Tripoli, 15 July.

Mo Jirong walked slowly in the noisy and lively market, although his eyes looked at the "goods" on both sides of the aisle from time to time, and occasionally stopped in front of the "goods" he was interested in, but he ignored the eager gaze cast by the merchants, and continued to move forward after a short pause.

The ferocious gaze of more than a dozen armed guards who accompanied him forced back those merchants who tried to move forward to talk to them one by one.

These small merchants, how can they have any good goods, how can they casually bother the great master of Qi to talk to you in vain and delay time?

The goods bought and sold in this market are relatively special, and they are not ordinary commodities such as firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, etc., which are daily needs of the local people.

This is the largest white slave market in Tripoli, where a large number of Europeans captured by Barbary pirates from southern Europe, as well as Ireland and northwestern Europe are auctioned and traded, attracting countless sellers from all over the world to pick and buy.

From the beginning of the 16th century, Berber pirates from Algiers, Tunisia, Morocco, and Tripoli (Barbary Coast) in North Africa became a source of misery in the Mediterranean trade, robbing merchant ships, kidnapping sailors, and demanding ransom, and then providing wealth and naval power to the true god rulers of these countries. For centuries, Catholic rulers were busy raising funds and handing them over to pirates to redeem the many who were robbed.

At that time, the European Orthodox pirates who were based in North Africa and engaged in piracy in the Mediterranean were collectively known as Barbary pirates. By the beginning of the 17th century, the Barbary pirates had spread to all North African countries except Egypt, including Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia and Tripoli.

In addition to Morocco, which maintained a relatively independent status due to the rise of the Alawite Dynasty, the other three local governments in North Africa were under the regency rule of the Ottoman Empire and provided political asylum to the Barbary pirates, and their relationship with the central Ottoman Empire was directly proportional to the strength of the Ottoman state.

At the height of the Ottoman power in the 17th century, the Barbary pirates were the most loyal sea warriors of the Sultan, but from the end of the last century to the beginning of this century, as the Ottoman state lost its glory, they also separated from the center of the empire and became semi-independent kingdoms. The Pasha and the lords of North Africa nominally recognized Istanbul's authoritarian power, but in reality they were the real rulers of the region.

During this period, the navies of European countries developed by leaps and bounds, improved their weaponry, training, and doctrine and tactics, and gradually formed a large generational gap with the maritime forces of the Ottoman and North African regions.

For this reason, the main source of income of the Barbary pirates also changed from a mixture of direct robbery and collection of marine protection fees to simply collect marine protection fees, at that time all European countries had to pay money as long as they wanted to do business in the Mediterranean, otherwise Barbary pirates would attack their merchant ships, and many countries preferred to hand over this money to buy peace in order to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Although the Barbary Pirate was able to maintain a continuous source of income, the fact that the wealth he gained was no longer enough to support the development of technology and the updating of the most advanced warships, which also doomed him to be unable to compete with several major European maritime powers.

The rulers of the Barbary pirates also seemed to be aware of this, so they looked at the dishes and gave up collecting protection fees from Britain, France, the Netherlands and other countries, because the navies of these three countries began to modernize at the earliest, and their weapons and equipment and ship performance were no longer comparable to those of the Barbary pirates, and the tactical and strategic thinking of naval officers was improved by several levels, and the merchant ships of other European countries except for the above three countries still had to pay protection fees.

Although the robbery of the Barbary pirates at sea has been greatly reduced, the impact on the security environment of the whole Mediterranean has never diminished, because there are always Berbers who cannot bear the loneliness and cannot survive the barren and boring life, so they will meet hundreds of companions and sail in rudimentary galleys, and go to Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and southern Italy. The coastal towns were not daring to touch, and the whites there still had some force, so they could only find some remote coastal fishing port villages and towns, and plunder people and materials.

The largest number of Barbary pirate captives were fishermen and peasants, but of course soldiers on the shore or other civil officials and scribes on the king's mission, and if they were lucky, missionaries and nobles were among the captives.

The leaders of the pirates established a unique "commodity price system" in Tunisia and Algiers, where the plundered were required to pay 10% of the value of each trophy as a ransom to redeem the captives and their belongings, the fishermen and peasants had the lowest ransom, the soldiers and official scribes were the second, and the missionaries were 70%-100% higher than the ordinary captives, the most expensive were naturally the nobles, and the ransom was often four to five times that of ordinary prisoners, and the more important people would even mark ten times the ransom.

It is clear that the difficulty of obtaining a captive is directly proportional to the ransom, and that the unarmed fisherman is the most likely to be captured, while the well-guarded nobleman is the most difficult to capture.

By this time, the proportion of fishermen and farmers in the hands of Barbary pirates had jumped from 15%-20% to 35%-40%, while other types of captives had decreased year-on-year, which indirectly reflected the gradual decline of the pirate kingdom of Barbary.

You must know that during the heyday of Barbary, there will be pirates from Greece, the Netherlands, Germany and other countries and regions vying to vote, bringing them a variety of advanced technology and weapons.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the slave trade was extremely lucrative, and Algiers became a centre of slave trade on a par with the Black Sea region of Crimea (the Crimean Khanate was founded on the capture of slaves), and countless slaves were sold to the Ottomans, Egypt and Arabia.

As for the buyers of white slaves, the Ottomans were the largest customers of the Barbary pirates, and there were also significant markets in Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, and India. Sixty or seventy years ago, the Barbary pirates also extended the white slave trade to the East Indies and the Han continent.

The latter, in particular, has become their most qualified customer in a very short period of time. Not only did they pay a lot of money, but they were also able to exchange a large number of high-performance firearms and various high-value-added goods from them, so that the Barbary pirates increased their military force while indirectly increasing their own trade profits.

