Chapter 685: Towards the Future

Chapter 685: Chapter 685: Towards the Future

The previous news about the Hengshun Carriage and Horse Company was all right—a piece of good news, actually. It should have arrived sooner, but later, since Hengshun Carriage and Horse Company was reassigned to the Southern Army to handle logistics, the whole focus of operations naturally shifted there, leaving the Weak Water region unattended. Now, although belated, the news has finally come.

This information means that Black Water’s reach can extend along the carriage lines to Weak Water and the Gorge River Basin, and then, using Celestial Wings Trading Company’s connections, enter the City of Unjust Death. Gradually becoming acquainted, intelligence on the City of Unjust Death will no longer be as scarce as it is now.

Shen Hao had a hunch that, once the intelligence network on the City of Unjust Death was set up, all manner of news about Evil Cultivators, Pseudo-Evil Cultivators, Underground Palaces and the like in the Cultivation Realm would continuously pour in. This would be of enormous benefit to the improvement of the Black Water system and the filling of the Document Library.

On the other hand, those pieces of Yin Jade Map that had long been in Shen Hao’s possession and once brought him a brush with crisis all pointed toward the City of Unjust Death. Whether for public or private reasons, Shen Hao had every reason to learn more about this legendary City of Cultivators.

As for the personal message Zhu Shou had Wang Jian pass along—that was even more interesting.

First, it was intriguing that Zhu Shou could have Wang Jian deliver the message; clearly, Zhu Shou had invested considerable effort in Wang Jian, otherwise, given Wang Jian’s temperament, he would never have agreed to this kind of favor. Don’t think it’s "just passing a message"—this was traveling through Black Water’s intelligence channels. Could an ordinary matter enjoy such treatment?

And then, what Zhu Shou asked Shen Hao about was interesting as well.

Zhu Shou was the Master of the Dental Practice in Fengri City—so what did he do? Obviously, the slave trade. On the surface, he was asking Shen Hao about slaves, but in reality, he was probing for the army’s motives and bottom lines regarding the war against the Barbarian Race.

To ask whether there were currently any slaves on hand was actually to find out if the army was thinking about making money. To ask whether, in the end, it would be total extermination or captive retention—that was to ask about the very bottom line.

One must admit: although Zhu Shou’s business was slave trading, his vision was remarkably sharp. It’s likely that even many military officers hadn’t pondered these two questions carefully.

For over forty years, not only were the Barbarians not seen as a threat by the brokers, but in the eyes of countless commoners as well; on the contrary, the Barbarians were actually a source of livelihood for them.

What did the Barbarians have in abundance? Medicinals, for one, and slaves for another. In the Jingjiu Dynasty, both trades were absolutely lucrative. Now, with the great war launched only half a year ago, those involved in the slave and medicinal trades have already taken a heavy blow.

The heads of the major slave caravans could barely hold on; after all, big enterprises, even with gritted teeth, could survive half a year—their pots wouldn’t go empty. However, those lower down the chain suffered: as time dragged on, it wasn’t just hardship—it was a real problem feeding themselves.

And so, as the sole legal brokers of the slave trade, the Dental Practice bore the brunt of the blow.

There are three types of slaves at the brokerage. One are those who voluntarily sell themselves into slavery. Another are those condemned to slavery as punishment. The last are captured Foreign Race slaves.

The first two categories are nothing special; mostly people from Jingjiu Dynasty itself—just labeled as "slaves" and turned into goods. Voluntary slaves are the cheapest; punitive slaves are priced according to status—relatives of Sinful Officials fetch high prices, obscenely high, in fact.

But the Jingjiu Dynasty has enjoyed decades of peace. Willing slaves are rare, and the families of Sinful Officials can’t be available every day—the main stable slave supply remains the Barbarians, high-priced and reliable in quantity.

Back when Shen Hao was still stationed in Li City, he knew already that the slave business involved tremendous interests. Later, after learning about the Imperial Merchants, he found that the "sword" within Imperial Merchants was actually the bighead of the Slave Trade Association. And this time, it was the "sword" that took the biggest loss. Shen Hao even suspected that, in an effort to cut day-to-day costs, the "sword" only handed over the transport business along the Weak Water and Gorge River banks to Hengshun Carriage and Horse Company, collecting just some intermediary fees.

If even the Imperial Merchants had to tighten their belts, one could well imagine the struggles of other slave traders.

Zhu Shou had only just become the Master of the Dental Practice in Fengri City—not long into his good days, and he’d hit this industry-wide winter. Call it bad luck, with not a hint of struggle possible, his only option being to rely on Shen Hao—a familiar face at the front-lines with some clout in the army—to inquire about the situation.

Zhu Shou might be devious, but not to the point of making Shen Hao wary; if there was any resentment, it was against Wang Jian for not resisting Zhu Shou’s plea—a favor spent, nothing more.

All small matters—the real problem Shen Hao must face was the larger issue Zhu Shou’s letter implied: the entire nation believed Zuo Yuliang could win the war—but what then? After victory, what would be done with the Barbarians? And with the Barbarian lands?

Shen Hao thought this question might, in the shadows, alter the ultimate course of the war. Perhaps its ending would prove far more complicated than most imagined.

First, Shen Hao immediately ruled out the possibility of full-scale occupation after victory. It was too big, too big, too big!

Small-scale occupation meant little, but large-scale or total occupation was simply unfeasible. The problems were legion—the most direct being: it’s nearly impossible to effectively control the occupied territories.

Within the Jingjiu Dynasty, Teleportation Arrays can be established, yet their foundation—the keystones—cannot be used inside Barbarian Territory. That essentially severs the backbone of ruling a large region. If civilians were rashly relocated here, within decades—given the remoteness from the Emperor and one ambitious man—splinter regimes could arise, a textbook case of lifting a stone to drop it on one’s own foot.

This was also, Shen Hao deduced, why after all previous wars, the Jingjiu Dynasty never built cities in Barbarian Territory.

Distance, in many cases, was the greatest obstacle. Without the miraculous Teleportation Arrays domestically, the Jingjiu Dynasty could never have been so vast and stable.

So if victory came, would they—like in past wars—destroy the Barbarians’ capacity to recover by killing a portion, then pull the army back?

Shen Hao couldn’t say. In his mind, this war against the Barbarians wouldn’t end as simply as earlier ones, with "just a round of killing." The greatest difference, this time, was that the Jingjiu Dynasty had broken through to create a direct corridor from the Ten Thousand Miles Bamboo Sea into the Barbarian heartlands—vastly shortening supply lines, and dramatically extending their maximum fighting range.

If, this time, the Emperor was ruthless enough—and with no more Yang Yansi types deliberately letting things go—then could the Barbarians truly be wiped out, leaving their lands empty behind?

Shen Hao still shook his head. Land was precious. An empty land would soon attract other predators. If the Jingjiu Dynasty lacked the means to control such a vast region without Teleportation Arrays, wouldn’t things circle back to where they started? Better, perhaps, to leave behind a weakened Barbarian Race—lest slaughtering them to the last man only invites a new pack of hungry wolves...