Jaelena couldn't help but ask, "Lord, for such a massive project, will we need to draw slaves from the estates?"
The Archon of Tyrosh and Greenbeard had owned vast estates and lands, long managed by stewards and worked by slaves—now all in their hands.
Lo Quen shook his head. "No. A work of this scale will take at least ten thousand laborers. The captives from the Seven Kingdoms eat our food every day—it's time they earned their keep..."
His confidence in raising a castle came from the seventy thousand captives under his control—twenty thousand strong-bodied soldiers and fifty thousand laborers and sailors.
Lo Quen recalled how stone castles in the medieval age of his past life had taken years to build.
For example, a tower of the 10th-century Château de Langeais in France, measuring 10 meters long, 17.5 wide, and 16 high, with 1.5-meter-thick walls containing 1,200 cubic meters of stone, had required 83,000 man-days of labor.
Looking over the summit's size, Lo Quen resolved to raise a square Norman-style keep, 50 meters on each side, rising 80 meters high, with walls about 4 meters thick.
Around it he would build a curtain wall, some 30 meters high and 5 meters thick.
Within this enclosure, at least four towers reaching 100 meters high and one gatehouse would stand.
Beyond the first curtain wall, he would add another ring, with at least nine towers and one gatehouse.
And beneath the fortress, Lo Quen planned not only cellars but secret passages like those hidden in the Red Keep...
The sheer scope of it all made his scalp prickle.
By his rough estimate, it would demand hundreds of times the labor of the Langeais tower.
But with seventy thousand captives, the timeline shortened dramatically.
Pushed at full pace, it could be finished in about a year.
Yet Lo Quen's ambitions did not stop there.
Once the castle stood, he would build a great harbor, and a stone road to link the two.
With the plan set, he ordered all seventy thousand captives brought here.
He also commanded that a thousand Tyroshi craftsmen be hired to draw up the castle's plans.
The artisans of Tyrosh were famed on both shores of the Narrow Sea.
Not only did they craft weapons and armor of renown, but they excelled at raising splendid palaces—the gems and mother-of-pearl adorning the Archon's palace were proof enough.
Gesturing to the hill before them, Lo Quen declared, "From today, the town that grows around this harbor shall be called Crown Town, and our castle shall be named Conquest Keep."
...
With Crown Town and Conquest Keep settled, Lo Quen did not hurry back to Tyrosh.
He needed to know more about this land that would soon be his foundation.
Riding beside Jaelena, with a small band of elite guards, he set out from the yet-unbuilt Crown Town, following the winding lanes between estates northeastward at a slow patrol.
In the Long Summer, the western Disputed Lands bloomed with life.
Broad plains stretched in neat strips of fields, divided by low hazel hedgerows.
Oats, barley, wheat, and peas thrived under the season's enduring warmth, their green leaves shining richly beneath the sun.
Here, without the burden of winter crop rotation, there was no three-field system—farming was cruder, but the abundance of sunlight and heat made up for it.
Beyond the grains, orchards dotted the countryside. Vines climbed their trellises, while branches sagged under the weight of golden autumn pears. The air itself seemed steeped in the promise of wine to come.
Yet beneath the pastoral beauty lay harsh dissonance.
Passing a large estate, the crack of a whip and the cry of pain tore the calm apart.
A burly master, with hair like fire and a thick red beard, lashed a leather whip down on the back of a small, dark-skinned slave—clearly from the Summer Isles.
"Faster, you lazy black coal! If you don't finish this mulberry grove before sundown, you won't eat tonight!"
The whip snapped again, carving bloody stripes across the boy's thin back.
He trembled, tears mingling with sweat as they dripped into the dirt, but dared not resist.
He could only force himself to pick faster, and faster.
Jaelena's brows knitted tightly, a flicker of reluctance in her eyes as she lowered her voice to Lo Quen. "Lord, should we stop him?"
Lo Quen's gaze swept across the orchard, then lingered on the distant figures of slaves laboring silently in other estates. Slowly, he shook his head.
Slavery was not only the foundation of Tyrosh, but of all the Free Cities. In the capital of Tyrosh, slaves even outnumbered freemen, and here in the countryside they were the very lifeblood of the estates' economy.
To save one person was simple. But to change the entire system meant overturning the existing mode of production. That would strike at the roots of countless vested interests, unleashing upheaval beyond imagination.
It was not something Lo Quen, who had only just secured his footing, could afford to do. He knew well that Jaelena's smooth takeover of this land had been possible precisely because he had not touched the slaveholders' core interest—the institution of slavery itself.
Stability was the prerequisite for development.
They pressed onward and soon arrived at a coastal town called Autumnpear.
Here lived over a thousand Tyroshi freemen. The streets were lined with tightly packed timber-and-stone houses, and the air carried a mingling of salt, wine, and the clamor of the marketplace.
Itinerant merchants hawked goods from afar. From small workshops came the rhythmic clanging of smiths at their forges. Freemen owning small plots of land carted their homegrown produce to the bustling market.
At the town's entrance stood a makeshift wooden palisade and a watchtower, guarded by soldiers in matching leather armor.
Lo Quen's eyes lingered on the soldiers.
Jaelena immediately explained, "Lord, when I took over Autumnpear, there were ten Tyroshi soldiers garrisoned here. They maintained order and relayed pirate raids back to the capital. I've since replaced them all with our men. However, there's still one Tyroshi tax officer left in the town—Ollo. He oversees levies on the surrounding estates. Since he knows the area well, I've kept him on for now."
Lo Quen nodded. "Summon him. I have questions."
Before long, a slightly overweight, balding middle-aged man came trotting up, his face fixed in a deferential, faintly nervous smile. In heavily accented Common Tongue, he greeted, "Honored Lord, I am Ollo, tax officer of Autumnpear. What is your command? I will serve faithfully."
Lo Quen regarded him steadily before asking directly, "Master Ollo, what is the scope of your taxation?"
Ollo, clearly well-versed in his work, rattled off without hesitation, "Lord, to the east from Autumnpear, the boundary runs up to the borderlands with Myr and Lys. To the north, it stretches as far as Hazelnut Town.
Within this area, there are roughly one hundred thousand mu of arable land and two hundred and eighty-two estates. Of these, two hundred belong to slave owners and wealthier freemen with larger holdings. The remaining eighty-two estates now belong to… well, to you, Lord."
Casting a cautious glance at Lo Quen, he continued, "Besides these, many small plots are held by ordinary freemen. Their taxes are lighter. Also, Autumnpear itself levies duties on passing merchants."
"And how are this year's taxes?" Lo Quen pressed.
Ollo's face twisted with distress as he rubbed his hands. "Lord… ah, very poor indeed. Many slaveholders and small estate owners complain of bad harvests, crying poverty at every turn. So far, we've barely collected half of what is due."
"Bad harvests?"
Lo Quen's brows furrowed, his tone turning cold. "The Long Summer continues, with ample sun and rain. How could the harvest be poor? I've just come from the south, and nothing I saw suggested any such thing..."