Ordinary Heaven Dou people were actually not easy to educate, because they had been steeped in such feudal thinking since childhood. Although their lives were not particularly good, unless they could no longer survive, most still preferred to submit to royalization and remain obedient subjects.
Slaves were different. Their status was not recognized by the empire, nor were they protected by law. Although the imperial family strictly prohibited slavery, these people continued to exist, lived even more miserably than ordinary peasants, and were far from few in number. A considerable portion had previously been sold here from the Northern Land, while others had been forced into displacement by all manner of natural and man-made disasters, becoming commodities for the nobles and living hellish lives ever since.
Having endured such painful lives, their experiences were much like those of the people of the Northern Land back then. The Jiuzhou Empire had ample experience rescuing such people, and the cost was far lower than that of getting Heaven Dou people, whose thinking was almost set in stone, to accept the Jiuzhou Empire.
This was actually easy to understand. Look at those Qing Dynasty loyalists-hadn't more than a century passed, yet there were still swathes of them? This was not something that could be solved simply by filling people's bellies.
The entire process was like rebuilding the Northern Province's former criminal trade network in reverse, except that where people had once been sold off, they were now being bought back.
Of course, if the price was too low, no one would be willing to sell, so the price would be somewhat higher than the original selling price. In effect, these people had enjoyed their labor for free all this time and, rather than taking a loss, would even turn a small profit.
This