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594【Macao Today】

Macau, people city.

An entire street was devoted to the slave trade.

Some are black, some are white, some are yellow, some are brown, and some cannot tell what color they are.

Slaves are also divided into several grades. Generally speaking, the darker the skin color, the cheaper it is, but it also depends on the physique. If you have special skills, the price will increase. For example, if you can speak Chinese, you can use it if you buy it. This kind of slave is

More expensive.

This is exactly the opposite of the situation in the American market, where black slaves were the most expensive.

Both buyers and sellers like black slaves.

For sellers, the purchase price of black slaves was cheap, and they could withstand ocean transportation, and their mortality rate was much lower than that of light-skinned slaves. Moreover, from the west coast of Africa, they could be transported directly to the Americas, and the transportation distance was shorter.

For buyers, black slaves are in good health and can endure hard work. Moreover, they are from Africa, have not seen much of the world, and have no national or ethnic concepts. It is not easy for them to unite and rebel, and they can just accept the situation and live in peace. As for laziness, it is very good.

To treat it, to smoke it to death is...

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

The darker the skin color, the more likely it is to be sold to the Americas; the lighter the skin color, the more likely it is to be sold to China. Slaves from Japan and Korea were transported to Europe and brought back with merchant ships pretending to be Chinese, and the number was not large. After all, the distance was too far to transport people.

It would be better to ship porcelain back to Europe.

Only by segmenting in this way can profits be maximized.

As a result, a strange phenomenon occurred. After the Chinese slave market flourished, black slaves became increasingly rare in Macau.

At this moment, the streets of Macau.

The lowest slaves had their hands and feet tied with ropes and tied to wooden stakes on the roadside like animals.

When customers come and go, if they like someone, they will open their mouths to look at the teeth, and take off 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.

"Hey, sir, good morning," a Han waiter greeted immediately when he saw a customer coming forward, "What are you buying for? These are low-grade goods from Nanyang, which are most suitable for buying for work.

It's strong, obedient, and easier to use than animals. If you want to buy a good one, you can follow the little one to the store."

The customer was a middle-aged man wearing a Hu silk gown. He spoke with a Jiangxi accent and said, "Can these foreign barbarians know how to farm?"

The clerk laughed and said: "Animals can plow fields and grind mills, but people can't teach them? Buy them home and let them learn. If they can't learn, they will be beaten. If they don't obey, they will be beaten. In less than a month, they can learn everything."

The customer asked: "How many taels of silver each?"

"It depends on how much you buy," the waiter said. "The more you buy, the cheaper the price will be."

The customer said: "We are always short of tenants over there. I heard that in Macau you can buy people to farm the land. Large households from several towns around, including an uncle who was conferred by the emperor, all entrusted me to come to Macau to buy them.

People. I’ll buy twenty of the first batch. If they’re very useful, I’ll buy them again next year.”

The waiter said happily: "You are a big customer. You have to discuss this matter with the shopkeeper. Please wait a moment."

The shopkeeper was quickly invited, and the two parties bargained and finally reached a deal: the first batch of 20 slaves, three and a half silver dollars each. If you buy again next year, the price can be lowered. The more you buy, the more the price will drop.

The customer takes his entourage and goes to inspect the goods one by one. He firmly refuses those with rotten teeth, those with unhealed injuries, and those with sores. After inspecting these, he also makes the slaves run and jump, so as not to buy back a defective product.

These twenty slaves were all from Southeast Asia, either Malays or Visayans.

The Malays were captured by the Netherlands, and the Visayans were captured by Spain. The two countries opened up colonies in Southeast Asia and constantly fought with the indigenous people. They captured prisoners and sold them to Chinese merchants, who then sold slaves to

Macau bulk cargo.

After the transaction was completed, the shopkeeper was still promoting: "Do you want female slaves, sir? They are all bought from Nanyang. Further south of Luzon Island, there are many small islands, and the islands are full of indigenous people. Don't look at these indigenous women.

They are barbarians, and they are very good at housework. Even if you don't understand housework, you can teach it a few times. You can buy it back and work as a maid, or you can work as a firemaker.

Is it worthwhile for a woman to be a domestic helper?”

The customer hesitated and was obviously persuaded.

The shopkeeper continued to seduce: "Everything is good in the new dynasty, but the women are not so obedient. Even the maid at home will sue the officials if she is beaten or scolded too harshly. They don't look like slaves at all. These Nanyang women

, she is more obedient than a Han maid. Objectively speaking, her skin color is not much darker than that of a Han girl. If she is kept at home as a maid, she will become even whiter without exposure to the sun for a year or two."

The customer was critical and said: "It's a pity it's too short."

The shopkeeper smiled and said: "Not short, much taller than Japanese women. If you don't like being too short, you can buy a younger one and feed her leftovers with lots of oil and water. Won't she grow taller in a few years?"

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

"That's easy to handle," the shopkeeper smiled even more happily, "The ones standing outside certainly don't look good. There are a few more in the courtyard. Although they are all Nanyang natives, they are very handsome. Their skin is dark, but they have a different flavor.

Woolen cloth."

"Then... let's go in and take a look?" the customer said enthusiastically.

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

She is petite and has dark skin, but her facial features are particularly beautiful.

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

The shopkeeper pointed out two fingers: "Thirty silver dollars."

