The Dutch East India Company's colonies in the South Seas relied mainly on various minerals and spices for their wealth. In order to ensure high profits, the East India Company implemented a monopoly trade system and monopolized the entire process of product exchange. In terms of acquisitions, the company stipulates that designated products are grown in certain areas, such as cloves are grown on Ambon Island, nutmeg is produced on Banda Island, and coffee is grown in Brianan, and sold to the company at a low price. In order to prevent the "smuggling" trade, the company sends a fleet of ships on patrol every year. Violators are punished brutally.

Because the inhabitants of Banda Island sold nutmeg to non-Dutch merchants, the East India Company ordered the slaughter of almost all of the 15,000 inhabitants of Banda Island. In terms of sales, the company has the monopoly rights to most of the products.

It signed treaties with the vassal princely states stipulating that goods such as cotton cloth and opium were imported by the company. The monopolistic trade system has brought phenomenal profits to the company. The company buys a pound of spice for seven cents in Ambon and Banda, and sells it for three hundred cents (three guilders) when it is shipped to the Netherlands. Salt purchased in Java costs only 6 guilders per stone, and shipped to Sumatra sells for 50 to 70 guilders per stone.

Not only that, but the East India Company also imposed a fixed tax in kind in its colonial territories, stipulating that each state should bear a certain share of the tribute, which in turn would be distributed among the villages, and the village chief would force the peasants to plant. Forced supply was introduced in the vassal princely states. The forced supply system was first introduced in Mataram, which required Mataram to supply the company with a certain amount of rice at the lowest price each year.

Later, it was introduced to other princely states, such as Banten for pepper, Cirebon for indigo, cane sugar, rice, timber, etc., and Buryaan for timber, rice, pepper, livestock, cotton, etc. Whether it is tribute or supplies, officials at all levels are responsible for transporting them to Jakarta. According to the regulations, the company should pay a small remuneration to the peasants who produced tribute or supplies. And this little gratuity was mostly pocketed by Dutch officials and officials at all levels.

In order to ensure the windfall profits of the Dutch East India Company in the South Sea colonies and reduce the amount of money paid, the Dutch East India Company also implemented a system of thieves and slave traders in the South Seas. In order to capture slaves, the company initially practiced a system of piracy in Sulawesi.

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The Dutch initially practiced robbing in Sulawesi in order to get slaves to Java. And for this purpose trained a group of thieves to steal people. Thieves, interpreters, and traffickers are the main agents of this trade, and the indigenous princes are the main traffickers. The stolen youth was locked up in a secret prison in Sulawesi until he grew up to be loaded onto a slave ship.

The company also concluded slave supply agreements with feudal lords on the islands of Bali and other islands, and went to the southeast coast of China to take Chinese residents into slavery in Indonesia. Jakarta was once a large market for slaves, and then after a number of indigenous rebellions and uprisings of the Chinese who were unwilling to oppress.

The Dutch moved the slave market to Surabaya, where the Chinese lived in early times, and it was called Surabaya in Javanese, which originally meant python and crocodile, hence the name of the desolate swamp. The Chinese feel that they are embarrassed, first harmonize into "Surimu", and then further refine it into the authentic Chinese name "Surabaya". Si means swimming, and Surabaya is swimming across the ocean, implying that the Chinese have left their hometowns to make a living in the South Seas, and must drift across the ocean.

After Jakarta became a new slave market, every year, twenty or thirty thousand slaves would enter and leave the port, except for the natives of the South Seas and a small number of blacks from Africa, the rest were Chinese slaves plundered by the Dutch and the native kings of the South Seas, and accounted for almost two to three percent of the entire slave trade.

These slaves toiled on plantations run by Europeans, mainly the Dutch, and the slaves were subjected to all kinds of heavy labor, allowing the plantor owners to drain the last vestiges of their flesh and blood. For example, after the Dutch colonists exterminated the inhabitants of Banda Island, they divided the land of Banda Island among Dutch veterans and used slaves to grow nutmeg. These Dutch plantation owners became rich through the brutal exploitation of slaves.

Through these forms of enslavement, the Dutch colonizers plundered a great deal of wealth from Indonesia. Between 1750 and 1759, remittances from Indonesia to the Netherlands averaged 2.5 million guilders per year, and between 1770 and 1779 an average of 4 million guilders per year. The value of the plundered gold, silver and precious stones was about twice as much as the remittances. On the contrary, the natives and the Chinese exiled to Nanyang in this land were in a state of hunger and poverty, and the situation of slaves could be described as miserable.

Since the beginning of this year, nearly 5,000 Chinese slaves have been trafficked to various islands in the South Seas in the slave market at the port of Surabaya, so that the European plantation owners have enough labor to start their plantations.

