The cold winds on the Great Plains of South Russia in April were still as cold as knives.

Mo San took a flute-shaped ship of the Black Sea Liner Company and slowly sailed into the port of Kaffa, and then went straight to a camp outside the city, accompanied by the guards of the merchant station. The camp was built on the Sea of Azov and later forced to absorb the capital of some Jewish slave traders (who also came from a large background) and built the entire camp into a large slave market that could accommodate more than 8,000 people.

What is even more surprising is that this slave market was almost exclusively for the East Coasters, because most of the "goods" in this market for female slaves were bought by the East Coasters. Most of the ships that came to Europe for trade on the East coast were female slaves, except for a small number of livestock, metallic minerals, and luxury goods, and the annual purchase volume even reached tens of thousands of people at the peak of their purchases in previous years, and although their numbers have declined somewhat in recent years, they still maintain more than 7,000 people per year, which is extremely alarming.

In order to transport these slave girls back to the mainland of the East Coast, the First Fleet of the Navy of the Republic of the East Coast not only sent 2-3 frigates to escort them all year round, but also rented a large number of French transport ships in Smyrna and other places to help transport the slave girls to the mainland of the East Coast. Of course, French ships were not only capable of transporting women, but in recent years they have also helped the Easterners transport large numbers of men (Polish prisoners of war) by way of the White Sea to Alexandria, where they were transported by Mamluks to Suez and sold to the Easterners. The scale of the industry is so large that more and more Ottoman nobles are now involved, and everyone is determined to carry forward this Ottoman "unique business" and make it bigger and stronger.

However, with the changes in the international situation in recent years, the number of Polish prisoners of war has become less and less. In the end, it was almost nothing. And the opposite. The number of female slaves is increasing. As a result, its price slowly fell from 80 yuan per person to 65-70 yuan, which made Li Qing, the person in charge of the East Coast Kafa Commercial Station, who came to buy, very happy.

The most important factor in this situation is actually related to Khmelnitsky. After suppressing the Cossacks who had opposed him at home, this fellow led 70,000 soldiers, together with the Tatars, to invade the country and occupy its capital, on the grounds that the Moldavian principality had once sided with Poland against them. Forced to submit (Grand Duke Lupul married his daughter to Khmelnitsky's son).

However, although the flank threat of the Principality of Moldavia, which had secretly colluded with Poland, was resolved, new troubles arose - from the second half of 1650 to the present, the armies of the Cossack Hetmanate and the Crimean Khanate had been trapped in the Principality of Moldavia, engaged the troops of the Principalities of Transylvania and Wallachia, which had attacked the country. The war will inevitably produce a large number of slaves (mainly captive Moldavian girls, and a small number of prisoners of war from various countries), and the final flow of slaves naturally points to this huge slave market on the outskirts of Kaffa.

In this market, the staff of the Eastern Merchant Post met with the Cossack chiefs, Tatar nobles, and Ottoman officials who came to sell slaves, and discussed with them the "appearance", age, and health of the slaves. Finally, a price is agreed upon and a share of the brain is bought. It is worth mentioning. They did not use precious metals much in the purchase of female slaves, and most of the time they used goods to offset them - such as weapons and military materials that everyone liked, such as liquor and cloth, such as metal tools, dyed leather goods, such as medicines, etc., were all hard currency in the steppe, and in general it was a very beneficial trade for both sides, and the people of the east coast gained the population, and they received the supplies of life and war materials, and both sides rejoiced.

"Over the years, there has been an increasing demand for our country's military resources on the grasslands. Last year, the country's arsenals even accepted the task of customizing their own weapons from the Cossacks and Tatars, and the Cossacks and Tatars were quite satisfied. In particular, the Cossacks, who in 1651 fought under the pressure of a Polish army of 150,000 and lost a lot of military resources and personnel, Khmelnitsky was determined to reorganize the Cossack regiments, and there was a great demand for high-quality weapons in our country. Even the Russians, seeing the decline of the Cossacks, vouched for them by asking us to give the weapons to the Cossacks on credit first, and then pay for the goods. I have to say that war is the arms dealer's best friend, hehe, now that the Russians are going to end up in person, the inventory of the Kaffa trading station must be greatly increased, otherwise I am afraid that they will not be enough to consume. Li Qing, who was choosing a slave girl, immediately came out to greet her boss Mo San as soon as she saw it.

"Last year I heard that the Cossacks had won a complete victory in the Battle of Batog, and that 30,000 Polish troops had been annihilated, but why didn't anyone come to sell these prisoners of war?" Mo San looked at the vast market full of merchants selling female slaves, so he asked Li Qing.

