Chapter 809: Looking More and More Like a World War

Shengjing, the Spanish Embassy to the Qing Empire.

Ambassador Caballero, dressed in a silk robe, sat quietly in the embassy study. A cup of coffee before him had long since lost its steam. He was restless, his eyes staring blankly into the distance, as if anxiously waiting for something.

Outside the study was a Chinese-style courtyard, the ground covered everywhere in snow, the temperature very low. But inside the study a stove was lit, and it was very warm. The icy air outside and the warmth within met on the window glass, condensing into large droplets on the inside of the panes, clouding the already not-very-clear glass into a blur, making it hard for Caballero inside to see what was happening outside.

Suddenly, soft footsteps sounded outside the door, and then the study door was pushed open. After a gust of cold wind, two figures slipped in. Caballero merely glanced over, and this plenipotentiary ambassador representing the King of Spain immediately rose and bowed to one of the two visitors. "Your Eminence!"

The man he called "Your Eminence" was the newly appointed Cardinal of the Great Mongol Nation, Juan Bautista de Morales, who also had a Chinese name, Li Yufan.

He had originally been a Dominican priest sent to China to preach. Because of the "Chinese Rites Controversy" that erupted after Matteo Ricci's death, he got his chance for advancement, becoming one of the Western missionaries in China most radically opposed to Ricci's rules. In 1643 he had even returned to Rome to denounce Ricci's rules to the Pope as violations of Catholic doctrine.

On the surface this was a "rites controversy," but behind it was a power struggle between Portugal and Spain — Ricci was a Jesuit missionary backed by Portugal, while Li Yufan was a Dominican missionary backed by Spain.

Because the Portuguese and the Jesuits had more flexible policies, they had seized the initiative in China.

The Dominicans, however, had caught the "God-favored Spain" disease, were too rigid on religious questions, and saw the devil in everyone, so they had not developed well in China.

Because the issues involved were too complex, Pope Innocent X also wavered, not knowing whom to support — until the Ming mission visited Europe and formally announced that the Ming held the Patronage over East Asia. This matter created hostility between the Holy See and the Ming Empire.

The Holy See certainly could not recognize the Ming's patronage rights, but neither could it strip the Eastern patronage rights granted to the Kingdom of Portugal. In theory the Pope had this power, but as long as Innocent X had not gone mad, he absolutely would not dare do such a thing!

If he did, he might well meet God immediately!

The consequence was obvious: if you can strip Portugal's Eastern patronage today, could you strip the King of France's power to appoint bishops tomorrow? Was this an attempt to provoke a new religious war?

Now that the Vicomte de Turenne had gone over to Louis XIV, what if he turned around and led troops to Rome to help Innocent X ascend to heaven?

The Holy See was now extremely weak militarily and absolutely did not dare challenge any European military power.

But the Pope still found a way to disgust Zhu Cilang: he appointed a cardinal for the Great Mongol Nation — Portugal's patronage rights did not include the Great Mongol Nation!

So Li Yufan picked up a cardinal's hat for free and was dispatched to Shengjing. He should have gone to Beijing, but Li Yufan was no fool; he could see that the little Shunzhi Emperor would not last, so he came to Shengjing instead.

And Caballero was likewise a clever man, and naturally would not be stupid enough to go to Beijing to wait to be surrounded, so he had also come to Shengjing.

Anyway, in this day and age, embassies of East Asian countries were not in the capitals — the various nations' embassies to the Ming were all in Shanghai, and the Ming embassy to Japan was in Uraga (Japan's capital was Kyoto). So Spain's embassy to the Great Mongol Nation (the Qing) being placed in Shengjing also conformed to the international practice of East Asia.

The man who had hurried over with Li Yufan was the manager of the Spanish Pacific Trading Company's trading post at Vladivostok, named Gonzalo Garcia. With an anxious look, he bowed to Caballero and hastily reported: "Viscount, a great disaster has occurred! Our fur-trading ships, the Pacific and the New Orient, have been attacked by a fleet of the Japanese nation!

The Pacific has been captured, and the New Orient, wounded, has fled to Vladivostok!"

"What? Japan has a fleet?" Caballero had been waiting for news of the Pacific and the New Orient. The Pacific was a ten-thousand-bushel great bird ship — the Spanish, in order to understand the Ming's shipbuilding capability, had ordered several cheap and good-quality ten-thousand-bushel bird ships through agents to run the Pacific route.

The New Orient, on the other hand, was a 500-ton Spanish galleon, not a warship but an armed merchantman.

Caballero himself was a shareholder in the Pacific Trading Company, and he had also invested a large sum in the Pacific. The overseas trade of the Kingdom of Spain operated completely differently from that of Holland and England; it was far less marketized, and powerful and influential figures all took part in smuggling. Caballero was no exception — while holding shares in the trading company, he also used the Pacific for smuggling.

Precisely because of the smuggling business, the Pacific Trading Company's merchant ships completely ignored Philip IV's orders and secretly carried on the "Ming-Qing-New World triangular trade," using New World silver to buy Ming silk, porcelain, and counterfeit firearms (generally products of small workshops), then shipping them to Vladivostok to exchange for furs and Eastern pearls, and then shipping those back to the New World.

But after the Pacific and the New Orient left the port of Busanpo in the Kingdom of Joseon, they had gone silent!

Who would have thought they had run into a Japanese fleet and been robbed!

"But Japan has no navy!" Caballero said with an incredulous look.

"It does now!" Cardinal Li Yufan's face was grim. "Envoys from the Kingdom of Joseon have already arrived in Shengjing, bringing astonishing news. Japan's combined fleet has invaded Joseon territory and occupied Jeolyeong Island off Busanpo."

"What?" Caballero shook his head. "That's impossible."

He had spent many years in Asia and knew Japan too well. Japan was now closed off from the world; how could it possibly possess a fleet capable of invading Joseon? Let alone intercepting Spanish merchant ships at sea!

"Did the crew of the New Orient say what kind of Japanese warships they encountered?"

Garcia said: "They were Dutch-style sailing warships. Seven in total, the largest of which carried at least thirty cannons!"

Seven sailing warships intercepting two Spanish merchant ships and still failing to achieve total victory — Zheng Chenggong's seamanship in naval battle still wasn't good enough!

"Those weren't Japanese, those were Chinese!" Caballero exclaimed. "Chinese disguised as Japanese."

"What do we do?" Li Yufan asked.

"Can we request the Philippine Fleet to move?" Garcia asked.

"That..." Caballero thought for a moment. "Whom would the Dutch support?"

"China, definitely!" Garcia said. "War between England and Holland could break out at any moment. Holland needs China's support in the East!"

The First Anglo-Dutch War had in fact already broken out in May 1652, with a formal declaration of war on July 8, and fighting had already erupted in the English Channel.

Under these circumstances, the Dutch East India Company would certainly not fall out with the Ming, a friendly nation — although these Dutch profiteers had secretly sold quite a few weapons to the Qing, their overall line was still pro-Ming.

And Zhu Cilang's foreign policy line was pro-Dutch and pro-French — because he knew the Dutch were only capable of so much; the one to guard against now was England!

And being pro-French was to gain an ally against Spain and England, because the Dutch profiteers could not ultimately be relied upon.

"But England won't support us either!" Li Yufan said. "Cromwell is a madman who hates God!"

Cromwell was a Puritan, and the English bourgeois revolution was also called the Puritan Revolution. Puritans hated Catholics most of all, so England could not possibly join with Spain to oppose China.

(End of Chapter)