Chapter 1394: Careful — Don't Cry Yourself Broke!

"Your Majesty Alamgir, what did you say? Our Great Ming must partially restore slavery in order to ally with India? But what does whether our Great Ming has slavery have to do with your Indian Timurid Empire? Do you actually intend to come to the land of our glorious China to buy slaves? Your Indian Timurid Empire rules over so many untouchables, and you still need to buy slaves from abroad? Even if you want to buy slaves, can't you just go to Africa to buy them? Our Great Ming has long since completely, thoroughly, and forever abolished slavery!"

The one currently delivering this "abolition declaration" in a torrent of Persian was none other than the Great Ming envoy and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luo Zhichen. He had originally assumed this trip to India would be nothing more than a bit of legwork and resume-polishing, and perhaps even a chance to hook up with a Rajput girl who could sing and dance — before coming to India, he had already asked Indian merchants in Shanghai about it. His family, a scholarly household of several hundred years' standing, would count as the highest Brahmin caste in India! And what was more, he was an especially wealthy Brahmin...

But what he had never expected was that just when the "Yingtian–Delhi Axis" was about to take shape, when everything had been negotiated, when the trade agreement was settled, when opening a trading post in Surat was easily arranged, when the arms trade was even more readily agreed upon, when the entry of Great Ming warships into ports controlled by the Indian Timurid Empire raised no objection, and when the division of spheres of influence in Central Asia had been discussed very pleasantly... it all ended up stuck on the slave trade.

Aurangzeb must have taken the wrong medicine, insisting that Great Ming permit the slave trade!

But the Great Ming Empire now prohibited the trafficking of slaves — in the years just after Zhu Cilang first arrived in Jiangnan, slave revolts broke out there every few days, until the Great Ming court, inside and out, was thoroughly sick of the business of keeping slaves, and simply cut through the knot by abolishing slave status forever.

Of course, in a feudal dynasty there were always all sorts of special exceptions! At present, throughout the Great Ming homeland, there was still one place where legal bondservants existed — the Great Ming Imperial Palace! However, the number of bondservants was very small: only a small number of eunuchs who had not undergone the full hardship and palace women convicted of crimes were bondservants.

Oh, and there was also one person who was born into slavery — the cheaply gotten daughter whom Kong Sizhen bore for Fan Wencheng, who had always kept the status of a bondservant and had by now been raised into a grown girl...

But these bondservants were all leftover problems from history, and in the future they would eventually be completely resolved.

Yet Aurangzeb, this emperor of the Indian Timurid Empire, far from recognizing the Great Ming Empire's enormous progress in abolishing slavery, actually hoped that Great Ming would turn back the clock on slavery, and moreover crudely interfered in Great Ming's internal affairs. This was truly most improper.

Listening to Luo Zhichen's very nonstandard Persian, Aurangzeb was also getting a bit of a headache: first, it was hard on the ears; second, he did not know how to explain the importance of the slave trade to Ming-Indian friendship... He did not know how to put it, so he shot a glance at Shaysta Khan beside him — This Emperor does not know how to explain it, so you do the talking!

Shaysta Khan weighed his words and spoke slowly: "Ambassador, perhaps in your country becoming a slave is a most unfortunate thing, but in our Islamic world, becoming a slave of a sultan or an emir is sometimes the first rung of a ladder of advancement... For certain people, only by becoming the slave of a sultan or an emir in boyhood can they later hope for a brilliant future.

Of course, not all slaves have the chance of a brilliant future. Only slave boys from specific regions — for example, those from Central Asia, which is what you call the Western Regions, as well as those from the Caucasus and from the Balkans — after becoming slaves of such powerful figures as sultans or emirs, can receive a good education and training, and then become excellent warriors, serve in the most elite guard units, and become pillars of the state.

After they have served a sultan or emir for a certain number of years, they also have a great chance of becoming a respected official, sometimes even a high official! For example, many of the successive grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire came from the ranks of Janissary slave-soldiers...

In fact, what we want to buy from Central Asia are not slaves for hard labor, but guardsmen, the future high officials of the Timurid Empire!"

What? The Indians wanted to buy child slaves from the Western Regions, take them home, and train them into warriors and high officials? Luo Zhichen truly did not know what to say — could it be that in the future India's grand secretaries would all have to be purchased at market?

"Then, then why must you buy them from our Great Ming's vassal states in the Western Regions?" Luo Zhichen asked. "You yourselves also have territory in the Western Regions! Does that place not produce grand secretaries? I have heard it is terribly poor there — surely they would not be reluctant to sell their children?"

This question... Shaysta Khan truly did not know whether to laugh or cry, but he still had to explain patiently. Who asked the supply chain for "Indian grand secretaries" to be held in Great Ming's hands?

If Great Ming imposed an embargo on India, that would be serious trouble!

"We do have a bit of territory in the Western Regions," Shaysta Khan replied. "We control part of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and we recruit warriors from there. But we can only recruit adult warriors from there, and cannot buy young boys as cadets... because according to Islamic law, we cannot buy Muslims as slaves. Afghanistan and Tajikistan are entirely Muslim, so we cannot buy boys there as cadets. And the adult warriors recruited from Afghanistan and Tajikistan are not as useful as cadets trained from childhood, and besides, they are all illiterate and cannot become officials."

Luo Zhichen grew more and more confused as he listened. "Do you actually want to buy Mongols from the Dzungar Khanate and the Khoshut Khanate as slaves? That surely cannot be allowed, can it?"

"Of course not," Shaysta Khan said, shaking his head repeatedly. "How could we possibly buy Mongols... The Dzungar and Khoshut khanates could never sell the children of their own core tribesmen to us!"

"Then who do you want to buy?" Luo Zhichen asked.

Shaysta Khan said: "We want to buy Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Khwarezmians, and other poor local boys of Central Asia who are ruled by the Dzungar and Khoshut khanates."

"Are they not Muslims too?" Luo Zhichen asked, utterly baffled. "Would buying them not violate your religious law?"

"No, no, no..." Shaysta Khan shook his head repeatedly. "They are not necessarily!

The Dzungar Khanate and the Khoshut Khanate devoutly believe in Buddhism and have made it the state religion, and so to a certain extent they have suppressed the local Islam. Among the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Khwarezmians, and other tribes under their rule, there should be quite a few converts. Therefore their children can lawfully become slaves, be bought to India to serve as cadets, receive the best education and training, and become excellent warriors and bureaucrats!"

"But how can you determine the faith of those children?" Luo Zhichen really did have the spirit of one who breaks the pot to get to the bottom of the question.

"We have a method!" Shaysta Khan said with a perfectly straight face. "We will hold an examination... a very difficult examination. It will test Arabic, Persian, and religious knowledge!"

He was, of course, talking nonsense! When did Indians ever do things that seriously? Aurangzeb did not dare buy cadets in Afghanistan and Tajikistan because he feared the tribes there would grow powerful as a result — if all the cadets came from Afghanistan, they could easily unite with the Afghan tribes and overthrow the Timurid Empire! But if the cadets came from territory in Central Asia ruled by the Mongols, then there would be no such problem...

"You have to take an examination even to be a slave?" Luo Zhichen could hardly believe his ears. "What if they fail? Can it be that they don't even get to be slaves?"

"No," Shaysta Khan said, shaking his head, and said seriously, "Those who pass are sent back... to starve in Central Asia! Only those who fail prove that they are not believers, and can become slave-warriors of His Majesty Alamgir, and then receive the best training and education!"

It could even be done this way!?

Luo Zhichen thought to himself: With an examination like that, could anyone possibly pass? How utterly brainless would one have to be!