Chapter 1365: Everyone Has Their Own Wishful Calculations (Please Subscribe)

"Grand Military Advisor? Is he a military strategist? The Ming Empire seems to have that office too — apparently the Emperor's chief military minister."

"No, no. The Grand Military Advisor of the Shun Empire is not a military strategist. What he handles is... astrology, divination, curses, that sort of thing. They say when the Five Flower Mountain was haunted, they sent him to deal with it too."

"Oh, then he isn't a chief military minister — he's a Grand Mage!"

"Right, right. It should be translated as Grand Mage!"

Inside the guesthouse of the Ministry of Rites in Kunming, the French ambassador Fouquet and the Dutch ambassador Bruys van Diemen were preparing for the diplomatic negotiations soon to begin — they first had to negotiate in Kunming, and only then would the Shun envoys go to Europe to negotiate with Louis XIV and Johan de Witt, and only after that could a treaty be finalized.

Before the formal negotiations began, Fouquet and Bruys naturally had to first figure out the identity of the Shun side's chief envoy, the Grand Military Advisor Song Xiance.

The office of Military Advisor also existed on the Ming side; Wu Sanfu, Li Yan, Yan Yingyuan, and others had all held it. That office was the equivalent of a later chief of the general staff, and the Grand Marshal's Office where the Military Advisor served was the equivalent of a general staff headquarters. But the Shun's Military Advisor was not a chief of the general staff, and the Shun had no Grand Marshal's Office or Military Advisor's Office performing the functions of a general staff. The Shun's major military and state affairs were decided by the Deliberative Council of Princes and ordered through the Ministry of War.

Although Song Xiance, as Military Advisor, could attend the Deliberative Council of Princes, his actual profession was still that of a "mage" — telling fortunes, casting horoscopes, reading geomancy, and sometimes chanting incantations, drawing talismans, and catching ghosts. He probably really did have some magic!

Fouquet did not find a mage participating in government particularly strange. His old superior had been a cardinal, which was not so different from a mage. And Fouquet himself was a deist, quite enthusiastic about divination and astrology as well.

"Then what does this Vice Envoy Gu do?" Fouquet asked next.

"He handles trade," Bruys replied. "He has served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now oversees trade."

After Gu Junen returned from Chongqing Prefecture, his official post became Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and he also managed the Trade Office. This time Li Jicheng had him partner with Song Xiance to negotiate with the Westerners.

However, these two old gentlemen were not the ones truly in charge of the mission. The ones truly in charge were Song Xiance's son Song Yaowen and Luo Hu's son Luo Ke.

These two were the ones Li Jicheng had designated as Minister of the Foreign Affairs Office and Minister of the Navy Office. The other Shun old officials who had signed up to go sightseeing in the West would at most receive a Vice Minister or Bureau Director post with no real authority upon their return.

Fouquet thought for a moment, then asked, "Bruys, do you think the Shun will make any demands on trade issues?"

Bruys shook his head and laughed. "That doesn't matter. Whatever demands they make, we can agree to them."

Fouquet was taken aback. "Why?"

Bruys laughed. "Because the Shun are not like the Ming. The Ming are a strong industrial and commercial power, so they demand free trade. But the Shun have no developed industry or commerce, and no money either. They can neither export anything nor afford to buy anything. The Shun are just a poor military power — all they want is to plunder!"

Fouquet gave a self-deprecating smile. "Put that way, the Shun and our France are rather alike."

France's first purpose in meddling in India was to contain the Ming — but that was not the main purpose, merely a high-sounding pretext. France needed this pretext to placate England, win over the Netherlands, and unite Portugal and Spain (because Spain's territories in the New World were threatened by the Ming). Only thus could Louis XIV barely maintain his position as the big brother of Europe.

The second purpose was to seize money — and that was the most important one!

Louis XIV's hegemony in Europe burned money at a terrifying rate!

To win over the Netherlands, he could not unscrupulously extort the Dutch profiteers, and he even had to open markets to them. And the attacks on and occupation of the Spanish Netherlands, Franche-Comté, Lorraine, and other places were also projects that required endless infusions of money. He had to maintain a huge army, yet had no way to immediately extract large revenues from regions just ravaged by war.

