The two men exited the arena, and José followed Gould soon to the street of the slave market. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Once again, José was well versed in the slave market, and the two of them got out of the carriage and walked deeper down the crowded streets.

According to Gould, most of these slave traders on the outskirts were ordinary slaves. Most of these slaves were people who had been exiled by war or who had been sold out of poverty, and such slaves accounted for a considerable number of slaves in the slave market. The slave warriors they were going to buy were in the innermost part of the market, controlled by human traffickers acting on behalf of several large chambers of commerce, and even the imperial military had an interest in them.

After all, although the Bright Empire has always maintained stability and peace internally, wars and border frictions have always broken out from time to time in places like the Northwest Lingbei, and this Northwest War is a remarkable example. Every time such a war broke out, a large number of outcasts and prisoners of war would pour out, and slaves were allowed under imperial law. Therefore, in times of war like this, these slave groups of different sizes even appear in many places, openly buying and selling slaves in areas where famine is severe. And those civilians who are forced to make ends meet, in desperation, will automatically sell themselves into slavery in order to survive.

Of course, many of the other slaves were born from prisoners of war, especially in war zones like the Northwest and Lingbei, where there were some large-scale slave gangs every year. Although imperial law explicitly forbade the buying and selling of freemen, there seemed to be little rule for those of foreign races, and some local governors even acquiesced in it.

As a result, a large number of slave gangs have emerged on many borders, and their targets are precisely some displaced people and aliens on the border. There are even some powerful slave gangs that cross the border to capture slaves in enemy countries with the tacit consent of certain big families and chambers of commerce!

Of course, most of these behaviors occurred near Lingbei, because apart from the steppe people, the weakest of the three major human empires was the Isby Empire. And because of this, this gave many slave gangs a chance to capture, whether it was a prisoner of war or a civilian of the empire, they could be escorted to the slave market in the imperial capital.

Civilians or prisoners of war from enemy countries became a major part of the slave market through official channels. Now in the slave market in the imperial capital, I am afraid that more than seventy percent of them are refugees or prisoners of war from the border, most of whom have been plundered and left the homeland and come to the Bright Empire for many years.

There were even second-generation slaves born of the first slaves, who, of course, were branded as slaves from birth. Therefore, unless they can get the amnesty of the imperial official or the slave owner, even if they escape, as long as they are still in the territory of the Bright Empire, they will not be able to escape the status of slaves.

However, the slave trade in the Bright Empire is rampant, and a big reason is that there is even the direct participation of the top officials of the empire! For example, behind the largest slave trader in the imperial capital is the direct subordinate agency of the central financial department of the empire.

Some powerful slave cartels will even go all the way south out of the human world to hunt those aliens in the realm of elves or orcs! The elves themselves are very popular treasures in the human slave market. Almost all those captured elves could be sold for a sky-high price in the slave market that followed.

If nothing else, even excluding the cost of travel and mercenaries, the profits obtained here are extremely staggering. There are many wealthy and noble families in the human country who are engaged in this business, and even formed a very powerful interest group.

It can be said that the reason why the Empire of Light turned a blind eye to the slave business was mainly because the empire's finances could earn a large amount of financial income every year by relying on the slave trade.

After all, in the face of huge interests, it is difficult to maintain principles.

Jose and Gould soon followed the street to the entrance to the market, only to realize that the place in Temur was only on the outskirts of the slave market. Most of the areas are small bulk shops, and in the hundreds of meters of the street, in addition to the slave traders, there are many ordinary poor people, as well as strange craftsmen of all kinds looking for work.

In fact, slave markets were set up in the middle of the inner and outer cities in order to facilitate the slave trade. Most of the wealthy families in the inner city were also the main slave markets in the imperial capital, whether it was to do some odd jobs or work in the chamber of commerce, a large supply of slaves was needed.

At the end of the long street, on the high ground of a square, several high platforms were built on the square, and all the larger slave trading groups in the imperial capital would trade slaves on this high platform.

Below the high platform, as Qiao Se had seen that day, there were already many people gathered to watch, and many of these large onlookers were merchants from other places, as well as stewards of some wealthy nobles in the imperial capital, most of whom were people who came here to buy slaves.

The slave traders standing on the high platform were more demanding than the slave traders outside, most of them holding leather whips in their hands, and behind them stood several samurai bodyguards who seemed to have some strength. In front of them, there were dozens or hundreds of slaves in each of the chambers' districts, who were either kept in cages like animals, or sturdyly tied, wearing a long iron chain, and locked to the outside of the cage.

Gould only glanced at it, and then explained: Only these captives, who had just returned from the northwest or Lingbei, were unwilling to be driven and imprisoned by the slave traders, so they would think of resisting, so that they would be imprisoned in cages by these merchants.

On the other side of the platform, there were many kneeling on the ground, bound only by a rope, much looser than the ordinary slaves. But those guys all looked hollow-eyed and pale. Even those slave traders, walking around them, were not guarded by samurai bodyguards.

The slaves had blank expressions on their faces, and even though the slave traders were around them, shouting and selling, and fiddling with them like cattle, they were indifferent, and they could not even see any change in their expressions, and they were obviously numb to their fate.