Li Xiao carefully looked at the Frenchman in front of him. He had seen a lot of envoys recently. Except for the big names like King Ruan and Geritu, there were simply too many small characters like this. If it hadn't been for Li Xiu's letter, he probably wouldn't have seen it after two years.

Li Xiao.

Although the guy in front of me is not tall, he is definitely not short. He is always a little over 1.7 meters. Logically speaking, his younger brother should not be short either. Why do Mao history books always say that Napoleon was a dwarf?

Li Xiao is still very interested in iconic figures like Napoleon. In front of him is Napoleon's brother. As a blood relative, he should look somewhat similar. So, this guy Napoleon looks like this?

"Do you have a younger brother named Napoleon?" Li Xiao looked at Joseph for a long time and asked the first question.

Joseph, who was a little embarrassed by Li Xiao, immediately became energetic. This Ming army commander was interested in his younger brother, which was a good thing.

"Commander, my brother Napoleon Bonaparte is the commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force of the Kingdom of France. He likes the Ming Dynasty very much and also likes the culture of the Ming Dynasty very much. I am sent here this time because I want to get your support, the respected Marshal."

Li Xiao can be sure that this guy is talking nonsense. It would be strange if Napoleon knew that he existed.

"He must like our Ming Dynasty's advanced weapons!" Li Xiao hated the nonsense of diplomatic rhetoric, so he came up and said it directly. Time is precious and cannot be wasted on this.

"Uh...!" Joseph didn't expect Li Xiao to go straight to the point.

"Commander Qi! It's like this. My brother hopes to get the Ming Dynasty's advanced weapons. If the Ming Dynasty is willing to give us advanced weapons and equipment, we will be grateful. France and the Ming Dynasty will be eternal friends in the future."

It’s bullshit again! He’s just Napoleon’s brother, not the brother of the King of France. You say it’s just a friend’s business. As far as Li Xiao knows, there is still a king in France these days. I just don’t know how old this king is Louis.

"Your current king of France is Louis XIII?" Li Xiao was just blind. He didn't know that the current king was Louis XIII, but when he watched Hong Kong movies, there seemed to be a famous wine called Louis XIII.

The shape of the wine bottle is very special, the kind that people can remember at a glance. The only one that can rival it is Remy Martin.

"Uh...!" Before Joseph could speak, Li Xiao waved his hand. He was not very interested in the King of France.

Now that Napoleon has been born, the king is not far away from the guillotine. Who wants to know about a dying person! There is little information these days, and maybe by this time, the king's head will be somewhere else.

"I have limited time to say something meaningful. Our Ming Dynasty needs manpower, strong and large numbers of manpower. Can you provide it?" Li Xiao stared at Joseph closely.

"Before coming here, I have delivered five hundred of the strongest Egyptian laborers to your brother, His Excellency the Navy Commander. He was very satisfied with the Egyptian laborers, so he wrote a letter of recommendation to you."

"My brother said in the letter that those Egyptian workers are indeed very strong. Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty needs thousands of strong workers. The initial gap is 50,000 people, can you provide them?"

"Fifty thousand people...!" Joseph took a breath. He didn't expect that Ming Dynasty had such a big appetite and would need 50,000 people in the early stage.

"To 50,000 people!" Li Xiao said with certainty. In the future, if we march into the Northwest, we will need to open mines and build roads, and there won't be enough workers. Basically no one in the Ming Dynasty wants to go to the Northwest to endure hardships, and they are living a good life at home.

Why go to such a desolate place to endure hardship, unless you pay a very high salary.

High wages will inevitably bring high costs, and Ming Dynasty cannot afford such high costs now. Moreover, whether it is road construction or mining, it is now dangerous work. Li Xiao does not want Ming Dynasty's lives to be filled in for no reason.

In this way, the use of labor became inevitable. If Napoleon could provide large-scale labor, Li Xiao would not mind giving him some "high-tech" products.

"No problem, but it requires a lot of transportation capacity. We in France are currently in the Far East and don't have that much transportation capacity." Joseph was a little helpless.

There are plenty of Egyptians, not to mention 50,000, even 500,000 is not a big problem. It is just a matter of sending troops to various parts of Egypt to capture them, but transportation is a big problem.

