Back to Ming Dynasty with Industrial Revolution System

Chapter 1233 Contradictions Between Two Empires

"You said you found a Chinese businessman in our Halep?"

Inside a gorgeous dome building, there is a big man, and several maids are pouring wine for him.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with him. He has all the faces of a Chinese businessman. Even the Britons admit this. According to my observations these days, he is definitely not an employee working for the Levant Company. That guy Henry is with him Dialogue on an equal footing." A low-level local official appeared here.

If Li Jinde and the people from Levant Company were here, they must have recognized this low-level official as the person who hosted the banquet for them.

This official looked very humble in front of the big man.

He knew how terrifying this man was. Murat, the great pirate lord of Algiers in the Barbary region, had thousands of North African pirates as his subordinates, and was apparently a senior local official of the Ottoman Empire.

He is also a member of the imperial prime minister's family.

"The Chinese officials executed my son as a smuggler in Batavia. The monopoly of spices has reduced our profits. I want them to pay for it!" said the big man.

"But my lord, he came with the Levant Company of Britain. The Levant Company has a treaty of trade with our Ottoman Empire, and we need their cloths. If we arrest their merchants in their presence, it may It has caused dissatisfaction with the Levant Company. And we also need the spices monopolized by the Chinese, if they are angered by this, we will face the difficulty of shortage of spices." The low-level official said.

"Then there is no need to avenge my son's revenge?!" The pirate master Murat slapped the wooden table hard, making the servants around tremble.

The low-ranking official wiped off his cold sweat: "My lord, it's not impossible to deal with Chinese businessmen. Our emperor has only reached a treaty with the British. But we don't have any treaties with China... With your status in Algiers, my lord, Anyone who is captured and sold into the desert will probably not be able to escape. When someone investigates, it will be said that pirates went ashore and took him away."

Murat thought about it for a while: "You provide me with their residence, and I will send someone to take him away. In the future, any Chinese merchants caught by us will be sold to the desert."

"Your Majesty, go ahead and make preparations. After the adults have arranged the manpower, I will lead the way for you and deal with the troublesome things in the future." The low-ranking official said.

Li Jinde didn't know that he was inexplicably involved in the disputes arising from the spice trade.

The smuggling ship of the Ottoman Empire in Nanyang was seized by officials of the Nanyang Province, and the person in charge was executed, which indirectly caused conflicts between the two sides.The Kyushu Army's monopoly on the spice trade caused dissatisfaction among many merchants engaged in the spice trade in the Ottoman Empire.This dissatisfaction gradually affected the upper echelons of the empire.

Li Jinde bought a woman named Xiaolian, took her to buy some clothes, and walked through the streets and alleys of Halep with the people from Levant Company, and had a general understanding of the city. .

It's just that Li Jinde was still indignant at being captured by pirates in his own country, and he was not in much mood all the way.

Back at the hostel at night, Li Jinde fetched water to take a shower by himself. When Xiao Lian offered to serve him to cook the water, Li Jinde refused.

"Quanzhou had a shipping department in the Yuan Dynasty. During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, although the shipping department was banned to prevent Japanese pirates and the official maritime trade was basically suspended, the folks still had the habit of going to sea. I never thought that I would meet them on the sea. Pirates." After taking a shower, Li Jinde was refreshed, and found Xiao Lian, who could be said to be from the same hometown, and talked about things in his hometown while drinking tea.

At this time, Xiao Lian temporarily put on Ottoman's robe and clothes, and her black hair was draped over her shoulders.

Being captured by pirates and becoming a slave is not just about saving a person by simply paying for ransom.

The real difficulty is how to give her hope of surviving after being rescued. After all, this experience of being captive is likely to become a lifetime of psychological shadow.

"The sea is too dangerous. All the slaves' family members were buried in the hands of pirates, and they didn't even know who they were. At that time, I was captured on an island in the South China Sea, and then I was bought here by a merchant on an Ottoman merchant ship. You, my lord." Xiao Lian said.

Li Jinde thought carefully that if this Xiaolian encountered pirates, all her family members might indeed be killed, so he said: "Nanyang was indeed in chaos a few years ago, but now the government should have tried its best to wipe out the local pirates. I believe that Nanyang should be able to do so in a few years." It is as calm as the southeast coast. Only when our fleet can truly traverse the four seas will we be able to completely eliminate pirates."

"There are so many pirates, is it really possible to completely wipe them out?" Xiao Lian asked.

"My father was also killed by pirates in the Guangdong waters when he was trading at sea. Now the pirates on the southeast coast are basically wiped out by the government's fleet. So as long as the country is strong, we can protect our civilians. It will be washed away. One day, our fleet will make them fearful and dare not arrest our people again!" Li Jinde said angrily.

In Li Jinde's view, the people of the Ottoman Empire dared to seize their human trafficking and regarded China as a country like Western countries.

"The people from Levant and I will stay here for a while, and return to London City after they complete the trade. Our Chinese merchants have set up factories in London City. If you have relatives in Manila who can rely on you, you can go to Take the boat to Manila. If you have no relatives to rely on, I think I can help you find a small job in London or the mainland, and you can live a decent life." Li Jinde did not intend to keep Xiaolian as a servant.

Both he and Aunt Li were farmers, and they had never hired servants to serve them.

"This servant has long been unloved, but my lord spent a lot of money to redeem me. This servant is willing to work for you in order to repay your favor..." Xiao Lian said with tears in her eyes.

"If you really want to repay, please live a good life and see these slave traders receive their due retribution in the future. If they still dare to traffic our people, I will definitely report to the big shots above and ask them for help. The response is fair." Li Jinde said.

"The big man above? Who can punish the slave traders here? I don't know how far this place is from China..." Xiao Lian thought that Li Jinde was just encouraging herself to survive, so she comforted herself like this.

"We already have a fleet in the Western Ocean. If the so-called Ottoman Empire continues to provoke us, maybe the military master will break out a war with them." Li Jinde is very confident in Chu Yun.

(End of this chapter)