CHAPTER 332: CHAPTER 234: MAYBE, IT REALLY CAN BE TRIED! _3

The old hunter Zapinon was taken aback and exclaimed, "You’re willing to sell us iron armor? How much do you have?"

"As much as you want!" Ah Man bragged at first, but since even with Wanjin’s advanced production system, these time-consuming, labor-intensive tools of military might were never in large supply, she quickly added, "To start, I can sell you a few dozen... um, a little over a hundred sets—shouldn’t be a problem. Real, proper iron armor: even a strong bow at close range won’t pierce it, and from fifteen paces out, it’ll probably stop a regular iron cannon, so you’ve got a good chance of staying alive."

"That many?" Old hunter Zapinon was shocked again, and couldn’t help but start reassessing Wanjin’s strength. After all, these days only samurai could afford a proper set of iron armor, and a hundred heavily armored warriors would be enough to dominate a territory—everyone would need to show them serious respect.

But he quickly hesitated again, "I don’t think we have that many hides... no, we couldn’t possibly afford that much iron armor."

Their main product nowadays was furs, but on Yakushima Island, furs didn’t fetch a good price. An otter pelt was only worth about thirty Wen, a deer pelt fifty or sixty, a wolf pelt maybe eighty; bear and fox pelts could be a bit better, selling for three to five hundred Wen, but those were rare and mostly depended on luck to find.

But a proper set of iron armor, with all the parts, sold for over a hundred Kan in the Northeast Region—that’s about 90,000 Wen, which would take something like three thousand otter pelts to trade for just one set. Even in bear or fox pelts, that’s a hundred or two, per set.

And that’s just for one set. If they wanted a hundred sets of iron armor, even if they skinned every wild animal around the Zair tribe, it wouldn’t be enough to cover it.

Of course, that’s according to Yakushima Island’s prices. In Owari, even a scruffy wolf pelt could go for over a hundred Wen, and a nice-looking one could sell for three or four hundred. Bear and fox pelts could fetch three or five Kan as long as they were decent enough. Prices in the old days were all very regional—something sold for one Wen here might sell for a whole Kan over there.

Honestly, it’s not much different in modern times. The United States selling planes and missiles to other countries doesn’t bat an eye at charging tens of millions of dollars. Back then, iron armor was pretty much like modern fighter jets or missiles: the foundation of a nation. If you couldn’t make it yourself, you had to pay a sky-high price.

Even China has done stuff like trading a few hundred million shirts for a single airplane. It’s just certain things in history are hard to avoid.

Of course, Ah Man knew the Ainu were basically broke, not used to saving anything—living for today, eating whatever they could, and when it’s gone, heading out hungry to search again tomorrow. It was pretty wild.

Sure, now that the Ainu had moved to Yakushima Island, their habits had shifted a bit. Autumn was a little easier—they’d started hiding some food in caves for the winter, so it didn’t go bad. Probably a habit learned the hard way, after a batch of people starved or froze, but at their core, things didn’t change much. They still weren’t in the habit of saving up. If a crisis hit, they wouldn’t be able to cough anything up—they just weren’t good customers.

Still, she wasn’t bothered by that, and said directly, "Not having money or furs doesn’t matter—you’ve got people! You can trade people for weapons and armor!"

The old hunter Zapinon’s face changed a bit. "People? You want us to sell our own tribe?"

Ah Man waved her hand dismissively. "Of course not. We’re friends—how could I turn your people into family servants? That’s not my style! I, Ah Man, have standards. I wouldn’t do something so heartless—may sons born to me have no assholes if I ever did that kind of shit!

I mean, you can send your surplus young men and women to Wanjin to earn some money working. Frankly, this dump isn’t much—lots of people go hungry every other meal. Wouldn’t it be better to come work for us... or help us fight in a war?

We’ll cover travel and food, everything. One person works three, five, seven, or eight years, and you could earn a set of armor. Or, if you’re going for something more basic, like regular armor, it’s cheaper: just a year’s work and you’ve got a full set, plus you get to eat two filling meals a day—our boss is generous as hell, spends money like an idiot, and doesn’t count costs at all. Wanjin now basically guarantees two meals a day; nobody’s heard of anyone starving in over a year. Your people won’t get a raw deal."

"Work for you, fight your wars... in exchange for iron armor?" The old hunter had lived most of his life but had never heard of such a weird deal. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, much less agree, so he instinctively looked for an excuse: "But if we have iron armor and weapons, our young people still need to defend our land. How can they go off to your place...?"

"I told you already, our boss is super generous—it’s just a hundred sets of armor, after all. I’ll decide and front them to you first. If you’re up for a fight, you can send people to Wanjin afterward to pay it back. Or you can send a small group to work as a down payment, say thirty to fifty, or even twenty or thirty—nobody’s going to nitpick as long as my word’s in it."

Ah Man just wanted to trick the Ainu into coming to Wanjin. However many made it over counted as progress, plus she could stoke a fight between the Ainu and the Lizi Family. This played right into Harano’s "shit-stirrer" strategy for Kantou and the Northeast Region, so she was generous and accommodating.

Of course, if these friends didn’t act like friends and tried to cheat her—especially with high-value goods worth thousands of Kan—then she wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Harano, round up a couple thousand people, and drag them all back for forced labor. Wanjin’s mines and pits were short on hands, and there were fewer criminals to punish. They had no choice but to offer sky-high salaries to lure people into risky, back-breaking work—not that there was ever a shortage of places to put criminals.

Old hunter Zapinon was tempted. The "Wa People" were pressing in, village after village extending further and further inland. Even if his tribe wanted to run, how long could they hide?

Should they try to live on other tribes’ land, fighting them for a mouthful to eat?

The problem before was that fighting always went badly—they simply couldn’t win, and had to keep retreating. But now, with Ah Man from Wanjin suddenly popping up on Yakushima and offering to front them top-quality armor and weapons, maybe the Zair people would find the courage to protect their land and food after all.

Maybe... they really could give it a try!