Chapter 211 Lord of Astapor (Part 2)
"What did the Lord of Astapor just say to you?" an Unsullied instructor, now a new head of house, asked Fermor urgently.
"He said that if Ian's Unsullied evacuate Astapor, our safety cannot be guaranteed," Fermor reported, his voice laced with anger. "He is worried about traitors among you, so he plans to hold a banquet tonight, invite all the remaining nobles of Astapor, and then have me slaughter every last one of you!"
"Kraznys is mad!" the instructor declared at once.
"We have already sworn allegiance! And still, he refuses to let us live!" another new family head immediately agreed.
"A man like that cannot be our city's lord!" a third voice followed.
Spurred by their lead, the long-suppressed nobles of Astapor in the hall erupted into a clamour. Even members of the Nakloz family began to question whether such a 'future emperor' could truly bring their house power and glory.
"You betrayed me?" Kraznys finally realised what was happening. He was standing some distance from the other nobles, but he could still clearly hear their unabashed discussions.
"You dare to betray me?" Kraznys was furious. He raised the harpy-handled whip in his hand. "Unsullied, obey my command! Seize these traitors for me! And…" Kraznys glanced at Ian and his companions standing at the door. He wanted to order them seized as well, but a quick comparison of six hundred Unsullied against eight thousand made him abandon the ridiculous notion.
To Kraznys's astonishment, the Unsullied who had previously obeyed his every command now stood motionless as bricks, completely ignoring his orders.
"You?" He stared at Fermor, then down at the whip in his hand. His entire hand was trembling. "You've already stolen the authority of the whip?"
The six hundred Unsullied left behind had been trained by Fermor personally. When transferring authority, he had embedded a final contingency: his own orders regarding his safety superseded those of the whip's new holder. Thus, the Unsullied would not execute an order from the whip wielder if it meant harming Fermor.
"Take the Lord of Astapor back to his room for now. Be certain not to harm him," Fermor commanded. The Unsullied, naturally, chose to obey him.
"Damn you! Damn you all! Traitors!" Kraznys roared as he was flanked by two Unsullied and escorted from the hall through a small side door.
"Kraznys has gone mad," Fermor said helplessly to several elders of the Nakloz family.
The three elders exchanged glances but said nothing. They understood what Fermor was implying, but they were unwilling to be manipulated by him.
"Kraznys has lost his mind," the head of another family echoed Fermor. "Astapor needs a new master."
His words did not find resonance among the other nobles.
"Why don't we restore the co-governance of the Good Masters?" a noble immediately retorted. "That is the tradition of Astapor."
"Once a tradition is broken, it cannot be restored. Kraznys massacred three great families. In the eyes of the world, we are all his accomplices!"
"We are not—"
"But we swore allegiance to him! Do you think the remnants of the Grazdan faction up the Worm River will believe our explanations?"
"Then what should we do?"
"We must have the Western Queen's army help us resolve Astapor's future troubles."
"But her pretty boy has no intention of meddling in our internal affairs."
"Then we must convince him to honour the deal we negotiated! We will train an army for him, and he must protect Astapor."
"But he already rejected the deal! He said that working with Kraznys mo Nakloz would tarnish his honour."
"That's why I say Astapor needs a new lord," one of the Unsullied instructors concluded, "one who can convince the Andal to stay." As he finished speaking, he and the other new family heads all turned their gaze in unison to Fermor Nakloz.
"This is against all custom," Fermor said, quickly waving his hands in refusal. "Kraznys is my elder and the head of the Nakloz family. No matter what mistakes he has made…" Fermor was addressing the Unsullied instructors, but his eyes were fixed on the elders of his own family.
"They are right, Fermor," one of the elders interrupted. "Kraznys is mad. He is no longer fit to be Lord of Astapor, and by extension, he is no longer fit to lead the Nakloz family. I believe you are well-suited for the role."
As soon as he finished, the other two elders immediately voiced their agreement.
Listening to these new power brokers, the three elders understood the situation perfectly. The Unsullied instructors had formed an alliance. Fermor was hoping to gain their support out of familial loyalty. If they continued to feign ignorance, there were still many empty racks waiting in the Plaza of Punishment.
