Methwold had long been concerned about the slave trade, not only the strong demand for black slaves by the Portuguese in Brazil, but also the British colonies on the North American continent and the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean islands, which also needed a large number of docile and hard-working black slaves.

Unlike the Spanish and Portuguese conquests of the Americas, who always wanted to use the human resources of the local Indians, the British, who had just begun to enter the ranks of overseas colonial powers, had already learned from the experience of these two pioneering seafaring nations in developing colonies overseas.

In the eyes of the British, it was undoubtedly a difficult technical problem to seize the land of the natives and force them to accept the fate of enslavement.

The American Indians, in particular, the docile Indians of the region south of Mexico, had long since been conquered by Spain and Portugal. The Indians on the North American continent were more savage and belligerent than their southern brethren.

Moreover, the resources on the American continent were too rich, and when the Europeans did not arrive in this land, the Indians did not have much pressure to survive. The high yield of corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes and a variety of wild animals and plants fully met the population growth needs of the Indians.

If it were not for the cult of the Indians, blood sacrifices were used as the only way to obtain the gifts of the gods. As a result, there were too many senseless killings among the Indian tribes, and the population of the Indians may have reached the size that the American continent could handle, thus causing a change in civilization.

Because these Indians had no pressure to survive, when they were conquered by the Europeans, the Indian slaves who were forced by the Europeans to do all kinds of heavy labor either died soon or inspired the Indians to revolt against the colonists.

Although the Europeans have a relatively advanced civilization, the Indians are the masters of this land, and they have lived here without dispute for tens of thousands of years, and their understanding of this land is obviously not comparable to that of Europeans.

Once the Indians awakened the consciousness of resisting the colonizers, the European colonists, as outsiders, not only could not draw a lot of wealth from this land, but also consumed a lot of wealth and resources to suppress the Indians' rebellion.

For some colonists, this repression may have been a sign of their prowes, but for most colonial planters, it was simply intolerable acts of sabotage.

After all, these landlords who came to the colony to open up plantations came to the land in search of wealth, not to risk their lives to fight the natives.

Therefore, the search for an alternative to the indigenous labour force has always been a pressing need for these plantation owners. The British were the first to discover that white slaves, who were trafficked to colonies on the North American continent from within the country or Europe, were the best colonial pioneers.

Not only were they able to endure hardships and stand hard work, but they also had certain skills that allowed them to provide labor and the necessary technical strength for the development of the colony. Moreover, the white slaves are all indentured slaves, and as long as they work for the time specified in the contract, these white slaves will be free.

If these freemen wanted to acquire their own land, they would have to go to undeveloped land, so that they would become the pioneers of colonial development. As a result, British merchants obtained colonial permission from the British king and established the Colony Company, which attracted poor British landless peasants and established two colonies on the North American continent, Virginia and Massachusetts.

Whether it's the Susan Constant, Lucky and Discovery, which landed in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, or the Mayflower sailing ship that sailed into Plymouth Harbour in 1620. The immigrants on these ships were basically indentured slaves recruited by the company from Britain and continental Europe.

Although white indentured slaves were the main force in the development of colonies by the British, the harsh climate and unfamiliar environment of the North American continent made the colony development work not so smooth.

The loss of the immigrant population in the early North American colonies, basically more than 90%, eventually relied on the friendliness of the local Indians to teach these colonial whites how to farm and live on this land, and the British gained a firm foothold on the North American continent.

Because of the great risks of living in the North American colonies, the recruitment of white indentured slaves in Britain and Europe did not go well.

At the same time, the slave trade from West Africa to the Americas, which was started by the Portuguese, quickly attracted the attention of British merchants.

Portuguese traders transported metal goods from China to West Africa in exchange for slaves, and then made a 6-10 week hellish voyage to the Americas, where they could exchange sugar, tobacco, or other American specialties from American plantation owners for sale.

The rise of this triangular trade voyage led to a resurgence of Portuguese maritime power. However, the Dutch invasion of Brazil interrupted the Portuguese slave triangle trade.

Due to the blockade of Brazil's coast by the Dutch fleet, it was difficult for Portuguese slave ships to sail freely across the Atlantic. The triangular trade of black slaves, which had flourished in the Portuguese, came to a standstill, but the demand for black slaves in the Americas began to rise.

The black slaves from Africa were docile and obedient, and they lived in the Americas with various diseases and the local climate, and they were really rare colonial laborers. In Brazil, a black slave is worth four times as much as an Indian slave, but black slaves are still in short supply in the Brazilian market.

