Chapter 318: Drawing a Circle

The Portuguese Governor-General of Macau, Shi Baoluo, provided Zhu Cilang with typical European mercenary services—that is, a team of officers and non-commissioned officers capable of organizing infantry regiments. Such teams had formed the backbone of the Thirty Years' War, and in the East, the land forces of the European colonizers were likewise assembled in this manner.

They recruited mercenary officers and NCO teams from Europe, then recruited natives or unlucky white men from the East as soldiers, sometimes even using blacks or Indians, thus piecing together mercenary regiments.

"Your Highness," Alfonso Lopez now took up the conversation, speaking Mandarin with a Cantonese accent, "Governor-General Shi Baoluo hopes to recruit for you three more officer corps, each capable of supporting an infantry brigade. You could assign each of these four infantry brigades a Ming officer corps, with Ming officers serving as deputies, learning Western tactics through training and actual combat.

Additionally, the Governor-General hopes you will grant full authority to the Western officer corps, allowing them to select their own equipment and devise their own training plans."

The demand that Western officers choose their own equipment was actually something Lopez himself had added—he was not a career bureaucrat of the Kingdom of Portugal, but an arms merchant. He owned a foreign trading firm called "Alfonso Lopez & Company," which specialized in the arms business. It not only sold arms but also had its own musket workshop and armor workshop, capable of producing 80–100 long-barreled muskets and 40 half-plate cuirasses per month.

Moreover, his firm had close business ties with many Foshan merchants. All the iron used in his workshops was supplied by Foshan. When large orders came in, he would also purchase goods directly from Foshan.

Zhu Cilang already knew Lopez's background. Hearing him speak thus, he smoothly took up the thread and said with a smile: "Selecting equipment on your own may prove somewhat difficult. After all, in all of South Zhili there is not a single workshop capable of producing matchlock muskets and musketoons.

Alfonso, We have heard that you are the owner of a firearms workshop. Have you ever considered opening a workshop in South Zhili?"

Alfonso Lopez was stunned. What? A foreigner opening a workshop in South Zhili? Could such a thing truly be allowed?

Zhu Cilang nodded and smiled: "Opening up all of South Zhili is impossible, at least for the time being. However, We can enclose a plot of land at the mouth of the Yangtze in South Zhili, and implement a special legal system there, different from the rest of the Great Ming, completely open to foreigners.

Westerners will be permitted to settle on this land, to open trading houses and workshops, and even to allow certain Western gentlemen, under the title of advisors, to participate in the city's governance."

Alfonso Lopez was truly astonished. Was not what the Ming Crown Prince described simply a free city?

"Alfonso," Zhu Cilang said to Alfonso Lopez with a smile, "if you truly wish to obtain more weapons orders, then you should not set your workshop and trading house in Macau. Macau is so far from Nanjing—how would you conduct business? If the products are defective, returns would be troublesome.

We suggest you relocate your workshop and trading house to the open city of Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze. In the future, the embassies of Portugal and Holland, as well as the trading houses of the East India Company, will also be established there!"

"Is this true? Your Highness, is this city already under construction?" Alfonso Lopez pressed in rapid succession.

He of course knew what a free city established at the mouth of the Yangtze would mean.

"Not yet," Zhu Cilang said, "but everything is already prepared. We are only waiting for Us to negotiate a concrete plan with the Ministers of Southern and Northern Maritime Trade. By early next year, the decree should be formally issued."

The land for Shanghai had long since been enclosed—the military colony fields of Wusong Garrison and Baoshan Garrison, altogether over a hundred thousand mu of land, all on both banks of the Wusong River, roughly the area of later Baoshan, Jiangwan, and Gaoqiao.

At the pace of seventeenth-century urban development, this land would be enough for Shanghai to use for decades. And once Shanghai developed, a hundred thousand mu of land—heh, at one hundred taels per mu, that would be worth over ten million taels!

And His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, being the crafty feudal state leader that he was, would certainly not release Shanghai's land at the "cabbage price" of one hundred taels per mu. He was no fool.

His plan was "lease only, never sell"—long-term holding! At first, lease at low prices, and once the city developed, raise the rents.