After a show of repeated reluctance, Fermor finally accepted the title of Lord of Astapor, as if it were a burden he took on only as a last resort.
"I will try to persuade the Andal," Fermor assured everyone. He then left the hall and caught up with Ian's party, who had finished watching the spectacle and were already descending the pyramid.
"Congratulations, Lord Fermor," Celia said, being the first to offer her felicitations.
"Thank you, my lady," Fermor returned the greeting, then turned his gaze to Ian. "I have seized control of Astapor, as we agreed. For the next two years, I will train an army according to your requirements. You shall have free access to all of Astapor's resources."
"In return, I will conquer the whole of Slaver's Bay before I return to Westeros. I will take only the fleets, leaving all the cities to you," Ian confirmed, restating the agreement Celia had brokered.
"I will serve you with all my heart," Fermor said, giving Ian a salute in the traditional Ghiscari fashion.
The request to conquer Slaver's Bay had been Fermor's own initiative. Originally, Celia had only planned to offer him the lordship of Astapor and the secrets of dragon-training in exchange for his loyalty. Unexpectedly, after she had gone to great lengths to persuade him, Fermor had declared that he did not want a dragon.
He wanted Ian to conquer Yunkai and Meereen before returning to Westeros, leaving all three cities under his rule.
To convince Celia, Fermor had laid out his reasoning in detail. Seizing Meereen's fleet would help Ian transport his army back to Westeros. Leaving the three cities of Slaver's Bay to him would allow Fermor to continuously supply Ian with slave armies for the long war of conquest that awaited him on the continent.
Even Ian had to admit that if he were truly a Westerosi lord whose sole goal was to retake the Iron Throne, Fermor's arguments would have been deeply convincing.
He is a very thoughtful person, Celia had said of him.
"Do you have another question?" Ian noticed that Fermor was hesitating.
"I do," Fermor admitted, no longer struggling now that Ian had called him out. "I have a certain trouble that requires your assistance. Although my Unsullied successfully secured Astapor, the properties of the rebellious families outside the city are beyond our reach." He had already branded the three purged families as rebels. "I hope you can send troops to help me reclaim the fields and estates on both sides of the Worm River and eliminate the remnants of the Good Masters."
"I told you from the beginning that I do not wish to be involved in Astapor's internal strife in any sense," Ian refused immediately. "If I were willing to dirty my own hands, what use would I have for you? This is a transaction. You provide me with value, and I provide you with something in return."
"As long as…" Fermor hesitated, but then decided to sacrifice some of his own interests to eliminate the threat entirely. "If you are willing to do this, all the properties you reclaim will be yours to use for the next two years." After you leave, all of Slaver's Bay will be mine anyway, he thought. What are two years in comparison?
"Present this request to me again tomorrow when you convene the council of nobles," Ian said, not refusing this time. The offer was too generous to ignore. "And drop the rhetoric about 'Good Masters' or 'civil war'. The official story will be that I was deceived by you into assisting with a 'counter-insurgency'. Understand?"
"As you wish."
Chapter 212 Grassroots Officer Manual
"Tell me, how are things going?" Ian asked. He sat in a newly established study at the apex of the Great Pyramid, meeting with Celia, who had come to report on her work.
"Is my every move not under your watch?" Celia countered, lifting the orange cat to her chest.
"I may see your movements, but I don't know which problems you can solve yourself, and which require my instruction," Ian said, setting down his pen. "So it is better we speak face-to-face."
"What are you writing?" Celia, in no hurry to begin her report, grew curious about the book in Ian's hands.
"A manual for junior officers, written in the Common Tongue and Valyrian. To be honest," Ian said, handing the unfinished manuscript to Celia, "I sometimes find High Valyrian to be an immature language. Many concepts that are simple to express in the language of my homeland require a long, convoluted sentence to explain in Valyrian."
Since delegating his work to Celia, most of his time had been freed. For the past half-month, Ian had split his days between observing the training of the Ghiscari slave soldiers in their camps and poring over Ghiscari military works in his study, into which he had moved all such books. Although the military theory of this world lagged behind most of what Ian had read before, there was always value in gaining a broader understanding.
