I

  Chapter 597 594【Today's Macau】

  Macau, the city of people.

  A whole street, all engaged in the slave trade.

  Some are black, some are white, some are yellow, some are brown, and there are also some that cannot tell what color they are.

  Slaves are also divided into several grades. Generally speaking, the darker the skin, the cheaper it is, but it also depends on the physique. If there are special skills, the price will increase. For example, if you can speak Chinese, you can use it if you buy it. This kind of slave is more expensive.

  This is just the opposite of the situation in the American market, where the price of black slaves is the most expensive.

   Both buyers and sellers like black slaves.

  For the seller, the purchase price of black slaves is cheap, and they can withstand ocean transportation, and the death rate is much lower than that of light-skinned slaves. Moreover, from the west coast of Africa, it can be directly shipped to the Americas, and the transportation distance is also shorter.

  For the buyer, the black slave is in good health and can work hard. Moreover, I am from Africa, have never seen the world, and have no national and ethnic concepts. It is not easy to unite and rebel, and I am resigned and muddling along. As for the problem of laziness, it is easy to cure, just **** it to death.

  Now slave traders in various European countries have finely divided the global slave market.

  The darker the skin, the more it will be sold in America; the lighter the skin, the more it will be sold in China. Slaves from Japan and North Korea were transported to Europe to pretend to be Chinese—and brought back with merchant ships, and the number was not large. After all, the distance was too far, and it was better to transport people back to Europe than to transport porcelain.

   Such subdivision can maximize profits.

  So a strange phenomenon appeared. After the prosperity of the Chinese slave market, black slaves became less and less common in Macau.

  At this moment, the streets of Macau.

  The lowest level of slaves, tied hands and feet with ropes, tied to stakes on the roadside like animals.

  Customers who come and go, if they look at someone, will open their mouths to check their teeth, and take off their clothes to see if there are unhealed wounds—in fact, they don’t wear any clothes, just a few pieces of cloth to cover their private parts.

"Hey, guest officer, good morning." Seeing a customer approaching, a Han guy greeted immediately, "What are you buying for? These are low-grade goods from Nanyang, which are most suitable for buying and working. It is strong, obedient, and easier to use than livestock. If the guest officer wants to buy a good one, he can go to the store with Xiaoxiu."

  The customer was a middle-aged man, wearing a lake silk gown, and speaking with a Jiangxi accent, said: "These foreign barbarians, do they know how to farm?"

  The man laughed and said: "Animals can plow the fields and pull mills, but people can't teach them? Buy them home and let them learn. If they can't learn it, they will fight. If they don't obey, they will fight. Within a month, they can learn everything."

  The customer asked: "How many taels of silver?"

   "It depends on how much you buy," said the man, "the more you buy, the cheaper the price."

The customer said: "There are always not enough tenants in our side. I heard that in Macau, we can buy people to go back to farming. The big households in several towns, and an uncle who was conferred by the emperor, all entrusted me to come to Macau to buy. People. For the first batch, buy 20 first, and if they are easy to use, I will buy them again next year."

  The clerk said happily: "You are a big customer, you have to discuss this matter with the shopkeeper. Please wait a moment."

  The shopkeeper was quickly invited, the two sides bargained, and finally reached a deal: the first batch of 20 slaves, three and a half silver dollars each. Come back next year to buy again, the price can drop even more, the more you buy, the more you will drop.

  Customers, with their entourage, went to inspect the products one by one. They were determined to avoid those with rotten teeth, those with unhealed injuries, and those with rotten sores. After checking these, let the slaves run and jump, and can't buy back a defective product.

  The twenty slaves were all from Southeast Asia, either Malays or Visayans.

  The Malays were captured by the Netherlands, and the Visayans were captured by Spain. The two countries opened up colonies in Nanyang and continued to fight with the natives. The captives were sold to Chinese maritime merchants, who then sold the slaves to Macau for bulk.

