Macau, the city of people.

An entire street, all engaged in the slave trade.

There are black, white, yellow, brown, and I can't tell what color it is.

Slaves are also divided into several grades, and in general, the darker the complexion, the cheaper, but it also depends on the physique. If you have a special skill, the price will increase. For example, if you can speak Chinese, you can use it when you buy it, but this kind of slave is more expensive.

This is the opposite of the market in the Americas, where the price of black slaves is the most expensive.

Both buyers and sellers like black slaves.

For the sellers, black slaves were cheap to buy and could afford to be transported by ocean, and the mortality rate was much lower than that of light-skinned slaves. Moreover, from the west coast of Africa, it can be transported directly to the Americas, and the transportation distance is also shorter.

For the buyer, the black slave was in good health and worked hard and hard. Moreover, he is from Africa, he has never seen much of the world, and he has no concept of a country or a nation, so it is not easy to unite and rebel. As for the problem of laziness, it is easy to cure, and it is to draw it to death.

Slave traders in various European countries have now carefully divided the global slave market.

The darker the complexion, the more it was sold to the Americas; The lighter the complexion, the more it is sold to China. Slaves from Japan and Korea were transported to Europe to pretend to be Chinese - brought back with merchant ships, and the number was not much, after all, the distance was too far, and it was better to transport people back to Europe than to transport porcelain.

In this way, the profit can be maximized.

As a result, there was a strange phenomenon, and after the boom of the Chinese slave market, black slaves became more and more rare in Macao.

At this moment, the streets of Macau.

The lowliest slaves, bound hand and foot with ropes, were tied to roadside stakes like cattle.

If a customer looks at any of them, they will open their mouths to look at their teeth, and strip their clothes to see if there are any unhealed wounds - in fact, they are not wearing any clothes, just a few pieces of cloth to cover their private parts.

"Yo, guest officer, you're early," seeing a customer come forward, a Han guy immediately greeted him, "What are you buying it for?" Here are all low-grade goods from the South Seas, which are most suitable for buying and working, sturdy, obedient, and better than livestock. If the guest officer wants to buy a good one, he can go to the store with the small one. ”

The customer was a middle-aged man, wearing a Husi caftan and speaking with a Jiangxi accent: "These Fanbang barbarians, do they know how to farm?" ”

The man laughed and said, "Livestock can plow the field and grind, can people still teach it?" Buy it at home, let them learn, beat if they can't learn, and beat if they don't obey. In less than a month, you can learn anything. ”

The customer asked, "How many taels of silver?" ”

"It depends on how much you buy," said the man, "and the more you buy, the cheaper it gets." ”

The customer said: "On our side, there is always a shortage of tenants, and I heard that in Macau we can buy people to go back to farming." The big families in several towns within a radius and one uncle who was canonized by the emperor entrusted me to come to Macao to buy people. In the first batch, buy 20 first, and if it is very useful, I will buy it again next year. ”

The man said happily: "You are a big customer, you have to talk to the shopkeeper about this." Please wait. ”

The shopkeeper was soon brought in, and the two sides bargained, and finally a deal was reached: the first batch of 20 slaves, three and a half silver dollars each. If you buy it again next year, the price can go down again, and the more you buy, the more it will drop.

The customer took his entourage and went to inspect the goods one by one, and resolutely did not want rotten teeth, did not want those whose injuries had not healed, and did not want those who had rotten sores. After checking these, he also made the slaves run and jump, and could not buy back a defective product.

The twenty slaves, all from the South Seas, were either Malays or Visayas.

The Malays were captured by the Dutch, and the Visayans were captured by the Spanish. The two countries opened up colonies in the South Seas, constantly fought with the natives, and when they caught captives, they sold them to Chinese maritime merchants, who in turn sold slaves to Macao for bulk goods.

