"You, young man, should know that too much curiosity in certain areas isn't a good thing," the middle-aged tavern owner said, raising his glass of wine and drinking it down, while narrowing his eyes to conceal his wariness.
"Tell me, owner, I'm just curious," Suleiman persisted, using his inebriation as an excuse.
Seeing this, the owner stroked his Mediterranean, and smiled helplessly: "Alright, it's not a secret anyway, so it doesn't matter if I tell you." As soon as he finished speaking, the owner began to briefly introduce him to the history of the Kerch Isthmus.
The situation of the Kerch Isthmus was different from other parts of Theodosia.
It was originally Greek land, and after 1204, with the Mongol westward expansion, it was ruled by Tatars.
Later, when Genoa purchased Kaffa from the Mongol Empire, this area was included.
But after a period of time, the two sides turned against each other, and the Tatar Mongols began to fight against the Genoese.
Although the Mongols threw plague victims into the city during this time, due to the Genoese's emphasis on it and proper city defenses at the time, they eventually held onto the Kaffa region, including the city of Kerch, also known as Cheleki.
However, the Kerch Isthmus region was not so lucky; it was occupied by Tatar infidels during the war between the two sides, and in several subsequent conflicts between the Golden Horde and Genoa, Genoa eventually virtually recognized the other party's control over this region.
One more thing, this place was not called the Kerch Isthmus at that time, but was generally referred to as the intermediate zone between the two cities (Kaffa and Kerch).
This situation changed with Theodoro's war with Genoa last year and the chaotic infighting among the Tatar princes in the Crimea region.
Regardless of how the public viewed it, the final result was that the Principality successfully acquired the entire Theodosia region, including this grassland area now named the Kerch Isthmus by the Principality's Crown Prince Manuel.
Although the Principality successfully acquired this place, due to years of infighting in the Crimea region, even counting the Tatar tribes living a nomadic life in the Kerch Isthmus and willing to submit to the Principality's rule, the local population did not exceed double digits when the Principality took over, and construction was out of the question, coupled with the harsh conditions, even fleeing serfs would not go there.
"So, your Crown Prince uses this barren land as a place to exile criminals, right?" Suleiman roughly understood his meaning.
The tavern owner nodded, agreeing with his guess.
But Suleiman felt something was wrong, so he asked the owner again about how the Kerch Isthmus managed criminals.
"You, young man, want to know so badly? Alright, most of it isn't a secret anyway, and it's not against the rules to talk about it." The owner smiled helplessly and began to tell his Turk guest, who had no small amount of curiosity, about the publicly known operation of the Kerch Isthmus.
As a place for exiling criminals, the Kerch Isthmus has a relatively unique management mechanism.
Firstly, any hard labor prisoner could be exiled to the Isthmus region, regardless of noble or commoner, male or female, old or young, or disabled, all were treated equally; secondly, prisoners exiled there to do hard labor were forced to build infrastructure for Theodosia locally.
To supervise the prisoners and suppress possible riots, the upper echelons specially sent troops to rotate there for suppression and guarding.
With supervision, the infrastructure in the Isthmus region has achieved some success, and by early July now, the simple fortress previously built by the Principality there has been reinforced to be quite sturdy, and the roads have also been made somewhat smoother; thirdly, the Kerch Isthmus naturally also used the labor of these hard labor prisoners to build houses, and allowed sentence reductions on the condition of settling there, permitting a portion of land to be allocated to them, but the land rights were not in their hands, but in the hands of the Gavras Family.
In other words, it was to allow these prisoners to become serfs with higher autonomy to reduce their sentences and exemptions; fourthly, hard labor prisoners there were also required to regularly participate in military training within a month as conscripted soldiers to respond to possible wars.
Due to the many requirements and regulations, coupled with the desolation of the local area, the relatively harsh environment, and the not-so-fertile land, in the eyes of most Theodosia residents, being exiled to the Kerch Isthmus could be said to be a sure path to death.
Furthermore, what came out from there: hard labor prisoners who died in the Isthmus region were simply buried on the spot after the priests prayed, which made them turn pale at the mention of it, even to the point where being exiled to the Kerch Isthmus had become a classic scare tactic in Theodosia.
Fortunately, at least under the careful operation of the Crown Prince, unless one committed crimes to a certain extent, it was not necessary to reach the severe level of being exiled to the Kerch Isthmus, which is why related jokes circulated in the streets of Theodosia, and why the owner had the leisure to tell this to his guests as an after-dinner anecdote.
What the owner said made Suleiman fall into thought.
Ordinary commoners might not understand the subtleties, but Suleiman, having received a good education since childhood and having years of experience traveling around, had already roughly figured out the thoughts of that Principality's Crown Prince: after years of war and the Tatars' usurpation, the Kerch Isthmus was no longer suitable for Eastern Orthodox or any residents to live in for a long time, and improving local infrastructure and restoring local agriculture and commerce was a major challenge.
If it were an ordinary area, then land could be allocated to small farmers or lords to cultivate themselves, but the Isthmus area was a strategic location, and its governance could not follow common sense, but had to be somewhat militarized, which was a huge problem.
And that Crown Prince's decision on this was to use it ostensibly as a place for exiling prisoners, but actually to use the hard labor of these prisoners to develop infrastructure, strengthen local military power, and at the same time, enhance his power.
Suleiman had a premonition that in the near or distant future, the Kerch Isthmus would not be as uninhabitable as it is now, but would become a sizable industrial stronghold under the Gavras Family.
However, by then, the classic place of exile would surely have to change, wouldn't it?
Thinking of this, Suleiman couldn't help but feel a little curious about the other party, "How interesting, what kind of person would this Principality's Crown Prince be?" he thought.