Chapter 691: Spain, It's All Up to You!

On the west bank of the Wusong River, wharf after wharf stood in rows. Western-style man-powered rotary cranes crowded the docks, and warehouses and storehouses were everywhere on shore. Chinese dockworkers with topknots on their heads and sweat cloths hung around their necks hauled the cargo unloaded from the ships, some pushing single-wheeled carts, some carrying loads on their shoulders or in their arms, some using long slender carrying poles.

In the berths at the docks were moored sailing ships from every corner of the world. They came in every style: Spanish-style galleons with four masts and high sterncastles; light, medium and small galleons from Holland or England; Chinese-style Fuchuan, Guangdong, bird, and sand ships; Arabian-style dhows with triangular sails; and old-style lorcha ships with Western hulls and Chinese stiff sails. Masts stood like a forest, prows touching sterns, crowding half the Wusong River.

Traditional Chinese buildings and structures in Portuguese or Dutch styles mingled together, packed in dense rows, and many buildings were still half under construction, scaffolded, with workers visible in the distance bustling about.

The east bank of the Wusong River was a newly risen handicraft district. Docks and slipways for building and repairing ships stood in stern ranks along the riverbank near the Wusong estuary, and near the docks and slipways one could see timber piled up like little mountains. Inside the docks and on the slipways all was busy; who knew how many ships were under construction at once.

Sebastian Caballero, Chief Justice of Manila, stood on the high stern platform of the Spanish galleon, curiously surveying this hottest port and trading city of an ancient empire that seemed suddenly to have awakened and begun chasing the tide of the Age of Discovery.

Shanghai, opened as a port only four years ago, was already displaying extraordinary developmental momentum. Scenes of such feverish growth could probably only be seen in England and Holland, could they not?

In any case, Caballero could not imagine any city in the Spanish world empire growing up as if by magic, in the blink of an eye, the way Shanghai had.

He stared blankly at everything before him, and suddenly the worried, fearful face of the Governor-General of the Philippines surfaced in his mind.

Perhaps his fears were justified!

The great dragon of the East had awakened!

It would surely challenge the Spanish world empire's hegemony over the Pacific!

Looking at this vigorous, fiery scene before him, and then thinking of the stagnation of the Spanish Empire over the past hundred-odd years, he felt an urgency such as he had never known.

Spain, that empire that "possessed the world," had always poured the wealth plundered from the New World into the Habsburg dynasty's wars for supremacy. Countless gold and silver had come to nothing, and Spain had gained nothing but heavy debts and countless widows and orphans...

Just as his thoughts surged, the Spanish sailing ship flying the red-cross flag had already been guided by a fast patrol boat into a berth at a dock. A number of people were already waiting on the dock, led by a Ming official in crimson official robes and a black gauze official's cap. Standing with him were two men in Western dress. The three were chatting and laughing, clearly on very warm terms. There were also soldiers in plate armor and helmets, holding pikes or matchlock muskets, standing ramrod straight in a row, on alert as if facing a great enemy.

Judging by their formation and bearing, they seemed even slightly better than the Spanish soldiers in Manila!

Captain de Velasco of the *Manila*, the Spanish-style galleon Caballero was aboard, now came over at a quick pace. "Your Excellency the Chief Justice, the one who has come to greet us is the mayor of Shanghai. He is also the minister responsible for foreign affairs and trade."

When the *Manila* entered the Wusong estuary, a fast patrol boat of the Shanghai Customs had come out to guide her in and register her — if the *Manila* had been a merchant ship, she would have been taken to an empty commercial berth to moor, or made to queue near the commercial berths.

Once a merchant ship finished mooring, a tax officer of the Shanghai Customs would come to levy duty according to the size of the vessel — the Great Ming's customs duties were now collected on a per-ship basis and upon entry into port. The rates were not high, but duties were levied repeatedly. Merchant ships could pay in precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper, or in rice or wheat. Because rice and wheat were converted at a favorable rate, ordinary merchant ships would load rice when entering port, to use for paying customs duties.