"Thirty yuan? Do you think I'm a fool?" The customer turned around and left.

The shopkeeper quickly stopped him: "The price can still be negotiated, how about twenty-eight yuan?"

The customer said: "Five yuan at most."

This time it was the shopkeeper's turn to be angry: "The price of a Nanyang male slave who is strong and can speak Chinese costs at least five yuan. You want to buy such a beautiful Nanyang beauty for five yuan? You want to visit all of Macau?"

Once again, if you can buy something like this with less than twenty taels, I will give it to you for free!"

"Fifteen yuan." The customer continued to counteroffer.

"Twenty-five!" the shopkeeper said with a pained expression on his face.

In the end, the deal was concluded for twenty silver dollars, with the condition that the customer must buy two more ordinary female slaves.

After the customer paid, he left happily. The slave girl bought three, one beautiful one, and bought it back to be a personal maid, and the remaining two were bought for cooking.

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

As for those slaves, their eyes were blank and their expressions were numb, as if they were walking zombies without thoughts.

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, with three to five taels of silver, you can buy a servant girl.

They don't treat Chinese people as human beings, so how can they treat foreigners as human beings?

Zhao Han forbade the keeping of slaves and turned them all into servants. The wealthy families were not satisfied with using them, and they always felt that the servants were a nuisance. Zhao Han divided the fields among the poor peasants, but the peasants were busy with their own fields and did not have much energy to cultivate the land of the wealthy families.

.With all this, the foreign slave trade naturally flourished, buying male slaves to go back to farm, and buying female slaves to go back to work as maids.

"Public Notice, Notice, the Emperor's decree to the world!"

Several official officers came from the ship and started shouting when they arrived at the pier. Several copies were posted on bulletin boards all over Macau.

Businessmen who deal in human beings feel as if they are mourning for their heirs when they see the notices and edicts.

Because one of the notices ordered all merchants who trade in human beings to register with the government as servants within a time limit. Not only will they be taxed when buying and selling people, but they will also no longer be treated as slaves. If they are tortured and killed, no matter whether they are merchants or buyers.

Employer, whoever is beaten to death is guilty of a crime and will be punished the same as if he killed a fellow citizen.

There are many clauses in it, one of which prohibits black trade.

Foreign employees are required to collect a head tax every year, which also makes merchants very depressed. It increases the employer's labor costs, which will cause some large households to not buy slaves for farming, or to bargain wildly when buying slaves.

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

Either register with the government and become Chinese from then on. Or get out of the boat and return to Portugal immediately. If you don’t want to naturalize and don’t want to leave, then you have to pay a head tax every year. Dozens of taels of silver a year is a huge sum of money. Moreover, after naturalizing as a Chinese,

Marriage with white people is still not allowed, and marriage can only be free after three generations.

"Your Majesty Speaker, don't keep silent!" Councilor Rodri said urgently.

Speaker Hualiya slumped there, as if lying flat, and asked: "What else can I say?"

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

"Go to Guangzhou to meet the Chief 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 Hua Liya couldn't help but slap the table: "Quiet, quiet!"

When everyone stopped talking, the speaker sighed: "Members of Congress, the Portuguese army has been disbanded by the Chinese emperor, and the fort has been taken over by the Chinese. The Chinese coast guard is just waiting for us to cause trouble.

, they can take the opportunity to kill all the Portuguese!"

The deputies fell completely silent and began to calm down.

The Portuguese Governor in Macau is away. Since Malacca was taken away by the Netherlands, the Governor of Macau has been vacant, relying entirely on the autonomy of the Macau Municipal Council.

A governor was appointed last year, but he died in a storm at the Cape of Good Hope. A governor was appointed this year, but he has not yet left Africa. If history remains unchanged, he will still be dead. The governor appointed next year died of illness in Macau after working for three years.

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

The congressmen present are all Portuguese natives of Macau, and more than 30% of them are of Chinese matrilineal ancestry. They have no industry and no foundation in Portugal. Why go back to Europe to make trouble?

Damn the Portuguese king, to them, the Chinese emperor is more approachable than the Portuguese king.

If these congressmen are allowed to continue to be autonomous, they will 100% naturalize themselves in China without saying a word. The reason for the quarrel is not because of the nationality issue, but because they are about to lose their power because the emperor wants to send Han officials.

Hualiya said: "Everyone, the Chinese emperor has supreme authority, and we cannot compete with him. In this case, what we should do now... is to divide the municipal property. As for the trade fleet, since losing the Japanese market,

There is no 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. From now on, we are all Chinese, and the trading company is also a Chinese trading company.

We enjoy all the preferential treatment rights of Chinese trading companies, maybe we can make more money!"

The members looked at each other in confusion, and their thoughts were opened by the speaker's words.

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

"We shareholders can also intermarry with Chinese inland merchants, so that we can buy goods more easily and send freight to Nanyang at a lower cost. We can even re-enter the Japanese market. The Japanese shogunate allows Chinese merchant ships to sail

Nagasaki Trade.”

"Yes, intermarry with Chinese inland businessmen. If the big businessmen don't want to, just marry the small businessmen. We can support the small businessmen to become bigger. This is also in response to the order of the great emperor. Our descendants will all have Chinese ancestry. The future business will be better

It gets bigger and bigger.”

"From today on, I am Chinese."

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

"..."

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