaves in this region, at the very minimum. Likely more."

"One million...?" Hudan repeated.

"I don't even know how to count till such a number..." He squinted into the distance, probably trying to visualize it.

"How big a million is, anyway?" Kivamus looked at the captain.

"Cinran has around 3, 000 people, while Ulriga has around 50, 000, including those living outside its walls, so it's nearly 20 times more than Cinran. A million people is 20 times that of Ulriga's population."

"20 times Ulriga...?" Hudan repeated with incredulity.

"That would be what, like, a thousand times our village's population?" Stolen story; please report.

"Double of that, actually," Duvas muttered. He glanced at Kivamus.

"I really can't say how populous this kingdom is, but if your estimate of population is even remotely right, then there should probably be at least that many slaves. Perhaps even more. But why did you ask this?" Kivamus gave a deep exhale. The number was certainly mind-boggling, to say the least.

"Because that's how many people we can bring to our village. Because that is how many people we need to liberate. The fact that it will also help us get more workers for all the budding industries here is only a side effect, of course."

"A million people...?" Duvas raised his eyebrows.

"Like Lond... like that city you mentioned." Kivamus nodded, ignoring the curious look from the captain.

"But it is... it is insane to even think that we could bring one million people here!" Duvas exclaimed.

"We can barely feed the 500 people already living here! Where would so many people ever live? It's much, much larger than any army I could think of during the previous war. It's... it's such a stupidly large number that I can't even imagine that many people living in one place!" Kivamus snorted.

"Don't worry, it's not like I'm going to make an announcement for every slave to start marching for Tiranat. But that number just means we have a lot, a lot of possible refugees who can come here. It's not going to happen in a day, or even in a year. But we have to continue bringing more people here. Actively. It's the least we can do for them."

"I agree with that sentiment, at least..." Duvas exhaled.

"But what do you mean by taking a more active role?"

"It's similar to what we've been doing, although at a much larger scale," Kivamus continued.

"Feroy has already spread rumors near Kirnos about good opportunities for slaves here, and by now we are getting nearly a dozen new refugees from the west every fortnight. Two dozen every month. But that number is still very small for us to even increase our output of coal mining in time for Trevalo to start trading on the Ulriga route. So we have to make more efforts to get more people here.

Since the slaves are being treated in an excruciatingly horrible way everywhere in this region, it means we just need to spread the word in the right ears about Tiranat having a better life for them, while also continuing to develop Tiranat so we can actually fulfill those promises. That will lay the foundation of this."" Then what?" Hudan asked.

"It's not like we can make an announcement in the market square of every village and town. It would unite all those nobles against us."

"Obviously." Kivamus grinned.

"That's why I said we need to liberate those slaves. It means bringing them here secretly. Kirnos isn't that big, and slowly, the news will already reach most of the slaves living there. So the north is where we need to focus in the future. Feroy and Hyola have started doing it, but that's just one scouting group. We need to start sending more such groups out to the north. After we have recruited more guards in a few weeks, we will send another such scouting group to the north, and many, many more in the future."

He continued, "Once we can make more crossbows with the lathe under construction, it will become easier for us to arm them properly. And later, we will change the size of each group to three or even four people, which will make it plausible that they are really just hunters roaming around, looking for good wolves and bears to hunt and bring their pelts and meat to the markets.

This will let them stay out of the notice of any authorities, and under the pretense of making that trade, they will continue spreading word about Tiranat being a safe refuge for slaves."

"This is feasible enough," Hudan said.

"But we are already doing something like it, aren't we?"

"That is just the first step," Kivamus said.

"But you know that even if a slave hears that this village is a good place to live, it's not easy to escape from their slave owners and their guards, and to travel safely for days to Tiranat—especially through those forests—while running away from guards and bounty hunters. The latest group of refugees had lost many family members during their escape. So, once the news starts spreading around in a few months, and people have started to seriously consider it, we will take a more active role.

By then we'll also have enough guards to do it. Then we will start sending wagons out to any place from where scouts have told us that the slaves want to escape, in the guise of trading for something with that place. But when returning, our guards will liberate the slaves. He continued, "They will secretly hand over some small weapons to the slaves to deal with any guards of their current owners and will tell them to reach the forest with their families and wait for the guards there.

At the same time, our guards will distract the local watchmen by posing as a bandit group attacking them from the other side. During the time the local baron or farm owner is thinking of how to protect their lands, the slaves will escape, and our guards posing as bandits will pull back, letting the owners believe that their village was just too strong for the bandits to raid."

"Our guards posing as bandits?" Duvas frowned.

"I'm not sure if I like the idea."