Chapter 1376: Something Feels Off? (Please Subscribe)

Night was falling over the Shanghai office of the British East India Company.

The British East India Company's Shanghai office was also on the Bund, though it had no building of its own; instead it rented two floors of a four-story building owned by the Royal Chamber of Commerce.

After the British Eastern Fleet, which had come to visit the Great Ming, entered the Wusong River, the fleet's commander, Major General Blake, and the East India Company supercargo Beckett, who had accompanied him, were lodged in the guest rooms of the office under the arrangements of Charlie Waters, the supercargo of the East India Company's Shanghai office.

Blake and Beckett were both setting foot on the soil of the Great Ming Empire proper for the first time. Although they had heard many tales of this Celestial Empire of the East and had seen many Ming merchants dripping with wealth, when they stepped onto the land of Shanghai, the Great Ming Empire's most bustling commercial center, they were still stunned by the city's prosperity and openness.

Shanghai's prosperity had long been within their expectations; after all, the Great Ming Empire was the wealthiest and most populous empire in the world, so it stood to reason that it could possess the most flourishing metropolis. But the city's openness astonished these two visitors from the West.

For when these two Englishmen, come from tens of thousands of miles away, walked out of the Bund passenger wharf and stood on a street lined with tall buildings, they felt not the slightest sense of being "special."

This was the seventeenth century, after all!

Although Europeans had already sailed their ships along most of the world's coastlines, outside Europe and the New World, white European faces were still rather rare.

Yet on the Bund they saw Westerners all over the street, mingling with Easterners, passing to and fro beneath buildings in both Eastern and Western styles.

Some of them wore Western-style clothing, while others had adopted local customs and put on Eastern-style garments, and still others wore Persian and Ottoman styles of dress — whether they were merchants from Persia and the Ottoman Empire, one could not tell.

And there were not only Westerners here, but also dark-skinned Indians dressed in Hindu-style clothing. There were even some pitch-black and some not-so-black black people — whether they were slaves who had been trafficked over, one could not tell.

The British East India Company supercargo Charlie Waters, for his part, wore a loose Chinese-style robe, and at his side was a petite and lovely "Eastern wife," dressed in a woman's silk robe with a pillow hanging at the back... looking just like a cloth doll.

After personally serving her guests a Mancini milk tea fragrant with tea and milk, this doll-like beauty vanished behind a sliding door.

"Major General, Mr. Beckett," Waters said with a smile, taking a sip of the milk tea his Japanese wife had brewed, "Westerners who come here for the first time are always surprised by this city's openness and freedom... and they usually come to like it very quickly. Many choose to reside here long-term, because this city is freer than most of Europe's so-called free cities, while still maintaining good public order, and it is also very easy to make money."

"It is indeed surprising," Major General Blake nodded. "It reminds me of Amsterdam... I can hardly believe that in an ancient Eastern empire there could be a city comparable to free and easygoing Amsterdam. Truly unimaginable!"

Blake was a devout Puritan, and naturally looked down on Amsterdam's free and easygoing ways.

Beckett frowned and said, "Let us hope the rulers of the Great Ming Empire are not like the profiteers of Amsterdam, with eyes only for accursed money!"

He too was a Puritan who loved the Lord — in his eyes, all money in other people's pockets was sinful, and only by putting it into his own pocket could it be made pure.

Waters shrugged and laughed. "The Ming Emperor is certainly not like the Amsterdam profiteers who love only accursed money. He loves a great many things, among them land — especially vast continents! For he has as many as two hundred million subjects, and to feed so many people requires a great deal of land!"

"Then he is truly insatiable!" Blake muttered.

"He is indeed greedy, greedier than all the emperors before him in the Ming dynasty!" Waters nodded. "But he is also very proper and very trustworthy. More proper and more trustworthy than any Western monarch. So doing business with him is profitable — the Western merchants in the Great Ming have a consensus on this.

Moreover, this Emperor does not keep all the profit for himself; he leaves his partners ample room for profit!"

"And what if his partners become his enemies?" Major General Blake asked. "He must know that France and Holland are turning from his friends into his enemies. If he knows that we English are willing to remain neutral, would he be willing to let the British East India Company replace the Dutch East India Company as his chief partner?"

At this point Supercargo Beckett produced a wax-sealed scroll and laid it on a side table. "This is a personal letter from Aurangzeb, addressed to Princess Nisha. Charlie, do you have a way to deliver this letter into Princess Nisha's hands?"

"Of course I do!" Waters said. "My Japanese wife can come and go freely in the Old Mountain court. Moreover, the Princess's Rajput maidservants also come to Shanghai regularly."

The British East India Company of this era was on good terms with the Timurid Empire of India, and to a certain extent still held the status of "merchants by royal appointment."

Thus Princess Nisha also maintained contact with the British East India Company — the annuity Aurangzeb granted her had to be remitted to Nanjing through the British East India Company, and the Indian handicrafts Princess Nisha required also needed the English to help purchase and transport them.

"However," Waters added, "I believe Princess Nisha's influence is limited — even less than that of the royal mistress Marie Mancini. Moreover, the current Ming Emperor is extremely pragmatic, and will not grant us English a monopoly on trade simply because King Louis is making a fuss. That would mean millions in profit, after all!"

Blake and Beckett both knew the matter was unlikely, but they would still strive to seize some market share by exploiting the falling-out between France, Holland, and the Great Ming.

Beckett said, "But the Ming Emperor should help us increase our market share, should he not? At the very least, he should let us become the largest trader."

Waters thought for a moment and said, "As it happens, there is an opportunity right now for the British East India Company to further open up the Eastern market!"

"What opportunity?" Beckett asked.

Waters said, "Our supercargo in Nanjing, Mr. Hope, has just written to inform us of a transaction that may well change the map of the world."

"Change the map of the world? What business could be that big?" Blake asked.

"An entire continent, perhaps a vast island!" Waters said. "The Ming Emperor is preparing to contract out the exploration and preliminary development of the Southern Continent by tender. Any individual or firm that can form a four-ship squadron may participate in the bidding.

After the exploration of the Southern Continent succeeds and at least one settlement is established, the individuals and firms that took part in the exploration will receive a large cash reward, and will also receive appointments as colonial governors."

Blake was greatly startled. "What? He, he has turned the exploration of the Southern Continent into a business?"

"In fact, this is not the first time he has done such a thing!" Waters shrugged. "The development of the United States of the New Continent was quite commercialized. It was only that that time, only Ming nobles and merchants were allowed to participate. This time, however, everyone has the chance to take part, regardless of nationality or background!

Major General, I believe this is our East India Company's opportunity to acquire territory in the Pacific region! And through this territory on the Southern Continent, we can also establish a firmer relationship with the Ming court. For sovereignty over these territories still belongs to the Great Ming. In the future, a Prince of the Great Ming will go to the Southern Continent and become its monarch."

Hearing Waters's proposal, Blake felt something was off, though he could not say what for the moment. In the end it was Beckett who frowned and said, "Charlie, you mean we go explore the Southern Continent, build colonial outposts, and ship people over boatload by boatload, while the Ming Emperor's son does nothing and simply waits to become king?"

Waters smiled bitterly. "Is that not how all those who become kings do it?" He looked at Blake. "Major General, tell me — is this a business our East India Company ought to take up, or not?"

(End of Chapter)