Slavery was a serious obstacle to productivity.

There is no way to liberate enough working people without freeing slaves, and the future development of Modo City needs a large number of commoners, not a valueless slave class who can only sell coolies.

Sauron's Abolition Decree was like dropping a bombshell on the material plane, and even the City of Radiance shook. For even the Lord of Light, who is in the camp of orderliness and goodness, himself rejects slavery, but the Church has never put forward such an idea.

Even!

Some paladins also volunteered to defend slavery.

Sauron didn't care about the reaction of the outside world, and as soon as he issued the "Abolition Decree", he opened the third census of Modo City.

All the slaves were emancipated into the lower classes, and they were to be registered in the population of the city of Mordor, and from now on they would be given personal and property freedom. However, as slaves they had almost no wealth of their own, the next arrangement for the city hall of Modo was to allocate land to them.

Every inch of land in Modo City is precious!

Therefore, it is naturally impossible for these lands to be given to these slaves for free, which is unfair to all the meritorious classes.

The city of Modo cultivated a large amount of land near the twelve large towns, which belonged to the city of Modo, and they were now rented to all slaves, and the city hall of Modo distributed housing, farming tools, and daily necessities to the slaves.

But that's all there is to it.

Too many gifts can be counterproductive, and Sauron will only give them the opportunity to fight for the future by hard work.

All the dwellings belonged to the wealth of the city, the freed slaves had only the most basic living quarters, and all the farming tools belonged to the city, and they had only the basic right to use them.

The slaves were still penniless.

However, they can then rely on themselves to earn and accumulate wealth, and the land allocated by the city of Modo only charges about 30% of the tenant money, which means that 70% of the income from a year's cultivation can be used as the property of these tenants themselves.

Sauron, of course, would not let the slaves go free.

Freedom is only relative!

Sauron had already arranged their fate, and they had no choice but to do what Sauron commanded.

Because Sauron is the god of the evil camp of order.

Slaves became tenants, who gained the power to cultivate the land on their own, and from this they gained the basis for accumulating wealth, and at the same time they began to provide taxes for the city, and solved the problem of the lack of a large number of civilian workers in the city.

Under slavery, they had almost no freedom of life and property rights, and their labor was more dependent on the whip.

Now that they have property rights, the income from farming will be their private property, which greatly stimulates their motivation. At the same time, the city of Mordor also opened up a more favorable policy to outsiders, and freed slaves could use about one-third of the wealth of the outside world to buy ownership of their dwellings and convert land into private property. All of these properties have title deeds in the city of Modo, and being recognized by the city hall is equivalent to truly gaining a foothold in the city. Sauron's promise has long stood the test of time, so none of this needs to be questioned.

The third census was very fast.

The city hall of Modo City has long been accustomed to efficient operation, and after the third census, the population has reached about 270,000.

It seems that there are really quite a few hidden populations in Modo City.

The blacksmith was working hard to forge farming tools, and this time the cultivated land in the city of Modo was nearly doubled, and because of the Abolition Decree, the city had about 50,000 more agricultural population, and at the same time all twelve towns were put into operation.

The deep tillage system is becoming widespread, and thanks to the spread of fertilizers, the food production of Modo City is expected to be enough to sustain about 500,000 people.

But.

For Sauron, farming is only the most basic part, and he needs to do more than that.

All he was planning at the moment was to pave the way for a large-scale farm economy, and when farming grew to a certain extent, what he needed was to free up the working population and move it elsewhere.

Slaves can only squeeze a little strength, and Sauron needs more and more.

………………

The morning sun is shining.

Covanno woke up at dawn, and he looked at the clean bed where he was lying, and everything was clean like a dream.

He was a slave.

Came from the Shipwreck Bay, purchased by a merchant who was once a guard and became a slave for aristocratic reasons. Life as a slave was not easy, and the merchant urged him to work every day with a leather whip, and the other five slaves like him were beaten and scolded if there was anything wrong with him. As a slave he had nothing, even if his master killed him, he was not responsible until the Abolition Decree was enacted. At that time, the merchant wanted to urgently transfer him to the south coast and then sell it again for money, but unfortunately he was still caught by the guards of Modo City.

He was free.

Everything was like a dream.

However, freedom was relative, and Covanno soon discovered that the guards had not let him go, but had placed him and another group of slaves in the town known as Autumnwater.

A neat row of brick houses.

Each of them had a house here, and the next day a man dressed as an official came to count them, followed by the distribution tools. Covanno thought everything was no different from what he had experienced in the past, but he soon realized that it was really different.

No one beats or scolds them, and even blatantly lazy people will not be punished.

Many slaves like him had blank expressions, some working hard, as if they were hopeful for the future, and some were idle, as if they didn't know what to do.

Such days lasted for three days.

Covanno didn't know how to face the future, so he just did things very normally every day, and as a commoner he began to learn how to cultivate the land from an early age. Three days later, the officials of the town hall reappeared, and they secretly conducted an examination of everyone, and one of the best slaves, named Nord, was given a ploughing ox, which passed through the town's council chamber and was officially taken as his personal property.

This was the envy of many slaves.

Because once their own value was no better than that of a ploughing cow, and the man named Nord was full of surprises.

But.

Soon everything that followed upset others.

Another slave was expelled, and because he was lazy every day, he did not even do the most basic reclamation, and the officials of the town hall deprived him of everything that the city of Modor had given him, housing, utensils, food, and clothing. So all that the city of Mordor had given was stripped away, and the poor man was banished out of the town wearing only a thin garment, and the man did not even have food for the next meal, and no matter how much he wept and repented, he was still thrown out by the guards, and he was completely at his own mercy.

At this moment, everyone felt uneasy.

Thankfully, however, the guards expelled only three men, and no one knew their fate, only that their homes, food, and clothing had been taken away.

This time.

Others have reflected how valuable everything they have now is. They don't have to worry about going hungry or cold, they can live in a clean and tidy house, and they can fill their stomachs every day as long as they work hard. Covanno began to adjust to this turn of fate, and he gradually found himself as if he had become a tenant, for he was now doing everything no different from a tenant.

But.

In any case, the status of the tenant was higher than that of the serf, and even higher than that of the slave.

About a week later.

The officials of the town hall reappeared, much to the dismay of many slaves.

They have become accustomed to the present days, having a clean place to live, having a sturdy house, and no longer having to be beaten and whipped, which they cherish very much. Thankfully, this time the city hall officials didn't evict the others, they just took all the children between the ages of seven and twelve, slaves and commoners, and then Kenvano heard that there seemed to be an extra school in town.

And these children are being concentrated inside...... Learn? ……

Yes.

Soon, they learned that the children were being educated in the city of Modo.

This sounds a bit unthinkable, because in other places only the aristocracy and merchant class had a formal education.

Covanor had a vague feeling that the owner of Modo City seemed to be doing something very remarkable, but he knew too little to know what Modo City was going to do.

He just feels that the future is full of hope!

………………

In addition to the numbers, the third census also counted the ages of all residents.

Then, under the operation of the city hall, all the territories of Modo City, including the port of Modo, began to establish academies one after another, which taught the most basic knowledge, arithmetic, literacy, reading and writing, and these basic knowledge were completely taught by Modo City free of charge and compulsory to all children of school age.

At the same time, a number of large and dense complexes began to appear in the city of Modo, and these three- and four-story buildings were located in the south, and a large number of working people were transferred to work in them.

No one knows exactly what Sauron is going to do.

But now Modo City seems to be a starting machine, and it is gradually running at a high speed!

………………

(PS: I'll go to Beijing tomorrow to talk about things.) (To be continued.) )