I

  Chapter 594 591 [The issue of foreign slaves]

  Qinhuai River, the Fengyue business has become more and more sluggish in recent years.

  The reason is very simple. The people's life is better, and the number of prostitutes will naturally decrease. What's more, the imperial court severely cracked down on human trafficking, and those caught were often exiled or beheaded.

  Even the girls from Goulan Washeri were immigrated to the north in batches. In the northern provinces, not only the population has decreased sharply, but also the ratio of male to female is abnormal. Every year along the Qinhuai River, there are dozens of quotas for female immigrants—almost semi-mandatory.

  In the past two years, Nanjing's Fengyue industry has gradually begun to recover.

  Die Cui Lou, business is full today.

An old prostitute with a lingering charm stepped up to the stairs and said to the guests in the lobby downstairs: "My daughter is getting married today, thank you all distinguished guests for coming to join us in your busy schedule. This first level, the topic has already been revealed. It has been more than a month, and everyone must have the answer. Please listen to the question. The towering ancient temple is hidden in the mountains and forests. The four of them ate a bowl of soup together. May I ask you, sir, how many monks are there in the monastery?"

   "I'm coming, I'm coming!"

   "I can solve this question too!"

   "..."

  All the guests raised their hands one after another, a very simple equation problem, and it was announced one month in advance. Even people who don't know how to calculate have already found someone to calculate the answer.

The old prostitute smiled and said: "Listen to everyone, to pass this test, you must not only give the answer, but also give the calculation process. Whether you use the ancient Tianyuan technique or your majesty's equation, you must do the calculation on the spot. .”

  As soon as these words came out, there was an uproar.

  Many scholars who only read the Four Books and Five Classics, as well as those businessmen who were ignorant, complained that the old prostitutes were spoiling the scenery.

   But the more this is the case, the more lively the atmosphere will be.

  Wu Weiye said to Mao Pijiang: "Brother Pijiang, why don't you leak your skills?"

   "What kind of skill is this? It's just a middle school problem." Mao Pijiang already has some basic knowledge in mathematics. He has been studying textbooks by himself for the past two years. He has obtained his primary school diploma and is expected to graduate from high school next year.

  Many scholars in the field, like the idea of ​​pretending to open up frontiers, were stimulated by the standards of the official examiners last year.

  Official examiners need graduation certificates, and officials in the future will definitely also need them. They have to get a graduation certificate quickly. What if the policy continues to be tightened in the future and adults are not allowed to attend elementary school?

  The old prostitutes began to distribute pens and paper and counting sticks, which can be solved by equations or counting sticks.

  However, the answerer must pay one tael of silver!

  Drought in several provinces this year, severe reduction in grain production, the price of rice in Nanjing has risen to 13 yuan per catty. The registration fee of one tael of silver can buy about 50 catties of white rice, and even more in bumper harvest years.

  But there were so many applicants on the spot, they all took out their money and took away the paper and pen from the old prostitute.

  After some calculations, more than 60 people passed the test.

The old prostitute smiled and said, "It's a festive night, and there are so many talented scholars gathered here. As for the second question, please choose any one of "Datong Collection Sanyuan Chapter", and write it down silently in a stick of incense, with the least mistakes. People can pass through."

  The whole audience was silent, and then became very noisy.

  This question is not prepared in advance, and no one prepares time for it. Who is a serious person to memorize "The Collection of Datong"?

Seeing too many complaints and protesters, the old prostitute could only explain with a wry smile: "Dear guests, it's not that my concubine deliberately made things difficult. It's just that people from the government came yesterday and said that in the future, whenever any daughter of a family gets married, she will be tested and educated." When you are talented, you must take "Da Tong Ji" with you."

   "Poof!"

  Wu Weiye was tasting wine when he heard the words and spewed out.

   "Cough cough cough!"

  Wu Weiye coughed for a while, wiped away the wine stains at the corner of his mouth, and couldn't laugh or cry: "This is really an unheard of thing, today is really a saint."

  Mao Pijiang put down his wine glass, picked up a brush and began to write silently.

  In addition to participating in the literary society, he has been focusing on self-study recently. "Sanyuan Pian" belongs to the content of middle school textbooks, and I had memorized it a few days ago, and Mao Pijiang is sure that the word is good.

  After a stick of incense, the second question was handed in, and thirty people were quickly selected.

There are policies and measures to counter.

  The government only said that the questions must be related to "Datong Ji", but did not stipulate that they must be answered. The old prostitute then set a quota of 30 people, and those who made the fewest mistakes could be selected, and more than half of the selected ones could only write two or three sentences silently.

  The old prostitute smiled and said: "The third level is the right pair."

"it is good!"

   Many scholars applauded loudly, and finally came to their traditional program.

  After three rounds, five finalists will be selected.

   After comparing talents, it is natural to compare financial resources.

  Mao Bijiang spent two hundred taels of silver to buy this girl's first night. Everyone is fighting so much, it's purely because the girl's fame has spread all over the Qinhuai River before she leaves the cabinet.

  A Persian girl who can speak Chinese, seems to have studied for a few years, and knows both Chinese and Persian musical instruments.

   This is the secret of the revival of the Fengyue industry in Qinhuai River. There is a shortage of domestic women, so let us introduce foreign women!

  Among them, Japanese women are the most, followed by Korean women, and Nanyang women again. The real best are the so-called Persian girls, but in fact most of them are women from Afghanistan.

  Persia and India have been fighting in Afghanistan for decades, and under the premise of slaughtering the city at every turn, what is it to sell some women?

