Chapter 518: An Abbot Who Doesn't Want to Be a King Is Not a Good Captain

The Age of Discovery is just a fig leaf for plunder. This is the conclusion of Liu Ji, this desperate man. Even in trade, one must trade with a sword in hand. Without sufficient firepower, no interest can be protected.

Portugal, Spain, and Great Ming are all wolves. One provides weapons and ammunition, one knocks on the door with force, and one conducts smuggling trade. The division of labor is clear. Great Ming gained the market, Spain confirmed its status as a hegemon and gained cohesion, and Portugal gained a generous reward to reshuffle the forces within the country.

Everyone has a bright future, except for England, this sheep.

This is the content of this Lisbon meeting.

This can deal with England, can also deal with the Netherlands region, can also deal with Falanxi, and even deal with the Holy Roman Empire or Spain.

Scale is the depth in economic warfare.

Lisbon's carnival lasted for three full days. Ship after ship of goods were constantly moved down. All the Portuguese were extremely excited, and this excitement did not end with the celebration because the subsequent busy trade kept everyone in Lisbon busy. The goods were very sufficient, and how to distribute them was up to Antonio.

Since his coronation as king, Antonio felt for the first time that he was a king. From subjects to nobles, everyone respected this monarch enfeoffed by the great Eastern power. Antonio not only brought independence, stability, and wealth, but from then on, no one questioned Antonio again.

Except for himself.

When the whole country was rejoicing, one person was unhappy: Duchess Catarina. Antonio was busy with various cocktail parties and even had a lover. This lover was public, and everyone knew of this lover's existence. Catarina didn't know how to face this situation.

The two came together because of Catarina's support for Antonio. The blood relationship between the two made the pregnancy full of variables as to whether the child could be born safely, but the kingdom also needed a healthy child to inherit the throne, at least not one who was too stupid or deformed.

The Duchess could only allow this lover to exist.

"You finally decided to come back." Catarina looked at the drunken Antonio, and she was furious.

"Wait for me." Antonio went to wash his face to make himself a bit clearer before sitting on a stool and drinking a cup of tea, which finally woke him up.

"The merchants are very enthusiastic. They are like sharks that have smelled blood in the sea, swarming in. You don't know how crazy they were today, just to snatch a batch of cotton cloth or an iron pot." Antonio reached out and said, "We in Portugal can earn two million taels of silver every year from His Majesty's galleon trade."

"We only need six years to pay off the loans in advance. Only after that can we talk about Portugal belonging to ourselves."

Catarina tried hard to restrain her emotions, shook her head, and said, "Why be in such a hurry to pay off the loans? The 4% annual interest is indeed very high, but compared to those damned Venetian merchants, the Great Ming Emperor is simply like a philanthropist, having granted us a full thirty-year extension!"

"In fact, as long as our annual income growth is greater than 4%, there is no need to be too urgent about paying off this loan. Setting up more handicraft workshops, processing the raw materials from West Africa and the New World, and letting more people get jobs—this is the purpose of His Majesty's thirty-year extension. The Great Ming Emperor, far away in the East, is not an overly urgent monarch. His thirty-year extension is giving us a chance to develop."

"Including this galleon trade, the East set the anchor point for trade in Lisbon. Isn't this obvious enough?"

"Wait for me." Antonio ran to wash his face fiercely again, even inducing vomiting, to drive away all the drunkenness before returning to the royal bedroom. He rubbed his eyebrows and said, "What you said makes a lot of sense. Why didn't I think of it before?"

"I thought before that His Majesty was doing it for that 4% interest, and that quick repayment would be beneficial to our Portugal. But as you say, it seems to be the case. Catarina, you know, I am not suitable to be a king. I don't have any ideas about these things."

"No, you are very suitable to be a king." Catarina shook her head and said, "Being a king actually doesn't require much wisdom. Being a king requires knowing how to choose; nothing else is important. Solon always looks down on you, saying you are a monastery abbot, saying you are a pirate. But Solon is just a secretary. He doesn't understand that the most important things for a king are courage and the ability to make trade-offs."

"And you have never lacked these two qualities. This is the key to you being able to be a king."

Antonio said with some distress, "You always encourage me, but actually I don't have any wisdom."

"If there were no support from Great Ming, would you still choose to return to Lisbon to inherit the throne?" Catarina thought for a moment and asked.