Yes, Hanzhou's goods are in the Mediterranean, in Europe, the sales are good, tea, porcelain, silk, steel bars, hardware, clocks, precision tools, and good quality cotton cloth are very popular with consumers. Whether these goods were offered to the local Pasha and lords in exchange for political asylum, or resold to Europeans for a lot of money, they greatly improved the living conditions of the Barbary pirates.

However, these good times did not last long. Because, with the rise of the Qi state and the gradual expansion of their influence into the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, they bypassed the Barbary pirates and established direct contact with the Ottoman Empire, gradually alienating themselves from them.

At the same time, the Qi people gradually lost interest in the "goods" in the hands of the Barbary pirates, and instead directly established their own trading stations in North Africa, building a commercial network, and transporting a wide variety of huge commodities to Egypt by red sea, and then to the Mediterranean coast by land, and finally to the Ottomans, the Levant, and the European continent.

The Barbary pirates, who did not want to be abandoned by the torrent of the times, also repositioned themselves in the Red Sea-Mediterranean trade circle dominated by the Qi State, and became the protector of the trade merchants and the defender of the maritime order. Although they are still hard to change, and while transporting and selling Qi goods, they will also see the opportunity to do a few transactions without capital and increase some additional income, but their "reform and return to the right" has finally eased the maritime security environment and promoted the prosperity of the entire Mediterranean trade.

After the outbreak of the Qi-British War, the Barbary pirates, as the agents of Qi goods in North Africa, naturally stood on the side of the Qi people, whether it was to enhance friendship between each other or to protect their own interests, it was natural to attack the English merchant ships at sea.

Later, the Barbary pirates received a request from the Qi people to launch an attack on the provocative Republic of Venice in retaliation for their unprovoked attack on Qi merchant ships.

In return, in addition to giving them a large amount of money and material support, the Qi people also began to increase the purchase of "goods" accumulated in the hands of the Barbary pirates, and even white male slaves, who were not very rare before, bought them in large quantities without bargaining.

"What's been going on at the Venetian?"

After some careful examination and fierce disputes, a transaction involving 680 white slaves was successfully completed, and Mo Jirong leaned back on a comfortable chair, enjoying a gentle massage from a white slave, feeling a heartfelt comfort.

"The Venetians have lost their patience after months of besieging Port Damietta with the English. Except for a few ships that remained to perfunctory the English, all the other ships withdrew to Venice. Barbary Pirate Leader Sabri Bukadum drank the glass he was holding and slammed his mouth a few times, as if he was still a little unsatisfied.

Well, this mead (sugar cane wine) is still not strong enough.

"The Empire (Ottomans) did not launch an attack on Venice?"

Isn't it forbidden in your doctrine of the true God to be corrupted by alcohol?

Mo Jirong watched Sabri Bukadum drink so much, and he couldn't help but secretly despise himself in his heart, this guy must be a false believer in his heart.

"The Empire has suffered two defeats in Wallachia, and it is estimated that it will not be able to pull out for a while."

"Wasn't the Reich always in a military stalemate with the Austrians? Why did you suddenly suffer two more defeats? Mo Jirong was a little surprised.

"The Austrians sent Prince Eugen to the front." Sabri Bukadum said with a gloating expression on his face: "That Prince Eugen made a series of tactical deception moves, which fooled the generals of the empire, and the troops were easily mobilized by the enemy, and as a result, they suffered a big loss, losing more than 7,000 soldiers. ”

"Alas......" Mo Jirong couldn't help but sigh when he heard this.

In the war, it is becoming more and more difficult for the Ottomans to see their highlight moments, and in the face of European countries, they always lose more than they win, and even the most backward and ignorant Russians in Europe can take advantage of them.

This old empire is afraid that it will never be able to return to its former glory.

You see, even the Barbary pirates, who can't get on the table, look down on their former masters.

"Oh, yes." As if suddenly thinking of something, Sabri Bukadom turned his head to look at Mo Jirong and said, "A few days ago, our people captured an English merchant ship in the waters near Malta, and learned an important piece of information about the English fleet from the captain. …… An English fleet of more than fifty ships was resting in Malta in preparation for the return to Gibraltar in the near future. ”

"Huh?" When Mo Jirong heard this, his heart moved, and he pushed the slave girl away and sat up from the chair, "The English fleet is about to withdraw to Gibraltar?" Is the message reliable? ”

"That's what the captured captain said, and as for whether it's reliable, maybe you can just bring it up and interrogate it again." Sabri Bukadum shrugged his shoulders and said indifferently: "The departure of part of the English fleet should be good news. At the very least, when we go further to the Levant and the Ottoman mainland, the chances of hitting them will be a little smaller, and the losses will be somewhat lower. ”

"Sabri, you know what? Our fleet of Qi is gathering near Gibraltar, preparing to attract the English to a decisive battle at sea. Mo Jirong said faintly: "Then, this England fleet that is about to return must not know the news of the existence of our Qi fleet in Gibraltar. ”

"Well, I think so." Sabri Bukadum nodded.

"Sabri, I think this piece of news you've provided is more valuable than the goods you just sold us." Mo Jirong stood up and looked at the pirate leader with a smile, "I need that captured English captain now, I want to confirm the accuracy of this news, so that my Qi fleet can annihilate this returning English fleet in one fell swoop." ”

"......" Sabri Bukadum looked at Mo Jirong in a daze, "In that case, should you pay me a good reward?" ”

"Sabri, you immediately mobilize and gather more of your companions to go to the waters of Malta, and try to delay and hinder the return of this English fleet." Mo Jirong smiled and patted Sabri on the shoulder, "You can rest assured, when it comes to old friends, we Qi people will never be stingy." After the end of this war, your Barbary kingdom will reap unprecedented commercial benefits. ”

——

(End of chapter)