Moreover, Shanghai was the junction of five major trade spheres—the Southern Ocean, the Northern Ocean, the Eastern Ocean, the Yangtze, and the Grand Canal (the Wusong River connecting to the Canal)—making it easy to develop into the trade center and financial center of East Asia.

Once these two centers arose, collecting customs duties and issuing currency would become far easier!

"Lopez," Zhu Cilang reached out and took from Huang Xiaobao a contract he had drafted himself, and handed it to Lopez. "This is a contract We have drafted in both Chinese and French. It is the contract for hiring the officer corps. Your quoted price, We have already accepted! After you and General Shi return to the guesthouse, study the contract carefully, and tomorrow submit your proposed amendments. If there are no objections, then we sign the day after tomorrow.

After the New Year, General Shi's officer corps may take over an infantry regiment organized according to Western standards, and begin equipping and training."

What? There was even a contract? And bilingual in Chinese and French. This was truly formal!

Lopez and Shi Ruien exchanged glances. Could this Ming Crown Prince have interned at the Dutch East India Company under an assumed name?

"Yours, grocery store, work?"

Zhu Cilang did not merely know French—he could even speak Japanese-style Chinese!

The Western devils left with the contract, and then the Eastern devils came to pay their respects—eighteen devils, all dressed as samurai, led by Zahe Pu.

Huang Xiaobao had already presented the devils' price quotes to Zhu Cilang. The highest among them was the devil named "Grocery Store," who demanded 250 koku of brown rice—as an annual salary!

The asking price was not low. One koku of brown rice sold for less than two taels of silver in Nanjing, so 250 koku was 500 taels. An ordinary land-granted matchlock soldier in Zhu Cilang's army, counting 50 koku of land rent and a monthly stipend of 2 taels, earned only 124 taels of silver a year.

You, a devil whose family runs a grocery store, want a salary as high as 500 taels—what skills do you have?

"Mine, named Zahe Pu." Zahe Pu frowned, imitating Zhu Cilang's tone, and replied, "From the Saika mercenaries of Japan's Kii Province. We Saika mercenaries have been skilled with arquebuses for generations!"

"Saika mercenaries, is it? I have heard of them." Zhu Cilang nodded. So he was not a grocery store owner after all.

"A three-month probation," Zhu Cilang smiled. "One field assignment. If you perform well, you will be paid according to your asking price. During the probation period, your salary will be halved, paid monthly."

There was even a probation period?

Zahe Pu thought for a moment, then asked: "May I ask where Your Highness wishes to send us on assignment?"

"To Jeju Island," Zhu Cilang said. "All of you will go!"

"Jeju Island? Is that not Joseon territory?" Zahe Pu was taken aback.

"Correct!" Zhu Cilang nodded. "You will go and occupy Jeju Island for Us! You will travel by sea on ships provided by the Zheng family. However, the entire operation will be under the command of the Minister of Northern Maritime Trade. Will you go or not?"

The military operation to occupy Jeju Island had been proposed by Shen Tingyang in early December. Its purpose was not to annex Jeju Island, but to force the Kingdom of Joseon to sign a "monopoly trade treaty" with the Office of the Minister of Northern Maritime Trade—that is, to require Joseon to hand over all its seaborne foreign trade to the full management of the Great Ming's Office of the Minister of Northern Maritime Trade.

The Office of the Minister of Northern Maritime Trade had been negotiating with the Joseon people over the monopoly trade issue for several months, but they had stubbornly refused to yield.

They had even threatened, in early November, to ban Northern Maritime Trade merchant ships from entering Joseon ports!

Therefore, Shen Tingyang had proposed to Zhu Cilang the suggestion of seizing Jeju Island to coerce the Kingdom of Joseon. Of course, such a thing as damaging the traditional friendship between China and Joseon was something Zhu Cilang would never agree to!

Therefore, the invaders of Jeju Island could not possibly be Ming troops—they could only be Japanese pirates! And this invasion might well be the beginning of a full-scale Japanese invasion of Joseon. If the King of Joseon required rescue, then the Great Ming court was willing to provide paid assistance to Joseon!

(End of Chapter)