Ian believed two sentences from "Laying Plans," the first chapter of Sun Tzu's Art of War, were crucial to understanding the study of warfare itself. They were not the well-known "All warfare is based on deception," but rather the principles of adapting one's tactics to the situation to create advantage, and the axiom that "the art of victory for a strategist cannot be taught in advance."
The first concept emphasized reacting to specific circumstances to establish an advantage and seize the initiative. The second meant that the precise methods for achieving victory could not be rigidly prescribed or explained beforehand. Taken together, they pointed to a single truth: reading military books was not a process of memorizing formulas. To do so would be as absurd as memorizing answers to sample questions for a scholar's examination.
One would never encounter an identical question on the examination, just as one would never encounter a battlefield situation identical to one described in a book. To be precise, the situations encountered in war were infinitely more complex than any test question. A difficult question might have a few variables, but war involved the number of soldiers, their weapons, training, morale, fatigue, and hunger; the general's ability, prestige, and experience; the type and quality of the terrain. These were all variables.
Even the weather was a variable. It was said that a few drops more or less of the heavy rain that fell at Waterloo on the night before June 18, 1815, decided Napoleon's fate. The mud delayed the French artillery, forcing Napoleon to postpone his general offensive and buying precious time for Allied reinforcements to arrive. Any approach that ignored variables and simply copied solutions from a book was as fatal as missing a force when solving a mechanics problem.
Therefore, if war were an examination, Ian believed reading military books was akin to practicing problem sets. One was unlikely to encounter the exact same question, but one would always be more comfortable facing problems one had practiced many times before. When confronted with entirely new types of problems, those who had seen the widest variety of questions were the most likely to solve them.
Broaden one's mind, accumulate knowledge, and apply it with precision.
The art of war lay in adaptation. For an ordinary man, the purpose of reading military books was to master the principle of creating advantage from the situation.
Of course, one might point out that Li Jing, the great general of the Tang Dynasty, had read the textbooks and answered many questions, yet seemed to follow his own formula every time he took the "exam." Was he not always the top scholar? The reason was simple: Li Jing had so thoroughly mastered the essence of adapting his tactics that he dared to employ all manner of unorthodox actions. In the end, Li Jing wrote his own Art of War, becoming the one who set the questions for future generations, turning his novel experiences into textbook examples.
Then someone else might ask about Huo Qubing, the Champion Marquis, who not only didn't practice the problems but seemed not to have read the textbooks at all. If he simply showed up for the examination, would he not still be the top scholar?
To this, Ian had no rebuttal, which was why he had specified an ordinary man.
There would always be those in the world who could achieve greatness without studying the art of war, who could grasp its essence without ever reading a single page. But throughout the vastness of history, how many talents like Huo Qubing, whose genius seemed blessed by the heavens themselves, had ever existed?
Ian did not consider himself a genius. His choice was to read more, to practice more. While it might not make him a legendary general, it would be more than enough to outmaneuver the commanders in this world of ice and fire.
The book he was writing now was a manual for lower-level officers, tailored to the conditions of the current era. He was composing it based on the military works he had read in his past life and on his recent inspections of the Unsullied training camps.
The twenty thousand Ghiscari legionaries Astapor had promised were not enough to satisfy Ian's ambitions. He needed to train more soldiers of other types, making the cultivation of his own cadre of grassroots officers particularly important.
The sections Ian had completed so far were: soldier selection, formation, and training.
The first step, soldier selection, largely followed the experience of Qi Jiguang in choosing levies—determining which types of men were suitable to be soldiers. Astapor's traditional method of buying slaves en masse and culling the weak during training was unacceptable to Ian. The population was a vital resource he could not afford to waste, especially when he was also short of labor for industry and agriculture. Therefore, his army needed to be meticulous in the selection phase, identifying as many promising candidates as possible to receive training. This principle would apply to his own new army and the Ghiscari slave soldiers alike; those eliminated would be put to other uses.
The second step was formation. As a child, Ian had often read stories of famous generals forming up their troops on the spot. Later, as he read more, he realized that such feats were mostly nonsense. How an army could be deployed was decided long before the battlefield, during its initial organization. Squads, companies, and brigades had to be organized first, and the soldiers drilled within those units to obey the corresponding commands from drums and flags. Only then could a general truly exercise command on the battlefield. Without such peacetime training, the most a general could do was decide which unit went where. Once the armies clashed, command was lost, and even the most famous general could do little more than boost morale. This fell far short of the tactical ideal: "In any battle, one engages with the orthodox force and wins with the unorthodox."