This time, the ships he brought to Singapore were all merchant ships. One ship was stuffed like sardines, and it only contained more than a hundred people. If it was drifting on the sea, if it was over-sealed, people would die. This voyage departed from Jeddah Port.

When we arrived in Singapore, more than twenty people were dead.

"That's no problem, Ming Dynasty can provide transportation capacity. But you need to pay according to the price! At the same time, Ming Dynasty Navy will escort you for free. This is our discount. What do you think?"

Li Xiao's words made Joseph overjoyed. He didn't expect that Li Xiao would be so happy and agreed to send ships for transportation and provide naval escort. Because of the ironclad ships, the French navy and the English navy are no longer on the same level. The British with the French flag may not buy it.

, especially since this ship is still doing business with the Ming people.

At this time, naval escort is particularly important, especially the Ming Navy, which is stronger than the British.

"This is great, it's just the cost of renting a boat...!"

"You provide manpower in Egypt and transport it to Singapore for delivery. We will pay you in Singapore, and then we make a list of weapons. What kind of weapons you like can be purchased at the price on the list. We get the labor,

You have been given money. This money will be turned into weapons to arm your brother's Egyptian expedition.

Of course, if you rent a Ming ship, you also need to pay a corresponding price. Do you understand this?"

"I understand! I understand!"

"Now that you understand, I'll write you a note and you go talk to Ai Husheng of the Department of Revenue." After Li Xiao finished speaking, he picked up a pen and scribbled a note and handed it to Joseph.

"Thank you, Marshal! Thank you, Marshal!" Joseph held the note as if he had found a treasure.

Joseph was taken out by the guards. Li Xiao coughed and said, "Come out!"

Ai Husheng turned out from behind the screen and stood respectfully in front of Li Xiao.

"You can use customs fees to purchase labor. This way you don't have to worry about transporting the money back to Daming from Singapore! You can negotiate the price. I believe you can fight for Daming's interests better than me."

Now let me tell you the list of weapons that can be sold!" Li Xiao took out a list from the desk drawer and handed it to Ai Husheng.

Ai Husheng took it in his hand and looked at it carefully!

As he watched, Ai Husheng's hands began to tremble a little.

Starting from next May, large eight-grain rifles and bullets will be available.

What can be exchanged immediately include grenades, mortars and artillery shells, cannons and artillery shells, rocket launchers and artillery shells. Revolvers, revolvers, old-fashioned flintlocks (with mechanical sights!), infantry hand-held grenades and ammunition

, landmines...!

He wrote a long article eloquently, which made Ai Husheng a little stunned. The commander-in-chief, who always kept his weapons covered, was so generous to the French. These things are all standard weapons of the Ming army.

The reason why the supply of big eight-grain rifles will start in May next year should be that the entire Ming army will be re-equipped in May next year.

In other words, except for the outrageous things like the Maxim heavy machine gun, basically all the army weapons owned by the Ming army are on sale.

"Commander! This...!" Ai Husheng looked at the list, his hands trembling a little, not sure whether it was due to excitement or excitement.

"Zheng Sen and the others have done a good job. The expansion of the arsenal in Jinzhou is very effective. The Jinan arsenal expansion project will also be completed next month. The arsenal covering an area of ​​8,000 acres in Xi'an is already in production. This time I will go to the northwest to cut the ribbon for them.

My Ming Dynasty will have excess arms production capacity! If we sell the arms and exchange them for useful manpower and material resources, we will not waste these factories. Look at the British, they don't have reservations like us at all.

The weapons produced by the East India Company have clearly marked prices, and they are willing to sell them as long as someone bids for them. If your price is right, I guess they will also sell the latest battleships.

After these years of fighting, I finally understand. The reason behind war is money. Without money, a war is nothing. A philosopher once said that the purpose of war is only money, money, and more money.

I didn't understand this at the time, but now I understand everything.

The purpose of war is to obtain resources so that one's own nation can live a better life. As for the plundered nations, you can feel sad, sympathize, and pity them, but you cannot become one of them.

The strong can live a life of happiness and wanton squandering, while the weak can only crawl on the ground and be exploited to survive. This is the truth of this world, very cruel but very real."

Ai Husheng bowed and listened. It was not until Li Xiao stopped talking that he bowed and answered: "No! I will definitely fight for the greatest rights and interests for the Ming Dynasty."