Because a black slave can earn back his worth by working in a sugar mill or plantation for 13 to 16 months. But it was rare for an Indian slave to survive more than eight months under such heavy labor.

The Portuguese plantation owners were so cruel to the slaves that even the Portuguese themselves could not stand it. A Portuguese priest in the colony of Brazil, Andres de Gvia, openly declared: "The sugar mill is hell, and all the sugar mill owners should be killed." ”

The Dutch attack on Brazil did not reduce the demand for black slaves on the Brazilian plantations, but rather increased it. After all, the Dutch did not come to Brazil to liberate the local Indians, they also came in pursuit of wealth.

The Dutch not only confiscated a number of Portuguese sugar cane plantations, but also developed many new sugar cane plantations at the same time. Although the war between the Catholic League led by the Habsburgs and the Protestant League had been fought for almost 11 years, and the war zone had expanded from Bohemia to Germany, the economies of European countries except Spain were still developing rapidly.

On the one hand, Europe's overseas trade has developed from a purely commercial trade economy in the early days to a colonial trade economy that plundered overseas resources, and the plantations that have sprung up on the American continent are undoubtedly the best proof.

On the other hand, after the discovery of the rich gold and silver mines in the Americas, the Spaniards had almost abandoned their domestic handicrafts and agriculture. When Spain entered the wars of religion, all kinds of supplies needed to sustain the war had to be purchased from European countries.

The wealth brought back from the Americas, as well as the heavy taxes imposed by the Spanish crown on the domestic and Portuguese people, eventually turned into orders from European merchants, which stimulated the development of industry and commerce in European countries.

Before the Middle Ages, sweet food was enjoyed by the aristocracy. Before the discovery of sucrose, Europeans had to look for sweets in honey.

And even after the discovery of sugar, its high price was not affordable for ordinary people, because most of the land in Europe was not suitable for sugar cane cultivation.

It was only after the rise of the colonial economy that the countless sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean islands and Brazil really made sugar a taste that could be tasted by European civilians.

Perhaps Europeans' taste for sweetness has been suppressed for too long, so when sucrose appeared in large quantities in the European market, Europeans' pursuit of sweets completely surpassed the rest of the world.

Thus, in the 17th century, sugar, like salt, became a necessity in the daily life of Europeans. In Amsterdam, a pound of the finest white sugar is worth 117 guilders, while in England it is 1 shilling 8 pence.

As for ordinary white sugar, it is about one-third of this price. According to Meswold's understanding, the UK imported more than 50,000 quintals of cane sugar last year, which is more than 2,500 tons when converted into the metric system now implemented in China.

And Brazil alone, before the Dutch invaded, it supplied close to 20,000 tons of cane sugar to the European market. Methwold initially estimated that the demand for sugar in Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the Near East would exceed 50,000 tons, but the Americas would not be able to provide more than 30,000 tons of sugar.

Therefore, the triangular trade between black slaves and cane sugar can be done almost indefinitely. Not to mention, lucrative Chinese goods are added in between.

The East India Company's delay in opening up in Asia led Meswold to think about how to run the slave trade between the Americas and Africa. However, he had previously considered using cotton cloth and other products produced in India to exchange slaves with the indigenous peoples of Africa.

After all, as the general manager of the East India Company, he did not have the authority to run the triangular trade routes between Britain, Africa, and the Americas. By joining India as an intermediate link, he was able to avoid the restrictions imposed on the East India Company by the king on the trade area.

It's just that this idea has never been mature, so Meswold has never made this proposal to the company's shareholders.

But in the face of the large fortune promised by Chongzhen, Methwald suddenly put aside his awe of the company's shareholders, and instead chose to confide in the Ming emperor about his triangular trade ideas.

After listening to Methwold's introduction, Zhu Youzhen's eyes couldn't help but flicker, but he quickly said to the Englishman seriously: "As a trading partner, I think you are the expert in trade affairs, and I have no objection to your plan."

However, as an emperor of China, I would like to warn you that the Ming Imperial Family has nothing to do with the slave trade. All Daming needs is rubber, and how to get it is your problem. ”

Methwold's mind spun around for a moment, and then he replied with a smile on his face, "Yes, Your Majesty." You are quite right, this is nothing more than a personal move by some British businessmen in pursuit of profit. It's good with me, it's good with Daming, it has nothing to do with it at all