"Yes!" Antonio said very affirmatively, "Even if I hadn't received His Majesty's sacred favor, I would still return to Lisbon to fight for Portugal until the last moment, until death! The nobles and church priests want to sell Portugal to Philip II to gain a stable position and power, but Portugal would become a human purgatory!"

"The nobles and the church are already boulders on the commoners. If another suzerain state is added, there will be another boulder that cannot be borne. The ones bearing the price are only the commoners!"

"I would choose to return and fight for the commoners to the end! Portugal belongs to the Portuguese!"

Xu Fan had lectured Antonio on Class Theory, but Antonio, with limited talent, really couldn't understand it. He didn't even want to admit the existence of class and chose another narrative: Portugal belongs to the Portuguese.

Catarina said with a smile, "Look, this is courage and the ability to make trade-offs. The Sword Saint, Marcus, is not a fool. He saw hope in you, which is why he followed you to the death. You did it. Eleven years, you did it."

"Perhaps." Antonio shook his head and said, "The courage and trade-offs you mentioned are qualities possessed by any captain on a ship; otherwise, it would be impossible to conquer the ocean."

An abbot who doesn't want to be a king is not a good captain.

Antonio did want to be a good king. He tried, but he was just a captain and really had no talent. Being a king requires wisdom, and Antonio did not possess such wisdom.

Catarina looked at Antonio and said with great certainty, "There is no need to be overly urgent to pay off this loan in advance. Just repay it on schedule according to His Majesty's extension. The reason is: use the money on handicraft workshops. To defeat the Netherlands and England, it is not necessarily necessary to do those dirty things. Lisbon has unique advantages. Raw materials from the New World and West Africa are easier to reach Lisbon."

"The Netherlands has a large number of craftsmen and handicraft workshop owners, but the Netherlands is in the midst of war. These workshop owners want to escape but have nowhere to go. If we build handicraft workshops, we can attract them to come."

"Work is very important for the commoners you are always thinking about because this is their only source of life. You found a way out for them, and you are their only king."

Whoever works for the masses is the king of the masses.

Antonio nodded and said, "Good, let's do it."

The Great Ming Emperor never urged the repayment of loans because the massive loans actually contained a lot of profit and interest. A five-masted ship sold for 250,000 taels of silver. Zhu Yijun sold a full thirty-five five-masted ocean-crossing ships to Antonio at this price. The remaining part was all interest. In fact, the cost of a five-masted ship, counting everything, was only 25,000 taels of silver.

Even the greedy and stingy Great Ming Emperor felt a bit embarrassed by such exorbitant profits, so Zhu Yijun did not urge Antonio as long as he made normal repayments. Of course, this did not mean that such debts were to be waived. If Antonio really didn't repay, Zhu Yijun would still urge him. Embarrassment is embarrassment, but the money that should be taken must be taken. Not a single penny less!

Antonio did not lack decisiveness. Seeing that Philip II was about to take action against England and the Netherlands, the benefits of war were not just silver, but also talent.

"Has our Minister of State still not sent blessings to our child?" Catarina said with some worry.

"Yes, he is always avoiding the topic." Antonio said helplessly, "Easterners have not advocated same-clan marriage since the Xia Dynasty. The Xia and Yin dynasties began to dislike same-clan marriage, and the Zhou system began to forbid same-surname marriage. Same-surname marriage is feared to lead to no offspring."

"When was the Xia and Yin dynasties?" Catarina asked with confusion.

Antonio leaned back in his chair, recalled carefully, and said, "More than 3,600 years ago."

"Great Ming really has a long history." Catarina was stunned for a moment. A time scale of 3,600 years was a bit too long for her. This vertical scale was deeply rooted.

Antonio sighed and said, "I asked him last time. Same-surname marriage is feared to lead to no offspring, meaning that children from same-surname marriages are hard to survive. Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the law has been very clear: same-surname marriage leads to two years of hard labor, and same-surname same-clan marriage is one degree more serious, treated as adultery. The Great Ming Code is even more stringent: sixty strokes for same-surname, one hundred strokes for same-clan."

"It's fortunate that we are far from Great Ming; otherwise, if the censors knew, they would impeach us, and I guess we would be beaten to death alive."

It was not that Xu Fan lacked a flexible moral bottom line, or that he didn't know how to flatter or didn't understand human feelings, but that he was truly worried about the fate of the King and Queen.

Antonio whispered, "In fact, Minister of State Xu Fan is right. Archduke Karl II of Inner Austria and his niece Maria Anna gave birth to fifteen children, and only seven were healthy."

This deformity rate was already very, very high. If human reproduction had this deformity rate, it would have gone extinct long ago.