After the transaction was completed, the shopkeeper was still selling: "Does the guest officer want a female slave?" They were all bought from the South Seas, and further south of Luzon, there were many small islands, and the islands were full of natives. These indigenous women, don't look like barbarians, are very good at housework. It's housework that you don't understand, and you can teach it a few times. It's okay for you to buy it back and be a maid, or to be a fire-burning woman, and you can send it away when you give it food, isn't it more cost-effective than hiring a Han woman as a helper? ”

The customer hesitated, apparently moved.

The shopkeeper continued to tempt: "Everything is good in the new dynasty, but women are not so obedient." Even the maid in the house, if she beats and scolds too harshly, she has to sue the official, and she doesn't look like a slave at all. These Nanyang women are more obedient than Han maids. Objectively, this complexion is not much darker than the Han family's daughter. If you keep it at home as a maid, you can become whiter if you don't bask in the sun for a year or two. ”

The customer was picky and said, "It's a pity it's too short." ”

The shopkeeper smiled: "Not short, much taller than a Japanese woman." If you don't like being too short, you can buy a young one and give her leftovers with a lot of oil and water, and won't she grow taller in a few years? ”

Customers are still picky: "It doesn't look good." ”

"That's easy," the shopkeeper smiled more happily, "and the one standing outside naturally doesn't look good." There are a few more in the courtyard, although they are all Nanyang natives, but they are very handsome. The skin is dark, but it has a different flavor. ”

"Then ...... Go in and have a look? "The hearts of customers are hot.

Entering the backyard of the store, the customer carefully selected, and finally found a particularly handsome one.

He has a petite body and dark skin, but his facial features are particularly beautiful.

"How much does this cost?" The customer asked.

The shopkeeper gestured with two fingers: "Thirty silver dollars." ”

"Thirty bucks? You're a fool! The customer turned and left.

The shopkeeper hurriedly grabbed it: "The price is still negotiable, how about twenty-eight yuan?" ”

The customer said, "Five pieces at most." ”

This time, it was the shopkeeper's turn to get angry: "Nanyang male slaves who are sturdy and can speak Chinese are priced at least five yuan." Such a beautiful Nanyang beauty, you want to buy it for five dollars? You go all over Macau, less than twenty taels can buy such goods, I will give her to you for free! ”

"Fifteen." The customer continues to counter-offer.

"Twenty-five!" The shopkeeper had a painful expression on his face.

Eventually, the deal was made for twenty silver dollars, with the proviso that the customer had to buy two more ordinary slave girls.

After the customer paid, he walked away. The slave girl bought three, one beautiful one, and bought it back to be a personal maid, and the remaining two were bought to cook on the fire.

Both men and women were tied with ropes and led to the boat like animals.

And those slaves, with blank eyes and numb expressions, like thoughtless walking corpses.

In the face of money, the evil of human nature is not hidden.

The Ming Dynasty has a tradition of human trafficking, especially in the years of famine, a bag of rice can be exchanged for a maid. In ordinary years, three or five taels of silver can buy a girl.

They don't treat the people of the country as people, how can they treat the foreign races of Fanbang as people?

Zhao Han forbade the keeping of slaves and maids, and all of them were changed to helpers, and it was not good for large families to use, and they always felt that those helpers kicked their noses in the face. Zhao Han divided the land among the poor peasants, who were busy with their own fields and did not have much energy to cultivate the land of large households. In this way, the foreign slave trade naturally flourished, and male slaves were bought to go back to farming, and female slaves were bought to work as maids.

"Proclamation, proclamation, the emperor's edict to the world!"

Several officials came from the boat, and when they arrived at the pier, they began to shout, and several copies were posted on bulletin boards all over Macao.

Merchants who do human trafficking are like mourning when they see the edict.

Because of one of the notices, all businesses engaged in human trafficking were ordered to register with the government as domestic helpers (labor agencies) within a time limit. Not only is there a tax to be levied on the sale of human beings, but they are no longer to be regarded as slaves, and if they are tortured and killed, whoever kills them, whether they are merchants or employers who buy them, will be punished with the same punishment as killing them.