The "unorthodox" here did not mean strange, but referred to the reserve force, held back for a decisive moment, while the "orthodox" was the main fighting body.
In Ian's vision, his new army would be trained in small-unit tactics for use in complex terrain or urban street fighting. The Ghiscari Legion being trained in Astapor, however, needed to be improved along the lines of the Swiss square formation. The core of this improvement would be the introduction of the halberd. By mixing spearmen and halberdiers, they would gain far greater lethality against heavily armed enemies.
Chapter 213 Fifth Class Slavery
Ian also planned to add crossbowmen to each unit. Unlike longbows, crossbows did not require years of training, meaning an effective force could be raised quickly from recruited slaves. The only problem was the supply of crossbows and bolts. Slaver's Bay lacked the necessary industrial base, so Ian would have to find his own solutions.
The same was true for the half-plate armor he planned to equip his soldiers with on a large scale. Both problems required industrial progress.
The former was relatively simple. Crossbows were not a new invention in this world. One could always find skilled craftsmen by offering high wages and recruiting openly. The latter, however, required Ian to introduce two key technologies: the blast furnace for steelmaking and the hydraulic forging hammer. The details involved were overwhelming. Fortunately, Ian had a diligent little secretary. The operational specifics for these two projects, along with experiments in creating gunpowder, were all packaged and handed over to Celia.
The third step in the manual was military training, which was roughly divided into five subjects: training of the ears and eyes, training of courage, formation drilling, physical conditioning, and weapons practice.
Training the ears and eyes was to understand orders given by drum and banner. The battlefield was a noisy place; a battle that could be commanded by voice alone was little more than a village brawl. An army of tens of thousands had to be commanded through the sound of drums and the colors of its flags.
Training for courage was self-explanatory. A soldier without courage was useless and would break at the first contact.
Formation drilling instilled discipline and obedience.
Physical strength and weapons proficiency were a soldier's foundation—his core skills.
Though even simple marching drills would make them far superior to the peasant levies of this era, Ian knew his future opponents would be players; there was no point in merely measuring his army against the local soldiers.
The next section Ian needed to complete was on rewards and punishments. A strict system of reward and punishment played a vital role in an army's morale and could not be ignored.
In addition, Ian planned to add material on setting up camp and judging terrain for the benefit of junior officers, but those contents were too specific, and even he could not recall much of the detail. He decided to discuss this part with the Unsullied instructors later. There was still time before he would need to march his armies, so there was no rush.
Finally, Celia finished reading the officer's manual Ian had given her and handed it back.
"How is it?" Ian asked casually. "Not bad, right?"
"What do you mean by 'good'?"
"I don't really understand it, but…" Celia hesitated.
"Say it," Ian prompted, raising an eyebrow.
"The High Valyrian version is full of grammatical errors and incorrect words," Celia said, unable to suppress a laugh.
"…" Ian's lip twitched. His grasp of High Valyrian consisted only of the 'basic' level provided by the system and what he had learned from Daenerys. It was indeed a stretch to use it to write a book.
"In that case, find some time to translate it for me," Ian said leisurely.
The smile on Celia's face vanished. More overtime?
"Just kidding," Ian said, satisfied with her reaction, and decided not to torment her further. "I need to find something for Daenerys to do. At her age, she shouldn't be so idle."
"That's right," Celia nodded quickly. "I still have so many other things to do!"
"Alright, tell me what you need to report."
"Where should I begin?"
"The situation on the east bank of the Worm River," Ian replied. The new Lord of Astapor, Fermor, had formally requested his help in suppressing the remaining resistance, so he had sent Rolle and Bronn with three thousand Unsullied across the river.
"Oh. As soon as Rolle and his army arrived on the east bank, they wiped out the remnants of several Good Master families and brought the situation under control. The lands on both sides of the Worm River contain tens of thousands of hectares of farmland, as well as vast pastures, lumber camps, and quarries. The farms and mines are now under our control."