"Sigh." Catarina didn't make a scene or cry, just touched her belly, her face filled with sorrow that couldn't be dissolved. She didn't regret it either. For the sake of Portugal, facing Philip II's aggressiveness and the messy situation in Portugal, she could only choose to support Antonio in this way.

Liu Ji held a book in his hand, written by Xu Fan, about England's enclosure movement.

Starting from the "Statute of Merton" in the second year of Duanping of the Southern Song Dynasty, England had been carrying out the enclosure movement for more than three hundred years, and this behavior was changing from manor enclosure to parliamentary enclosure. The Queen of England carried out three large-scale enclosures, and the English Parliament controlled more than 20% of the cultivated land area. For the sake of wool, more than 50% of the land was converted into pastures.

Large-scale famine was spreading in England. Even on the streets of London, there were displaced people and beggars everywhere.

"England is not only fierce to the outside world, but also no less so to the inside. The Mesta Association is the largest woolen association in the West. The association mainly composed of shepherds is Philip II's biggest money bag. Even so, Spain's farmland has less than 10% pasture, while England has more than 50% pasture." Xu Fan's expression was one of disbelief.

"Why don't the English rebel?" Liu Ji was blinded by what he saw. Enclosure is annexation, and turning it into pasture after annexation is something Liu Ji, this Great Ming desperate man, could not imagine. Even the Northern Barbarians didn't do this. Altan Khan had always wanted to expand the cultivated land area to get more food.

Altan Khan was already very cruel.

"Who said there wasn't? But they were all suppressed. And the ones bearing the price were the Scots and the Irish. When the famine occurred, even the Ottomans couldn't stand it. They sent three ships full of food, along with Philip II's four ships, to provide disaster relief. As a result, only about one thousand shi of grain from the seven ships were allowed to enter Ireland because the English royal family only donated two thousand shi of grain." Xu Fan explained an interesting anecdote.

During the time Philip II sought marriage with the English Queen, Ireland broke out in famine and plague. Philip II prepared gifts, ships full of grain. The Ottoman Sultan at that time also had a brain cramp and wanted to integrate into the West as the successor to Rome, so he went with Philip II.

In these years, transporting grain without the Taizai box was a very risky thing. Fortunately, the Mediterranean was just a bathtub and quite calm. The disaster relief grain ships arrived smoothly.

"What about this batch of grain? What happened in the end?" Liu Ji asked curiously.

Xu Fan spread his hands and said, "It was sold to the English in London. The English used this batch of grain to enclose land on a large scale again."

"Ah?" Liu Ji had been on two ocean-going trade missions and considered himself well-informed. He said sincerely, "This is very English."

Pan Jixun, a good man, was forced to the point of killing people when locusts broke out in Jiangxi. The nature of meat-eaters in this world is roughly the same. Annexation during a disaster year is truly "different mountains and rivers, but the same wind and moon."

"A golden-haired barbarian is asking to see you outside the door." Chen Dazhuang walked in and whispered.

The golden-haired barbarian was English. Clearly, the arrival of the Great Ming ocean-going merchant ships also attracted the attention of the English because the rampant pirates in the Strait of Gibraltar had a great deal to do with the Queen of England's privateering licenses. The English knew very well about the arrival of the Great Ming merchant ships and even tried to rob them once, but failed.

"Two Great Ming special envoys, I am Francis Drake. As a circumnavigator, I think we have many common topics. I think so, Captain Liu Ji of the Great Ming fleet." Drake greeted very gracefully. Even without smiling, he carried a gentleness and looked quite gentlemanly.

"Pirate leader Drake?" Liu Ji replied in Latin.

It is said that Great Ming is a state of etiquette and a civilized country. This opening remark was an insult, making Drake look embarrassed. Although it was a fact, Drake was nominally an English lord! How could it be pointed out directly?

"It's not like that. This is all Philip II's lie." Drake waved his hands repeatedly.

Liu Ji and Xu Fan were exchanging glances, while Drake only felt a chill rushing from his tailbone to his forehead. His intuition warned him of danger. The sudden silence made Drake feel inexplicably panicked.

"What's wrong?" Drake asked with confusion.

Liu Ji sat up straight and said, "We are thinking whether to kill you now, Pirate Captain Drake. Your people attacked our fleet in the Strait of Gibraltar, causing four people to be injured."

Drake said confusedly, "We sank seven ships and died more than two hundred and ten people. Didn't the Great Ming merchant ships win?"

