In the evening, Abi brought me a blanket, a bag of rusks, and a handful of dried dates. ：..

I have never eaten such delicious dates, this is the craft of the Salander people, after harvesting the dates, they use a tèbié method to remove the moisture of the dates, so that the dates become durable and sweeter. A large bag of dates weighs only a small amount, and this food was an important supply for the Salander soldiers when they went out on battle. Abi told me that in many places, Salander and Creelian soldiers had even begun to use dried dates and a drink called tea as essential rations." This changed my mind that the soldiers of the East were a bunch of beggars.

"I never thought that the Creelians would be so rich." I said to Abi, "In the West, this fruit is very precious. Dried dates, pears, peaches, etc., I rarely get to eat. When I was in Vicchia, a friend of mine gave me two peaches, and I still remember the taste of them. ”

"We don't usually have access to it. Now we're going to be sent to the mines, so the Creelians are kind, you don't have to be grateful to them. Abi said, "The children of the emir were disgusted with the smell of this food, and their tongues were spoiled." Abi had seen a young lady feed good meat to the dogs, while Abi starved with the others. We are only slaves, and we are slaves when our masters die. ”

"Aren't you released?"

"Before his master died, he prayed to his god and set us free. As a grace, or rather a deal with the gods," said Abi laughed, "but his gods ignored him, and he died." So we continued to be slaves, and even when we had our own land, our own house, and were ready to live like a proper Creelian, we were still seen as slaves by them. ”

"What about the miners?"

"Many of the miners were slaves." Abi said. "The Salanders and their Creelians scratch their teeth and go into the desert every year to attack our tribes, or they just provoke us to fight each other, they only want slaves. They led our people with ropes, carried them to the mines, and then pushed them in, toiling to death. ”

"Are all the people inside your people?"

"At first, almost all of them, but the plague killed half of our people. So the emir of the city of Eureka threw in the prison the bandits and prisoners. And they threw in many prisoners of war, even you Valans. ”

"Varans?"

"Yes, I've seen a few of them. They recruited soldiers in the city of Eureka, but the emir, not knowing their purpose, threw them into the mines, and the Valans did not protest. Emir didn't have to worry about someone coming to the door afterwards. ”

"Well, will these people help me?" I was thinking about it in my heart. "Abi, I have an idea I have to say. If you're going to take the mines, be sure to plan as carefully as possible. This is the case in war, the first attack is the easiest to succeed, after which the enemy is on guard, and both sides can only be consumed until one side admits defeat. And you don't have a second chance, your food and water are controlled by others. You can only take the mines. Then we have to find a way to negotiate peace. But why do even you know about this plan? When I was among the Valan soldiers, it was often until the last moment. I knew what I was going to do, and even if I was caught and tortured to death, I wouldn't have said a word about the plan, because I didn't know the plan at all. You know all about it, which means that more people know about this plan, do you think those mine owners will not know? Do you think those businessmen will not be prepared? ”

Abi looked at me and said, "When a tree is about to fall, no matter how many bars you hold underneath, it will still fall." Do you think there haven't been riots before? Many, many people died before you. That's why the slave hunters are constantly replenishing their manpower. Every day several people try to escape the mines, and every month there are hordes of miners who rebel against the foreman. Those merchants are so bad that they don't care, they just want ore. For this reason, they recruited thugs, and if they survived for a day, they could get a day's ore. When they have earned enough money today, they are satisfied, and they never care about what happens after tomorrow. Didn't they know that we were going to rebel? Of course I do. Can they fix it? No. So they don't care anymore, every time they kill dozens of people, we will obediently go back to continue mining, and they think that it doesn't matter, just make it a routine every month. In their opinion, if there is a riot this time, it will be a simple riot, but we know that this time it will be different, and this time we will take the whole mine. ”

"Why is this time different?"

"In the past, we fought on our own, so naturally there was no possibility of victory, and at that time we had no allies, but this time it was different." Abi said.

"You've found allies?" I was a little upset, "So you said you were going to go to the Valans just a deceptive sign?" ”

"No, no." Abi shook his finger and said, "We will naturally show our loyalty to our protectors. The Valans would not allow a single slave to remain on the land, a condition they had made when they cooperated with the Creelians to drive out the Salanders. Do you know about this? ”

Giovanni's cooperation with the Creelians is more or less clueless. I also know a lot, but I only know that Giovanni is preparing to form a private alliance with the Creelians, preparing to join forces to annex their possessions when the Salanders are in decline, and I don't know the specific content of the treaty.

