Amn, often called "The Land of the Merchants," is the youngest kingdom south of the Sword Coast. Most of the people of Amn believe in Woking, the "God of Trade and Wealth", and money is valued and circulated in no other country as it is in Amn.
Every merchant in the Faerun continent has more or less connections with Amn. They want to trade with Amn directly, and they always pass through Amn several times a year.
Amn's geographical location also makes it uniquely positioned on the continental trade road, which happens to be in the middle of the entire continental trade route, connecting the north and south of the Sword Coast. The products produced by the two powerful countries of Calimshan and Tethyr need to be sold northward through this place, and the rich natural resources of the Northland also need to be transported to the steam lake industrial area in the south through Amn.
This allowed Amn to have the same status as "Sembia" and "Waterdeep City" in terms of trade. These three regions also launched a long and continuous competition around "who can become the trade center of the whole continent".
The supreme leader of Amn is not the king, but a six-member council composed of six large business groups. Due to their family background, the Council of Six set extremely low commercial taxes for Amn, canceled most of the checkpoints in the country, and achieved freedom of trade to a large extent. This is also the most fundamental reason why Amn can become the southern trade center of the Sword Coast.
However, due to the interests of their respective business associations, the six-member council cannot be united more often, and it does not have much binding force on other domestic chambers of commerce and organizations, which has caused chaos in Amn's decrees other than trade. .
According to the inaccurate statistics of the administrative agency under the Council of Six, Amn now has a population of more than three million people, most of whom live in the Two Rivers area between the Sword Coast and Lake Esmer.
Amn's population is overwhelmingly human, with a smaller portion being halflings. Dwarves and elves rarely appear openly in Amn, the former in the mountains of Amn, and the latter in the Serpent's Forest.
In fact, the vast majority of dwarves in Amn are duergar, who were driven underground by the sanatar dwarves in ancient times. The status in the dwarves is the same as that of the drow elves in the elves. The elves in the Viper Forest are scattered elf tribes, with few people and no elf court of their own. Even Mileras didn't plan to visit them formally.
Amn's social ethos is that "money is everything", and various and expensive social evenings are the customary way for Amn people to show their status and power. They give generous gifts to potential customers and tip servers generously with the utmost arrogance.
The capital, Askatara, is the center of all activities in Amn. The city has a well-equipped Amn guard. In addition to an elite fleet that has been sailing in the Sea of Swords for many years, they also have three small fleets stationed in Ace. Mill River and Lake Wen, escorting merchant ships on the river.
The Amn people have a relatively open concept of race and belief, and can tolerate other intelligent races and any religious beliefs. In fact, this is also the nature of businessmen. For them, as long as the customer opposite has gold coins in their pockets, it doesn't matter even if they have green faces and fangs.
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"Filar, why haven't they come back yet?" Mileras paced back and forth in the tent with his hands behind his back, dazzled Qin Lun for a while.
"Mirelas, Captain Stark and Robin have only been away for two hours. If there is no suitable target, it is estimated that they may not be able to come back tonight. You should sit down first!" Qin Lun rubbed the bridge of his nose. , said helplessly.
"Filar, can your idea succeed?" Mileras said with some concern.
"It's not my idea, it's a plan that everyone discussed together!" Qin Lun stood up and opened the curtain of the tent, looking at the small camp by the lake.
The Esmeer Lake area is densely covered with waterways, which is a bit like the Jiangnan water town in the Huaxia region of the earth. Looking far away from the camp, the rice on both sides of the road is like golden waves swaying in the warm spring breeze. At noon, puffs of cooking smoke rise slowly from the villages in the distance.
On the boundless Esmer Lake in front of you, there is an endless stream of flat-bottomed merchant ships. These merchant ships have wide cabins, but they are not suitable for sailing on rough seas, and are only suitable for calm inland rivers.
After the poisonous snake forest was blocked, everyone had to choose to go to Askatla. However, due to the threat of the Zhentarim Society, they couldn't just enter that big business capital where chaos and opportunity coexist without preparation. To this end, everyone discussed many ways, and finally Qin Lun gave everyone an idea.
Most of their envoys are mercenaries, at least they are some plot mercenaries in appearance. And after traveling for this period of time, not to mention the apostles, even the original elf nobles like Mileras and Elistine have gotten used to the life of mercenaries.
Qin Lun's idea was to pretend to be an ordinary mercenary group, and then accept the employment of some caravan near Lake Esmer, and enter Askatra under the cover of the local caravan.
The method is very simple, but also very effective. As long as they didn't show themselves, the Zhentarim wouldn't be able to recognize them even if they noticed the caravan. The best way to hide in the city and dissolve in water is to turn yourself into water.