"England dared to attack our Great Ming ships. This is a provocation and requires a more expensive price!" Xu Fan said with great certainty, "Whether it is the Spanish, Portuguese, Falanxi, or English, as long as they dare to provoke and attack Great Ming merchant ships, they must pay the price!"

Drake saw the overbearing nature of the Han envoys for the first time. Great Ming was still the Celestial Empire. The Han envoys would extremely overbearingly maintain Great Ming's dignity and interests and would never be soft when it was time to take action.

Clearly, Great Ming had won a great victory and returned in triumph, blowing up seven of his privateering ships, yet Great Ming was still demanding compensation.

The posture of the victor was truly fully performed by Liu Ji.

"What kind of price does Great Ming want?" Drake said with great certainty, "You cannot kill me. I brought sincerity. Great Ming should cooperate with us in England, not with Philip!"

"Cooperate with England on what? Cooperate on how to make pirates rampant?" Xu Fan asked with a sneer, "We Great Ming people have suffered from sea bandits. What is there to cooperate with you in England?"

"Of course, it's the colonies of the two Iberian countries!" Drake said loudly, "Compared to their colonies, England is just a mosquito, but their colonies are rich in oil! Just in Peru, there are silver mines and nitrate mines. Bai Yin is currency, and nitrate is gunpowder! The world's largest silver mines and nitrate mines are controlled by them!"

"I don't understand. Great Ming is always so wise. Who to cooperate with to get the greatest benefit is a very obvious thing. But Great Ming still chose to be friends with Philip and Antonio, not with us in England!"

Drake was very excited because he couldn't understand no matter how he thought about it. Great Ming became friendly nations with Spain and Portugal, but ignored England. The envoy sent to Great Ming didn't bring back good news, and at the same time, the Great Ming merchant ships arrived at Freedom Cape without even having any contact with the English.

"Look, you only think about robbery, while Great Ming just does business." Liu Ji looked at Drake. His rhetoric seemed reasonable, but it was all based on one foundation: that robbery is legal.

Robbing colonies is legal, robbing domestic commoners is legal, robbing other countries' wealth is legal, robbing other countries' merchant ships is legal. There is no order at all. Everything is based on robber logic to think about problems.

"So, why should Great Ming be with robbers? Although Great Ming has declined a lot, it has not fallen to this point." Xu Fan answered Drake's words with great certainty. He said more directly, "You don't have to think about using your usual tricks to threaten Great Ming. Great Ming is least afraid of threats."

"You can use those endless pirates to make unreasonable demands on small countries, but Great Ming is not one of them. You can try to rob, but you won't be able to rob even a hair of silver, and you will have to pay with countless lives."

"This is a warning to you from the perspective of strength. The Great Ming ocean-going merchant fleet, with only twelve five-masted ocean-crossing ships, even if you come out in full force, you won't be able to rob a single bolt of cotton cloth."

Great Ming was doing business properly and not robbing them was already good. Now, on the contrary, they were robbed. If they couldn't understand human language, they would speak with cannons.

"This decision by Great Ming is not wise." Drake still insisted, "The English have never harmed Great Ming, but these red-haired thieves have caused trouble with the Japanese pirates during the Japanese pirate disaster in Great Ming! They even broke through the Ma Liujia Kingdom and stole it for themselves, forcing Great Ming and England's merchant fleets to detour thousands of miles to enter the Western Ocean!"

"The Ma Liujia Kingdom is a vassal state of Great Ming!"

Drake found it hard to understand. Great Ming, as the Celestial Empire, had conflicts and cooperation with the two Iberian countries. Great Ming was attacking the Luzon Viceroyalty and the Goa Viceroyalty, which he saw with his own eyes, but Great Ming still chose to cooperate with the two Iberian countries. This made no sense at all. How could these two relationships of hostility and friendship exist at the same time?

"So according to your logic, we should kill you now because your privateering ships intended to rob our merchant ships." Liu Ji sneered and said, "Reciprocal retaliation, isn't it?"

Xu Fan reached out to interrupt the argument and said, "In fact, when your envoy, John Harrison, went to Great Ming for the first time on a galleon, Great Ming treated him warmly. Even though Legazpi and Antonio described you as Japan, His Majesty still replied with a national letter, indicating a willingness to trade."

"But it is a pity that you chose another path. Once the privateering license was issued, Great Ming, as a beneficiary of maritime order, could no longer maintain a friendly relationship with England."