"Not a single slave left?" I wondered, "What did Giovanni say?" What does that mean? ”

"The Valans will protect every freed slave." Abi said, "If there is still a slave, the Valans will force his master to release the slave, turn him into a freed slave, and then be his protector." ”

Isn't that an empty promise?

"Giovanni stayed here for only a few days, and then he went back to the mountains of the north." I reminded Abi not to take Giovanni's help too seriously, Giovanni would not bother to water the fruit until the slaves had planted it, he would only come and pick it when it was ripe, "He even let go of a group of Salander nobles, who must have had quite a few slave owners and manor owners." ”

"But it's these days that mean a lot." "The Salanders fled like dogs, and so did the distinguished guests of the Sultanate from the south," Abi said. The Crelian lackeys loyal to the Sultan were terrified. It was enough for the emirs of Creel, who were ill-conceived and longing for duli, to indulge us in trouble, and now every slave was chanting Giovanni's name, ready to jump up and fight for him. ”

Abi's shining eyes were full of frenzy.

You're going to fight for Giovanni, and he's going to wait for your blood to drain and then use that as a bargain to sell you for a good price.

"You're going to make it." I said to Abi.

"Naturally." Abi said. "We will return to the oasis and hunt happily and live as before."

If Abiy says that they will raise an army to protect themselves, lead their people to build a state, and settle in land suitable for farming, then they still have a slight chance of success. But if they want to return to the oasis and return to the life of the tribe, then they are doomed. But how do you talk to him?

"Of course you will go back," I said, "and ziyou have dignity." Giovanni promised you ziyou, but the Creelians didn't explicitly say yes, did they? ”

"The Creelians just want to drive the Salanders away by Giovanni's hand, and of course they don't really expect us to ziyou, otherwise who will plant their land. Who will maintain their estates? But it's not up to them. Prince Giovanni had thousands of soldiers. is our protector and we will go home. This is not something that the Creelians can stop. ”

Giovanni had thousands of soldiers, what exactly does this have to do with you?

"Oh'''That''s right." I said to Abi, "If that's the case, how about a different way: when you have recaptured the ziyou, how about working with the Creelians and forcing them to give you land, and you paying them tribute and taxes?" ”

"Are you crazy?" Abi said, "The Creelians will definitely enslave us." ”

Will you be able to ziyou forever when you return to the oasis?

"Maybe you're right." I say.

Abi lit a lamp, and he was going to check the gap in the wall with an old man, and he said goodbye to me and left the cellar. I put the blanket over my body and prepared to go to sleep.

Abi said that this riot was significant, but if all the slaves were thinking the same as him, then I didn't see any difference.

Is it just a difference in customs or a fundamental difference that the Salanders are different from us? All Westerners were not allowed to own slaves, but in ancient times, Westerners were allowed to own slaves. But the slave hated his master and hated all labor. This sāo movement and slackness made life unstable, made it difficult to accumulate wealth, made it difficult to develop towns, and made it difficult to reclaim the land, and the continuous slave rebellions of the Karad Empire were clearly one of the reasons for the decline of the empire.

Knowing this, maybe it will bring me some benefits.

Slaves will never be content to be enslaved, they will rise up whenever they have the opportunity, and the slave owners will do everything to suppress them. Eventually, when the slave owners had less to do by keeping their slaves than they were freed, the slaves were slowly freed and turned into serfs, yeoman farmers, and artisans, and new states were formed and continued to develop.

Now, the mine I'm going to, these slaves would have shed a little less blood if they had known the story of their western predecessors. They are destined to return home, and if they had died sooner, they might have suffered less sin.

Giovanni was indeed good at agitating people. Abiy said that he wanted to be loyal to the Valans for no reason, and I knew that there must be something strange in it, and no one would be so reckless as to pin his hopes on a Valan boy. They are just using Prince Valan as a protector to expand their power.

Mine, the word makes me feel like my mouth is stuffed with dust.

If Miccella had known that I was going to go down the mine of her own free will, she would have widened her eyes and said that I had gone mad. How am I going to explain it to her? I've been through a lot of things that she won't go through in her lifetime, and I'd rather she never went through them.

The plague, the mines, the exhaustion''' all the stuff upsets me.

I wrapped myself a little tighter and waited for the next day to come.