Originally, Robin wanted to go one step further and directly control a small caravan, but was rejected by everyone in the end. With their force, controlling the caravan would be easy. The problem is that a caravan is different from a mercenary group. They have to deal with all kinds of people along the way. Any flaws may attract the suspicion of the Zhentarim, so it is best to let nature take its course.
In this way, it is extremely important to find a suitable target as an employer. The words of the big business group are definitely inappropriate. Not only do they have fixed guards and mercenaries, but they also have complicated sources of information. It is hard to say whether they will have doubts about the foreign mercenary group that came to the door.
As for the small caravan, it is not so easy to find. The sources of information for the small merchants are not as extensive as those of the big merchants, but since they can gain a foothold in the chaotic land of Amn, their ability to observe the situation will not be too weak. There is still at least a week's journey from here to Askatla, so there is no guarantee that there will be doubts in this mercenary group with many elves and strong strength.
What Qin Lun and the others needed was a small caravan with a small scale and a leader who couldn't be too shrewd. Seriously speaking, this selection task is really not easy to do. Fortunately, Qin Lun doesn't have to do it himself.
Stark and Robin may be inferior to him in terms of IQ, but they far surpass him in terms of adventure experience and experience. Some things that give him headaches can be satisfactorily resolved under the hands of these two people. Then you just need to come up with an idea.
During this period of time, Qin Lun has benefited a lot from the apostles of the two teams. Whether it was Stark, Robin, or the junior apostles who were far inferior to him, such as Longer, they often had performances that made him shine, which also made him feel the importance of a mature team.
In fact, Robin and the others came back before the evening with the good news that they had found a suitable employer.
The Hulan Chamber of Commerce, a small chamber of commerce belonging to Tethyr, was just established a few years ago. With Robin and Stark back, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Xifu Hulan, is a well-dressed young gentleman with a beautiful mustache.
He was originally a small nobleman in Tethyr, but his family was in decline, and he had no talent for martial arts and magic, so he had to study business before going bankrupt, hoping to revive his family one day.
This time, Hu Lan sold all his property except the ancestral house, collected a batch of special alchemy items from Tethyr, and planned to ship them to Baldur's Gate for sale. Like Qin Lun and the others, due to the blockade of the Viper Forest, they had to go to Baldur's Gate via Askatla.
This small caravan met the requirements of Robin and Stark very well, and the final destination to Baldur's Gate also coincided with the envoys. It's just that when they came into contact with Xi Fu Hulan, they were very puzzled by the previous route of the caravan.
You must know that the caravan is different from them. The Sun Elf envoys have enough force to deal with the thieves and monsters in the eastern border area of Amn, but the caravan of Xifu is different.
Through questioning, they found out that out of his own experience, Sif believed that there would be layers of exploitation by Tethyr nobles in Amn. In order to avoid the numerous tariffs, Mao rashly decided to take the sparsely populated eastern border before departure, instead of going to Askatla along the Mesopotamia like other caravans.
For this reason, the grass-built Hulan Chamber of Commerce also hired a team of well-known mercenaries in China. They just walked all the way from Tethyr to this place. These mercenaries were killed or injured. Although the unnecessary tariffs were avoided, and the goods were not swallowed up by the bandits along the way, the pensions for the dead and wounded mercenaries were also large, which made the inexperienced little nobles regret it.
If the goods carried by the Hulan Chamber of Commerce this time cannot be sold at a good price at Baldur's Gate, then Xi Fu may have to pay a fortune. After arriving here, Xi Fu no longer intends to spend money to hire other mercenaries, but fortunately he has a shrewd butler. The old housekeeper persuaded him not to take any risks, and would rather spend a little while ensuring the safety of the goods.
For this reason, Seaver's caravan stayed at the Brothers Tavern by Lake Esmere for two days, just in time to run into Robin and Stark who came to look for employers.
Hearing that there were many elves and dwarves in Robin's team, Silver's old butler persuaded the owner to hire this mixed mercenary group. Although the old butler also lacks adventure experience, he has been in charge of the internal affairs of the Hulan family, but the old man with rich life experience understands that there are a large number of elves and dwarves in the mercenary regiment, most of them will abide by the professional ethics of mercenaries, at least Will not take advantage of the employer's money.
After watching the camp, Silver Hulan and the old butler beside him were very satisfied, and felt that Robin and Stark were not hiding anything. This mercenary group not only has elves and dwarf mercenaries, but even though the mercenaries look rough and dusty, they are all refined and powerful, which perfectly meet their requirements.
The two employers were satisfied, and of course Qin Lun and the others were even more satisfied. The Hulan Chamber of Commerce from Tethyr also covered up their last flaw. At least no one will be surprised that their appearance and appearance are different from those of the mercenaries in Amn.
However, things are impermanent, and when Hu Lan's caravan actually joined up the next day, everyone discovered that things were not as beautiful as they imagined...