  The foreign slave trade started a hundred years ago.

  First, the Portuguese bought Japanese slaves and resold them all over the world. They also promoted Japanese women as Chinese women and sold them to European brothels to make money.

  In the fifth year of Longqing, that is, in 1571, the Portuguese royal family ordered the prohibition of the Japanese slave trade. The reason was that they were afraid of provoking dissatisfaction from the Japanese government, which would affect normal commercial and missionary activities.

   But the order of the Portuguese royal family, it is obvious that farts are useless. A Portuguese missionary mentioned in his diary in 1598 that Japanese women were sold on Portuguese merchant ships to meet the physical needs of black crew members.

  Macao is the center of the slave trade in East Asia. A large number of Japanese women were first transported to Macao and distributed to black and Malay slaves, and they continued to reproduce slave offspring. Then teach these little slaves from an early age that they can get more gold and silver when they sell, so that slaves can be mass-produced.

   It is equivalent to saying that black, Malay and Japanese slaves are all raised as pigs and sold after giving birth.

  By the time Japan closed its doors, Macau already had about 5,000 slaves, half of whom were underage slaves.

   There are also Chinese slaves, but they are not many and expensive.

   According to historical records, the first Chinese slave sold to Europe was actually a scholar. The time took place in 1540, during the Jiajing period. The job of this Chinese slave is to translate Chinese materials into Portuguese...

  By the way, most of the 5,000 slaves in Macau belonged to the Society of Jesus.

  After Zhao Han expelled the disobedient missionaries and Portugal cut off the funds of the Jesuits, the Macau Jesuits lived by selling slaves. In particular, slave girls are the best sellers, sold to major brothels across the country, effectively filling the shortage of human resources in China's **** industry.

  Those slave girls are mostly of mixed blood, and there are also black pearls of Japanese and Malay blood.

  Mao Bijiang pushed open the door, and the red candles were flickering inside. The girl was wearing a fake wedding phoenix coronet.

   Picking up the hijab, she turned out to be a Persian beauty, whose exotic style is breathtaking.

  The Persian girl was a little nervous, and kept kneading the corners of her clothes with her fingers.

  Bao Pijiang didn't want to be rude to the beautiful woman, so he chose to chat: "The girl is from Persia?"

   "Yes." The Persian girl replied.

  In fact, the girl lied. She lived in Makran since she was a child, which is the coastal zone between Pakistan and Iran in later generations. It was once occupied by Persia and now belongs to the Mughal Empire in India. When she was eleven years old, she was sold to the Dutch by her uncle, who in turn sold her to a Chinese businessman.

  Mao Bijiang said again: "Girl, don't be afraid. If you don't want to, I'll just play the piano and drink tonight. Does the girl know Persian musical instruments?"

"meeting."

  The Persian girl brought a qin, a bit like a Chinese banhu, with four strings.

  The girl plucked the strings, sang an unknown foreign ballad, pretended to close her eyes to keep time, and completely forgot about other things.

"what!"

  A mournful scream broke the beautiful music.

   Pretending to be Pijiang, he went out to check the situation, but found nothing unusual. When he returned to his room, he heard the sound of a copper whistle coming from the street, and immediately knew that something must have happened.

  By the Qinhuai River.

  A girl with dark skin was picked up wet all over. Looking at her complexion, one could tell that she was of black blood, but for many generations of mixed blood, her facial features were more like those of an oriental, and her complexion was more similar to that of a native of Nanyang.

  The tortoise and the thugs in the brothel wanted to take the girl back, but were stopped by a patrolman.

   There are two patrolmen, one to let people go, one not to let people go.

  The young policeman pushed away the silver dollar and reprimanded sharply: "The imperial court has an order that no forced work is allowed in singing houses and dance halls. You actually forced the woman to commit suicide by jumping into the river. You can't cover up what happened tonight, so you have to take them to the Yamen to see the officials!"

   "Keep your voice down!"

The old patrolman scolded: "Xiao Liu, you just transferred to Qinhuai River, so you don't know much about this place. To tell you the truth, today's Goulan cottages and brothels have long stopped forcing people from the country. The woman in front of me, look I knew they were not Chinese, so they must have been bought from Nanyang. The Shangguan said that people are only citizens when they settle down and settle down. Women from foreign countries do not have household registration, so how can they be considered citizens?"

   "I don't care if she has a household registration or not. Since I met her, she must go to see an officer!" The young policeman didn't accept this.

The brothel thug suddenly made a sound, and said with a sneer: "Where is the stunned young man? Honestly take the money, don't toast and eat fine wine. If you continue to make trouble, if you don't have any money, you still have to hang up with the Shangguan." !"

Hearing the threat, the young policeman drew his knife out of its sheath suddenly: "I killed Tartars in Liaodong last year, followed General Wang out of the Great Wall, and killed the fake Wang Hauge of the Tartars to the brim. He injured his tendon and retired to serve as a patrolman." , It’s not something you can bully! If you want to take this woman away, you have to ask me if I agree with the knife in my hand!”

  This young patrolman is not only a veteran, but also a Datong cavalryman.

  The cavalrymen of Datong are not only proficient in riding skills, but also outstanding in martial arts.

  The brothel thugs didn't dare to make trouble for a moment, and the older policeman didn't dare to speak, watching the young policeman take the woman away.

   Dazed for a moment, the elderly patrolman suddenly slipped away and went to find his boss impatiently. The police in the Qinhuai River area, from the officials in charge to the patrolmen, all took advantage of the major brothels. If this incident got serious, many people would lose their positions.

  (end of this chapter)