Preparations Before the Campaign Against the Savage Tribe
Under Wilson's unified arrangements, the 102 slaves were divided into five major groups: the Construction Team, Ironwood Team, Logging Team, Manure Collection Team, and the newly formed Blacksmith Squad.
Without disrupting the work arrangements of the other serfs and free tenant farmers, this batch of slaves had been bought at just the right time.
As mentioned before, slaves held an even lower status than the serfs in the territory. They were regarded as speaking tools.
Though serfs did not hold high status either and were bound to the land, unable to leave or change their identity freely, they still enjoyed certain legal rights to independent households, marriage, and property.
As the owner of these slaves, Luo Ning had the right to determine their status.
Following what he had previously instructed Gallon to say, he promised the slaves that as long as they worked diligently for Mountain Forest Castle for ten years, Luo Ning would remove their slave status and elevate them to the serf class.
At the same time, Luo Ning allowed these slaves to marry and have children. Although their children would still be slaves at birth, once they themselves shed their slave status, their children would no longer be slaves either.
Status had to be earned through one's own efforts. Although Luo Ning possessed the soul of a modern man, he could not be a purely benevolent person in this world.
Providing these people with a path to change their status was already quite generous. What ordinary lord would care whether slaves lived or died?
Though he had made only these two promises, they were enough to awaken in some slaves the desire to escape their fate.
Of course, expecting slaves to be completely self-disciplined was unrealistic. Luo Ning would