Ai Husheng has long known this kind of thing. For the French, this is basically a costless business. All they paid was the cost of sending troops to arrest people. With the advanced weapons of the Ming Dynasty, Ai Husheng did not think that the Egyptians could

Defeat the French.

I heard that Egypt is also a powerful country with a large population. It is an ancient kingdom. Let alone 50,000 people, even half a million or one million should not be a big problem.

Anyway, people always die in those mines, and the Ministry of Household Affairs purchases about 300,000 Southeast Asian indigenous people every year. These people are bought by the evil mine owners, and they are not considered human beings at all.

Every day they eat the cheapest and most unpalatable food and do the heaviest and most tiring work. It is said that in many coal mines in Shanxi, several dead people are pulled out of the work sheds every day.

At first, they would roll up a mat and bury it, covering it with a thin layer of soil. They would often be dug up by wild wolves or the like, and you could often see wild wolves running around with people’s hands or arms in their mouths. There are even foxes that are tearing away the heads and bones.

Playing!

The local government was afraid of a plague and required the corpses to be burned uniformly. Anyway, the most important thing in Shanxi is coal!

Not only in Shanxi, but also in Liaodong, Henan, Shandong, and everywhere in the Ming Dynasty where there were mines. The local government successively built cremators to specifically incinerate the dead Southeast Asian indigenous people.

A head of the Ministry of Household Affairs once calculated that almost 100,000 Southeast Asian indigenous workers died in the Ming Dynasty every year due to various reasons. This was still in the north, and even more died in the south of the Yangtze River.

The large-scale use of steam engines has made coal a treasure. The coal mines in Jiangnan have large reserves, but most of them contain large amounts of water. In order to mine coal smoothly, special personnel must be arranged to drain the water.

The purchased indigenous laborers from Southeast Asia were stripped naked and locked up in water drums, treading water day and night. No lights could be burned in the water drums, and the joints were dark and constricted. The water dripped on their skin and was as cold as ice and snow. They could only hear iron in their ears.

The sound of the clamping force is endless...!

A weak person would die in less than a month, and a strong person would suffer from abdominal distension and swelling in just a few months. The supervisors did not allow them to rest, did not give them medicine, and just sat and watched as they died!

If anyone slacks off at work, he will be beaten with a whip, and if anyone escapes, both of his hands will be chopped off to serve as a warning to others.

After reading the report written by the supervisor, Ai Husheng felt that hell on earth was just like this.

But there is nothing we can do about it. If the indigenous people of Southeast Asia are not sold, those red-eyed guys will set their sights on the Ming people. Scams, abductions, and forced kidnappings will definitely happen from time to time.

In some places, the mountains are high and the emperor is far away, and there is no king's law at all. If you want to redress your injustice, I guess even the king of hell will not be able to do it.

Li Xiao once thought about protecting migrant workers. But the fact is that except for large state-owned coal mines, small private coal mines cannot afford to buy them, nor can they buy steam pumps.

In order to mine more coal, small coal mines are working hard in shifts to dig coal. Accidents, water leakage, explosions, and landslides occur every three days, any of which is fatal.

The government sells more than 300,000 Southeast Asian natives every year, not counting those sold by the Japanese. Many small coal mine owners buy Southeast Asian natives from the Japanese. Although the natives in their hands are not as strong as those sold by the government

, it is better because it is cheaper.

The price of many aborigines who looked like underage children was only half or even 30% of the labor prices sold by the government. The Japanese even set their sights on aboriginal women, and the prices were even more shocking.

In addition to collecting taxes, the local officials of the Ming Dynasty only investigated whether there were Ming people here. Selling Ming people was a capital crime, while selling natives was a legal business, not much different from selling pigs and dogs.

In the past five or six years, I don’t know how many Southeast Asian natives have been captured. Anyway, many places in Java that were originally densely populated have now become no-man’s land. The Japanese are even so crazy that they have begun to prey on the Cochin people.

This time King Ruan of Jiaozhi came to Beijing, and one of the important things he did was to complain to Li Xiao.

Of course Li Xiao would not punish the Japanese people, and his interest in this matter was actually very clear. King Ruan of Jiaozhi was reporting the accomplices to the mastermind!

However, Li Xiao would not expose it and let the Southeast Asians and Jiaozhi people hate the Japanese. Li Xiao felt that this was a very meaningful thing. If you don't hate them, you can only hate the Ming people.
Chapter completed!