The merchants of the Chu State had no way to do the slave trade business, and this kind of business was also the easiest to make money, and it was also a business that the nobles did not monopolize and interfere with at present, even if it was a business of reloading goods from the Qin State, they could not earn more profits from it, because the nobles could avoid the invasion of water thieves, and they did not have to pay protection fees and various taxes, while the merchants were different. They not only have to pay protection fees, because their armed forces can only deal with the natives and cannot deal with the water pirates with advanced weapons, and the water pirate tactics are extremely strange, to deal with the merchant ships of the Chu merchants, they often use the method of mooring and sneak attack, because the ship does not have a sealed cabin, and it is made of wood, and it is easy to break down when using black powder. Therefore, in the face of the attack of water bandits, the merchants of Chu had to adopt a way to break their wealth and avoid disasters, otherwise they would suffer greater losses.

In the state of Chu, such things happen every day. Qin reporters reported such a similar incident in Jiangbei Port without on-the-spot interviews.

"Water pirates are extremely cruel, if the merchants take the initiative to pay the protection fee, usually the protection fee will be paid according to the relationship, and the length of time, the most ridiculous thing about this protection fee is that the water thieves actually charge the same tax as the official family. And the taxes and fees of the official family are usually very high, not only that, there are many different factions of water pirates along the Yangtze River, such as the Wuyue region, the Jiujiang region, etc., there are many small factions in these areas, and the fees paid along the way have almost exceeded 75% of their profits, which is an important reason for the high prices of goods in the Qin State. ”

"Of course, you can choose not to pay, but the consequences are extremely cruel. Listen to a merchant of the Chu State said inadvertently. One of his companions is also in the business of scalping, because it is a debt, and the usury calculated by compound interest in the Chu State usually has an interest far greater than the principal. This kind of interest calculation is illegal in the Qin State, and the law will not recognize it, but in the Chu State, it is the most normal legal business. The high cost of interest on usury forced the merchant to choose an extremely risky route of not paying protection money and taxes along the way, which was usually unsuccessful, but the merchant had no choice but to do so. ”

As you can imagine, the pirates made a living, and although the merchants were able to evade the checkpoints of the officials during the day, the merchants sailed at night and did not use the heading lights. But what they didn't expect was that the pirates would use iron chains to blockade some narrow places in the Yangtze River, the armed merchant ships of the Qin State had encountered such a situation, but they relied on the solidity of their hulls to directly break through, but this blockade iron chain was a disaster for the merchants of the Chu State who used wooden ships, their ships suffered great losses, and two sailors were hung to death by iron chains on the spot, and the hull superstructure also suffered great losses, and the hull was also damaged to a certain extent, but fortunately, the ship did not sink. ”

But luck came to an end, and the leader of the water thieves interrogated the merchant overnight, and the merchant's actions were immediately seen through by the water thieves. The pirates believed that this was a challenge to their position and power, and so they cracked down on the merchants and other sailors. ”

"You don't know what kind of mood we merchants feel when we see the dozen or so corpses that have been cooked, the bitterness, helplessness, fear, and the bitterness that we can't talk about. It's not easy for us, why are the Chu people themselves so hard. Do we make more money? We're just breadwinners. ”

"As a result, the water thieves cooked it out. That is, it was boiled. "It should be pointed out that the water pirates used instead of oil, you know, oil was a relatively expensive thing in this period, and it was rare to see a lot of oil stars in ordinary people's practices, of course, it was different in the Qin State. The same is true for the developed regions of Korea, Zhao and Yan.

For the water thieves, oil, especially cooking oil, is even more scarce. The price of finished cooking oil is comparable to that of salt. And it is also a necessity of life, otherwise the food has no fragrance.

"Water thieves are so cruel, they not only rob the merchants of their money, but also take the lives of the merchants, this practice has seriously threatened the survival and safety of the merchants, so for the water piracy, we should take extremely severe measures. No mercy on water pirates. "The article is clearly propaganda against water piracy.

Regardless of the starting point of the article, water piracy has indeed hindered the further expansion of commercial activities, so for water piracy, both Qin and Chu must be seriously faced.