After the transaction was completed, the shopkeeper was still selling: "Does the guest want female slaves? They are all bought from Nanyang. There are many small islands in the south of Luzon Island, and the islands are full of indigenous people. Don't look at these indigenous women. He is a barbarian, and he knows how to do housework. If you don’t understand the housework, you can teach it a few times. You can buy it back and be a maid, or a fire lady. Is it worthwhile for a woman to be a servant?"

  The customer hesitated, obviously being persuaded.

The shopkeeper continued to seduce: "Everything is good in Xinchao, but the women are not so obedient. Even the maid at home, if she beats and scolds too hard, she will sue the officials. She doesn't look like a servant at all. These Nanyang women , can be more obedient than a Han maid. Looking at the skin color objectively, it is not much darker than a Han girl. If you keep it at home as a maid, you can get even whiter if you don’t bask in the sun for a year or two.”

  The customer was picky and said: "It's a pity that it's too short."

  The shopkeeper said with a smile: "Not short, much taller than Japanese women. If you don't like being too short, you can buy a younger one, and feed her leftovers with a lot of oil and water. After a few years, won't she grow taller?"

  The customer is still picky: "It doesn't look good."

"That's easy," the shopkeeper smiled even more happily, "the ones standing outside don't look good. There are a few more in the courtyard. Although they are all Nanyang natives, they look very handsome. Their skin is dark, but they have a special flavor." Woolen cloth."

   "Then... go in and have a look?" The customer was enthusiastic.

   Entering the backyard of the store, the customers carefully selected and finally found a particularly handsome one.

  Petite, with dark skin, but the facial features are particularly beautiful.

   "How much is this?" the customer asked.

  The shopkeeper pointed out two fingers: "Thirty silver dollars."

   "Thirty yuan? You think I'm a fool!" The customer turned and left.

  The shopkeeper hurriedly stopped: "The price is still negotiable, how about twenty-eight yuan?"

  The customer said: "Five yuan at most."

This time it was the shopkeeper's turn to get angry: "Nanyang male slaves who are strong and can speak Chinese are priced at least five yuan. Such a beautiful Nanyang beauty, you want to buy them for five yuan? You go shopping in Macau Once, if you can buy such a thing with less than twenty taels, I will give it to you for free!"

   "Fifteen yuan." The customer continued to bargain.

   "Twenty-five!" The shopkeeper had a painful expression on his face.

  Finally, a deal was reached for twenty silver dollars, with the proviso that the customer had to buy two more ordinary female slaves.

   After the customer paid, he left happily. The female slave bought three, one beautiful one, and bought it back to be a personal maid, and bought the remaining two for cooking.

  Regardless of men and women, they are all tied with ropes and led to the boat like cattle.

   And those slaves, with blank eyes and numb expressions, seemed like walking dead without thinking.

  In the face of money, the evil of human nature is not hidden.

  Daming has a tradition of human trading, especially in times of famine, a bag of rice can be exchanged for a maid. In ordinary years, three or five taels of silver can buy a servant girl.

  They don’t treat Chinese people as human beings, so how can they treat foreigners from other countries as human beings?

  Zhao Han forbids keeping slaves and maidservants, all of them are changed to servants. The family of a big family is not happy, and they always feel that those servants are pushing their noses. Zhao Han allocated fields to poor farmers, who were busy with their own fields and didn't have much energy to farm the land of big families. In this way, the foreign slave trade naturally prospered, buying male slaves to go back to farming, and buying female slaves to go back to be maids.

   "Announcement, announcement, the emperor orders the world!"

   Several officials came from the boat, and when they arrived at the pier, they started shouting, and posted several copies on the bulletin boards in Macau.

  Businessmen who trade in human beings feel like mourning when they see the edict.

  Because of one of the notices, all merchants engaged in human trafficking are ordered to register with the government as a helper dental office (labor intermediary company) within a time limit. Not only are people taxed for buying and selling people, but they can no longer be treated as slaves. If people are tortured and killed, whether it is a businessman or an employer who buys people, whoever kills them will break the law, and the punishment is the same as killing a Chinese.

