Chapter 681: The Slaves' Future (2)

The weather was clear and the sun shone brightly — a perfect day for auctioning slaves — so Baifeng notified everyone in the morning that they did not have to go to work today, and told each to bring his wife to the battalion camp to take part in the slave auction; yes, not a direct sale, but an auction.

Baifeng made a last-minute change: only an auction could fetch higher prices for quality slaves, and those noble houses with ample grain stores would surely be willing to pay sufficiently high prices to buy a slave of great use to them.

The officials did not know what this slave auction meant, but they could guess it was selling those slaves; as for how to sell them, they could not guess — since it was called an auction, it was certainly different from the usual practice.

And those officials able to enter the Chaotang were equivalent to holding an admission ticket; those who had not entered that large office for the meeting naturally had no qualification to participate in the auction, mainly because their personal financial resources were insufficient.

Having set the time and place, they immediately set off for home; since the King said they could bring their wives and let them take part as well, the implication was that they absolutely had to bring them.

Baifeng would merely attend this auction to observe, and would not actually bid against others; slaves suited to work in Baifeng's household had already been selected long ago and would not take part in the auction.

They also graded the slaves into different levels and uses; perhaps the highest-priced, most sought-after ones here were those two hundred-plus cooks who could cook, for cooks were truly scarce.

To prevent the proceedings from dragging on too long, they were auctioned in batches — several slaves as a unit — so that a buyer would take that many at once; although the price would be higher, the speed would be much faster.

As for the other slaves, the versatile ones who could attend to daily life, men and women mixed, were grouped directly by the handful or even dozens per unit; once a unit was bought, they could be put to work in the household according to their designated roles without the master needing to oversee them much.

There were female slaves specially cultivated to serve the mistress — from helping her dress, to doing her hair and makeup, even attending her bath — all fully trained; Baifeng had them bring their wives precisely for this reason, because only women would like this kind of slave.

The slaves had been setting up the venue since yesterday — moving chairs and tables, arranging positions, even piling earth and wood into a raised platform; they did not know what it was for, much less that this was the place that would decide their fate.

That evening's meal could be said to be the best they had eaten, because the instructors told them they could eat without limit for this one meal; no matter how much remained in the ration cans, as long as they could finish it, they could eat it all.

The slaves now understood very clearly that whatever the instructors said was law — there would be no testing of them — so when the instructors said to eat freely, they did not hold back or feel fear, and once again displayed this era's people's craving for food, polishing off nearly three days' worth of rations in a single sitting; they truly felt what it meant to be stuffed until they could eat no more, and some women even felt the food they had swallowed about to surge back up their throats.

The soldiers did this because recovering that food would waste too much time and effort, and the food was not worth much anyway — recovered, it would only serve again as livestock feed — and not much was left regardless.

In view of the slaves' decent performance so far, this surplus food was treated as a reward for them; starting tomorrow they would no longer live here, and after the auction they would go to various wealthy households; as for how they would be arranged afterward, that had nothing to do with the soldiers — the state's laws only stipulated no malicious abuse of slaves and no arbitrary killing of slaves, but whatever punishment a master meted out was entirely at his discretion.

In the morning the instructors blew their whistles earlier than usual; the slaves rose feeling listless all over, sensing something was off, and sure enough, once they stepped out of their tents and saw the still-early light, they knew why — their usual wake-up time had not yet arrived.

They had not yet figured out why they were made to rise early when the instructors, holding registration books, began calling roll in each camp area and demanded they bring their personal belongings.

The sudden change flustered the slaves; the moment had come for them to bring their personal effects, and they guessed they would likely be leaving this place.

Before they could exchange greetings with their tent-mates, they were swiftly separated; people in the same tent might have uneven skills and different specialties, so they were scrambled and mixed into new squads.

But the clever ones, judging by their new squads, could roughly guess the situation: those good at cooking stood together, those praised as clever stood together, those with great strength formed a squad — it could be said that now each squad consisted of people just like oneself.

During training the general situation of Huaxia, the state's composition, had already been explained to the slaves, so the slaves knew Huaxia placed great emphasis on division of labor — a person suited for a certain task would be assigned to that post and need do nothing else; their lifelong work would be just that.

The instructors had also told the slaves they would be divided in this way, so the cooks themselves knew they would cook for a lifetime, yet they felt not a trace of sadness — instead they were extremely excited, extremely expectant; who would not like such an easy, interesting job?

Once the squads were sorted, the soldiers reassigned to new groups also came before their charges, each holding a roster; after roll call again they confirmed everyone was present, no mistakes.

And they distinguished quality slaves with exceptional meticulousness: cooking skill was graded, and the very best, after forming ranks, were called out again by name and then led away by the familiar slave instructors.

During training they had already learned those instructors' slave status; what they had not expected was that a slave could be so arrogant — even the soldiers dared not casually berate them — it could be said that, as fellow slaves, Baifeng's few slaves had become idols to all slaves; they felt that if they could become slaves like that, what significance would status have?