Chapter Thirty-Eight: Jinzhou

The Emperor of Madrid began waging war against the Elven Empire, but the alliance of elves and centaurs, who had also adopted the dwarven empire’s technology, dealt him bitter defeats and forced him to abandon his campaign. The Dwarven Kingdom, separated by a theocratic nation devoted to the God of Light, was also beyond his reach. In the end, the Emperor of Madrid had no choice but to follow dwarven records and set out to explore new western continents. As for the eastern continent, which had brought the utter destruction of the Dwarven Empire’s army, he had no intention of venturing there.

Since the Dwarven Empire’s nautical charts—deemed unimportant—had long disappeared in the chaos of war, the Emperor of Madrid had to organize his own expeditions in search of new lands. Unexpectedly, he discovered a barren continent at first. Initially, the emperor believed this was the so-called Orc Continent, but further exploration revealed not a single orc. Instead, a race of wood elves, akin to high elves, inhabited the land. These wood elves, being gentle by nature, lived peacefully alongside humans.

Still unsatisfied, the Emperor of Madrid pushed southward. Eventually, after passing through a strait dotted with many small islands, he discovered the Orc Continent. Since this continent lay to the south of the new world, humans simply called it the Southern Continent.

With great enthusiasm, the Emperor of Madrid quickly established colonies on the Southern Continent. The backward orcs were no match for the human armies armed with firearms. However, as colonization deepened, the emperor found the Southern Continent to be desperately poor. Apart from filthy orcs, it offered nothing of value. Meanwhile, gold mines were discovered on the Northern Continent!

Naturally, the empire’s attention shifted from the Southern to the Northern Continent. With more gold mines being found, the land was named Gold Province by the Madrid people, a name that endures to this day. The exploitation of the Southern Continent slowed to a crawl, only picking up slightly after a few small gold deposits were found, but compared to the frenzied activity in Gold Province, it was insignificant.

During the Madrid Empire’s heyday, Gold Province experienced repeated gold rushes, drawing in waves of fortune-seeking humans. The ever-expanding colonies began to threaten the wood elves’ existence, leading to constant friction between humans and elves. The imperial authorities, however, paid little heed to the wood elves, as the gold mining regions did not overlap with their homelands.

Thus, aside from sporadic clashes with slave traders, the wood elves’ way of life remained largely undisturbed. Selling beautiful wood elves was certainly lucrative, but such profits paled in comparison to the dazzling lure of gold!

This state of affairs persisted until the collapse of the Madrid Empire. The English and the Franknian peoples succeeded the Madrid colonists in Gold Province. These rising nations were not as easy to negotiate with as the aging Madrid Empire had been. Whereas Madrid had long enriched itself with gold, the new conquerors were war-burdened and heavily indebted.

No profitable opportunity escaped the greedy English and Franknians. They seized control of the gold mines, and the chance to trade in wood elves—who fetched high prices—was too good to pass up. Thus, following the decline of the Madrid Empire, disaster befell the wood elves.

Both the English and Franknian empires not only tolerated the private smuggling of wood elf slaves but also dispatched regular armies to raid elven settlements, capturing beautiful elves to sell to nobles and wealthy merchants. Elves, male or female, were all extraordinarily attractive, so slavers profited regardless of whom they captured. This greatly stimulated the slave trade. The High Elven Empire was far too powerful for these human traffickers to provoke, so their attention turned to the less-advanced wood elves of Gold Province.

The Elven Empire, enraged by these human actions, regarded all humans as deadly enemies, branding them as filthy, contemptible rogues.

Of course, this was an unfair generalization. Many human factions looked down on the slave trade, which is why the Madrid Empire never engaged in the capture of wood elves.

The newly ascendant English and Franknian empires, willing to abandon all moral scruples for profit, had no concern for the distant Elven Empire in eastern Europa. As profits soared, the slave trade flourished. The wood elves, far from being passive victims, engaged in protracted guerrilla warfare when direct confrontation proved futile. Yet, faced with both organized slaver bands and imperial regulars, the wood elves suffered repeated defeats, whether in large battles or small skirmishes.

As the cycle of hatred and warfare intensified, the wood elves abandoned the sole defense of their homeland. A new generation, driven by vengeance, left their forests to oppose the English and Franknians across Gold Province. They understood clearly that their true enemies were only these two greedy nations; they harbored little animosity towards other humans.

These resolute wood elves banded together, forming groups of bandits, pirates, and guerrillas, relentlessly raiding and sabotaging English and Franknian mining operations and convoys. The spoils were traded with other human factions to acquire better weaponry and strengthen their cause.

Because the wood elves cared little for price so long as the weapons were advanced, many smugglers favored these ‘generous fools.’ Thus, the elven resistance—or bandit—organizations were never fully eradicated. Though the two empires maintained the upper hand, suppressing the militarization of Gold Province’s elves, they could never entirely eliminate this resistance. And so, Gold Province developed amid the ongoing tug-of-war between wood elves and the two great empires.

Consequently, Gold Province was far more chaotic than the Southern Continent, with battles and robberies breaking out at any moment. As the old adage goes: wherever there is profit, there will always be conflict.

In contrast, the Southern Continent remained largely peaceful, as the orcs’ ugliness, stupidity, filth, and poverty made them unworthy targets. Until the rise of Sun Li, humans and orcs lived in relative harmony. One wonders whether the wood elves’ famed beauty was a blessing or a curse.

It was in this state of deep ignorance regarding Gold Province that Sun Li set out on his journey. In his mind, Gold Province ought to be the safest place—would it prove to hold unexpected surprises?

At a small coastal port controlled by the Song Kingdom on the Southern Continent, Sun Li and his party of twenty boarded a small merchant vessel. To save funds, Sun Li could only afford to build such cannonless ships for intercontinental transport—a regrettable necessity. He could only pray there would be few pirates in the Caribbean Straits, allowing his ships to reach Gold Province safely. He cared little for his own safety but worried for the advance spies he had dispatched—after all, they had been hired at considerable expense. In the Song Kingdom’s tight financial straits, the loss of even a single agent would pain Sun Li greatly!