Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1348 Slaves
Mongolian trade was the most lucrative trade other than maritime trade in Ming Dynasty, and Shanxi merchants made countless fortunes as a result.The Senate has long been salivating.However, in the Ming Dynasty, because Mongolia was a border trouble and trade control was extremely strict, there were not many merchants who could really get involved in this trade, and for the Senate far away overseas, they could only watch it.

To do business with Mongolia, either set up a workstation to carry out this business as a Ming businessman, or you can only conduct second-hand trade through the border generals of the Ming army and the Manchus.The latter is obviously easier in operation-of course, the profit will decrease, but it is a great advantage in terms of ensuring the safety of personnel and timely payment.

The transaction with Houjin is naturally related to Mongolian trade - Houjin does not have a large demand for tea, but Mongolia has a very large demand for tea. The control area of ​​the Senate is close to the largest Chinese The major tea provinces, whether Fujian, Guangdong, or Jiangxi, produce a large amount of tea.If sales channels can be opened in this way, it will be of great benefit to expand trade share.

At the end of the meeting, after the general details were finalized, Huang Hua raised three other demands:
Allocate land for them to open business offices in Shengjing; guarantee the personal and property safety of Tai O merchants and their entourage; Tai O ships can navigate freely on the Yalu River.

These three requirements were all approved by the Ministry of Household Affairs, and all of them were approved by Huang Taiji, but there was a prerequisite for the approval: the three conditions must be met after the end of the first mutual market.

Opening a shop in Shengjing is equivalent to setting up eyes and ears in Shenyang. Although the shop itself is bound to be closely monitored by the Houjin side, the radio and steganography potion are enough to transmit information.

Now that the agreement between the two parties had been signed, Hou Jin placed them in a temple in the city, separately in a house with two courtyards, and gave him four maids, ten male servants, two grooms, and four grooms. The rough-handed maid—who is responsible for sending people here. Zhang Jing said that Da Khan had heard that people in Tai O liked "raw food" the most, so she specially selected it from the Shangsanqi Huangzhuang.

Huang Hua couldn't laugh or cry, given so many people at once, where would I let them sleep?There is also the cost of meals: now the Ministry of Rites allocates salt, rice, meat, wine, etc. on a head-by-day basis to the entire delegation. Now that there are more than a dozen people, it can't be said that the master doesn't care about the food.

"Master, please don't worry. The adults have said that these births will be given to the master. All the expenses in Shengjing will be paid by the Ministry of Rites. Don't worry about the master." Zhang Jing slapped thousands with a smile on his face.

Saying hello, he brought a "gift" over and kowtowed.Huang Hua saw that these men and women were all well-dressed, but except for the four young maidservants and the leading male servant who looked better, all of them were sallow and emaciated, and they were shy.The men's scalps were all blue, as if they were newly shaved.At first glance, it was packed in a surprise attack before it was sent.

"Get up, you don't need to kowtow." Huang Hua saw a large group of people kowtow to him, he was not used to it, waved his hand and asked, "Well, well, where do they sleep..."

Although the houses assigned to them were divided into front and back, the entire mission was full, and a few guards could only take turns sleeping on the porch—serving as guards by the way.

"Let them live in the long corridors on both sides first. It's not a great thing to work under your old hand."

Huang Hua was very speechless, these days slaves have no human rights, he has seen a lot along the way.In the late Jin regime, the country was impoverished and the people were poor, and ordinary officials and soldiers of the Eight Banners had a difficult life, let alone slaves.

The second gift was the Mongolian steed he once rode. In addition to this Mongolian steed, he gave ten more fine horses—this was considered a return to their gifts. According to the idea, the rebates received by foreign envoys always exceed, even greatly exceed the value of gifts.However, Hou Jin would be too poor at this time, and his actions were far less generous than the later "measurement of China's material resources".Had to make do with raw mouth and horses.

Huang Hua immediately asked someone to seal four taels of silver to Zhang Jing, and sent him out, seeing the dozen or so dumb servants in the yard who were at a loss for what to do.

Although these people were all wearing new clothes, except for a few who had small bags, the others didn't even have a piece of luggage. It was no wonder what kind of life they lived in the past.

Seeing that the master was sizing him up, the group knelt down again with a huff.Huang Hua has been in the mall for a long time, and her ability to read people's words and emotions is first-rate. With a little glance, I can see that there is a deep sense of fear in the eyes of these people.

One of the older male servants saw that the new master was looking at them, so he stood up quickly, trotted over and called again:

"Slave Lan Bian, please greet the master! The master is a prince!"

Huang Hua nodded: "Get up." Then he raised his hand again, "Everyone get up."

"Thank you, Master, for your grace!" Lan Bian stood up immediately, with clean movements.His behavior reminded Huang Hua of soldiers involuntarily.