"What are the specific numbers?" Ian was more concerned with the tangible assets.
"Rolle and the others can't get an accurate count, and they're even having trouble counting the slaves," Celia reported. "He asked in his letter for us to send men who can count to help, but I don't think that will solve the problem."
"How so?"
"Rolle's advance caused the remnants of the Good Masters' forces along the river to flee. Seeing their masters run, the slaves there also escaped, stealing a great deal before they left. Rolle deployed a large number of Unsullied to recapture the runaways, but with little effect. They've suffered occasional casualties in the process.
"And the slaves who remained are just as dishonest. They're lying, claiming to be freeborn Ghiscari farmers. With their masters gone, they all perjure themselves for each other, which has caused immense trouble for Rolle and his men. If the slaves themselves weren't property, Bronn would want to kill them all."
"The expected resistance." Ian shrugged and took out a notebook.
"Fifth-Class Slavery Draft?" Celia read the title written on the cover.
"Those are the new rules I've drawn up for the slaves. Take a look and see if anything should be added or removed," Ian said with a smile.
Generally speaking, Ian was reluctant to meddle with reforms involving social systems and laws. Such changes often promised great future rewards but caused immediate disruption, and the short-term benefits rarely outweighed the trouble they caused. This was especially true for things that subverted popular knowledge and tradition; even with absolute force, it could take generations to digest the side effects.
And time was the one thing Ian lacked most.
Therefore, when dealing with such issues, Ian preferred methods that aligned with the common values of the local people. For example, grading the slaves.
You all think slavery is normal. Fine, I won't touch that. I will simply classify my own slaves into high and low ranks while preserving their status as slaves. You can't have any objections to that, can you?
"Slaves are to be divided into five classes," Celia read. "The lowest is the fourth class, which is the initial rank for all slaves. Their right to become slave foremen is revoked, but their current treatment otherwise remains unchanged.
"Next are third-class slaves, who will receive one-third more food rations than fourth-class slaves and will gain the right to compete to become slave foremen.
"The next level up are second-class slaves, who will receive double the food rations of fourth-class slaves, can be appointed directly as slave foremen, and are allowed to retain ten percent of their slave team's labor output as private property.
"Then there are the first-class slaves. They will be relieved of most of their labor duties. Their main responsibility will be to guard and exploit the three classes of slaves below them. They will obtain most of the rights equivalent to those of free people.
"The final level is for those promoted only after making a special contribution: the 'royal slaves,' who belong directly to Queen Daenerys. Though still slaves in name, they will gain a status similar to that of the Ghiscari nobility."
Celia smacked her lips after she finished reading. "Giving slaves a path to advancement will greatly reduce their will to resist. And even if they do, their hatred will be directed at the slaves one rank above them instead of the master. When trouble arises, the master need only execute a few high-level slaves to take the blame and quell the anger. That's quite devious." She looked up and then asked, "So, what is the specific path for promotion?"
"Why do you think I gave you an unfinished draft?" Ian looked at her as if she were a fool.
"…"
Chapter 214 Everyone is a whistleblower
"We can flesh out the specifics of the promotion system later. There's no rush," Ian said, casually adding another task to his secretary's list. "But for now, we can open some temporary channels for advancement."
"To solve the problem with the slaves along the Worm River?" Celia immediately guessed Ian's intent.
"The first thousand slaves registered with Rohr can be directly promoted to the Third Rank," Ian stated the first point. The slave rations in Astapor were originally paltry. Even increasing them to three-quarters of a full share was barely enough to satisfy hunger, so it was not a great expense for him.
"Reporting a slave disguised as a civilian earns a direct promotion to the Third Rank. Reporting three or more grants the status of Slave Foreman, in addition to the promotion, and the reported individuals will be incorporated into the informer's team." Ian followed with the second path to promotion.
"Anyone who reports a thief and the hiding place of their property will be promoted directly to the Third Rank if the information proves valid. If a significant amount of property is recovered, they will be promoted to a Second-Rank slave. The person they reported will be placed under their jurisdiction, and ten percent of the recovered property will belong to the reporter."
