Even on Earth, where transportation and communications are extremely developed, it is very difficult to conduct accurate population statistics.
On the Sainz continent, it is even more impossible to know the accurate population figures of a map.
However, even if there is no need for precise statistics, just by looking at it with the naked eye, you can see that the population of Stratholme City and the surrounding areas is extremely sparse.
Looking around, in the surrounding vast wilderness, except for the vague outline of Stratholme City, which can be seen in the distance, it looks like an inhabited place. It is probably only two miles away from Stratholme City. It's just a small village not far away.
According to the data provided by Earl Joe Hughes, the lord of Stratholme City, it can be known that the total number of people in the Malo Empire under the rule of Stratholme is probably around 50,000, which is even more than the original Bonta City. Not as good as that.
However, Stratholme City is already the largest city in the northern coastal region of the Malo Empire, with the largest population.
Even Stratholme City has only 50,000 people, and there are even fewer people in other places.
"Lord Baron, according to the plan, after the base is successfully established, the total number of workers required by each factory will exceed 200,000. However, the total number of people who established Stratholme is only 50,000, and many of them are simply The needs of the elderly, weak, sick and disabled who are unable to work cannot be met at all," Hogan said helplessly.
"Well... this is indeed a very serious problem." Franklin touched his chin, which had just grown a soft downy beard, thought for a moment, and continued: "But this problem is not that difficult to solve. We can completely solve it within the empire. Open recruitment. I think there will be many people willing to come here as long as they know there are good jobs that can earn a lot of gold coins a month.”
"That's not necessarily the case." Hogg shook his head. "The environment here is far worse than inland. Especially the temperature in winter is simply unbearable. Although our chamber of commerce has made complete preparations, we cannot let everyone eliminate this concern. And in the end The key problem is... this will take them far away from home, which many people are not willing to accept. "
Franklin frowned: "Yes, for the people of the empire, staying in their hometown is more important than anything else. No one is willing to leave their hometown unless they have to."
Hogan coughed lightly: "Well... Lord Baron, of course there is nothing we can do. It depends on whether you and Lord Marquis can make up their minds?"
Franklin looked at Hogan in surprise, blinked, and instantly understood what he meant.
"What? Do you want us to help you relocate some people from within the empire? This is very difficult..."
"No, no, no... I never said that, Lord Baron, please don't get me wrong." Hogan waved his hands repeatedly. "What I mean is, can we first buy some slaves as workers through the relationship between your Southgaard family and the Macaros family?"
"Slave?" Franklin was surprised. "Do you think these lowly guys can do the complicated jobs in the factory?"
"Well... In fact, when our Chamber of Commerce was first established, we used many slaves as workers due to lack of manpower. They may not be able to do complex tasks, but some very common, mechanical and repetitive tasks can be done by them. It’s no problem,” Hogan explained.
"But the slave..." Franklin frowned and thought for a while. Shake his head. "I'm afraid it still won't work. Now is different from before, because there haven't been any major wars on the mainland for many years. There are fewer and fewer people becoming slaves, and even our family only has more than a thousand slaves now. Want to be satisfied? The needs of 200,000 people you mentioned may not be enough even if you include the slaves of all the noble families related to our family."
"Really?" This was a question Hogan didn't expect.
Originally, he thought that the Marlow Empire, as one of the two major empires on the mainland, had a long history, and unlike the Principality of Standing, which had completely abolished slavery, the number of slaves it owned must be a very large number.
But he didn't expect that even the slaves in the Maro Empire have become very few now, and it is difficult to even collect 200,000.
Hogan couldn't help but frown.
It is not difficult to build a base, but the most critical issue is to get the various factories in this magic industrial base started smoothly.
If you want to start work, the most important thing is manpower.
If there are not enough people, then nothing can be done.
"Do we still need to invest more after all?" Hogan sighed inwardly.
When initially specifying the plan for this magic industrial base, the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce certainly took into account the impact of the harsh environment here, so they had the idea of purchasing slaves to serve as workers.
But now Franklin said that there were not many slaves in the Maro Empire. Besides, the nobles obviously would not transfer their privately owned slaves at will, so it was even more difficult to get them together.
If this plan doesn't work, the only way left is to increase investment here and improve workers' salaries so as to attract more people to work here.
However, the environment here is too harsh. If you want to be attractive enough for people to work here, the salary package you need to provide must obviously reach an extremely high level.
When the plan was first formulated, Xinfei Chamber of Commerce set a salary package of about ten gold coins a month for workers in several of its magic machinery factories.