  There are many clauses in it, one of which is to prohibit black trade.

  Foreign workers (actually slaves), they have to collect head tax every year, which also makes the merchants very depressed. It is equivalent to increasing the labor cost of the employer, which will cause some large households not to buy slaves to farm, or to bargain wildly when buying slaves.

  Han merchants are depressed, and the Portuguese in Macau are even more blown up.

  Either get registered in the government and become a Chinese from then on. Either get out of the boat and return to Portugal immediately. If you don't want to be naturalized and don't want to leave, then you have to pay poll tax every year, and tens of taels of silver a year is a huge sum of money. Moreover, after being naturalized in China, intermarriage with white people is still not allowed, and marriage must be free after three generations.

   "Your Excellency, Speaker, don't keep silent!" City Councilor Rodrik said anxiously.

  Speaker Hua Liya was paralyzed there, lying flat, and asked, "What else can I say?"

   "We should resist, we should take up arms to demonstrate!"

   "Go to Guangzhou to meet the chief envoy!"

   "Going to Guangzhou is useless. Go to Nanjing to find the emperor and ask him to withdraw this order."

   "..."

  The conference room was too noisy, Hua Liya couldn't help but pat the table: "Quiet, quiet!"

When everyone stopped talking, the speaker sighed: "Mr. Members, the Portuguese army has long been disbanded by the Chinese emperor, and the fort has long been taken over by the Chinese. The Chinese coast guard is just waiting for us to make trouble. , they can take the opportunity to kill the Portuguese!"

  The congressmen were completely quiet and began to calm down.

  The Governor of Portugal in Macau is absent. Ever since Malacca was taken away by the Netherlands, the Governor of Macau has been vacant, relying entirely on the autonomy of the Macau Municipal Council.

   Last year, a governor was appointed, and the ball was dead in the Cape of Good Hope. A governor was appointed this year, and he has not yet left Africa. If history remains unchanged, the ball will still be dead. The governor appointed next year also died of illness in Macau after working for three years.

   That is to say, at this moment, there are no senior officials sent by the Portuguese royal family in Macau.

  The councilors present are all native-born Macau Portuguese, and more than 30% of them are of Chinese matrilineal descent. They are in Portugal, they have no industry, no roots, so they go back to Europe to make trouble?

  Damn the King of Portugal, the Emperor of China is more dear to them than the King of Portugal.

  If these congressmen are allowed to continue their autonomy, 100% of them will be naturalized in China without saying a word. The reason for the quarrel was not because of the nationality issue, but because they were about to lose their power because the emperor wanted to send Han officials over.

Hua Liya said: "Everyone, the Chinese emperor has supreme authority, and it is impossible for us to compete with him. In this case, what we should do now...is to divide the municipal property. As for the trading fleet, since losing the Japanese market, every year There is no profit. I think this is a good opportunity to turn the fleet belonging to the Portuguese royal family into a joint-stock company. All of you here are shareholders. From now on, we are all Chinese, and the trading company is also a Chinese trading company. Enjoy all the privileges of a Chinese business company, maybe we can make more money!"

  The congressmen looked at each other in blank dismay, and were enlightened by the speaker's words.

   "The commander of the trade fleet was sent by the Portuguese royal family. We can persuade him to give him more shares, and he will definitely be willing to be a Chinese."

"We shareholders can also intermarry with Chinese inland businessmen, so that it will be easier to buy goods and send goods to Southeast Asia at a lower cost. Even, we can re-enter the Japanese market. The Japanese shogunate allows Chinese merchant ships in Nagasaki Trading."

"Yes, intermarry with Chinese inland businessmen. Big businessmen don't want to marry small businessmen. We can support small businessmen to grow bigger. This is also in response to the order of the great emperor. Our descendants all have Chinese blood, and future business will be more prosperous. Bigger and bigger."

   "From today, I am Chinese."

   "Long live His Majesty the Emperor of Datong, the King of Portugal, go to hell!"

   "..."

  (end of this chapter)