Chapter 247 — Gao Song's Daily Work

"Of course there is," Amber said with a nod. "I want to send my most trusted people to other domains to gather hands, but you should know it's a great deal of trouble for them to cross other nobles' lands. They'll need papers and guarantors proving they travel about on the commission of Duke Gao Yang Cecil. That will keep them and the people they bring from being hanged by the local nobles along the way."

In this age, people were bound fast to the soil where they were born. Every commoner was a noble's private property, and ordinary folk were scarcely permitted to leave or enter any domain at will, on pain of the noose. To become an itinerant trader, a mercenary, or an adventurer, one had to obtain papers from a noble. And even with those papers, if the issuer was not powerful enough, the bearer might still be harassed and extorted by the soldiers of the nobles along the route—in fact this was the main source of income for many a noble's private troops. Such was the state of things in this age.

But if they not only had papers, but the issuer of those papers carried enough weight in the whole noble hierarchy, then they could pass unhindered.

Duke Gao Yang Cecil was no longer the High Guardian of the southern frontier, but his name still carried weight in this land. At the very least, so long as no conflict of interest arose, the tradition-bound nobles had to show sufficient reverence for that name. Such reverence for one's superiors was an important part of how nobles maintained their propriety. So anyone bearing a pass signed by Gao Yang Cecil could travel the southern frontier unhindered, and need hardly worry about being harassed or extorted by nobles along the way. This too was an important guarantee for the smooth unfolding of Gao Song's trade routes.

Gao Yang agreed to Amber's request almost without hesitation: "No problem. But you must guarantee that the people who get the passes are reliable, and before they set out, you must make them understand their mission and the importance of keeping a low profile. I don't want those people waving my pass about and making a spectacle everywhere, blowing this business up until the whole world knows."

Amber giggled. "Don't you worry about that. Everyone I bring out is an old hand. They can't do much else, but keeping their heads down, playing dumb, and acting the fool—nobody's better. Give them a duke's pass and they'll still walk like refugees. Asking them to swagger about would be worse than asking them to die."

Gao Yang: "..."

Somehow it felt like there was nothing worth being proud of in that, yet Amber's expression as she said it was as if she'd saved the world...

And just then Amber began to wax sentimental again: "A pass signed by a duke... if it were an unconditional travel document, heaven knows what it'd fetch on the black market. You're probably the first great noble in history to issue such papers to riffraff and rogues."

"I'm not the first," Gao Cen said with a wave of his hand. "Back when we'd just taken the northern regions, Charlie alone signed over a hundred certificates and permits for the local mountain folk. By today's standards, every one of those northern mountaineers was an uncivilized savage—not even riffraff or rogues. But they were the forebears of the Northern Mountain Legion of today."

"Whoa—you mean you want me to lead a legion someday?!"

Gao Yang shot a glance at the half-elf, who had seized the opening without a second's hesitation, and raised his hand. "Speak. Do I knock you flat right here, or do we go through the formalities first?"

Amber: "......"