"After you go back, you should tell the English royal family, parliament, nobles, and gentlemen the reason for the change in Great Ming's attitude. You should reflect on it and look for reasons in yourselves, instead of blindly demanding Great Ming and questioning why Great Ming refuses to establish a friendly relationship with England."

Xu Fan was speaking from his heart. Great Ming actually didn't dislike contacting England at first. Even if the special envoy to the West repeatedly said that England was a troublemaker, causing trouble everywhere and making the whole West a mess, Great Ming didn't care about these. Once the privateering license was issued, Great Ming could not be blamed for not maintaining friendship with the English.

The stronger the national power, the greater the benefits of order.

Xu Fan and Liu Ji finally didn't kill Drake, but robbed him of everything and threw him out of the China Hall.

Obviously, Drake could come to the China Hall of the palace because of Solon's help and Antonio's acquiescence. Spain and Portugal also had to know Great Ming's attitude, and this was an excellent opportunity to test. Liu Ji and Xu Fan had already shown their strength. Too much strength would make allies feel worried.

At the beginning of the New Year, Duchess Catarina gave birth smoothly, and the child was very healthy. For the Portuguese, this was great news and could be considered a gift from God.

"So the Duchess hasn't divorced her husband yet, but is with the current King of Portugal, and even had a child. Is the West so chaotic?" Liu Ji only found out after spending the New Year in Lisbon. Liu Ji's brain was almost burned out before he understood this intricate relationship.

Yes, Duchess Catarina still had a husband, named João.

Xu Fan said with emotion, "Philip II used generous conditions to persuade João to support him, including but not limited to the position of Viceroy of Brazil, the position of Grand Master of the Order of Christ, a license for one private ship to be sent to India every year, a license for one ship to participate in the galleon trade with Great Ming every year, and João's daughter becoming the Crown Princess of Spain."

"João was persuaded."

"In fact, the Duchess's right to inherit the throne is above Antonio's. Antonio is just an illegitimate son, and the Duchess is not an illegitimate daughter."

"João is the Duke of Braganza, the most powerful noble on the Iberian Peninsula. But because João provided everything except support in the struggle for the throne, the Duchess could only regretfully announce that she would give up inheriting the throne. This is also the reason why the Duchess and her husband parted ways."

"The pond is shallow and there are many turtles. Don't stare at gossip every day. When are you going back to Great Ming?"

"Set sail back to Great Ming the day after tomorrow. The return voyage will be very fast because there are not many goods on the ship. We will trade in the Mughal Empire once more." Liu Ji said with some relief.

"I really want to go back and see." Xu Fan looked at the boundless sea and said with a sense of loss.

There was only about two million taels of silver, and the ship carried a large amount of goods. Antonio could not pay the payment and used goods to supplement it. The fleet would arrive in the Mughal Empire within three months, do the final trade in the Mughal Empire, fill up with cotton, return to Songjiang Prefecture, and complete the global trade.

Liu Ji obtained two licenses, issued by the Portuguese royal family and the Spanish royal family respectively, representing that Great Ming merchant ships could resupply at the colonial ports of the two countries. It would be fine without these two licenses; they just needed to lift out the eighteen-catty cannons, and the colonial ports would naturally choose to let the Great Ming fleet resupply.

Cannons were sometimes much more useful than licenses.

Liu Ji led the fleet to set sail again. The ocean-going fleet, which could not stay for long, stayed in Lisbon for less than half a month before disappearing into the vast and boundless sea again.

On the fifth day of the first lunar month, Great Ming ended its holiday, and the Great Ming Emperor began to work, one day earlier than the craftsmen who started work on the sixth.

On the sixth day, the sun was bright, and the Great Ming Emperor's imperial carriage slowly drove out of the Tonghe Palace toward the two woolen mills on the banks of the Yongding River.

The sixth day of the first lunar month of the eleventh year of Wanli was the day Great Ming resumed work, the day Great Ming distributed the start-of-work silver, and also the day dividends were distributed. On this same day, Great Ming would award the Great Ming Technological Progress Award for the first time, also known as the Chonggu Award, because the solid gold merit medal was engraved with the words "Respectfully presented by Wang Chonggu to those who are well-informed."

This was something the Emperor had promised, so he naturally kept his word.

Wang Chonggu's mouth was almost split to the back of his ears. Scholars and literati could only grit their teeth and curse Wang Chonggu for being stupid, spending money to give awards and still being so happy.

Wang Chonggu naturally had something to say: Was he short of money? It was just a small matter.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 519 =====