"Reporting the hiding place of fugitive slaves will earn a direct promotion to the Third Rank for valid information. If more than five fugitives are captured based on the intelligence, the informer will be promoted to a Second-Rank slave, and the captured fugitives will be placed under their jurisdiction."
"Those who assist the Unsullied in capturing escaped slaves will be promoted to the Third Rank for capturing a single fugitive. If they capture three or more, they will gain the status of a Second-Rank slave, and the fugitives they captured will fall under their jurisdiction."
"For this slave-catching operation, the ten individuals who make the most outstanding contributions will be promoted to First-Rank slaves. Each will be rewarded with a property and three Second-Rank slaves as subordinates."
"Beyond that," Ian continued, "have the Lord of Femore inform Yunkai. Tell them to send troops to their border to capture any slaves who have escaped into their territory. We are willing to pay one-third of a slave's value as a labor fee to redeem each one."
It was a tradition among the slave cities to aid one another in hunting down escaped slaves. Ian wasn't worried about Yunkai trying to cheat him. In fact, it would be better if they did; it would give him sufficient reason to start "recovering" escaped slaves from Yunkai's own lands.
What's that? Why would Yunkai have runaway slaves? Heh, the Wise Masters of Yunkai will find out soon enough.
"That's the gist of it. If you think of anything else, feel free to bring it to my attention." After finishing, Ian looked to Celia.
"This will create enormous conflict among the slaves," Celia commented after a moment's thought. "Especially the rule that places the betrayed under the authority of their betrayer."
"That way, the slaves cannot form cliques among themselves."
"This could slow down production."
"Then we set hard targets. If a team fails to meet its quota, all members will permanently lose their eligibility for promotion. This must be made clear to them. For both the slaves and their foreman, losing the chance to advance means being trapped for the rest of their lives. They will have no choice but to work under this backstabber forever. And how will a foreman with no hope of advancement torture them? I don't need to spell that out, do I?"
"Gods," Celia couldn't help but swear under her breath.
"Now then," Ian waved a hand dismissively. "Let's get back to work."
Celia said nothing.
"Furthermore, in designing the permanent promotion mechanism, you must ensure there is fierce competition between each slave team, while competition within a team is minimized. This will ensure that the relationships between all Second- and Third-Rank slaves are strained, while the Fourth-Rank slaves within each team maintain a degree of unity. This will be beneficial to production," Ian continued.
"I have another question," Celia said, as if a thought had suddenly struck her. "Will this reporting system you've just created lead to slaves falsely accusing free folk of being escaped slaves, just to get promoted? Or worse, could free folk be accused of being thieving slaves, turning their own property into the 'stolen goods'?"
"Tell me, what was the status of most slaves in Slaver's Bay before they were enslaved?"
"What do you mean?"
"Who were they, before they were captured and sold?"
"They..." Celia seemed to guess what Ian was implying. She asked tentatively, "Free folk?"
"Free folk from the Lhazareen, the Dothraki, the Summer Isles, and the shores of the Jade Sea," Ian added. "So tell me, why can't the free folk of the Ghiscari be slaves?"
"You intend to let these false accusations stand?"
"Is it my fault if slaves make false accusations? I can hardly be blamed for it," Ian shrugged. "I will simply arrest whomever they report."
"If this is truly implemented, and others follow suit, I fear not a single free citizen in the river basin will be spared."
"What need does Slaver's Bay have for free folk? If they are all gone, won't the entire Worm River belong to us?"
"The nobles of Astapor will have objections."
"Then you are to manage their objections." Ian paused, feeling the statement was empty, like a lord giving a command without providing the means to carry it out. He added, "If they have claims on certain free folk or slaves, and can provide some basis for it, help them phrase their claims more artfully, so long as their demands are not excessive."
"And if they are excessive?"
"If they ask for too much, give me the list. I will personally teach them the meaning of 'excessive'," Ian said, his eyes narrowing. "Also, inform the Astapori nobles that I will compensate them in other ways."
"In short, all these free folk must be turned into slaves. First, it will make it easier for us to manage the development of the entire Worm River Basin. Second... once the slave teams expand to include tens of thousands of Ghiscari, they will become natural enemies of the original slaves. Each group will watch the other for us, always looking for an opportunity to inform."
