Winter City, the capital of the northwest province.

With the arrival of winter, the entire land seemed to be frozen, and the cold current from the Arctic raged the earth, with heavy snow and cold winds.

Lin Tong carries a load of honeycomb coal and walks hard in the snow. The snow here is too heavy. Often, when snow falls, even the door can block you tightly. Walking in the snow becomes extremely difficult.

Fortunately, it is inside the city of Winter City. The snow on the roads is cleaned every day, not as thick as outside. Otherwise, there would be no way to walk in the snow.

“Hu~Hu~”

After finally returning to his home, Lin Tong also breathed heavily.

It's really too cold.

Lin Tong is from Huguang, Daming. He has grown up in the warm south since childhood. Last year, he accidentally killed someone by fighting with others and was sentenced to exile in this Winter City.

From the warm south to the winter city in the extreme northwest, he could not remember how he spent last winter and almost froze to death here.

"Drink a little hot tea to dispel the cold~"

When Lin Tong's wife saw Lin Tong come back, she quickly brought a cup of hot tea and said thoughtfully.

"Yeah~"

Lin Tong looked at his wife with a smile on her face, and then looked at her belly, which was already bulging high and was about to give birth soon.

His wife was Popova. When he heard the name, he knew that it was not a Han person. Popova was a Slav. Later, he was robbed by the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate and sold to the Ming Dynasty as a slave. Then he went to Winter City and bought it as a wife by Lin Tong.

Winter City is far away from the Ming Dynasty and is cold and freezing. No Ming people are willing to immigrate on their own initiative. In order to consolidate their rule over the northwest province, the imperial court also exiled a large number of prisoners to Winter City.

Since ancient times, most of the people who committed the crime were men. Among the prisoners sentenced to exile in Winter City, ninety-nine out of a hundred were men. After a long time, they naturally had a great demand for women.

Therefore, with a large number of prisoners coming to Winter City, a large number of slave merchants also seized this business opportunity and sold a large number of female slaves to Winter City, and sold them to these prisoners as wives, concubines, etc.

Very profitable.

Because it is very close to Europe, especially Eastern Europe.

Not only were a large number of slave merchants buying slaves from the Tatars in the Crimean Khanate, but now the people in the Kazan Khanate have also seen that plundering slaves can bring great benefits, and are also actively participating in the looting of Slavs in Eastern Europe.

A large number of slaves passed from the Kazan Khanate to the nearest Winter City, and then sold them to various parts of the Ming Dynasty. The slave trade has become a new pillar industry in Winter City.

The price of buying these slaves from the Kazan Khanate is very low. If you ship them to Winter City and sell them to dozens of taels of silver, you can make a lot of money.

As for many people, they are worried that these exiled prisoners have no money.

There is no need to worry about this, because the Ming Dynasty was behind the support.

No one here in Northwest Province is willing to immigrate, so he can only exil the prisoners, but they are all exiled male prisoners, so it is definitely not a solution if they continue for a long time.

Therefore, the governments in the Northwest Province also applied for such a policy from the court. When every prisoner exiled to the Northwest Province purchased female slaves, the court gave an interest-free loan and subsidized one-third of the price.

It can be said that this is an extremely preferential policy.

One-third of the money for buying female slaves is given to the court, and the remaining two-thirds are given to you for interest-free loans. In short, it is just a saying. Here, the government only hopes that the more you buy, the more people you create, the better.

Because the court needed more people to consolidate the Ming Dynasty's rule over the northwest provinces and to equip these exiled prisoners with female slaves, on the one hand, these prisoners could settle down here and allow them to live here with peace of mind.

Another aspect can also reduce conflicts and conflicts between prisoners. If all of them are prisoners, these people are already committing crimes and are brave and fierce. If they are put together, they will not beat the sky. I don’t know how many people will die.

But it is different to match these prisoners with women. If you are angry, go to bed to find your own woman. It is more effective to create more babies than anything else.

With women, children, and home, even if the conditions in Winter City are more difficult, prisoners can slowly stabilize and increase the population here.

Such policies are obviously very effective.

Even though there were a large number of exiled prisoners gathered in Winter City, many of whom were gangsters and brave and cruel people before, they gradually improved a lot after they arrived here. The entire Winter City also underwent earth-shaking changes in less than three years.

