Open-pit mining is very inexpensive and far safer than a mine, and if this mine were to appear in the Kingdom of Florence, it would definitely make the surrounding nobles go crazy. Although it is only an iron ore mine, the input is low, and the output is more profitable than ordinary silver mines.

After confirming the location of the mine, Suren opened the strategic map and looked at the map to the territory, where he prepared to find the nearest route.

Soon Suren found something on the map, about a kilometer away from the mine, there was a river flowing through, Suren went to check it out, this river is between eight and thirteen meters wide, the water depth is two or three meters, the flow is average, just an ordinary small river.

But this small river is a tributary of the White Water River, from which it continues for about three kilometers to the northeast to join the White Water River, and then flows up the White Water River to the docks of the territory, with which the ore mined from the mine can be transported to the territory by water.

Water transport has too many advantages over land transport, not only the transportation volume is large, the speed is fast, and the cost is also low.

The three-meter-deep and eight-meter-wide river, although it can't pass too many ships, is completely enough to transport iron ore, and the ore is also mined by slaves, and the cost is also low.

The cost of this part is also very low, there are trees everywhere in the wilderness, and slaves can also be used to cut down trees, so the cost of forging a piece of refined iron is simply outrageously low.

For example, a piece of equipment forged by Suren for his barbarian guards, if it was in Carthusian City, it would cost at least two hundred jinnars, but in Suren's territory, the cost of this equipment was only thirty jinnars at most.

In addition to the labor cost and transportation cost of mining on the mine, the most expensive forging cost was replaced by a hydraulic forging machine, and the new blast furnace used in the territory increased the output while reducing the cost again. That's why the minimum cost of this set of equipment is so low in the end.

Even if Suren sold it for one hundred and fifty kinnars per set, he could easily make a lot of profits, and such a low price could also attract merchants who were willing to take the risk to trade here.

With a decision in his mind, Suren did not stay here any longer, and let the two barbarian warriors command the kobolds to build houses here, while Suren rushed to the territory.

The territory now has fifteen hundred goblins, kobolds, and gnolls slaves, of which the goblins are the largest, about seven hundred, the kobolds are second with more than five hundred, and the rest are goblins and gnolls, about two hundred.

Although the kobold is not very strong, but this race is good at mining, Su Lun is ready to send all the kobold of more than 500 people to the mine for mining, plus the original more than 200 kobold miners in the mine, close to 800 kobold miners, it is almost enough, and a team must be formed to protect the mine.

It's just that in this way, the territory that was originally quite populated has become scarce again.

So far, Su Lun has felt that his barbarian guard is a little understaffed, there are few freedmen in the territory, and it is impossible to recruit human soldiers, as for those barbarian women and children, some children can participate in the reserve, and many barbarian teenagers will reach adulthood next year.

It's just that even so, it is far from quenching thirst.

This situation cannot be changed for a while, the recruitment order used last time has not even recruited a ghost shadow until now, Su Lun has completely given up, he is going to mine some iron ore first, and then transport it back to forge weapons.

After the weapons were forged, Jean was asked to take the caravan to Carthusian City to sell them, and at the low cost here, even if the selling price was lowered, he could make a lot of profits, and when he had the money, he would go to the slave market to buy serfs or other slaves.

In addition to using these slaves to fill the lack of population in his realm, Suren also intends to promote his domain in the surrounding cities to attract commoners who want to acquire land to act as freedmen.

Because the city of Carthusia has not experienced war for decades, the population has exploded, and many people are born without land, you must know that in this world, the inheritance of property belongs to the eldest son, and the other sons will become independent when they reach adulthood.

This situation has caused many people to have no farmland, no money, and can only go to the city to work, and the vast majority of mercenaries are such people. Those who owned industrial farmland rarely migrated, and Sulun's territory had no attraction to them, only those who had nothing would be willing to take the risk and be willing to travel hundreds of miles of wasteland to live in Suren's territory.

Suren targeted these people, recruiting them to become his freedmen in the territory, although most of these people had no assets, but as long as they worked hard in the territory, Suren would pay them a salary to buy a family business in the territory. Or pay in installments and sell the farmland to them.

In fact, Suren was already thinking about restoring his serfs to freedom, and of course he would not do so now.

He was going to let the slaves work for a few years, and then step by step remove their slave status and make them free people. Although Suren seems to have suffered a loss and suffered a heavy loss by freeing the slaves, in fact the account is not calculated like this.

When they were slaves, these people naturally didn't work hard, even if they were forced to be efficient, although they saved money, but the value created was not much, but if Su Lun agreed with them that as long as he worked for him seriously for a few years, he could be pardoned as a slave and become a free man.

Then the positivity of these slaves will definitely have a leap forward. After a few years, when these slaves became freemen and naturally wanted a better life, then they would definitely work harder and contribute taxes to Suren.

In this way, the value they create is much greater than that of the slaves. Of course, Su Lun didn't do this kind of thing at the beginning, after all, the traditional power of this world is still very strong.

At least he was prepared to wait until he was stronger. If it were done in the southern Sulun, it was estimated that he would be afraid of the influence of the surrounding territories, but in the northern wasteland, a territory with high mountains and far away emperors, basically no one would care.

PS: Thank you for the 100 starting coins reward from the Testosteric Art Book Friends, and thank you for the 100 Starting Coins reward from the Book Friends of the Gloomy Language.