"With these layers of hatred, even if a player possessed the cunning of a Valyrian sorcerer-king, they would never be able to stir up trouble in my slave corps, where everyone is an informer."
Celia's eyes widened. She finally understood the deeper meaning behind Ian's efforts to sow so much hatred among the slaves. Perhaps because she had not encountered another player since joining Ian, she had almost forgotten that this world was not theirs alone. One could never be too careful when defending against cunning creatures like players.
After hearing Ian's plan, Celia could already foresee the fate of any player who dared to incite rebellion among his slaves.
On one hand, they could fight the Unsullied for a slim chance at freedom. On the other, they need only become an informer to earn a promotion and the right to rule over their enemies. Which slave would be so noble as to choose the former?
"By the way," Ian interrupted Celia's contemplation, "speaking of which, you can add military enlistment to the slave promotion system. It will be the fastest path to advancement. My new army and the Ghiscari Legion of Astapor will both recruit from these slaves, designating them as 'chosen pawns'."
This was a sudden thought. If he purchased troops from other cities and slave traders as originally planned, these "former free folk" who had just become slaves would certainly not be as obedient as laborers who had been enslaved for years. And those who had not yet accepted their new reality would be far less enthusiastic about his promotion system than the veteran slaves.
Those newly purchased slaves, and the free folk Rohr was about to capture in the Worm River Basin, would need to be 'seasoned' by the river for a year or two. Only when they were fully and actively integrated into the slave promotion mechanism could they become a new source of good soldiers.
Chapter 215 The division of labor between the boss and the secretary
"Is that all?" Ian asked.
"No, there is one other matter," Celia said, shaking her head. "Roel captured old Graztan's grandson at the manor outside the city. He is the grandson of the Good Master who wears the pearl-tasseled tokar. Roel wants to know how you wish to handle this."
Ian, who had been dozing off, suddenly grew alert.
"Does anyone else know about this?" he asked quickly.
"Roel, Bronn, the two Unsullied with them, you, and I."
"Then let him go!" Ian said immediately. "No, that's not right," he quickly corrected himself. "Here is what we'll do. Have my new NPC champion, the gladiator Sama, break into the young noble's residence in the middle of the night. Have him kill the guards, 'rescue' the boy, and take him to Meereen to cry to the Great Masters about Fermor's atrocities."
"I thought you didn't want to offend Meereen in the short term."
"Why would they dare offend me, a man with eight thousand Unsullied, so long as I don't violate their core interests?" Ian sneered.
"So there will be no action from Meereen, but Fermor and the others will feel the thorn in their side because their enemy escaped, deepening their dependence on us?" Celia surmised.
"A lone yin does not birth, a lone yang does not grow; there must be balance between them," Ian said, not in the Common Tongue, but in his own native language. "We and our enemies are an unavoidable opposition. The enemy can never be truly destroyed. If all external enemies are eliminated, new enemies will simply appear from within. Ensuring the existence of an external threat is the key to ensuring internal unity. Since we can so easily create an enemy that poses no real threat to us, what reason is there not to? And if Sama gains the trust of old Graztan's grandson, we'll have another mouthpiece in Meereen."
"A lone shade does not last, a lone sun does not birth," Celia repeated softly, and then smiled. "I have no other questions."
"Then," Ian made a farewell gesture, "I believe you still have a great deal of work to do."
"Farewell." Celia gave a slight curtsy before standing and leaving.
***
As soon as the new conditions for slavery and the path to promotion were announced, a perverse carnival erupted throughout the Worm River Basin.
Slaves backstabbed each other with manic glee and leveled false accusations against freedmen, and the already chaotic situation descended into pandemonium. Of course, this chaos was in its intensity, not its duration.
After just two weeks, everything calmed down.
With the emergence of the first batch of high-level slaves, the entire Worm River Basin entered an indescribable state of 'order.'
It was a grim and heavy order, where everyone moved like a machine. They dared not speak a word to their companions for fear of accidentally becoming the target of an informant. Anyone who witnessed this new order would involuntarily think of the word 'purgatory.'
Of course, Ian did not see these scenes, at least not with his own eyes. He never left Astapor.
