Chapter 62: Buying House Slaves
Wu Qingyuan didn’t know about Old Master Qian’s anger at his servant, but he quickly got news about the Qian family’s large-scale purchase of wood from Shiqiao Town and several timber merchants around Shiqiao Town, such a large batch of wood was not small, and it was impossible to conceal it.
Finally figuring out who was plotting against him, Wu Qingyuan let go of a few more worries in his heart, the enemy is strong and terrible, but what he is truly afraid of is when he doesn’t even know who the person who is making trouble for himself is, and it is necessary to figure out who the opponent is.
In fact, he also had some calculations in his heart regarding the Qian family’s targeting him in his heart.
Now that his own business has begun to improve slowly, it is bound to compete with others, even if there is no rich family around like the Qian family- there would still be other people who are eyeing and suppressing him, no matter how big the pie, it will not be so easy for him to get a piece, sooner or later he would have had to compete with the rich man who controls the economic market within a hundred miles of Shiqiao Town.
Although there are difficulties ahead, he will not back down like this, this year he will still burn coal, he will still open the shop, and he will still plant the field!
Trading is like this, it is impossible to do so without competition, so this time, regarding the Qian family’s affairs- Wu Qingyuan did not grit his teeth too resentfully, but instead raised vigilance in his heart, it is easy to dodge dark arrows and difficult to prevent them, he needs to prepare some means of self-preservation.
The best means of self-preservation for businessmen is to find a powerful person as a backer, but this is not easy, a backer is not so easy to find, and if he really wants to find one, he has to carefully consider it before you can start, otherwise, once he stands on the wrong side, and when the backer falls, he will also have to suffer.
Unable to find a backer for the time being, he racked his brains before Wu Qingyuan decided to buy some domestic slaves and come back.
Domestic slaves were very common in large households in ancient times, and subordinates hired with silver were never as reliable as domestic slaves who were restrained by contracts that sold their lives, and in this era of strict regulations, a contract was enough to control people’s life and death.
If the domestic slave makes a mistake, the officials will not care if the master kills them, but if the slave is disobedient, the official government will help to arrest these people and deal with them with the harshest punishment, to be precise, a slave is a person who does not have any right to freedom.
He needs such a group of people to help him with his affairs, take care of their home, and protect the safety of his family, after all, he can’t always take Amo and others with him, there are always times of omission.
Amo had no problem with his desire to buy servants but agreed with it.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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The two had no other opinions, and after discussing, the husband and wife went out and went to Jiangyi County again.
There are also slaves sold in Shiqiao Town, but the town is too small, these shops sold widows and women who do housework, Wu Qingyuan wants young and strong house slaves, naturally, he was gonna look in more prosperous counties.
It is not difficult to find a place that trades slaves, in fact, every town and county will have a special organization for this type of business, which is still licensed by the government.
When Wu Qingyuan led Amo to that place, the entire trading place was very lively, there were people guarding the merchandise, and all the people had a vacant lot specially separated by a fence, and as for the slaves who were traded, they were well-behaved, standing quietly inside and displayed like cattle, waiting to be bought.
These people are too poor to even eat or are desperate to sell themselves to a provider, they sell living contracts, so there is a chance they can redeem themselves in the future, even if they are slaves, there is a slim chance of living a good life.
In addition to them, there is also a group of people with their hands tied by ropes and wearing prison uniforms, they are criminals condemned by the court, all of whom are reduced to the lowest status by the official government, and all they sell are death deeds, once they become slaves, if no master personally comes to Yamen to raise their citizenship level, their descendants will also become slaves, unable to go to school, participate in government-related activities, unable to buy fields and private property, and will always be slaves without any freedom and rights.
Therefore, such slaves are the most loyal, because if the master is good, then they are good, if the master is not good, then they and their descendants will not be able to live comfortably!
What Wu Qingyuan wanted was this group of slaves who were sold by the government.
After some selection, he finally bought eighteen people, all of them teenagers and young adults between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, without families, and this kind of slave who was young and strong without anything dragging them down was the best, and he needed such people.
Of course, the price of slaves with the best conditions is naturally not low, and because they are dead contract slaves, they are sold by the government, 12 taels for teenagers under the age of twenty, 16 taels for young people over twenty years old, and eighteen people spent a total of more than two hundred taels for Wu Qingyuan.
Don’t look at the price of a slave that may not be as good as an animal, but this price is already very high in the slave trade, because slaves and livestock are not the same, after buying, in addition to eating and drinking, slaves also need to wear clothes and live in homes, in order to win people’s hearts as their masters- they may also give bonuses during festivals. This is why raising people and raising animals are completely two different concepts.
Therefore, slaves are not something one could afford to buy from the beginning, ordinary people cannot afford slaves- their own family is almost unable to eat at times, so who dares to raise more?
