"Are all these people willing to give up their status as border residents?" Zhang Tie's eyes widened at once.
"So-called border residents are merely a claim Great Xia puts forth for outsiders to hear, since it must set an example as the foremost of the myriad human nations. In reality, once these foreigners come to Great Xia—especially in times of war—their ultimate fate is to become household servants of powerful clans and great families, or slaves sent to reclaim wilderness. Their lives and deaths are decided by others. How could they possibly be border residents?"
"Wouldn't that cause trouble?"
"What trouble? Even if every one of them died or was killed, do you think anyone would truly stand up for them?"
"No one would care?"
"No one can do anything about it." Bai Runshan shook his head. "If too many of them die and the authorities really intervene, those powerful clans and great families have plenty of ways to deal with it. The simplest is to make an issue of their identities—say that they are merely slaves hired with money by those great families, and there will be no trouble at all!"
"Slaves hired with money?"
"Great Xia does not permit slavery, but slavery is permitted on the various subcontinents and in foreign countries. So when these people are trafficked into Great Xia, they can ostensibly be described as border residents who have come here. Yet those powerful clans and great families need only find a few agents on the Western Continent or those subcontinents and set up an organization or merchant group. Then they can easily turn these people into slaves leased to Great Xia by foreign organizations or merchant groups. Slaves have no personal rights, and even if they do, all such rights lie in the hands of