During this time, Ian wrote the first draft of his officer's manual and had dozens of copies made by slave scribes. Afterwards, he selected twenty men from his Black Falcon Guards and the Ghiscari nobility to serve as officers for his new army. Originally, Ian had planned to choose ten from each side.
Unfortunately, Ian found only four men in his personal guard who could speak High Valyrian. Since all his new soldiers would be Valyrian-speaking, he could not appoint officers who only spoke the Common Tongue.
As a last resort, he had to recruit the remaining officer candidates from the Ghiscari. Most were nobles, but there was also one commoner and a newly promoted second-class slave. Ian immediately promoted the latter to a first-class slave, setting a powerful example for the others.
Ian was personally responsible for the entire selection process. Most of the officers he chose came from the families of Unsullied instructors and possessed some military aptitude themselves.
Moreover, choosing the young nobles of Astapor to be officers in his new army served as compensation for the slave annexation along the Worm River. Most of these men were the second sons of their families, with no right of inheritance. For them, following a claimant to conquer a distant continent was a far better prospect than remaining a sidelined noble with no status. Their families, in turn, were happy to see their second sons find a purpose as far away as possible.
Once the officers were selected, Ian began to set aside time to teach them every day, arranging a two-month course for them before they would officially begin training the new army.
While Ian was teaching, the Unsullied instructors responsible for training the Ghiscari Legion slaves next door often came to observe his classes. He leaned into the role, dressing himself in the traditional Ghiscari tokar and beginning to refer to himself as a 'Spiritual Ghiscari'—a move that undoubtedly won the favor of the Astapori nobles.
***
While Ian was building his new army in a relaxed and leisurely manner, Celia was busy to the point of exhaustion.
She first sent men to collect enough sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal, and then conducted experiments to mix gunpowder according to the ratios provided. But unfortunately, no matter how many times she tried, or even after altering the proportions, the gunpowder failed to detonate. In her summary report to Ian, she could only guess that this world, with its magic, was perhaps fundamentally different from Earth in some essential way.
With her hopes for gunpowder temporarily dashed, the urgency of building a crossbow factory inevitably increased. Celia hired craftsmen at great expense and purchased a large number of slave laborers in Meereen. Capital was quickly invested to build the first factory. Although it would still be some time before it could officially start production, the matter was on the right track.
Celia was also managing the establishment of a plate armor factory. Blast furnace ironmaking and hydraulic forging hammers were not processes that required significant technological breakthroughs. The professionals, recruited or purchased at great expense, soon completed the equipment schematics under Celia's guidance and put the first batch into production. Although hydraulic hammers could not produce perfectly uniform iron plates, leading to uneven thickness and quality in the final, hand-finished plate armor, this was unimportant. For the purpose of 'arming the infantry,' Ian's only requirement for the new factory was output.
There was no time to wait for results. After finishing her work in Astapor, Celia rushed to the east bank of the Worm River without a moment's rest.
Upon arriving at the manor in the upper reaches of the river where Rohr was stationed, Celia immediately began to tally their gains from the operation while coordinating the specific production tasks for the slaves.
The staple food in Slaver's Bay was bread made from wheat. But according to Celia's statistics, more than half of the farmland on both sides of the Worm River was used to grow olives, cherries, figs, dates, melons, pomegranates, walnuts, peppers, grapes, and carrots—all cash crops.
Though the slaves were starving and Astapor relied on imports for its staple food, the Astapori nobles had always prioritized their own luxurious lifestyle.
Such an agricultural structure was obviously incompatible with the impending crisis of the Long Night. In her initial plan, Celia would have most of these crops cleared, dedicating the majority of the land and labor to growing staple foods.
For now, that staple food was wheat. But before leaving Astapor, Celia had already ordered men to the ports of nearby major cities to contact merchants from all over the world, attempting to purchase seeds for high-yield crops. If she could find potatoes, corn, or rice, she would conduct further research on the local soil and decide on a final planting plan.
This world had no spring or autumn, only the long summer and the long winter. In summer, crops could be planted and harvested without interruption. Slaver's Bay had a mild climate and fertile land. She needed to use the end of this long summer to stockpile enough food to sustain a large population through the Long Night before it officially fell.
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