"The era of the slave trade is over."

On the busy and extremely noisy streets of Plymouth in Devon, England, a black and white horse-drawn carriage passed quickly, and the old coachman in a white shirt and stockings wore a wig and drove the carriage and horses to open the way in front of him.

Next to the most conspicuous carriage was a pair of shields of bound negroes.

The owner of the carriage was John Hawkins, a member of the English Parliament, a naval treasurer, and a naval supply officer, who was sitting in a carriage covered with red Ottoman carpets, leaning on the Ming velvet armrest, lifting the brown woolen curtains and looking at the coast not far away, and exclaimed to his nephew Francis Drake, who was sitting opposite: "The era of the slave trade is over." ”

When he said this, Drake was playing with a pack of brown paper cigarette boxes in his hand, and the small brown paper square bag was stained with a square sign with the words 'Da Ming Muye' written on it, and the upper part of the cigarette box had been opened to reveal the unneatly arranged cigarette rolls inside.

There are several pieces of tobacco that have been roasted and cut are glued to the carton, and the paper used for each cigarette is the same length and thickness, and there is a folded paper card at the position of the cigarette holder to ensure that the tobacco does not enter the mouth when used, and the workmanship is exquisite.

In fact, the workmanship from the inside to the outside may not be really exquisite, the cigarette box is yellow, the cigarette paper is also yellow, and even the square white cigarette label is irregularly cocked because of the glue drying.

But in this era, just like the railway, no matter how shoddy, as long as it is done, it is the most exquisite.

Because only Italy can make decent paper in the whole of Europe, papermaking was introduced to Samarkand in the eighth century, and then in Arabia, and only entered Italy in the fourteenth century to change the embarrassing status quo of using sheepskin, but it is still far from the Ming Dynasty, because they are still using the production technology of the Han and Tang dynasties, and ancient China used hemp and rags as raw materials, and they generally used cotton fibers, which are not as soft and thin as hemp paper.

By the time England learned to make paper, it was already the 17th century.

So the Renaissance was indeed a Renaissance, and the paper industry flourished after that, because there was no such thing before.

Until the 14th century, papyrus and parchment were still used in Europe, both of which were called paper for ease of understanding, but were not paper at all.

Papyrus is simply tree bark, parchment is simply parchment, and similar to them are cloth, tortoise shell and bronze tripod, which are writing instruments, how can it be paper?

For English people who can't even make such cigarette paper and kraft paper, many people develop the habit of smoking by wanting a piece of kraft paper.

These papers are really good, the kraft paper is made by Li Yuxi's people from the pine fibers grown in the highlands of Quebec, and the cigarette paper is simple hemp paddle paper; Li Yuxi originally wanted to simply make it with pine paper, but later tried it himself and found that it was too choking.

Speaking of which, it is indeed not easy for Li Daheng to sell a cigarette, and he has tried all kinds of paper cigarettes. even rolled a cigarette with Chen Mu's favorite magnetic green paper, and was choked with snot and tears when he smoked it, not to mention the key cost, which made him feel that he was smoking silver.

Drake pinched an unlit cigarette roll with two fingers in a daze, and smiled back to his senses: "For us, the slave trade has long been over. ”

As the first Hawkins family in England to rely on maritime trade, John Hawkins and Francis Drake had enough confidence to say this.

England's maritime trade originated with Spain's exploration of the New World, and the English ships were Spanish porters at sea, transporting slaves from Africa to the New World, but these porters occasionally turned into pirates to rob Spanish ships until Hawkins was targeted by the Spanish crown and the fleet was destroyed.

In retaliation, the Queen of England seized a Spanish galleon that had taken refuge in armed French Huguenots, bringing to light the maritime dispute between the two countries.

Since then, Hawkins and Drake, as any of the best in the industry would often do, have risen to the more upstream industry, which for them is the robbery of Spanish galleons.

In fact, it was precisely because of the early departure from the slave trade that the Hawkins family did not fall into the poisonous hands of Yang Ce.

This is the supply chain of triangular trade, where African tribes hate each other and countless captives are killed; The Spaniards and Portuguese in the New World needed more manpower, so they sold them as booty to English merchants, who sold these captives as slaves to the New World, and the blood supported the flow of gold and silver to Europe; This chain would have been lost to history in the long course of time because the New World would no longer need more people in a hundred or two hundred years.

The addition of Yang Ce changed this, and there was never a strong fleet on the west coast of Africa, which brought disaster to the triangular trade, and also led to a more short-lived, new triangular trade.

Only this time the merchant ships from Europa became new prey, and the manpower gap opened up in the New World was also interrupted by Chen Mu's arrival...... It was not the immigrants who crossed the ocean in the Ming Dynasty that blocked the manpower gap, but that they completely squeezed out the power of the Europeans in that land, and naturally there was no longer a need for slaves.

"Property in Plymouth is in short supply, the merchants are being deprived of the blue ship robbers at sea, the investments of hundreds of nobles have been lost, and people have turned to more profitable commerce."

Hawkins pointed to the velvet pillow under his arm and said, "They are driving Congress to pass a bill called Plymouth Trade, the content of the bill is to make Plymouth a port dedicated to the trade of the Ming Empire - fortunately, the queen still trusts me and has been delaying the effective date of the bill." ”

Drake put down his hand on the cigarette he was playing with, looked up at Hawkins and asked, "Uncle, isn't this good?" ”

"The goods sold by Daming are of very good quality, cheap and limited, even if we sell these goods to the Mediterranean, we still have money."

"Of course it's good to be able to trade, but what have I been doing all these years since we were destroyed by the Spaniards and there were only two ships left in our fleet back to Plymouth?"

Hawkins gestured out the carriage window, referring to the massacre that had taken place twelve years earlier in Spanish Veracruz and now the Spanish Broadport.

Drake followed Hawkins' hand and looked out the window, the carriage was passing by the coast, and huge ships were parked compactly on the beach, Hawkins said: "I entered Congress eight years ago, succeeded my father-in-law as Naval Treasurer three years ago, and this year became the Navy's supply officer trusted by Her Royal Highness, and I have been preparing for a naval battle with the Spaniards. ”

"At that time we didn't have a navy, not even a decent warship, and now we have twelve warships of more than 100 tons, twelve clippers that can sail near the sea, and many more are still being built, right here in Plymouth."

"When the bay that is easy to dock here becomes a port for trade with the Ming people, and the merchant ships of the Ming people will occupy it, what will we use to build ships?"

"Is it just the lamb who showed the queen palmistry?"

Lamb...... Drake also felt helpless about the owner of the name, a blind man named Yang Gao, who was said to have become a wanted criminal in the Ming Empire's Oriental Military Government for leaking heavenly secrets, and came to England wrapped in a filthy and rancid stall in a merchant ship.

He shook his head and said, "Uncle, that lamb is not a good man, and although he does not support the establishment of a trading port in Plymouth, he obviously has other intentions. ”