At this time, Zhou Lang was surprised to find that it was so common for white people to be slaves in this era.

The Spanish Restoration, which drove the Muslim Moors out of Spain, left Europe, but did not die, they retreated to North Africa and continued to maintain their system.

And they kept this slavery, and the white people plundered the black slaves from Africa, and these Moors enslaved the white slaves of Europe. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, Barbary pirates in North Africa trafficked and enslaved nearly 1.25 million white Europeans. One of the largest industries of the North African pirates was the white slave trade, just like the British slave trade. He even attacked European cities and took the entire city's inhabitants into slavery.

At the beginning of 1551, the entire population of the islands of Malta and Gozo, enslaved by the pirate Turgut Reis, was between about 5000 and 6000. Later, they invaded southern Italy, beheading more than 5,000 inhabitants and kidnapping the remaining 6,000. Attacks like this continued into the 19th century.

Due to the strength of the North African pirates, the Danish king even paid tribute to the other side to avoid the robbery of his merchant ships and the enslavement of his sailors. France and England also began to change their attitudes, believing that the negotiation of common commercial treaties and rights was more important than the fate of the lower classes in southern Europe, so they tended to pay protection money to pirates in order to avoid unnecessary trouble.

The coastal cities of North Africa were almost all pirate dens and slave distribution centers. But as the Europeans became stronger, it became more and more difficult for them to tolerate this. By waging war in an attempt to destroy these nests, the United States, in order to avoid this tragedy, sent Jefferson Thomas and John Adams to London in 1786 to negotiate with envoys from Tripoli after independence and after losing the protection of the British navy. Negotiations failed due to their refusal to recognize each other's Bibles and prophets, and the Americans launched an attack on these nests.

It was the British who really destroyed these nests. Britain abolished slavery itself, for which the British government gave tens of millions of compensation to British slave owners, and after Britain abolished slavery itself, it began to put pressure on other European countries, and unanimously passed an agreement at the Vienna Conference to stop the transatlantic slave trade.

At the same time, in 1816, he sent British Admiral Sidney Smith to lead 18 British warships to attack the pirate den in the Algiers area, and the pirate fleet was burned to ashes under heavy artillery fire. As the fighting spread from the port to the city, the pirate leader had to surrender and free all the slaves. Within weeks, Tunisia, Tripoli and Morocco had also announced the abolition of slavery.

Although slavery was abolished in the coastal areas of North Africa, slaves still existed in large numbers, and the French ridiculed the British, saying why they didn't send their army deep into the interior of Africa, where there were a large number of white slaves, and the Moors used these white slaves to build arsenals to produce weapons to slaughter white people, and since the British were the saviors, why didn't they destroy these nests.

The other largest buyer of white slaves was the Ottoman Empire, so why didn't Britain put pressure on the Ottoman Sultan to interfere in the legitimate business of the French factory owners. The French also cited how friendly they were to bring slaves, and even that most factory owners did not treat slaves as slaves, but would pay them a regular salary and promise to leave them when the work deadline expired. This situation of indentured slaves was first used in large numbers by the British, and it was not these indentured slaves that developed the North American colonies.

Things have developed to this point, and Zhou Lang has to come forward to express his position, supporting slavery is too damaging to the country's image.

Zhou Lang has always been against the slave system, and he has decreed the abolition of the slave trade, so Zhou Lang immediately ordered the customs to crack down on the slave trade, and for a time a large number of Western merchant ship captains who transported kidnapped Europeans to China were arrested, and to the embarrassment of the British, most of these people were British.

It is the white people who sell white people!

Zhou Lang also ordered an inventory of all white slaves, only to find out at this time that this number is quite alarming, not only the French are using European technology slaves, the Chinese use more, the industrial revolution in recent years is too fierce, the country seriously lacks technical personnel, the trained technical personnel are not enough, Chinese businessmen eager to get rich tried their best to find technical personnel, as a result, the first to introduce white slaves was the Chinese merchants in Fujian, and the first to sell white slaves were actually Americans.

White slaves came from a wide range of sources, some were deceived in their own countries, some were captured by pirates on merchant ships, and some were bought specifically from North Africa.

The whites enslaved the British the most, followed by the French, then the Americans, the Belgians, the Swedes, the Prussians, and the Italians. In short, it is a country with relatively advanced technology, and there are very few Russians, first, Russia is relatively remote, and second, Russia is relatively backward in technology.

After an investigation, it was found that there were less than 3,000 white slaves in the French factories, and as many as 20,000 white slaves in the hands of Chinese merchants.

After the results were announced, Zhou Lang expressed his indignation at this and called on the people to liberate the slaves, just as he had called on them to liberate the slaves, but not to dissolve the dependency relationship, but to suggest that the contract of sale be changed to a long-term contract, and the slaves should be turned into long-term workers, and they should be given a certain wage.

However, the result was not ideal, and in the face of practical interests, the emperor's call was just a dead letter.

But Zhou Lang does not intend to interfere with force, it is enough for him to express his attitude, the dignity of the law needs to be maintained, even those laws that are not very civilized, as long as they are not abolished, they must be respected, and the emperor is no exception.

Judicial reform is difficult, and now Zhou Lang has established special courts in all cities, and the process is full of various games with the bureaucracy, because the courts set up by Zhou Lang are more humane, at least the court provides seats for the plaintiff and the defendant, and both sides do not have to kneel to listen to the trial, and there must be a slogan in the courtroom "everyone is equal before the law".

Now there are more and more people who come to the court to file complaints, instead of going to the county government to beat the drum and voice grievances, especially a large number of urban middle classes, who are more generous in and out of the courts, and the judicial power of the traditional county government is being eroded step by step. And they are helpless about it, because this is the result of the people voting with their feet, and the court can give people justice, so everyone else goes to the court and goes to the judge to administer justice. However, the magistrates were generally dissatisfied, and the Qing officials felt that their dignity had been violated, and the corrupt officials could no longer extort money from the plaintiffs and defendants.

The current situation was not easy to come by, and he was absolutely unwilling to allow the gains of reform to be undermined.

Zhou Lang did not meet the demands of the British, and as a result, the British smeared the whole world, saying that the attitude of the Chinese emperor was actually maintaining slavery in disguise! The British also took out South Africa, which was a real slave empire!