Chapter 692: Spain, Let's Be Friends!

The Shanghai commercial port.

Sebastian Caballero did not stay in the inn Luo Dagong had arranged for him, but instead took up residence in a newly built Western-style garden mansion on Huaihai Long Street.

The owner of the mansion was a great merchant from Valencia, the president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, named Pérez Don Urdia, and so this great mansion was also called the Urdia Garden by the people of Shanghai.

This Urdia had originally been engaged in the silk trade in Manila, and was an old friend of Chief Justice Caballero.

When Shanghai was opened as a port, Urdia, having had enough of the Philippines' sweltering heat and typhoons, moved his silk business office from Manila to Shanghai. He also bought a plot of land on Huaihai Long Street and built a luxurious residence on it.

When Caballero's mission arrived, Urdia's luxurious Western-style mansion had just been completed. And because this mansion could be used to hold balls and receptions, Urdia had at once become one of the most influential figures in Shanghai's foreign community.

To welcome the arrival of the Spanish Empire's special envoy, Chief Justice Caballero, the hospitable and face-loving Mr. Urdia could not avoid spending a good deal, and laid out a welcoming reception in the absurdly spacious hall of his own mansion.

As soon as the Western four-wheeled carriage shared by Caballero, de Velasco, and Urdia entered Urdia Garden, there was a great expanse of lawn. Unfortunately it was already winter, the temperature in Shanghai was very low, and only a few withered blades of grass remained on the lawn, without the pleasing tender green.

Caballero saw that quite a few Western four-wheeled carriages were already parked in the spacious courtyard; it seemed that quite a number of guests had already arrived.

Several dark-skinned native Filipino servants dressed in Western servant attire saw that their master's carriage had arrived and hurried over, attentively pulling open the carriage door, raising a large sunshade umbrella, and one of them went to the luggage rack at the rear of the carriage to take down His Excellency the Chief Justice's luggage.

Caballero emerged from the lavishly decorated carriage and looked around, discovering that the servants bustling about the courtyard were all natives brought from the Philippines, and not a single Chinese person.

"Pérez, are all your servants brought from Manila?" Caballero asked casually.

"Yes," Urdia replied. "Although the Chinese are very diligent and make excellent employees, they are not suited to being servants. And they—"

He suddenly stopped and did not continue, then shrugged, made a gesture of invitation, and led the way, guiding Caballero and de Velasco on toward the main building of Urdia Garden, a three-story Spanish-style mansion.

After entering the mansion's hall, Caballero found that there were already quite a number of guests inside, both men and ladies, but all Westerners, and not a single Chinese person. Caballero also noticed that a considerable portion of the guests were blond and blue-eyed or red-haired and blue-eyed, clearly not of Spanish or Portuguese stock.

The guests noticed Urdia accompanying the Chief Justice of Manila as they walked in, and rose one after another to bow to them.

Caballero, like a true gentleman, nodded in acknowledgment and greeted the guests in French.

Urdia, however, did not linger in the hall, but went directly up the stairs toward the second floor.

"Pérez," Caballero asked in a low voice after ascending the stairs, "there are quite a few friends here from the Netherlands, aren't there?"

Urdia turned back and smiled at Caballero: "Your Excellency the Chief Justice, this is not Europe, nor the New World, nor Manila. Here, all Europeans are guests!"

"Guests?" Caballero mused. "Indeed, we really are guests. It does take some getting used to!"

Urdia said: "Yes, we Spaniards are accustomed to being masters, and are not accustomed to being guests, nor are we very welcome ones. By comparison, the Dutch are very good guests—to my household, and to China, it is the same."

His words were full of pride, but also carried a hint of complaint. Although the Spanish Empire was now at its zenith, here in the Great Ming, it was somewhat unable to make headway.

While the two were speaking, they had already reached the second floor. A long corridor appeared before them, with rooms on both sides, and only at the far end was there a window. The lighting was extremely poor, and it could only be illuminated by candles that gave off a faint fragrance.

Urdia pointed at two closed doors for the Filipino servants carrying the luggage, instructing them to move the luggage inside, then continued leading Caballero and de Velasco forward.

"Your Excellency the Chief Justice, there is a special guest today," Urdia said after a moment's consideration. "It is the Netherlands' ambassador to the Great Ming, Mr. Van Diemen. I think you should meet him."

The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands had already signed an armistice treaty with Spain, and the two sides were no longer enemies. But this war, which had lasted eighty years, was a sore point in the heart of every Spanish noble!

Urdia added: "This meeting was requested by Mr. Van Diemen himself. Moreover, he has dealt with the current Emperor of the Great Ming, and is the Westerner who understands China best—bar none!"

"Very well then, I will meet him."

Caballero nodded, and Urdia continued to lead the way, bringing Caballero and de Velasco into a spacious and bright study.

A person was already standing beside a sofa in the study—none other than the former Governor-General of Batavia, now the ambassador of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands to the Great Ming, Antonio van Diemen.

Antonio van Diemen now enjoyed great prestige in the Dutch homeland. He had been hailed by the merchants of Amsterdam as "the great merchant who knocked open the gates of China," which was nearly the highest praise a Dutch merchant could receive.

Besides honor, he had also received the thing merchants love most—accursed money!

It was a very large bonus! It had been issued to him by the East India Company, in gratitude for the commercial success he had achieved in China.

But Antonio van Diemen was not the least bit happy—not because he hated money, but because he knew he did not deserve so much money, for his success in China had in fact been voluntarily granted by the then Crown Prince of China, now the Emperor of China.

The contracts signed by the two parties were said to have been drafted personally by the Emperor of China.

Moreover, after Antonio van Diemen gained a deeper understanding of China's situation, he discovered a serious problem!

A Chinese original sin!

It was that their population was too large—said to be as many as over a hundred million! More than the entire population of Europe!

And all those people were now crammed onto a piece of land in the southeastern part of the East Asian continent, about the same size as Western Europe, and moreover they lacked food! In the past two years, this country had already broken out in two food crises!

What worried Van Diemen even more was that the current Emperor of China was a young and capable ruler who understood the outside world and was eager to lead the nation into the age of the ocean!

And not long ago, he had already turned that eagerness into action—a very successful colonial expansion campaign.

In Van Diemen's view, unless blocked by another powerful empire, the Great Ming Empire led by Zhu Cilang would certainly continue to expand southward, toward the Pacific.

Because only in this way could he obtain enough food to feed the ever-growing population!

And the empire that could halt the Great Ming's expansion was not the Dutch East India Company—the shareholders would absolutely never permit the company's fleet to stop the Great Ming from moving south. They would even encourage the Great Ming Empire to continue its southward advance.

Because only in this way could the East India Company obtain the arms orders and rich profits they wanted from Chenla, Siam, and Burma.

Of course, the Great Ming Empire's arms orders were also something the East India Company dreamed of. They could not care less what a terrifying monster the Great Ming Empire, now heading out to sea, might ultimately become! Even if the Great Ming became a monster and seized Batavia, what of it?