"Huh~"

After drinking a sip of hot tea, Lin Tong breathed a long sigh, as if the cold air in his body disappeared completely.

"I'll go cook~"

Popova said in Daming's dialect, who is not very skilled.spanstyle>gu/spanstyle>

"No need~No need, I'll do it, I'll do it, you rest~"

When Lin Tong heard this, he stopped him and helped Popova to the chair to rest, while he started to get busy.

Popova is about to give birth, and he can't bear to let her be busy. He does everything by himself as much as possible.

"It's okay, it's okay~ I'm OK."

Popova is not that spoiled, and thinks that men are not good at doing these things.

"No, no, you are the most important thing in the family now. I can't do it if my son is exhausted."

Lin Tong led Popova to a chair next to the fireplace and sat down, saying, "Eat more raisins, I heard that it is good for the baby and can become smarter."

"Yeah~"

Popova nodded happily, and looked at the busy Lin Tong while eating raisins. She was still very satisfied with her current life.

From being arrested as a slave to Winter City, I was initially uneasy and full of fear of the future. Then, I have gradually become accustomed to everything and life here.

Although this is just the most remote and bitter and cold place in the Ming Dynasty, it is specially used to exile criminals.

But the Ming people here lived many times better than the Slavs.

Even prisoners have their own houses here, and the design of the house is very good. When you burn the fireplace and the kang, it will not be cold at all.

I don’t have to worry about food. Rice, flour, meat, etc. from Hezhong, Nanyun, Western Regions, and Central Asian provinces are not expensive, and you can afford it, and you can eat it well.

Thinking of his past in his hometown, Popova was very worried every winter because she had very little food at home, and she ate bad black bread, horse bread and other things, and she wore very little clothes, which was very cold.

Cold and hunger were her deepest memories in winter before, as if imprinted in her bones.

But here, although it is still cold, it is very warm at home, so you don’t have to worry about food at all. Moreover, you eat much better than before, and you live a life of food and clothing without worries.

My man is quite good to me and loves me very much. Unlike Slavic men, they are very vulgar and rude, and they always beat women.

The men of the Ming Dynasty were much more civilized in comparison. They thought it was useless to beat women. She had never been beaten after being bought by Lin Tong. After having a child, she was reluctant to scold herself.

What else is there to be dissatisfied with this kind of life?

What's more, in Winter City, there is no need to worry about war.

In my hometown, I have to worry about the Crimean Tatars in the south coming to rob. Sometimes I sleep and are afraid of being robbed by the Tatars in my sleep, and live a worried life.

Feeling the warmth coming from the fireplace, smelling the food made by Lin Tong, and touching his big belly, he was filled with happiness.

"Okay, OK~"

"It's time to eat, it's time to eat~"

Lin Tong quickly prepared the food, and the fragrant rice and cured bacon made people feel appetite.

While having dinner with Popova, Lin Tong also looked at the heavy snow outside, thinking about what to do next year to make money.

There are three major industries in Winter City, one fur industry, because it is located in the vast Siberian plains, with extremely vast forests and grasslands, rich in various high-quality furs.

Therefore, the fur transactions in Winter City are very popular. Whenever it comes to summer, a large number of fur merchants will flock to them, waving the money in their hands to buy fur, and then reselling them to the Beijing-Tianjin area. The profit is amazing.

Another one is grain trading. Winter City is too high in dimension and the weather is too cold, so there are very few crops that can be planted. Currently, only potatoes can be grown, so there is a great demand for food. Every year, a large amount of grain needs to be transported from several southern provinces.

In addition, there are a large number of minority tribes in the northwest province, and they also have a great demand for food. In winter, these minority tribes living on the vast Siberian plains will use their fur to exchange for food.

Most of the food in Winter City was actually exchanged for people from these minority tribes. As for the exiled prisoners, they actually couldn't eat much food.

The third transaction is the emerging slave transaction. When you go to the Kazan Khanate to sell slaves to Winter City, the profit is also very high and it develops very quickly, but the capital demand is relatively large.

Because once you go to Kazan Khanate, you have to bring at least a lot of goods with you and then buy a large number of slaves back. It takes at least tens of thousands of taels of silver for any trip.

"Maybe we can take advantage of this winter to bring some grain, salt, tea, sugar and other things to various tribes to trade and exchange for their fur."
Chapter completed!