There are many provisions in it, one of which is a ban on black trade.

Foreign hired workers (who are actually slaves) are subject to an annual poll tax, which also makes merchants very depressed. It is equivalent to increasing the employment cost of employers, which will lead some large households not to buy slaves to farm, or to bargain frantically when buying slaves.

The Han merchants were depressed, and the Portuguese in Macau were even more bombed.

Either settle in the government and become Chinese from then on. Either take a boat and get out of the way and return to Portugal immediately. If you don't want to become a naturalized citizen and don't want to leave, then you pay a poll tax every year, and a few dozen taels of silver a year is a huge amount of money. Moreover, after naturalizing in China, they cannot intermarry with white people, and they must marry freely after three generations.

"Your Excellency Speaker, don't keep talking!" City Councillor Rodri said urgently.

Speaker Warria slumped there, looking lying flat, and asked rhetorically, "What else can I say?" ”

"We should resist, we should take up arms and demonstrate!"

"Go to Guangzhou to meet the political envoy!"

"It's useless to go to Guangzhou, go to Nanjing to find the emperor and ask him to take back this order."

“……”

The conference room was so noisy that Warria couldn't help but slap the table: "Quiet, quiet!" ”

When everyone stopped talking, the speaker sighed: "Mr. Parliamentarians, the Portuguese army has long been disbanded by the Chinese emperor, and the batteries have long been taken over by the Chinese. The Chinese coast guard is waiting for us to make trouble, they can take the opportunity to kill the Portuguese! ”

The parliamentarians were completely silent, and they began to calm down.

In the absence of the Portuguese Governor of Macau, the Governor of Macau has been vacant since Malacca was taken by the Dutch, and it is all dependent on the autonomy of the Macau City Council.

Last year, a governor was appointed, and the Cape of Good Hope was met with a storm and a dead ball. The appointment of a governor this year has not yet sailed out of Africa, and if history remains unchanged, it will be dead. The governor, who was appointed next year, died of illness in Macao after three years in office.

In other words, at this moment, there are no high-ranking officials sent by the Portuguese royal family in Macau.

The members were all Portuguese natives of Macau, and more than one-third of them were of Chinese matrilineal descent. They are in Portugal, they have no industry, no foundation, and they go back to Europe to do hair?

Hell, the King of Portugal, for whom the Emperor of China is more intimate than the King of Portugal.

If these parliamentarians are allowed to continue to govern themselves, they will be 100 percent naturalized in China without saying a word. The reason for the quarrel was not because of nationality, but because of the imminent loss of their power, because the emperor was going to send Han officials over.

Warriah said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Emperor of China has supreme authority, and we cannot compete with him. That being the case, what should we do now...... It's just to divide the municipal property. As for the trading fleet, since the loss of the Japanese market, there has been little profit every year. I think this is a good opportunity to turn the fleet belonging to the Portuguese royal family into a joint-stock company, and everyone here is a shareholder. In the future, we are all Chinese, the trading company is also a Chinese trading company, we enjoy all the preferential rights and interests of a Chinese trading company, maybe we can make more money! ”

The parliamentarians looked at each other, and the words of the speaker opened their minds.

"The commander of the trade fleet, sent by the Portuguese royal family. We can convince him to give him more shares, and he will definitely be willing to be Chinese. ”

"We, the shareholders, can also intermarry with Chinese mainland merchants, so that we can buy goods more easily and send goods to Nanyang at a lower cost." We were even able to re-enter the Japanese market, where the Japanese shogunate allowed Chinese merchant ships to trade. ”

"Yes, intermarriage with Chinese mainland merchants. If the big businessman is unwilling, he will intermarry with the small businessman, and we can support the small businessman to become bigger. This is also in response to the order of the great emperor, our children and grandchildren, all of whom are of Chinese ancestry, will do more and more business in the future. ”

"From today on, I am Chinese."

"Long live His Majesty the Emperor of Datong, to hell with the King of Portugal!"

“……”

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