Chapter 1023: Can Spain Still Be Great? (Please Subscribe)

Admiral García's arguments appeared to have moved the Marquis of Spínola. Perhaps this marquis, who had long served as Governor-General of New Spain, had long since fallen in love with New Spain, and so he expressed the utmost agreement with García's words — New Spain was indeed the only way out for Spain's world empire!

And so the marquis not only refrained from finding a pistol to shoot him, but even wrote two letters in his own hand for him: one addressed to King Philip IV, and one addressed to Don Juan José, Governor-General of the Netherlands, who had once studied military affairs under him.

In the letter to the king, he laid the blame for Admiral García's defeat entirely on the Great Ming navy's bombarding cannon and explosive shells, and he asserted that the appearance of these bombarding cannon and explosive shells had forever changed the pattern of naval warfare, and that if Spain wished to revive her navy, she must keep pace with the changes in naval warfare.

Furthermore, in the letter he issued a warning to King Philip IV — the Great Ming Empire on the western shore of the Pacific was about to advance on the New World with all its strength! New Spain was facing an unprecedented threat, and if Spain could not do everything in her power to defend her most precious treasure, then within twenty years she would lose New Spain, and with it, her world empire.

As King Philip's trusted favorite, the Marquis of Spínola knew full well that his king was an utter fool, who had no idea that New Spain was the future of the Kingdom of Spain!

Compared with New Spain, which stretched boundless and limitless and was so fertile and rich it practically oozed oil, Spain proper was simply too poor!

Spain's land was too arid; nothing planted there yielded a good harvest, and it was fit only for grazing sheep. Nor were there any treasures beneath Spain's soil; not much gold or silver could be dug out. And the Spanish were not as industrious and hardworking as the Netherlanders, the English, the Germans, and the Italians, so they always came out on the losing side in the competition of handicrafts.

What was even more vexing was that Spain was not in fact a unified country, but rather a confederated state pieced together from the Kingdom of Castile, the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Navarre, the County of Barcelona, and various other scattered little states.

But the process of unification had never been completed. Even in so-called Spain proper, a host of fragmentary little states still retained great independence. The king's authority in most parts of the homeland was not even as great as his authority in New Spain.

Such a country, internally torn apart and economically withered and exhausted, was still regarded by King Philip as a nation chosen and blessed by God, bearing a mission that was utterly impossible to fulfill — to fight for the Catholic faith! The result, naturally, was defeat everywhere, and the squandering of enormous wealth. The gold and silver wrung from New Spain could not begin to fill the holes that King Philip's reckless wars had punched through.

A country that had once been reasonably strong was now, under the rule of this fatuous monarch, advancing step by step toward collapse!

And so the Marquis of Spínola did not expect the fatuous Philip IV to awaken. He had been a fatuous monarch for more than thirty years — how could he possibly awaken just like that? In this lifetime, he would never awaken into a wise ruler.

Therefore the marquis gave Admiral García a second letter, telling him to go first to Brussels to meet with Don Juan José, Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands.

Don Juan José was the illegitimate son of Philip IV. Because he had been born in Austria, he was also called Don Juan José of Austria. Among Philip IV's many illegitimate sons, the twenty-seven-year-old Don Juan José was without question a star-like figure.

At eighteen he had been entrusted with military command and sent to Naples to suppress a fishermen's uprising. After killing many fishermen, he was promoted to Governor-General of Sicily. In 1651 he returned to Spain and commanded the Siege of Barcelona, successfully suppressing, for the time being, Catalonia's long-running rebellion. From 1656 onward, he was transferred to the Spanish Netherlands, where he fought several battles against the French army commanded by the Vicomte de Turenne, and had actually held his own with victories and defeats, maintaining the situation.

In the Marquis of Spínola's view, if Spain's world empire could still be saved, then the man who would become Spain's savior could not possibly be Philip IV — even less possibly Philip IV — but could only be Don Juan José.

