Even on earth where transportation and communication was very developed, it was very hard to get an accurate population count.
On the Sines Continent, it was even more impossible to know the exact population of a map.
But even if one didn't need an accurate count, just by looking at it, one could see that there were very few people in Stasom City and the surrounding area.
Looking around, other than the outline of Stasom City that could be seen in the distance, there were only two small villages that weren't far from Stasom City.
According to the data provided by Stasom City's City Lord Count Hughes, there were around fifty thousand citizens of the Malor Empire under Stasom City, which was even worse than Banta City in the beginning.
But Stasom City was already the largest city on the northern coast of the Malor Empire, so it had the most people.
Even Stasom City only had fifty thousand people, so there were even fewer people in other places.
"Lord Baron, according to the plan, after this base is built, the factories will need over two hundred thousand workers.
But Stasom City only has fifty thousand people and there are many old and weak people who can't work, so it can't meet the demand at all. "Hogan said in a helpless voice.
"Un ….. This is indeed a very serious problem."
Franklin stroked his chin that had just grown a soft beard and after thinking for a bit, he continued, "But this problem isn't that hard to solve, we can open up recruitment in the empire.
I think that as long as they know that there are good jobs that can earn quite a bit of gold coins a month, there will be many people willing to come. "
"That might not be the case."
Hogan shook his head, "The environment here is far worse than the inland, especially the winter temperature, it is simply unbearable.
Even if our company has made all the preparations, we can't eliminate this worry for everyone.
Moreover, the most important problem is ….. this will make them leave their homes, which is something that many people aren't willing to accept. "
Franklin knit his brows, "That's right, for the citizens of the empire, staying in their homes is more important than anything else. Unless it is absolutely necessary, no one is willing to leave their homes."
Hogan coughed lightly and said, "This … Lord Baron, of course, it is not completely impossible. It all depends on whether you and Lord Marquis can make up your mind."
Franklin looked at Hogan in surprise. He blinked and instantly understood what Hogan meant.
"What?
Do you want us to help you forcibly relocate some people from the Empire?
This is very difficult … "
"No, no, no … I never said that. Lord Baron, please don't misunderstand." Hogan waved his hand.
"My meaning is, can we use the relationship of your Southgate Family and the Makaros Family to buy some slaves as workers?"
"Slave?" Franklin was surprised.
"Do you think these lowly people can handle the complicated work in the factory?"
"This … Actually, when our Chamber of Commerce was first established, due to the lack of manpower, we used many slaves as workers.
They might not be able to handle the complicated work, but they can handle the ordinary, repetitive work, "Hogan explained.
"But slaves …" Franklin frowned and thought for a while before shaking his head.
"I'm afraid it's not possible.
It's different from before because there hasn't been a large scale war on the continent in many years, so there are fewer and fewer people who have become slaves. Even our family only has around a thousand slaves.
If we want to satisfy your demand of two hundred thousand people, I'm afraid it won't be enough even if we add in the slaves of the nobles related to our family. "
"Is that so?" This was a problem that Hogan never expected.
He thought that as one of the two empires of the continent, the Malor Empire had a long history and didn't abolish slavery like the Principality of Constantine, so they would have a very large number of slaves.
But he never thought that there would be so few slaves in the Malor Empire, it would be hard to even gather two hundred thousand.
Hogan couldn't help knitting his brows.
It wasn't hard to build a base, but the most important problem was to have the various factories in the magic machine industrial base start working.
If they wanted to start working, the most important thing was manpower.
If they didn't have enough manpower, there was no need to mention anything.
"Don't tell me I still have to invest more?" Hogan sighed in his heart.
When they first decided on the plan for the magic machine industrial base, New Flyer of course considered the bad environment here, so they had the idea of buying slaves to act as workers.
But now Franklin said that there weren't many slaves in the Malor Empire. Moreover, the nobles wouldn't casually transfer their slaves, so it would be even more difficult to gather them.
If this plan didn't work, then there was only one way left, which was to increase the investment here and raise the wages of the workers to attract more people to work here.
However, the environment here was too harsh. If he wanted to attract people to work here, he would need to provide an extremely high salary and benefits.
When they first made the plan, New Flyer set the wage of the workers in the magic machine factories to be around ten gold coins a month.
It should be said that this wage was very attractive to the majority of the citizens in the Malor Empire. But if they wanted to rely on ten gold coins to attract people to the cold north, it wouldn't be that easy.