This price Wu Qingyuan is still within the range of what he can bear, in fact, he still wants to buy a few more, but the government also clearly stipulates that the purchase of this kind of young and strong labor death contract slave has a certain number of restrictions, and the market does not have so many prisoners with a low status to sell, today where he can buy eighteen people in good conditions, it is already considered his good luck.
After handing over the money to the people of the official government, exchanging the contract, and finally giving a dozen slaves the mark of a pariah slave around their necks according to the regulations, the two left the trading place with a dozen slaves.
Because the county was far away, Wu Qingyuan did not plan to return on the same day, he took a dozen slaves to buy some daily necessities that everyone would use in the future and then went to find an inn and rented an empty shop for one night, so that the slaves stayed in the inn and he took Amo out shopping in the afternoon.
This time, they have been busy with the affairs of the store, and they have not had a good and relaxing rest alone for a long time, even if Amo likes to do business, his current age is when he is most playful, and he is very happy to be able to shop with Wu Qingyuan and relax at this moment.
“Brother Wu, look there, look, jugglers! We are so lucky, today is not a festival but there are jugglers! Hurry, hurry up, let’s hurry over…”
“Ahhhh, Brother Wu, look here! What kind of chicken is this? Look how colorful the tail is, so beautiful!”
“Peacock? What is a peacock and why is it called a peacock? I didn’t see that it has peas, Brother Wu…..”
“Brother Wu, let’s go over there and take a look…..”
As soon as he was out to play, Amo regained his lively youthful nature, pulling Wu Qingyuan here to look and touch there, although they had already been to the county several times, it was still as a rare occurrence for them.
Wu Qingyuan, who had originally come out to stroll and relax, could not help but be influenced by him, obviously, an ancient county town cannot even be compared to a modern small city, but he also watched with relish.
By the time sun had set in the west, the two had already walked around the entire county.
“Brother Wu, I’m tired…”
The ger who used to endure hardships and stood to hard work has now been accustomed to being coquettish by being spoiled.
“Come here.”
The one doing the spoiling does not have a lower limit, ignoring the surprised reactions of those around him, Wu Qingyuan half squatted down and signaled the happy and smiling boy to climb on his back.
Seeing his action, Amo also pounced on it without any awkwardness, urging with his mouth, “Brother Wu, let’s go quickly.”
He would never have dared to do this before, but now he loves the feeling of being coquettish to Brother Wu, it doesn’t matter, Brother Wu said that they are now husbands, others look at it without saying anything, they can only envy him, and he likes the way Brother Wu carries him.
Amo comfortably lay on Wu Qingyuan’s back and squinted and smiled sweetly, and the people around couldn’t help but cover their mouths and snicker, secretly saying that this must be a little husband who has just become a couple, young people have such passionate lives…
The inns in the county town are basically concentrated in one street, and the two walk back from the street where they are playing for a distance, and by the time the two arrive at the inn, the sky has already darkened.
Just as the two were about to enter the inn, they were suddenly attracted by a lively movement at the entrance of the inn.
They saw that at the door of the inn where they stopped tonight, they didn’t know what the situation was around the crowd at the moment, accompanied by the chatter of the surrounding crowd, there was a faint burst of crying and complaining, and the sound of the innkeeper driving away someone.
Wu Qingyuan’s felt that the voice was a little familiar, and Amo felt very familiar when he listened to it, so the two walked over, and when they got closer to the crowd, they saw that it was a ger.
That ger was about twenty-five or six, which is considered an older ger, but his appearance is very delicate, looking not old, but very beautiful, but at this moment the other party is doing something that does not conform to his beautiful face, untidy, covered in dust, and full of tears sitting on the ground crying.
No matter how the innkeeper next to him drove him away, he just didn’t get up, sat on the ground, and cried, “Woo, do you people have a conscience? My money is gone, my luggage has been stolen, I have been hungry for a day, I only wanted to sit here for a while, I won’t get in the way, why do you have to chase me, I will only sit for a while and leave, I will not hinder you, let me sit for a while, woo, why am I so unlucky…”
“Zhu-ger?!”
When he saw the appearance of the ger, Amo suddenly widened his eyes, and Wu Qingyuan’s eyebrows rose, this ger is not just someone else, it is the one from the brother he bought to help him pit Zhao Haisheng, Xiao-Zhu!
?? Huh who is xiao zhu again?? Uh oh I need to re read this…
… same. I always regret not making a list of all characters and their relations to eachother…
Fook I’m on the same boat as you 😅
I think it’s the ger from the brothel ??
The one amo save from the thug i guess??
It’s the actor that they hired so that Xiao-someone would look like he was cheating on the girl, the reason why he lost his job and lost face.
Ohhh thank you!!! Hhhh
Thanks for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter 🥰🥰
thanks for the chapter~
Thank you for the chapter! 🤍💚🤍💚🤍💚🤍💚
Wow, so many people OoO
Thank You for the new chapter (๑˙❥˙๑)