However, the merchants of Chu had to choose another path of commercial development, which was to actively carry out the slave trade abroad, especially the expansion of overseas commercial bases.

Some Chu merchants began to expand their business after trying the benefits of the slave trade. The first thing they have to do is set up their own "instock" location.

"Look at this is a sketch, our location is here." A sturdy man from the Chu State with a bullet belt pinned to his body said.

The location of the man's finger is the place where the two provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian meet today. As for the specific place, this is impossible to verify, because there is a big difference between 2,000 years ago and 2,000 years later, especially in places where there are rivers near the coast, because of the combined action of various natural forces, especially the influence of the earth's deflection force. This will lead to a great change in the geographical outline, so it is impossible to verify the location indicated by the Chu people on the map.

But the only thing that is certain is that the location chosen by the Chu people is very conducive to the docking of ships, and it is also a natural haven. A river flows from here, and this river provides the necessary source of fresh water for the Chu people to settle here. This is the most important thing, the ships of the Chu people can go through the coastal drift to get here for fresh water replenishment. At the same time, it can also provide drinking water for the people who settle here.

The location is in a natural bay along the channel, where the water is calm and boats can dock quietly, and checkpoints can be arranged on both sides of the fjord to provide the necessary security guards. Not only that, but the bonfires that come alive here at night serve as an important beacon.

"Here, here, we can set up a guard post to prevent the sneak attack of other foreign forces, and at the same time, we can also pay attention to the situation at sea." The man continued. He pointed to the location of the two checkpoints.

"On the river and by the sea, we can build defensive fortresses, we can defend ourselves not only against attacks from local natives, but also from attacks from the sea. You must know that this is not a location that the Chu State can control. If necessary, we can further establish a second defensive point, and in the shallow inland coastal areas, we can reclaim some arable land that can be used to grow food to ensure our own supplies. The man said.

"Yes. Not only can we ensure our own supplies, but we can also grow some other things, such as rape, mulberry trees, and especially some sugar cane, which can expand our business profits. You tell me? The merchant asked rhetorically.

"Yes, yes, but we don't have anyone who knows how to plant?" The man said.

"This, no problem, I'll buy some seeds from Chu and find some people who can plant. Also, we're going to be a lot bigger, and you know, there's a lot of indigenous people in our neighborhood. These natives are cheap laborers. The merchant said treacherously.

"The question is, will these natives run away?" The man asked.

"Well, we won't build such a stronghold in the future, there are many strongholds, and when the time comes, we can exchange slaves from both places, so that these natives will not be able to escape because they are strange. At the same time, our plantations can be expanded. "It is estimated that the businessman's idea was the earliest idea of plantation economy.

"Not only us, but more Chu people also come here, not only our businessmen, militants, but also more people come here, settle, develop, and finally become our beautiful homeland." The merchant said wistfully.

"Yes." The man nodded.

"Then are we still playing the name of Chu State?" The man continued.

"Chu State!?" The merchant thought for a moment and said.

"Yes, we should make the name of the Chu State, the newspaper says that the Qin people occupy a large part of the northern territory, then we Chu people should also have our own expansion territory. The flag of our Chu State should also fly over these overseas territories. This is the people of Chu and the new world of the people of Chu. The merchant said excitedly.

The businessmen also had their original and primitive political needs, and their needs were to get a government with low taxes, a government that could introduce policies to ensure their legitimate rights and interests, and they were more supportive of the rest.

Subsequently, the merchant community established an early stronghold here, and laid a blueprint for future development planning, they were to build and expand their stronghold here, and at the same time, more Chu people who were dissatisfied with the local government's actions would immigrate here, and this expanded stronghold, from a historical point of view, is likely to expand into an overseas colony of Chu. And the trend is very clear.

Because from the perspective of colonial history, the earliest colonies all started from commercial activities, and established a large number of commercial bases for the purpose of commerce, and with the prosperity and development of commercial activities, commercial bases began to expand continuously, which will bring various business opportunities, but also full of various risks, but in general, the opportunities brought by expansion are great. Slowly, the stronghold would develop into a different model, where large territories would be incorporated into the hands of the immigrants, and eventually the settlers would need to form a new government to manage everything, and finally, the new landowners would begin to colonize themselves.