Chapter 175: Bogete Boshitafa, Bounty

Jier's caravan was not permitted to enter the city to rest because it contained many armed personnel. However, it was fortunate that because Suishi Cheng had a developed trade and was a smelting center inherited from the Dwarves, although the Dwarves had dismantled and taken away almost all their mining and smelting tools and facilities when they left, the mines themselves could not be taken away.

As an open-pit copper mine, the soil in the lower districts of Suishi Cheng could be used for smelting with just a single shovel of dirt.

Of course, Suishi Cheng was not like that nowadays; the Humans' own smelting level was naturally not as high as the Dwarves', and the demand for metal was not that high either. The few furnaces in the lower part of the city already satisfied all metal needs, and for the most part, Suishi Cheng maintained its city scale as a regional center.

Some small nearby mines would send various metal raw materials here after rough smelting, and then, through further processing, a large number of craftsmen would forge the metal materials into various metal devices and tools, which were then sent by the Merchant Guild through caravans to most areas of the Southern Province.

"Bawei, it looks like there are many craftsmen here; your axe can probably be forged to completion here."

Jier mentioned this to Bawei, who was escorting the bandits on horseback, making Bawei laugh excitedly.

"However, having raw materials alone isn't enough. How will you solve the qualifications for hiring highly skilled forging craftsmen, as well as the consumption funds and hiring fees for their forging?"

As soon as Jier brought this up, it made Bawei's smile freeze on his face.

He touched his not-so-full money pouch and cautiously asked Jier: "My lord, you say, if I hire someone to forge a double-handed battle axe made of magic material, about how much money will it take? And how much time?"

Jier slapped his forehead: "Oh right, I forgot. Traditional forging methods probably take a lot of time. If you solve the cost problem and forge your axe in Suishi Cheng, you will probably have to linger here for a while. And everyone cannot wait here specifically for you."

Upon hearing this, Bawei became nervous: "What do you mean? You don't want me anymore? You want to leave me here?"

Other warriors who heard this laughed out loud, pointing at Bawei's pitiful expression and mocking him.

"Of course not. Having a spiritual magic material battle axe has always been your dream. Everyone is happy to see that your dream has the possibility of being completed. And no one said they were going to leave you behind. You can get the axe matter settled here first, and then find a way to catch up with us later."

"But I don't know anyone here. If I'm all by myself..." Bawei was very hesitant.

"You can't do anything, right?" Jier retorted: "You are a brave warrior tempered by battle. When people in the team talk about you, don't they praise your bravery? Right? Since you have defeated all kinds of terrifying enemies and monsters, can't you handle this little bit of trouble?"

Aoni followed up from the side: "That's right. Is catching up with us later really harder than those parasitic monsters?"

Seeing that everyone said so, Bawei looked at the black smoke coming out of various chimneys above the town ahead and nodded heavily: "Alright, then I will have my axe forged here. But having said that, the problem of qualifications and money still hasn't been solved, right? I only have the raw materials for forging and the money in my pouch."

Once this was said, the surrounding warriors immediately kept a close eye on their own money pouches, and Jier also laughed it off, saying: "The qualifications for hiring highly skilled forging craftsmen will depend on whether these captured bandits can be exchanged for them from the local officials. But as for money, Bawei, it's not that I don't support your dream. How about this, I will lend you five gold coins, and you can figure out the rest yourself, how about that?"

Jier winked as he spoke, and Bawei was not stupid; he immediately understood.

He cheekily approached other familiar warriors, said all the nice things he could, launched a bitter emotional offensive, and finally used the "are we not brothers who fought together" as a killing move. He borrowed at least one gold coin from everyone else, while the three guys who had more money and were the most familiar—Aoni, Weier, and Sipulu—each lent him five gold coins, just like Jier.

With this, Bawei immediately had several dozen gold coins in his hand, and combined with the raw materials he provided for forging, this forging would definitely be enough.

The commotion they just made actually didn't take much time. After finishing, the caravan met with the officials of Suishi Cheng who were welcoming them on the increasingly spacious trade route outside the city.

Saying it was outside the city, in reality, both sides of the trade route here were filled with relatively sparse merchant warehouses, encampments, military training grounds, horse tracks, large inns that accepted caravans, and other shops and facilities.

Since they were not staying in the city tonight, there was no need to camp in the wild; they could just stay in a large, well-equipped inn.

These inns that specialized in merchant travel business each occupied a large area. The courtyard behind the shop could temporarily hold a large number of carriages, and the accommodation rooms in the front were all simple large dormitories. Of course, there were also good rooms for wealthy caravan leaders to stay in.

At this time, merchant travel activities could occasionally be seen on the trade route, but compared to the facilities scattered around, it was clearly too desolate. The severing of the trade route to Duoen Town had a great impact on local commerce.

