"You said you found Chinese businessmen in Halep?"

Inside a gorgeous dome building, there is a big man and several maids pouring wine for him.

"Absolutely, he has all the faces of Chinese merchants, and even the British people admitted this. According to my observations over the past few days, he is definitely not an employee who works for Levant. Henry, that guy, was talking to him on an equal basis." A local low-level official appeared here.

If Li Jinde and the people from Lifante Company were here, they would definitely recognize this low-level official as the one who hosted a banquet to entertain them.

This official seemed humble in front of the big shots.

He knew how terrible this man was. Murat, the great pirate lord in Algiers in the Barbary region, had thousands of North African pirates as his subordinates, and was on the surface a senior local official of the Ottoman Empire.

He was also a member of the Imperial Prime Minister's family.

"Their Chinese officials executed my son with smugglers in Batavia, and monopolying spices reduced our profits, and I want them to pay for it!" said the big man.

"But sir, he came with the British Livante Company. The Livante Company had a trade treaty with our Ottoman Empire. We need their woolen. If we arrest their merchants in front of them, it may cause dissatisfaction from the Livante Company. And we also need spices monopolized by the Chinese. If they anger them, we will face the difficulties of spice shortages." said the low-level official.

"Then I don't need to avenge my son?" The pirate master Murat slapped the wooden table hard, making the servants around him tremble.

The low-level official wiped his cold sweat: "Sir, it's not that he can't deal with Chinese merchants. Our Emperor has only reached a treaty with the British. But we have no treaty with China... With your status in Algiers, anyone who is caught and sold to the desert must not be able to escape. When someone pursues it, it will be said that the pirates went ashore to plunder him."

Murat thought about it for a moment: "You provide me with their residence, and I will send someone to kidnap him. In the future, whenever the Chinese merchants are caught by us, they will be sold to the desert."

"The official will go and prepare now. After the lord arranges personnel, I will guide you and deal with the troubles later." said the low-level official.

Li Jinde didn't know that he was inexplicably involved in the dispute arising from the spice trade.

The Ottoman Empire smuggling ships in the South China Sea were seized by officials from the Nanyang Province, and the chief was executed, which indirectly caused conflicts between the two sides. The Kyushu Army's monopoly on the spice trade made many merchants engaged in spice trade in the Ottoman Empire dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction gradually affected the upper class of the empire.

Li Jinde bought a woman named Xiaolian, took her to buy a few clothes, and walked through the streets and alleys of Halep with the people from the Lifante Company, and roughly got a certain understanding of the city.

However, Li Jinde was still angry that people from his country were captured by pirates and was not in much mood along the way.

When he returned to the hostel in the evening, Li Jinde fetched water and took a shower. When Xiaolian took the initiative to serve him in doing things like boiling water, Li Jinde refused.

"There was a Maritime Bureau in Quanzhou during the Yuan Dynasty. Although the Maritime Bureau was suspended during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty and strictly prohibited the sea to prevent Japanese pirates, the official maritime trade was basically suspended, but the people still had the atmosphere of going out to sea. I never thought that they would encounter pirates on the sea." After taking a shower, Li Jinde was excited and found Xiaolian, who could be said to be a fellow villager, and talked about his hometown while drinking tea.

At this time, Xiaolian temporarily put on Ottoman's robe and black hair shawl.

Being captured by pirates and becoming slaves does not mean that one can save a person by simply paying for money to redeem himself.

The real difficulty is how to make her have hope of survival after being rescued. After all, this captured experience is likely to become a psychological shadow for life.

"The sea is too dangerous. All my family members were buried in the hands of pirates, and they didn't even know who they were. At that time, I was caught on the island in Nanyang, and then bought it by the merchants on the Ottoman merchant ship, and then I met you, lord." Xiaolian said.

Li Jinde thought carefully that if Xiao Lian encountered pirates, his family might have been killed. So he said: "Nanyang was indeed very chaotic in the past few years, but now the government should be trying hard to wipe out local pirates. I believe that in a few years, the South Ocean should be as calm as the southeast coast. Only when our fleet can truly traverse the world can we completely eliminate the pirates."

"Is there really possible to completely eliminate so many pirates?" Xiaolian asked.

"My father was also killed by pirates in Guangdong during maritime trade. Now the pirates on the southeast coast have basically been wiped out by the official fleet. So as long as the country is strong, we can protect our civilians. I believe your hatred will be washed away in the future. One day, our fleet will make them afraid and dare not capture our people again!" Li Jinde said angrily.

In Li Jinde's view, the people of the Ottoman Empire dared to seize their human trafficking and regarded China as a country like Western countries.

"The people from Levante and I will stay here for a while and wait until they complete the trade before returning to London City. Our Chinese merchants set up factories in London City. If you still have relatives in Manila, you can go to Manila with the boat. If there are no relatives who can join me, I think I can help you find a small errand in London City or the local area, and your life will be better." Li Jinde did not mean to leave Xiaolian as a servant.

He and Aunt Li are both peasant families and have never hired servants to serve him.

"I have long been born with no desire, but I spent a lot of money to redeem me. I am willing to be a cow and a horse for me, so that I can repay my kindness..." Xiaolian said with tears in her eyes.

"If you really want to repay, please live well and see these slave traders receive the retribution they deserve in the future. If they dare to sell our population, I will definitely report to the big shots above and ask them for justice." Li Jinde said.

"The big man above? Who can punish the slave traders here? I don't know how far this place is from China..." Xiaolian thought that Li Jinde was just inspiring herself to survive, so she comforted herself like this.
Chapter completed!