At the same time, "Puritan England," relatively quiet these years, had exploited France's anti-Ming sentiment to lure a group of Ming merchants in France, led by the Divine Europe Bank, over to England. This had allowed England to take an ever larger share of Ming–Europe trade. Though it had not displaced the Netherlands' position, it had eaten up all the market share of French merchants, who had little competitiveness to begin with.

So France, outwardly glorious, was in fact facing severe financial difficulties!

To relieve the enormous fiscal pressure, relying on French industry and commerce would be like trying to quench a nearby thirst with distant water. Getting the great Sun King to economize also seemed impossible — how could the Sun King possibly not spend money?

The remaining option, of course, was to go plunder — no, one could not call it plunder, but rather helping other countries collect taxes. And looking across the globe, the only country France could help was India!

Fouquet pondered for a while, then asked, "Bruys, do you think the Shun would be willing to provoke that great trouble, the Timurid Empire?"

The purpose of the French and Dutch in drawing the Shun Empire into the game was, of course, to use the Shun against the Timurid Empire.

Because France and the Netherlands could at most commit a few thousand troops to India — enough to deal with small states like Malabar, Coromandel, Golconda, and Bijapur, but dreaming if they thought they could defeat the Timurid Empire with its two or three hundred thousand troops!

So the financial rescue plan the Dutch had devised for Louis XIV was to use the Shun to strike at the Timurids and draw the Timurid Empire's attention to Bengal.

Then they themselves could use their forces against the coasts of Malabar, Coromandel, Golconda, Bijapur, and other places. Through limited wars, they would force these Indian states to hand over some ports and the administration of foreign trade.

In this way France could help the Indians collect taxes... while the Netherlands could monopolize the trade of India's southern coastal regions and reap enormous profits.

"I think they will be willing!" the Dutchman Bruys said with a smile. "Because for them, it is actually a rather good bargain."

"Then is it possible they might occupy Bengal?" Fouquet asked.

"That would be rather difficult," Bruys said, shaking his head. "But they can plunder quite a lot. Bengal is a fine place, rich to the point of overflowing!"

In the coming years, one million, perhaps one and a half million Shun warriors and their families would enter Burma! Relying on Burma's meager farmland, it would be utterly impossible to feed so many people. Sending troops into Bengal would be the only choice!

If Burma were developed, of course it could feed that many people. But the problem was that developing Burma took time! And over a million people needed at least four or five million shi of rice a year!

How much could Burma supply? Probably not even half! Where would the shortfall of two or three million shi come from? Only from Bengal, with its dense population and fully developed land!

So the Shun had no choice but to throw themselves into the embrace of France and the Netherlands.

And the Timurid Empire, to defend Bengal, that rich and fertile land, would have no choice but to abandon its control over southern India. Then France and the Netherlands could slip in through the gap!

"Imperial Lord, only Bengal's grain can feed the garrison-farm households moving south into Burma!"

"Developing Burma is not easy, so they will need to be supported for at least ten years before they can become self-sufficient!"

"But the Timurid Empire is not easy to fight either! That Aurangzeb has many Western Region warriors under him, and they are very good fighters!"

"Imperial Lord, we are now a bit like the Tartars who repeatedly invaded the Central Plains in the old days — if we don't plunder, we can't survive!"

"Imperial Lord, I have heard that back then the Tartars once negotiated with the remnant Ming."

On Five Flower Mountain, several of Li Jicheng's trusted men — Song Yaowen, Luo Ke, Gao Yidao, Niu Quan, and Gu Conglong — were advising him.

"Conglong," Li Jicheng said, looking at a short, fat man in his thirties, and asked with a frown, "You mean to have the Timurid Empire pay Us annual tribute?"

That short, fat man was Gu Junen's son Gu Conglong, who had previously been the official in charge of the Syriam trade and was fairly familiar with conditions in Bengal.

He nodded and said, "Imperial Lord, Aurangzeb must give Us at least two million shi of rice a year! If he can agree to that, our days in Burma will be much easier!"

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(End of Chapter)