"Because ......," Li Qing first shook his head, and then said: "Because the Cossacks did not want to be captured, all 30,000 Polish soldiers died, and many of them were executed after surrendering - in revenge for the previous massacre of the ancient city of Kiev by the Grand Duke of Lithuania." ”

"The war between them is not over, on the contrary, the Poles are reorganizing their army and intending to completely defeat the Khmelnitsky armed group and regain control of the entire Dnieper River valley." Li Qing went on to add, "Now the shape of the Ukrainians is more sinister, and the Tatars in Crimea have had a history of being bribed by the Poles to turn their backs on the Cossacks several times before, and this time they will not be able to keep their old mistakes again, and the Cossacks will face the Polish army alone." And the internal contradictions of the Cossacks were also very acute, many Cossacks were dissatisfied with Khmelnitsky, and moved eastward to the border wilderness close to the Russians, receiving assistance and influence from the Russians, they were called Slopoda Cossacks, and their land was also called Slopoda Ukraine (roughly located in the area of present-day Kharkov, Ukraine), the entire Cossack hetrate has fallen into a de facto division, Khmelnitsky should be mainly responsible for this, who made him always want to be left and right between several great powers? Now it is good that the Ottoman Sultan does not like him, the Polish king is very hostile to it, and the tsar is looking at him coldly, and he is not good now. ”

Although the people on the east coast have a limited grasp of the details of history, they still know that Russia has declared war on Poland in order to control Ukraine (perhaps also meaning the shame of the defeat in the Smolensk War), but they do not know how many Russians have dispatched. However, according to Russia's consistent temperament, it is embarrassing to go out to fight without bringing a hundred thousand troops, and there will be a lot of profit to be made in this -- no wonder Borisov from the Astrakhan side has recently come to Kaffa City frequently to buy all kinds of military weapons from the east coast!

In addition, Zheng Yong of the Arkhangel Trading Station also wrote a letter last year, saying that the Russians are making crazy preparations for war, and the spearhead of the war has undoubtedly been pointed at Poland, so he hopes that Mo San will unify and summarize the Cretan War, the Polish-Ukrainian War, the Moldavian Five Nations Melee (Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Ukraine, and Crimea) that are going on almost simultaneously at this time, as well as the Polish-Russian War that will break out in the future, and estimate the scale of these wars and the consumption of military weapons. In order to let the two major domestic arsenals know how much to produce.

Mo San smiled at the letter written by Zheng Yong at that time, and didn't say anything, because only he knew that the weapons of the people on the east coast could not be sold at all: when he wrote to Shi Qinjie of New China a while ago, asking him to coordinate the sale of a batch of military funds from the supply warehouse in Xinhua Port to the Ottomans, Shi Qinjie only gave a part, and then explained that the Persians had recently increased the purchase of weapons, because the Mughal Sultan Aurangzeb had attacked Kandahar controlled by the Persians twice in the past three years. And it seems that this year we will have to gather a large army to attack again, and the consumption of this weapon and military money is simply a huge amount - because the scale of the war between the two companies is generally not small.

The world of the 17th century was wonderful, full of arms dealers' businesses, the Eastern European Plains, the mountains of Central Asia, Brazil and even North America - the Dutch West India Company was fighting fiercely with the Swedes in Delaware, and the British colonial troops in New England were attacking New Amsterdam and the Dutch were busy - these were important sales points for military supplies on the East Coast. The frequent outbreak of wars caused the two enterprises of the Dayuhe Arsenal and the Northern Arsenal to produce at full capacity, and at the same time, the students of the factory-run technical schools graduated ahead of schedule to expand the scale of production and try their best to supply the war consumption everywhere.

"Although the profit margin of arms is not very high, it is better because the demand is large, and the total profit is still quite considerable. However, I found a way to spend all the money from the trade on the spot, and it was better to exchange it for slaves and transport it back to my homeland. Slaves must be mainly female slaves, in order to smooth out the difference in the number of men and women in the country, and male slaves with military experience can also buy some as appropriate, and the development of the new China region needs many of these 'consumables', but the number must be strictly controlled. After all, we don't have many people in the New China Colony, and we can't absorb too many new populations. Mo San carefully told Li Qing, afraid that he would not understand some of the tricks.

The local executive committees on the east coast have always hated the large quantities of precious metals that have been brought back from the European trading stations, because in their opinion, what do they want precious metals? If I ask for money, I won't dig my own gold mines, right? Precious metals can only be useful if they are turned into goods, otherwise they are a pile of dead things, and only stupid mercantilists are so fond of precious metals, which do little good to the national economy, and of all the goods, the purchase of slaves is definitely the most important and rational way for the East coasters to consume their trade surpluses.

"I understand. Now that Wallachia and Transylvania have joined forces to invade Moldavia, and the Cossacks are sending troops to the rescue, there will definitely be a large number of prisoners of war or female slaves, and I will keep an eye on the market. Li Qing said.

"It's not about paying attention, you have to take the initiative!" Mo San raised his voice and said in an accentuated tone: "Don't you move like an abacus bead, a little subjective initiative, okay?" You have to take the initiative to talk and talk to the Cossack commanders and Tatar nobles, so that they can 'make' slaves according to your intentions, you know? (To be continued......)