"You are……"

"The slave, Lan Bian, was originally an errand in Zhenghuangqi Huangzhuang. This time, Baylor specially asked the slave to take them to serve under the master's door."

Huang Hua saw that he was of medium build, with a strong physique, and his gestures were powerful. He was completely different from the thin and timid appearance of the other servants. He knew that he was probably the little leader of the slaves, maybe he was a coat, and he fought with the master. Over the war.

This person came to serve him, he was probably An De's eyeliner given to him by Eight Banners.Huang Hua already has a heart of vigilance, he is always on guard against others, but on the contrary, he is very affectionate when talking:

"Since you have followed me, as long as you do things with integrity, you must be praised."

"Thank you, master, for your kindness!" Lan Bian hurriedly slapped another thousand, "If the master has any orders, please ask for instructions!"

"Let's solve your food and accommodation problems first..."

Although Huang Hua didn't trust Lan Bian very much, he was obviously the little leader among the servants, and he should be familiar with the local conditions, so he could serve as a source of basic information.So he had to win over a little bit.At present, the caretaker first arranges accommodation for these servants separately.

"There is no room left." The sergeant leading the team frowned, "How about I let the brothers squeeze and make room?"

"You are already three people in one room, how can you still squeeze?"

Liaodong is a place of bitter cold, and all the protection from the cold depends on the kang or brazier in the house, so the room area is not large.The main room is better, but the wing room is quite cramped.It is not enough to accommodate two soldiers, but now there are three people.If you squeeze people into the kang, you will not be able to sleep.

"If it doesn't work, just sleep another one on the ground—there is a kang in the house, so it won't be damaged by freezing."

"The charcoal gas is heavy on the ground, and the air is even worse when there are too many people." Huang Hua shook his head, "Move a few of you to the main room to sleep."

There are three main rooms, and the middle one has no kang, so it cannot accommodate people at all, and can only live in the warm pavilions on both sides.Now he lives in Huanghua on the one hand, and his two orderlies on the other.

"I sleep in a room with the orderly, and you can move two more people in. The main room also has a few bunks and a few more braziers—it's always warmer than the outside."

But there are as many as 20 new servants, and there are differences between men and women, so they cannot live together.No matter how Huang Hua and the sergeant arranged, they still couldn't arrange everything.

Lan Bian saw that "Master Huang" didn't have any "instructions", instead he was arranging a place for himself, so he quickly took a step forward and said, "Master, don't worry, except for a few girls who are weak, please ask the housekeeper to arrange for them to come out." , as long as we have a brazier, we can live under the porch..."

Huang Hua shook his head: "Liaodong is a place of bitter cold, and I didn't freeze to death living in the corridor."

"Now that the weather is warm, a brazier will do..."

"How is this possible? You are not very strong, what if you get sick?" Huang Hua said naturally, "Let me think of a way."

Lan Bian wanted to say something more, but saw that Huang Hua's words were sincere and definitely not casual, so he stepped aside and said nothing more.

Huang Hua took care of the people to talk to the Hou Jin officials who were receiving them, and finally got another abandoned hall full of sundries, and managed to arrange everyone there.Huang Hua told the soldiers to vacate two rooms with kangs for the maids to live in, and the others helped to clean up, clean up the sundries, paste the broken windows one by one, and brought a few braziers from the temple, and bought some Charcoal is lit for a fire.The house is cold and empty, and the heating effect of the brazier is very poor.Standing in this empty and tall palace, Huang Hua didn't feel his body warm up for a long time.Then look at the servants, all of whom shrank their necks and stomped their hands.

Huang Hua looked at it strangely, it looked like they were all wearing newly made cotton padded clothes - they were quite thick, it shouldn't be so cold, he walked into a servant and grabbed his skirt.

The person was taken aback and didn't know what the new owner meant.Kneel down in panic.

"Don't kneel, let me see how you are dressed." Huang Hua said.

After a closer look, I found that these people were wearing new clothes, but they were actually stitched together from pieces of rags and re-dyed.At first glance, it looks neat and bright, but in fact, the stitches are rough and simple.It is filled with only reed flowers.A small leader like Lanbian only has a tattered sheepskin jacket.It was okay when I was working just now, but when I stopped, everyone was shivering from the cold.Huang Hua took a closer look, and found that the chilblains on everyone's hands were swollen, and some of them had already festered.

"This Manqing is really poor." Huang Hua said, ordering the sergeant, "Tell everyone to take out the spare training uniforms and cotton vests for these new brothers to wear!"

"Yes!"

In addition to uniforms and overcoats, the guards also have a spare light padded jacket uniform and padded vests.Not long after the sergeant passed by, he brought someone to fetch the clothes.Distributed to the new servants one by one.

(End of this chapter)