For Philip IV now had no legitimate son who could inherit the throne, only two daughters: one named Maria Theresa, nineteen years old this year, and one named Margaret Theresa, still a little girl. And Philip himself was already in his fifties, so the likelihood of his producing a legitimate male heir was not great.

If Philip did not wish to pass the country to Maria Theresa's husband, then the only option was to have the Pope declare Don Juan José a legitimate son.

Although doing so would provoke much controversy, Spain at present truly needed a wise ruler.

If it truly proved impossible to have Don Juan José succeed, the Marquis of Spínola also hoped that Philip IV would place greater importance on New Spain, regard New Spain as Spain's future, and give Don Juan José full authority over the affairs of New Spain.

To this end, the Marquis of Spínola, already advanced in years and once Don Juan José's teacher, called upon his student in the letter to come to New Spain, to see with his own eyes this magnificent land, and to imagine the glorious future that Spain, in possession of such a vast territory, ought to have!

Carrying the Marquis of Spínola's handwritten letters, Admiral García made his way at top speed to a port in the Caribbean, boarded a fast dispatch caravel that plied the Atlantic between the two shores, hoisted the flag of the neutral Netherlands, and braved the winter storms of the North Atlantic as he headed straight for the Spanish Netherlands.

After a bumpy voyage, he finally arrived in early November 1657 at Brussels, where the Governor-General's residence of the Spanish Netherlands was located.

Don Juan José had above-average looks. His face, like those of other members of the Habsburg family, was rather long, but he at least had a normal pointed chin, bright eyes, a relatively high forehead, and a sharp nose, giving one the impression of a shrewd and capable man.

Admiral García had met him a few times eleven years earlier, when the admiral was preparing to leave for his post in New Spain and Don Juan José was serving as an officer of the guards beside his natural father, Philip IV.

Although they had met only a few times, Don Juan José still remembered this "famous naval commander," one of the empire's "Seven Great Captains," and was very surprised by his sudden visit.

And after Don Juan José finished reading the handwritten letter from the Marquis of Spínola, his brows furrowed deeply.

"Admiral, perhaps you do not yet know that half a month ago a special mission from the Great Ming arrived in Paris." Don Juan José's voice was low and somewhat melancholy. "They have come to Europe with three purposes: first, to establish a banking system for the transfer of funds between East and West; second, to provide loans to Louis XIV's depleted treasury; and third, to assert rights over the northwest of the New World. They say that the northwestern region of the American continent has been their land for several hundred years already! And that they have long held outposts there. Therefore they claim that the mountain regions north of New Spain, near the Pacific, all belong to the domain of the Great Ming Emperor."

"What?" García was startled. "Those Chinese actually dare to spout such nonsense!

Then — then how does His Majesty the King view this matter?"

Don Juan José said: "The King said nothing. He wishes to seek the Marquis of Spínola's advice. Now your arrival is most timely — go to Madrid at once and explain the situation."

García hastily urged: "Your Excellency the Governor-General, we must take the Great Ming's ambitions toward the New World with the utmost seriousness. Before I left Japan, the Great Ming Empire had already announced the establishment of a joint-stock commonwealth. The Great Ming Emperor and the nobility together put up one hundred million taels of silver for the colonization of North America! One hundred million taels! With about fifty taels, one migrant can be sent from the Great Ming to the New World. One hundred million taels is enough to send two million people to the New World! If we Spanish cannot speed up migration to New Spain, then in twenty years we will lose this rich land!"

Don Juan José looked at García and said: "Admiral, do you know what you are saying?"

"Your Excellency the Governor-General! I am speaking of an undertaking that can make Spain great again. The Marquis of Spínola and I both hope that you will make a trip to New Spain, to see with your own eyes the magnificence of New Spain — a magnificence that people who have always lived on the European continent cannot imagine! Only by going there will you understand that everything Spain has done on the European continent is not worth mentioning!"

(End of Chapter)