The *Manila*, however, was not a merchant ship but a warship on a diplomatic mission. She was therefore exempt from customs duties and could not moor at commercial berths at will; instead she was to moor at the berth reserved for the Shanghai Naval Academy.

Those soldiers in military uniform and iron armor serving as an honor guard were students of the Naval Academy.

At the same time as the *Manila* moored at the Naval Academy dock, officers of the Shanghai Customs reported the news of the Spanish envoy's visit to Luo Dagong, Prefect of Songjiang and concurrently Shanghai Foreign and Trade Envoy.

The Great Ming Empire still had no foreign ministry; foreign affairs were divided into vassal-state affairs and foreign-country affairs. Vassal-state affairs were managed by the Bureau of Receptions of the Ministry of Rites, while foreign-country affairs were managed by the Foreign and Trade Department of the Ministry of Revenue.

The Shanghai Foreign and Trade Envoy was one of five trade and diplomatic envoys under the Foreign and Trade Department of the Ministry of Revenue — the other four being the Guangzhou Trade and Diplomatic Envoy, the Quanzhou Trade and Diplomatic Envoy, the Ningbo Trade and Diplomatic Envoy, and the Lüshun Foreign and Trade Envoy.

The post of Foreign and Trade Envoy could be held full-time, or concurrently by the chief official of one of the five great ports. Luo Dagong's Foreign and Trade Envoy post was a concurrent one; his substantive post was Prefect of Songjiang — the Shanghai trading port had originally been under the administration of Shanghai County. But over the past three or four years the commercial city had developed extremely fast, almost changing day by day and utterly transformed in three years. A little Shanghai County could no longer manage this great Shanghai trading port. The port had therefore been transferred to the direct administration of Songjiang Prefecture, and Luo Dagong's substantive post had changed from Shanghai County Magistrate to Prefect of Songjiang.

After being promoted to Prefect, Luo Dagong had memorialized the court for approval to move the seat of Songjiang Prefecture from Huating County into the Shanghai trading port, setting it on the Bund, not far from the Naval Academy dock.

So upon receiving the report, Luo Dagong immediately called on Songjiang Prefecture's two foreign advisers — the Portuguese Maldimo and the Dutchman Bas Brink — and went with them to the dock to welcome the envoy of the Kingdom of Spain.

Zheng Jiangong, who had just returned from a mission to Champa and resumed his post at the Naval Academy, had also brought more than a hundred and a few dozen students of the naval accelerated course to the dock to display the might of the Great Ming's army and navy!

The sailing ship flying the Spanish red-cross flag had only just come to a stop when the sailors aboard had already expertly dropped anchor and made fast the cables, and the gangplank was swiftly lowered. A squad of Spanish guards in plate armor and helmets came down from the ship and formed two lines below the gangplank; only then did the corpulent Chief Justice Caballero and Captain de Velasco of the *Manila* descend the gangplank one after the other.

"Welcome, Your Excellency the Chief Justice!" The Portuguese Maldimo had been sent to Shanghai by the Macau Senate; he was a Portuguese nobleman loyal to João IV.

The Portuguese in the East, however, were not enemies of Spain, but of their own European ally, Holland — in this era, the overseas colonial authorities of the European powers were all highly autonomous, and the military and diplomatic policies they adopted did not necessarily accord with those of the mother country.

"Your Excellency the Chief Justice, this is Envoy Luo, who represents His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Ming." The Dutchman Brink was a retired ship's captain who had failed in tulip speculation and was deep in debt; not daring to return to Holland, he had bought a house in Shanghai and settled there, found work at the Naval Academy, and had also been hired by Luo Dagong as an adviser.

He likewise showed ample friendliness toward the visiting Spanish Chief Justice, smiling as he introduced Luo Dagong to the Spaniard, and then said with a smile, "The Emperor of the Great Ming has long been awaiting a reply from New Spain. Have you come this time on behalf of New Spain?"