After opening up the plateau corridor and successfully carrying out a trade agreement, the free merchant alliance received a large number of slave miners and capital injections, and the originally depressed economy became vibrant again. Pen Fun Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The following year, through this highland trade route, which had already been paved with wooden tracks for most of the road, with higher transportation efficiency, it brought nearly 100,000 slave miners to the Free Merchants League in a period of only six months, which was so large that it was even close to one-third of the total population of the Free Trade League.

In order to effectively manage these large number of slaves, the member leaders of the Free Business Alliance have carried out military reforms, imitating the "collar" system of the Grand Lords, and expanding their military strength.

This year, the mercenary union headquartered in Grand Collar has developed more rapidly, and the mercenary branch has been opened throughout the entire Free Business Alliance, and a mercenary station and information release center have been set up in each member territory, and the task release and information exchange mechanism is the same as that of the merchant station, but the update frequency is faster, the amount of information is larger, and the maintenance is more complicated.

Because the threshold for registering as a mercenary is low, in more than a year, the number of people registered as professional mercenaries in the mercenary union quickly exceeded 50,000, and the sources of mercenaries are all over the world, including savages in the north, barbarians in the west, adventurers in many kingdoms in the south, etc., all with the dream of gold rushing, came to this free business alliance in the corner of the mainland.

The number of registered mercenaries in the mercenary union has swelled to such a number, and naturally, some mercenary group organizations with a number of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people have also sprung up, because they have been effectively organized and trained, and then from the blacksmith shop next to the mercenary union, after buying some weapons such as plate armor, steel spears, steel crossbows, and precision forged swords that originally required sky-high prices, the weapons and equipment on some mercenaries are not even weaker than those of heavy knights.

As a result, there began to be some mercenary groups with large numbers and well-armed mercenaries, in order to get more rewards, together with some daring traveling merchants, carrying a large number of goods from the barons and even counts of some non-free merchant alliance regions, swaggering through the territories of some barons and even counts in the non-free merchant alliance regions.

Not a penny of commercial tax, not a single copper toll tax and rest tax, and the lords of these realms are treated as if they were nothing.

Are these neglected lords angry?

Of course, he was extremely angry, but counting the knights who only had a few dozen in his hands, in the face of this group of well-equipped mercenaries with more than a thousand people, unless it was a lord who had an overheated head or felt that there was nothing to love in this world, there was basically nothing he could do with this caravan guarded by many mercenaries.

The Kingdom of Arino, which is adjacent to the southwest of the Kingdom of Volis, has become the biggest victim of these large mercenary groups traveling through the country, with only 6 counties in the country, and the Kingdom of Arino, which has been bullied by the surrounding "big powers", has become a "corridor" and "transit station" for large mercenary groups to transport goods Not to mention, without even consent, a fortress-type mercenary station has been established in this kingdom, which has become a place where thousands of mercenaries live and stay for a long time.

The king of the kingdom of Ariano wanted to kill all these hateful mercenaries one by one and confiscate all the goods...... But he didn't dare to do that, because he couldn't pull out all the knights in the kingdom, and he couldn't get together a kingdom of Arino with more than 800 knights, and considering that several "big countries" around him had always wanted to gnaw meat from this kingdom, he really didn't have the strength to be willful.

Seeing that the arrival of mercenary groups and caravans had a certain stimulating and stimulating effect on the economy of his kingdom, the king of the Kingdom of Arianor still chose to turn a blind eye and pretend not to care.

Therefore, this year, in addition to the plateau corridor, those trade routes opened up by large mercenary groups also brought a large number of necessary materials and huge profits of more than one million gold coins to the Free Business Alliance.

The situation is very good.

It was also at the end of this year that a piece of news came from the Iron Castle Kingdom, which made Zhou Ming look forward to it.

Because of the wind and cold, the old king of the Iron Castle Kingdom became seriously ill and his life was in danger.

If nothing else, this deaf and incompetent monarch will die of illness soon after, and then around the succession to the throne of this kingdom, the prince and the prince will start a civil war that lasts for five years, until both sides are exhausted, and the surrounding countries take advantage of the weakness, after a collective siege, the northeastern corner of the continent, which is counted as a kingdom of medium powers, will eventually collapse and split into two small countries that will never die.

Of course, Zhou Ming will not let go of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to open up a vast land for development for his small territory and various restrictions.

However, even if he knew that a civil war would break out in the Iron Fort Kingdom, Zhou Ming would not have rushed to intervene at the beginning of the war, he was looking for death.

At least two years later, after both sides fight to defeat each other, it is not too late to intervene by force.

In the intervening two years, Zhou Ming decided to implement another new project of his kind, an expedition that would change the world and lay a solid foundation for its conquest.

……

Not long after, on the task bulletin board of the Gran Ling Mercenary Union, Zhou Ming posted a first task with a difficulty coefficient of 3S since the establishment of the Mercenary Union.

Mission Name: Explore a new world

Mission requirements: Recruit a mercenary expedition with a number of 30 people, a mercenary level of silver and above, who have participated in the plateau corridor transportation mission many times, and can adapt to the alpine environment

Rewards: Come back alive with a bounty of 50,000 gold coins per person, come back alive and achieve the exploration goal, with a bounty of 100,000 gold coins per person, and all mercenary levels will be upgraded to legendary mercenaries (mercenary level above platinum)

Difficulty: SSS

Contrary to Zhou Ming's expectations, less than two days after this task was released at the top of the bulletin board of the mercenary union, there were a lot of mercenaries who came to sign up, and they were extremely enthusiastic.

For these mercenaries who signed up, Zhou Ming first screened them according to the requirements of the task, and after eliminating 80% of the applicants who did not meet the requirements, among the remaining more than 100 mercenaries who met the requirements, they were interviewed one by one, and finally selected the best 30 and formed their own expedition team.

Some coincidences are that among these 30 people, several of them are still "old friends" that Zhou Ming has known since his last life, such as Jairo, a thief who is now a golden mercenary, is strong, and has also been promoted to the silver mercenary with a high mission success rate.

The dwarf Dom, who is good at digging traps, is not in this expedition team because the mercenary level is still black iron, but instead is a demon thief Biro with outstanding ability and a little relationship with the great thief Jairo, he is now a platinum-level mercenary, and he is the one with the highest mercenary level in the 30-person expedition.

During this time, Zhou Ming took this 30-person expedition team and brought all kinds of tools prepared to the foot of the Ural Snow Mountain, and conducted special training for more than three months on the plateau at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters.

During the more than three months of hellish training, Zhou Ming and his 30-member expedition team became more adaptable to altitude sickness, constantly impacting their respective climbing records on a snow-capped mountain with an altitude of more than 9,000 meters, constantly breaking through the limits of their physical fitness, and constantly enhancing their confidence and ambition to challenge and conquer nature!