It should be said that this standard is very attractive to most civilians in the Maro Empire, but it is not that easy to attract people to the extremely cold north with ten gold coins.
Hogan made a rough estimate in his mind, and I'm afraid the standard would need to be raised to at least fifteen gold coins.
The total number of workers expected to be recruited by this base is about 200,000. If one worker spends five more gold coins every month, then the 200,000 workers will have to spend an extra one million gold coins every month!
This has greatly increased the investment in this magic industrial base, which is probably not the result that Xinfei Chamber of Commerce and anyone else who invested in this base wants to see.
"That's right." Franklin suddenly slapped his hands hard. "Director Hogan, actually... of course slaves cannot appear out of thin air. But we can create them ourselves."
Hogan looked at him in confusion: "Make it yourself? How?"
"Look. The vast majority of slaves actually came about through war. Because there have been no major wars on the mainland for hundreds of years, there are fewer and fewer slaves... "
"Wait..." Hogan couldn't help but raise his hand to interrupt him. "Lord Baron, do you want us to initiate a war? Are you... are you kidding me?"
Franklin laughed and shook his head: "Waging a war is too exaggerated, but capturing some people as slaves is not a big problem."
"I still don't understand what you mean." Hogan frowned and said, "Do you want us to take the initiative to attack other countries and capture people from other countries to be slaves?"
"No, no, if you take the initiative to attack other countries, you are really launching a war. Although our Maro Empire is not afraid of any country on this continent, if you attack other countries without authorization, I am afraid that His Majesty the Emperor will also Can’t protect us.”
"Then what do you mean..."
"You can't attack other human countries, but that doesn't mean you can't attack other races..." Franklin said meaningfully with a seductive smile.
"Huh? Other races?" Hogan was stunned for a moment.
"That's right. In fact, due to the harsh environment in the northern part of the empire, few of the empire's subjects are willing to live here for a long time, so that the population is sparsely populated. But for those alien races that cannot survive on our human territory, this place is a A good place. As far as I know, there are three orc tribes near Stratholme City alone, and the total number of orcs among them is at least four thousand. "
"Orcs?" Hogan was stunned. "There are also orcs here?"
As soon as the words came out, he couldn't help but laugh.
This is bullshit.
There is no doubt that the race with the largest population on the continent of Sainz is, of course, humans.
And the second largest race after humans. It's the orcs.
Along with the scattered dwarves, the elves are rarely seen. Unlike the dwarfs and other alien races that have almost become legends, the orcs are the most common alien race on the Sainz continent.
Even in many countries, the power of the orcs is still huge. Although it is impossible to suppress human countries in turn, there is no problem in occupying a territory of their own.
Because most of the territory they occupy is a barren land that humans don't think much of, and the orcs still maintain a pretty good military force, so as long as the orcs don't cause trouble, human countries generally won't pay much attention to it. .
This is actually evident in the Lampali Kingdom.
If calculated theoretically, most of the Black Rice Wasteland actually belongs to the Lampali Kingdom, and a small part belongs to the Sark Kingdom.
However, a large number of orcs have been entrenched in the Black Rice Wasteland. The Lampali Kingdom and the Sark Kingdom simply ignored them and allowed the orcs to live there.
Of course, due to the emergence of the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce, most of the orc tribes in the Black Rice Wasteland began to cooperate with the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce and other human chambers of commerce, and basically integrated into the nearby human society, so that Hogan basically ignored the continent. common problems.
The Malo Empire is one of the two major empires on the Sainz continent. It is certainly not unusual to have orcs in the country.
"Of course there are, and there are many more." Franklin nodded in affirmation honestly. "Although there are no specific statistics, there are a lot of orcs living in the northern part of the empire. Some people in the empire even estimate that the total number of orcs here may even exceed one million, which is a quite huge number."
"Over one million?" Hogan was really frightened by this number this time.
Although there are many orcs in the Black Rice Wasteland, the total number of them is probably more than 200,000 and less than 300,000.
Unexpectedly, there are more than one million orcs in the northern part of the Maro Empire, which is really terrifying.
"Well, one of the largest orc tribes is said to have more than 100,000 people. Think about it, if all these orc tribes can be captured and used as slaves, will the problem be solved in one fell swoop?" Franklin's words were full of emotion. Allure.
Hogan had seen too many orc workers in the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce, and he had no resistance to using orcs. After hearing this, he couldn't help but think about it and felt that it was indeed a good idea.
But when he calmed down and saw Franklin's expectant expression, he thought for a moment and said, "It's a very important matter. I need to ask the president for permission first." (To be continued...)