After daybreak, André drove back to the town with Carol and caught up with the caravan in the evening.

According to Chu Tianjiang's instructions, Andre did not go directly to Zhan Pengfei, but went to a staff officer of Zhan Pengfei, and through this staff officer, he arranged the daughter of the president of the Houston Chamber of Commerce in the base, and asked the staff officer to talk to Zhan Pengfei and let Zhan Pengfei take care of the young lady.

The next evening, the caravan set up camp on a high ground about twenty kilometers from Death Valley.

In the past two days, Stewart gave Chu Tianjiang a detailed introduction to business. Of course, the slave trade, which he was most familiar with, was the mainstay.

Although Stewart called it the "human trade," Chu Tianjiang felt that the "slave trade" was more appropriate.

The slave trade was mainly engaged in the chambers of commerce that were dependent on the various separatist forces, and except for a very small number of separatist forces, the vast majority of the separatist forces were not directly involved. The reason is the same as that Zhang Xiaogang mentioned, that is, the slave trade is unpopular, and if the separatist forces directly engage in the slave trade, there will be many negative effects, such as putting the common people under the rule of the separatist forces at risk, forcing them to move to their homes. As a result, the vast majority of the separatist powers expressed their opposition to the slave trade and forbade the slave trade within their sphere of influence.

The problem is that where there is a market, there is demand.

The catastrophe and subsequent invasion led to a sharp decline in the world's population, and the United States was the hardest hit by the spread of the DNA virus, with only one in eight survivors. For any separatist force, population is the root of its rise and fall, and more people means more power.

It will take at least a hundred years for the population of the United States to return to its pre-cataclysmic level.

If we take into account the impact of the sex ratio, it will take two hundred years, if not longer, for the population structure of the United States to become reasonable.

In the United States, where the law of the jungle prevails, even the most powerful separatist forces will not think about what will happen in ten years, let alone a hundred years. The vast majority of separatist forces are in a precarious situation and may collapse at any time, let alone take long-term considerations.

For any separatist force, constantly enhancing its own strength is the only choice for survival.

To this end, any separatist power will do everything it can to increase the size of the population under its rule, and the most effective means is the slave trade.

Obviously, the interests and survival needs of the separatist forces were the basis for the existence of the slave trade.

Looking back at history, we can see that this demand is also the root cause of the slave trade of Western colonizers more than 100 years ago, transporting black people from Africa to the United States and selling them to American farmers for agricultural production. It was not until the Industrial Revolution and the industrial era that the importance of industry surpassed that of agriculture, and entrepreneurs needed enough free labor to engage in industrial production, and they needed to emancipate the black slaves who were tied to the land by the farmers, which led to the Civil War, and the slave trade really became history in the United States.

In terms of productivity, the United States today is inferior to the United States before the Civil War.

When all Americans were fighting for basic problems of survival, there was a breeding ground for the slave trade.

For the United States, which covers an area of more than 8 million square kilometers but has only 50 million people, it is no longer the land that determines agricultural productivity, but the labor force. If you count Canada in the north, even in the south, the population density is even lower.

In addition to demand, chaotic anarchy was a key factor in the pre-existing slave trade.

When the invaders withdrew, the population and resources of the continental United States were severely unbalanced, and the federal government and most of the state governments were falling apart, which led to serious social unrest. Although there are no exact statistics, at least 40 million of the 50 million Americans who survived lost their homes in the first month after the invaders left, looking for shelter in various places.

These displaced civilians became the first "source of goods" to start the slave trade.

The ensuing local separatist forces, especially the annexation and conquest between the separatist forces, further expanded the "supply" of the slave trade.

In Stewart's words, where there is war, there is the slave trade.

Any secession of the power will brainwash the civilians within the range of the power to ensure the absolute loyalty of the civilians within the power range. For this reason, when a secession power is annexed by another secession power, the commoners under its rule are often not accepted and recognized by the new ruler, and are often reduced to slavery. Even if they were to fight each other, the captured civilians would be reduced to slavery. For the victorious side in the battle of separatism, the best way to obtain labor is to punish the common people under the rule of the opponent as slaves.

It is important to know that slaves are not commoners, slave owners only need to provide the most basic living conditions for slaves, and hired civilians also need to pay high labor remuneration.