Therefore, Jier's report of defeating the joint attack of the bandit groups on the trade route was the reason why the Government Office of Suishi Cheng and some other relevant officials all ran over.

Even the Bostafa Baron family, which managed Suishi Cheng, sent a family member over.

"I am Bogete Boshitafa of the Bostafa Family. You are Knight Qiao Jier, right? Truly young, and exceptionally brave! As expected, the world still relies on you young people to push it forward. It's not that the town didn't think about expelling those large-scale bandit groups before, but because they were mostly near Duoen Town, it was difficult for Suishi Cheng to take action."

The person speaking was a middle-aged man, dressed decently, riding on a horse with pure white fur. The small mustache on his face had been carefully groomed, his appearance looked very good, and he spoke very pleasantly.

"Greetings, Mr. Bogete. I am Qiao Jier. Was it difficult to take action because of the Merchant Union?" Jier rode his horse closer to the other party and took over the conversation.

"As expected, you are very sharp. It is indeed the Merchant Union. As early as when the previous Baron was in power, it was agreed that the area of the current Duoen Town would be handed over to the Merchant Union for management. They only needed to pay a certain amount of tax annually according to the agreement, and then they would possess the qualifications for temporary local management."

Mr. Bogete sighed and shook his head: "I was still young at the time, and you probably hadn't been born yet. That place, Duoen Town, had nothing but a piece of wilderness. Oh, maybe there were some wild black markets spontaneously established by black-hearted merchants, specifically for handling various stolen goods looted by nearby bandits. In short, it was very chaotic. At that time, my uncle discussed it with several large merchant guilds and handed that land over to them to handle. No matter what means they used, as long as they could stabilize the regional situation and pay the full amount of tax, that place would be handed over to them for management."

As the two talked, their subordinates did not stop.

The Human warriors, following the instructions of Xueya Site, handed over batches of surrendered bandits who were too hungry to walk to the city guards and armed soldiers who had come with Mr. Bogete.

The former seemed to be the basic public security defense force of Suishi Cheng, while the latter wore metal armor plates. Although they were all thin standard-issue armor, each of them held a long spear and carried a long sword and shield at their waist; they were clearly the core combat force at a glance.

Upon asking, they learned that these soldiers were the defense force of the city prison, and the prison was located at the very bottom of Suishi Cheng. Those surrendered bandits would be thrown into the bottom-level prison after interrogation to spend a long prison term of at least ten years. As for the surrendered farmers who were caught along with the team and the shop assistants who worked for the Oakes Brothers, they were taken away by the city guards and locked in a temporary jail by the city wall above, and people were sent to notify their families, if any, to let the families come and pay the fines to collect them.

After all, unlike the bandits who had repeatedly looted merchants on the road, although these farmers and shop assistants had attacked Jier's caravan, they unfortunately did not cause any casualties to the caravan, but instead bumped into Jier first and suffered heavy losses themselves.

But things in the wild are just like that; it only depends on the level of strength, not on right or wrong.

And here in Suishi Cheng, because the public security laws had the support of local violent institutions, the laws could manifest their true power and mandatory nature.

The Dwarves also packed up their ox carts and chose a large inn nearby to check in. Their arrival actually made all the Humans, including the innkeeper, pleasantly surprised. In Suishi Cheng, which had a strong Dwarf style, being able to have real Dwarves stay in the inn was a qualification that could be used as special publicity in the future!

After all, since the Dwarves chose to stay in the inn, it showed that his inn truly met the aesthetic standards of the Dwarves!

Although the old Dwarf and the others only chose this inn because it was the closest to the caravan.

The several merchant guilds that accompanied the caravan also became busy. Most of them had related businesses in Suishi Cheng. Previously, the trade route between Duoen Town and Suishi Cheng was cut off, and many of their merchant guild's businesses were delayed. Now that they had finally arrived, naturally, some urgent transactions had to be completed quickly. Those who needed to go into the city had to enter as soon as possible before it got dark to handle them. And some travelers who came along with the caravan also finally arrived safely at the county seat after witnessing a terrifying slaughter. Most of them decided to rest here and would not continue to travel with the caravan.

After all, wherever these travelers wanted to go later, they could just find a caravan to give them a ride when the time came.

While Jier's warriors were handing over the exhausted bandits, Jier also asked Xueya Site and Mr. Zuojigela to help take out the heads of the bandit leaders and verify the wanted bandit leaders together with the officials from the local Government Office who had come specifically for this.

For every person verified, Jier could receive an extra bounty here. And because more merchants and travelers had been attacked and looted by these bandits in Suishi Cheng, the bounty here would be higher. Almost every bandit leader who had committed a major case could collect a cumulative bounty of about ten to fifteen gold coins.