In the smoke of a temporary military tent erected next to the avenue in the valley, Liang Pengfei sat on a small pony and snorted a cigar, his smoke-shrouded face almost made it impossible to see his face, but those sharp eyes still made people unable to ignore and dare not ignore even through the smoke.

After telling the ins and outs of the matter for nearly an hour, the dry-mouthed Lieutenant George was kneeling on the ground at the moment, and there was a bruise on his gray face, which was smoked by Liang Pengfei, who was so angry that he couldn't control his temper.

"In other words, this kind of slave trade has been going on for more than a hundred years, that is, in the past hundred years, at least hundreds of thousands or even millions of Chinese have become your slaves, working for you Dutch to die, right?" Liang Pengfei couldn't remember how many cigars he had smoked, his mouth was bitter and astringent, and his throat was dry, but in his heart, it was more like a volcano was buried, surging with magma that would erupt at any time.

"Yes, Your Excellency." After receiving Liang Pengfei's admission that he had promised that he would survive, Lieutenant George no longer had any need to hide it for the Dutch East India Company, not to mention, this kind of thing, Lieutenant George believed that the Chinese general with extremely strong combat effectiveness would always have a way to know these things, so it was better to say it by himself in exchange for his own life.

"These dog mongrels, brutes!" Ni Mingtie slapped his thigh with indignation, he never thought that his compatriots would actually let these white-skinned ghosts be enslaved as slaves. Moreover, it has a history of more than 100 years, which makes Ni Ming, who has always regarded himself as a citizen of the Heavenly Empire, feel like he has put more than a dozen saws in his heart.

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"Damn these Dutchmen!" Monk Chen gritted his teeth tightly, holding a knife in one hand and rubbing the snowy blade with the other, and a pair of tiger eyes overflowed with tyrannical and blood-devouring fierce light. The scar that stretched from his head to his forehead and the flesh of his face were like the angry eyes enshrined in the temple.

"These Xiyi, they're really not fucking human." Bai Shusheng had a grim smile on his face, and the sinister laughter was like a night owl hovering on a mass grave in the wilderness.

"You just said that in Bali, you said that there are more than 15,000 Chinese slaves up there?" Liang Pengfei slowly took a puff of fragrant smoke, and those eyes that could dissect people's hearts fell on Lieutenant George's face.

"Yes, my wife's uncle, Ma Kai, is the owner of a Balinese plantation, and he owns three huge estates there, and on his estate alone, there are nearly 8,000 slaves working for him, and among them, there are more than 5,000 Chinese."

Hearing this, Liang Pengfei couldn't help but gasp, and the fierce light flashing in his eyes was like a lighthouse that illuminated the night. "In other words, there are more than 5,000 Chinese slaves on your uncle's estate alone?"

"Yes, Your Excellency, I can swear in the name of my beloved wife and daughter that everything I say is true." Lieutenant George swore by the heavens. "In addition to my wife's uncle, there are quite a few manor owners in Bali, and they all have a large number of Chinese slaves, and the figure of 15,000 was the last time he came to visit our family in Batakan, because the Balinese manor owners agreed that the diligent Chinese slaves could create wealth for them better than the lazy native slaves. He also complained that there were too few Chinese slaves in the slave market. In the entire Dutch colony, there were at least 100,000 Chinese slaves working in the estates of those manor owners. ”

"Your wife and you, do you have any slaves?" Liang Pengfei slammed the cigar on the ground, clapped his hands and stood up, looking at the Dutch lieutenant condescendingly.

"Absolutely not, I have been an officer in the Netherlands, and have just arrived in the East with my wife for less than two years, and those Dutch soldiers can prove to me that I have never enslaved any of your countrymen." Captain George's pale grey eyes were filled with horror for the sturdy Chinese general who had been deeply aware of the incredible power of the young Chinese general's arms two hours earlier.

"Well, your last name is saved for the time being." Liang Pengfei kicked Lieutenant George in the leg with his toes. "You can be treated as a prisoner of war, and if everything you say is true, then you will save your life and that of your family."

Looking at the back of the Dutch lieutenant who was kicked forward by his own soldiers, Liang Pengfei took a deep breath. Dutch East India Company...... Very good, I'll let you white-skinned bastards know how good Lao Tzu is! ”

"That's right, young master, I think it's best to slaughter these white-skinned ghosts, and don't keep a single scum." Monk Chen shouted viciously. Monk Chen's suggestion was agreed by almost all the pro-soldiers.

"No, then, what is the difference between us and the beasts?" Ni Ming, whose face was still extremely ugly, stood up and said something that made Liang Pengfei look sideways.

"Do you think that Staff Officer Ni should just watch our compatriots be so humiliated and do nothing?!" Liang Shuisheng, whose face was also very ugly, shouted in a deep voice, and anyone could hear the dissatisfaction with Ni Ming in his tone.

(To be continued)