Hogan roughly calculated in his heart. He was afraid that the wage would have to be raised to fifteen gold coins at the very least.
And the estimated number of workers in the base was around two hundred thousand. If one worker was paid five gold coins a month, then two hundred thousand workers would have to pay one million gold coins a month!
This would greatly increase the investment in the magic machine industrial base. It wasn't a result that New Flyer or anyone else who invested in the base wanted to see.
"That's right." Franklin suddenly clapped his hands.
"Manager Hogan, actually … … Slaves can't appear out of thin air, but we can make them ourselves."
Hogan looked at him in puzzlement, "Make them ourselves?
How? "
"You see, most of the slaves actually came through war.
Because there haven't been any major wars in the past few hundred years, there are fewer and fewer slaves … … "
"Wait … …" Hogan couldn't help but raise his hand to interrupt him.
"Sir Baron, do you want us to take the initiative to start a war?
You … … You're joking, right? "
Franklin laughed and shook his head, "Starting a war is too exaggerated, but capturing some people as slaves isn't a big problem."
"I still don't understand what you mean."
Hogan frowned, "Do you want us to take the initiative to attack other countries and capture people as slaves?"
"No, no, if we take the initiative to attack other countries, then we're really starting a war.
Although our Malor Empire isn't afraid of any country on the continent, if we attack other countries without permission, I'm afraid that even the honorable emperor won't be able to protect us. "
"Then you mean … …"
"We can't attack other human countries, but that doesn't mean we can't attack other races … …" Franklin revealed a meaningful smile filled with temptation.
"Ha?
Other races? "Hogan was stunned for a moment.
"That's right.
Actually, because the environment in the north of the empire is bad, very few people are willing to live here for a long time, so there are very few people.
But for those alien races who can't survive in our territory, this is a good place to live.
As far as I know, there are no less than three Beastman Tribes near Stratholme City, and there are at least four thousand Beastmen in total. "
"Beastmen?" Hogan was stunned.
"There are beastmen here too?"
When he said this, he couldn't help but laugh.
This was simply nonsense.
The race with the most people on the Sines was without a doubt the humans.
The second largest race after the humans was the beastmen.
Different from the scattered dwarves, the rarely seen elves, and the almost legendary halflings, the beastmen were the most common race on the Sines.
Even in many countries, the beastmen's power was still large. Although they couldn't suppress the human countries, they had no problem occupying their own territory.
This was because most of the territories they occupied were barren lands that humans didn't really care about. In addition, the beastmen still maintained a decent military force. Therefore, as long as the beastmen didn't cause any trouble, the human countries generally wouldn't pay much attention to them.
This was actually very clear in the Lampari Kingdom.
If one looked at the Black Rice Wasteland in theory, most of it belonged to the Lampari Kingdom and a small part belonged to the Sack Kingdom.
But there were large amounts of beastmen occupying the Black Rice Wasteland, so the Lampari Kingdom and the Sack Kingdom didn't care about them at all, allowing the beastmen to live there.
Of course, because of the appearance of the New Flyer, most of the beastmen tribes on the Black Rice Wasteland began cooperating with the New Flyer and other human companies, integrating into the human society. It made Hogan ignore the problems that existed on the continent.
The Malor Empire was one of the two empires on the Sines, so it wasn't strange for there to be beastmen in their country.
"Of course there are, and there are a lot of them." Franklin nodded honestly to express his affirmation.
Franklin honestly nodded, "Although there aren't any specific statistics, there are many beastmen living in the northern part of the empire. There are even people in the empire who estimate that there are over a million beastmen here, which is quite a large number."
"Over a million?" Hogan was really scared by this number this time.
Although there were many beastmen on the Black Rice Wasteland, there were only around two hundred thousand and less than three hundred thousand.
He never thought that there would be over a million beastmen in the northern part of the Malor Empire, it really was terrifying.
"Un, the largest beastmen tribe has over a hundred thousand people.
Think about it, if we can capture all these beastmen as slaves, wouldn't that solve the problem? "Franklin's words were filled with enticement.
Hogan had seen many beastmen workers in the New Flyer, so he didn't have any resistance to using beastmen. He couldn't help thinking about it when he heard this, feeling that this was indeed a good idea.
But when he calmed down and saw the expectant look on Franklin's face, he thought about it before saying, "This matter is very important, I need to ask sir chairman first."