Jier himself was invited by Mr. Bogete Boshitafa to be a guest at the Baron family's house tonight. Of course, because of the situation in Suishi Cheng, Jier needed to bring a few Dwarf mercenaries, as some people in the Baron family also wanted to see these rare Dwarves.

However, if anyone really wanted to see Dwarves, they could go to the Western Province. On the border there, they fought against the military radicals of the Dwarves year after year, and there were naturally quite a few Dwarf soldiers captured or killed.

Over there, one could see many Dwarves.

Because Jier's caravan had arrived outside Suishi Cheng in the evening after a long and dusty journey, in order to let Jier rest for a while before attending the Baron family's invitation banquet in the evening, Mr. Bogete did not leave but waited with his attendants in the lobby of the inn where Jier's caravan was staying. Otherwise, after it got dark in the evening, Jier, a young knight from out of town, would not be able to call open the city gates of Suishi Cheng.

After all, this was not Kendall City, and no one knew Jier. But even in Kendall City, Jier wouldn't be able to call open the city gates anyway.

He recognized Knight Kela as the guide on his path of knighthood, and catching the eye of the Kendall Baron was also something that happened during this journey south.

Jier's subordinates were still outside the inn dealing with the surrendered bandits and the bounty for the bandit leaders. Jier himself hurried to this inn called 【Ping Guo Jiu】, which specifically served caravans, opened the best room, and immediately asked the inn to send hot water. He cleaned himself up and found a few idle warriors, asking them to take wooden brushes and grease to wipe down the armor plates Jier wore, remove the rust and dust on the armor, and polish it until it was bright.

After Jier cleaned himself and put on his armor again, Jier then mounted Tianxuecao, which had also been urgently cleaned by the drivers, and prepared to head into the city with Mr. Bogete and his party.

At this time, the handover procedures for the surrendered bandits had been completed, and the large group of city guards and elite soldiers had long since escorted the exhausted and hungry surrendered bandits away. And Xueya Site and the others, who had turned in the heads of the bandit leaders, also handed two bags of gold and silver coins to Jier.

Almost all the bandit leaders had bounties on them. Only one or two guys who were not very famous—perhaps because no one escaped the cases they committed, or perhaps those guys were not as good as their reputation and, although they were leaders, had not really led a team to loot any caravan—so the officials of the Government Office flipped through the thick stack of bounty orders at hand and did not find any bounties for these people.

However, Jier and his men didn't want these heads either and handed them over to the local Government Office together. The officials didn't mind either; although they were not wanted bandits on the bounty orders, it was possible to "digest" some long-standing bounty orders by fishing in troubled waters.

Of course, they naturally pocketed the bounties on these bounty orders that no one had claimed for years.

However, the money for these bounty orders was not much, because the money for these bounty orders was not immutable.

The amount of the bounty is generally divided into several parts; one of these is naturally a portion allocated by the local Government Office from government funds based on the damage the wanted person has caused to local governance and laws, and this portion of the amount is fixed and does not change with the passage of time.

However, this portion of the funds is mostly a virtual account; it not only requires going through administrative procedures within the Government Office, but there is also no actual currency in existence, as it is all recorded on the books and must be temporarily drawn from the current Government Office treasury when needed.

Another part consists of a portion of the taxes paid annually by the Merchant Guilds and Caravans after they report the situation of being plundered by the wanted Bandit, but the proportion is relatively small. Because Merchant Guilds and Caravans often think of various ways to evade taxes, the actual amount of tax that local tax officials can collect from the Merchant Guilds depends on the capabilities and connections of the local City Guard and the tax officials themselves.

Furthermore, this portion of the bounty also needs to be drawn from the tax revenue after the Merchant Guilds pay their taxes for that year; if the timing is off, then naturally this money is not available.

The final part, which is also the most important component of the bounty, is the money that the plundered victims themselves pay out of pocket to fill into the bounty. Every plundered Caravan will take out a portion of money to invest in the personal bounty of the Bandit Leader who caused the plundering incident. At the same time, the families of the Shop Assistants killed during the plundering will also take a portion of the compensation given by the Merchant Guild to use as revenge money, filling it into the bounty in the hope that a Bounty Hunter or someone else will take a fancy to this money and specifically go to kill that guy to avenge the family members.

If this portion of money is not claimed by anyone for a long time, it means that the wanted guy has not died for a long time, and after many years have passed, the disheartened families of the victims will withdraw the bounty money they had put out from the Government Office.

At this time, the only things left for this wanted guy are the portion of the bounty that the Government Office filled in through its procedures, and the portion of the bounty drawn from tax revenue after the Caravan was plundered.

This money is not much, which is why these Government Office officials can use the head of a Bandit Leader that Jier does not want to carry out a "substitution" and fraudulent claim that no one cares about.

After all, many years have passed; who knows if the guy who was originally wanted died in an infighting among bad guys, or died of illness somewhere unknown? These are all possibilities.