Chapter 22:

Chapter 22 The Deal
The commotion of Owen and his group was not small, and as the ruler of Mara Town, Viscount Mara soon learned the news.

Viscount Mara was originally an ordinary merchant on the border of the empire, mainly for the border troops to provide maintenance of weapons and armor with the grease, after learning that the empire wants to develop the northern border, and open the title, ambitious, he set up a small merchant fleet at the first time, relying on the relationship in the border troops with a little good luck, successfully earned the first bucket of gold, and then even more at any cost in the deep north of the border to build the town of Mara, and obtain the viscount title. Later on, he even spared no expense to build the town of Mara deep in the border of the Northland and obtained the title of Viscount.

Nowadays, although Viscount Mara is old, he still maintains vigorous energy, single-handedly holding all the affairs of the territory, so after hearing the news, he immediately recalled the news about the Hydra family.

Also as the first batch of pioneers who came to the border of the Northland, Viscount Mara’s impression of the Hydra family is still quite deep, because Hydra I is really capable of fighting.

He is at least a merchant, more or less have the capital to start, the other side but white hands, hard in which chaos in the period to fight a territory, he is truly admire each other, but unfortunately is too early to die, if it is alive to now, maybe he meet to honor a Count Lord.

Visible name is too big is not necessarily a good thing, because too many people fall into the well, now less than three generations on the despair.

Not long ago, he also heard that Hai Rui Chamber of Commerce even up to take the place of the mind, but look at this situation is not like, after all, if it is seized the foundation, how can he be released, is the news is false?

Never mind whether the news is true or false, with the force Owen showed and brought the goods, enough to let him personally welcome.

“Prepare new clothes for me, scrub the riding boots and the war horses, in addition inform the cavalry to be more vigilant.” Viscount Mara stood up and had his servants wait on him to change into the nobleman’s clothes that were specialized in welcoming noble guests, but he didn’t let his guard down, so he arranged for someone to notify the cavalry, so that if he did strike, he wouldn’t be caught off guard.

Wearing clanking riding boots and riding a high horse, he was still imposing despite his age.

In fact, Viscount Mara is only in his forties, look at the features, when he was young, he was still a handsome man, but unfortunately, he stayed in the north for many years, he has long since lost his appearance, his skin color is black and red, and his face is full of wrinkles like a knife carving, but his spirit is good, and he rides steadily on the horse, and his temperament is shrewd with a briskness, which makes it easy for people to rise up a sense of goodwill.

Such an image and temperament is very consistent with the current status of the Viscount Mara, after all, the person who can achieve this kind of results is certainly not mediocre.

Riding a horse with an entourage, Viscount Mara saw Owen who was waiting in place, and suddenly sighed that he was really old.

Compared to the early years of hard work, so far has been laboring Viscount Mara, Owen was well protected when he was young, such as alone and have a system, this time is to eat and drink, not only pay attention to hygiene, but also pay attention to the quality of life, so even after a few days of the road, still looks oily, with the empire within the real nobleman in general, which allows Mara Viscount how not to be heartfelt feelings.

The conversation between the two sides is not much complicated, after all, this is the Northland, the vast majority of lords can not see their neighbors once a year, coupled with natural and man-made disasters, it may not be that day, so engage in so complicated why, in a few words, it is settled, not as long as Viscount Mara’s time to change clothes.

Owen brought goods in the empire within the township level, not on the stage, but in the Northland is a light luxury goods.

Even if Viscount Mara entertained guests, steaming a salted fish with shiny porcelain does not seem to be out of price, visible value how.

The most important thing is that these goods are not like other specialties in the Northland that need to be transported to the empire to have value, and can be digested locally, so Viscount Mara didn’t hesitate and swallowed this batch of goods in one gulp, but he didn’t intend to pay for it.

Because the economy was too backward, treasures representing wealth such as gold, silver and precious stones didn’t have much of a market here, even Viscount Mara chose to barter more when trading, so not paying didn’t mean he was going to rob hard. Owen was not aiming to exchange money, not to mention that money was meaningless to him, so he focused on the goods that Viscount Mara took out.

Viscount Mara himself is a merchant origin, after becoming a lord is the entire town’s commercial control in their own hands, so also really come up with a lot of things.

In the Northlands, the most popular items were weapons, followed by horses, then artisans, food, and population.

Weapons are consumables, but they are also the only means to protect yourself and your wealth, so in the Northlands you can go without food, but you can’t go without weapons for robbery.

However, because of the strict control of weapons outflow from the empire, even iron pots are not easy to transport to the north, resulting in a serious lack of weapons and metal tools in the north, even iron nails have to be counted, not to mention the fine equipment.

Such a strict embargo, so that the northern border, although not yet down to the Stone Age, but also not much better, because the main source of weapons in addition to smuggling, is the local crude goods.

Because of the lack of skilled craftsmen and high-quality coal, even if the Northland has high-quality ores, it is difficult to create excellent weapons, many are pieces of pig iron, Owen who has the system can not even look at it.

As for horses, just as not everyone is a warrior, not every horse is a war horse.

Although there are many herdsmen in Mara Town, their horses are more oriented towards riding and pulling goods rather than charging into battle, otherwise Viscount Mara wouldn’t have formed a half-assed cavalry team.

Another reason is that a warhorse can’t just eat grass, and a cavalryman can’t just be an individual, let alone a cavalryman’s special weapon.

So even if Viscount Mara has a lot of herdsmen, as well as commercial routes, the cavalry under his command is still more like armed herdsmen, which shows how difficult it is to form a scale cavalry.

Shaking his head, Owen eventually just needed a group of stragglers.

Every year, tens of thousands of exiles come from the empire, but the population of the northern border has not grown much over the years, the reason for this is very simple, the high death rate.

Therefore, wherever there is a chance of survival, the empire’s exiles will not come to the Northland, but unfortunately, for the sake of stability within the empire, but also in order to develop the northern border, a large number of exiles, criminals, prisoners, all driven to the Northland, those who do not go are hanging on the gallows as a decoration, so they have no choice.

And this way is called the road of death, because the stragglers simply do not have much food supplies, although the empire will give some food, but after layers of cards to take, how much can be left can be imagined, so in order to save their lives, they had to sell themselves as slaves, while eating on the road all the things that can be found, even so can adhere to the north only part of the adults, the young and old can not be seen, and a thin And every one of them is so thin and skinny that they are really afraid of falling to the ground when the wind blows.

What’s worse, the living conditions in the north is very bad, there is no time and resources for these serfs to recover, a little bit to fill their stomachs, they have to work hard, and ultimately make their lives become very short, and become a cheap consumable.

(End of chapter)