This phenomenon is most common in the mutual conquest of small separatist forces.

Some of the large-scale separatist forces, especially the most powerful ones, sometimes give the conquered more fair treatment, such as allowing the conquered to obtain civilian status through labor or other means, and eventually become members of the separatist forces.

It is clear that the vanquished cannot be treated in this way for the small separatist forces.

The reason is very simple, the small secession power is precarious, and it will be swallowed up by the neighboring large separatist power at any time. In addition, the population ruled by the small secession forces was very limited, and it was difficult to absorb the conquered. In addition, the small secession forces lacked a stable economic source, and sufficient funds were needed to support the armed forces, so the sale of the conquered became the main source of income for many small separatist forces. Of course, the control areas of the small separatist forces are very small, and they are mainly some barren land, which is difficult to develop industries and does not require too much labor.

With the market demand and a huge "supply", the slave trade naturally flourished.

In the United States, the slave trade flourished most in the Midwest. The key point is that the central and western regions have the most small separatist forces, and wars are the most frequent.

Because the Midwest has the fewest towns and the lowest population density, nearly 200 million Americans poured into the Midwest after the cataclysm. Although the U.S. federal government issued a return order shortly after the catastrophe, a large number of civilians remained in the Midwest due to the invasion of extraterrestrial civilizations. At the time, many people believed that the Midwest was the safest and were prepared to wait until the invaders had been defeated before returning home. Although this is a wise choice, no one knows that the real danger of the Dao is not from extraterrestrial civilizations, but from DNA viruses, and no one has imagined that the federal government and most of the state governments in the United States will collapse after the DNA virus spreads wildly. As a result, nearly 20 million of America's survivors were in the Midwest after the invaders withdrew.

Compared with the relatively large population, the resources in the central and western regions are extremely scarce.

These homeless civilians, who had lost everything and were homeless, became the best "source" for the slave trade.

It is precisely because of this large number of people, coupled with the relatively low density of cities and towns, that there is a large number of small secession forces in the Midwest of the United States.

According to Stewart, most of the small secession forces in the Midwest were created by outsiders, and they were created to protect themselves and not to be enslaved by others. The problem is that in this world where the law of the jungle eats the jungle, if you don't want to be enslaved by others, you have to enslave others.

The continuous conflict and conquest provided an abundant "supply" for the slave trade, making the Midwest of the United States a hub for the slave trade, giving rise to several "slave trading towns", the most famous of which was Salt Lake City, which was controlled by the black group.

The Salt Lake City black group was also one of the few secessionist forces directly involved in the slave trade.

Ironically, the blacks who were sold into slavery in the United States more than a hundred years ago are now slave owners, and the slaves who are sold are mainly whites.

In addition to Salt Lake City, several other towns have opened slave markets, including Las Vegas.

Although the vast majority of white groups were openly opposed to the slave trade and did not engage directly in the slave trade, all separatist powers accepted the fait accompli that caravans engaged in the slave trade were allowed to cross the border and treated equally as long as they were bought and sold outside their spheres of influence and that there were well-established transaction procedures. For example, caravans engaged in the slave trade were also guaranteed security for the payment of protection money. What's more, these separatist forces also relied on dependent chambers of commerce to buy slaves from slave-trading towns. In the case of the Jewish community in Denver, as long as the slave trade was done in the field, the slaves they bought did not gain civilian status just because they came to Denver.

Obviously, these separatist forces, ostensibly opposed to the slave trade, were in fact defenders of the slave trade.

Of course, all the forces of secession were the beneficiaries of the slave trade.

Taking Denver as an example, the fact that the Jewish group in Denver was able to occupy Denver and make Denver the largest free trade city in the Midwest of the United States, gathering more than 100,000 members from all over the country to form the strongest legion in the Midwest of the United States, which was not unrelated to the hundreds of thousands of slaves under its control. Without the enormous social wealth created by these slaves and the various special services they provided, it is clear that the Jewish clique in Denver would not have been able to accumulate enormous wealth, and would not have had the capital to recruit capable people from all over the world, and the pampered rulers would have been doomed long ago.

The thriving slave trade, and the various needs of slave owners, naturally gave rise to slaves of all kinds.

Compared with the root cause of the slave trade, the characteristics of the slave trade itself made Chu Tianjiang feel even more incredible.