Urubaha Duchy

The Urubaha duchy was located to the south of the Forde Trade Union and could be considered to be the starting point for the Golden Coast at the southern seas. At the south of the Falik Plains (where Morante City was located) were the Callisto Hills. The Tedanini mountains, where the dwarven kingdom was located, was further south. At the very southern end of the Tedanini mountains, was the Urubaha duchy.

While the terrain of the duchy was mountainous and near the coast, it was incredibly crude and rural. Its main 'export' was pirates and mercenaries. Half of the pirates that operated at the Solar Seas were the so-called fishing folk of the Urubaha duchy. They were a hodge-podge bunch who didn't care whether a fleet they spotted belonged to a large merchant guild or not. As long as there was an opportunity for profit, they would attack and make off with the precious cargo. Should the merchant guild be the least bit careless, they would suffer huge losses to the raids.

Half of the Urubaha duchy was desolate mountains. The other half was coastal beaches. As such, there wasn't much space for farmland. The thing the duchy was known for was its subterranean caverns which were known to all of Grindia as one of the seven most dangerous places on the continent. Legend says that within the caves lie a mysterious underground world, which saw 9 out of 10 explorers to the caverns failing to return alive.

The Urubaha duchy was a relatively poor nation. The reason for its poor economy was poor management, and that it could be improved if the right person was in charge. Other factors aside, the ancient forests in the duchy which would be ideal for timber production. The duke wasn't keen on investing in roads, and didn't take advantage of the natural resources the duchy possessed. Given that the duchy was near the Tedanini mountains, trade with the dwarves would net quite a bit of profit too. At the same time, one could have people looking for ore veins; yet another avenue in which to invest.

The greatest benefit of making the Urubaha duchy the dominion of the Chikdor Merchant Guild was how the guild could use the pirates for their own benefit. Not only would that be able to cut out the costs of wiping out the pirates, they could even be added to the naval forces of the guild. By spending the least resources, the guild would be able to convert the poor fishing folk into sailors for its fleets, and decrease the cost of hiring and training rookies.

Additionally, traveling from the duchy to Morante City would only take three to four days by ship. The ease of transport would also allow the guild to set up their trade headquarters at the beginning of the Golden Coast, allowing the guild even more ease of control of the trade routes at the southern seas.

However, there were also huge obstacles associated with taking the duchy. Firstly, Duke Urubaha was known to be a hugely stubborn person who was also a rank 3 blademaster. Even though he didn't have any hope of breaking through to become a swordsaint, he was still fit as a fiddle in his seventies and wouldn't be easy to deal with. Other than that, he had two elite armies each numbering up to 24 thousand soldiers. Not only were they the main reason the duke was able to form his duchy, they were also his means of making money.

As the Urubaha Duchy was rather poor, it was rather curious how it was able to maintain two huge armies that would cost a lot of money to maintain. In actuality, the two armies are often 'rented' out to others. Whenever one army's rent term is over, it would return and the other army would be rented out. They would rotate their shifts like so to earn the funds to bring in wealth traded with blood for the duchy.

However, Serihanem felt that if the guild was able to conquer the duchy and make it the guild's dominion, the two armies of the duchy would be able to make up for the guild's weak influence on land. He would definitely not rent the two armies out and believed that the soldiers would quickly become loyal to the guild with his new policy.

Also, Duke Urubaha was also a relative of the president of the Twinhead Dragon Merchant Guild. This was the most troubling obstacle for Serihanem; not only would taking the Urubaha duchy cause them to be on the bad side of the president of the Twinhead Dragon Merchant Guild, the conflict between the two big-seven guilds would most definitely greatly affect the situation of the trade union. That was also why the high officials of the Chikdor Merchant Guild had never even considered taking the territory belonging to the Urubaha duchy as their dominion.

For Serihanem those obstacles wouldn't pose much of a problem. The only difficulty he had was how he would go about convincing the higher-ups of the guild to agree to his idea. He would need at least 10 million gold Fordes to build up the infrastructure of the duchy, that's if he even managed to take it, to improve the living standards to win over the duchy's inhabitants. Even though it would stabilize the guild's control over their dominion, and gradually bring in profits, it's a little too slow for merchants like them who felt that transactions that took too much time wasn't good business.