Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 1022, The Merchant of Venice
There are only ten people sitting in the huge council hall of Venice on the Mediterranean Sea. These ten people are the ten-member committee with the highest power in the Republic of Venice. The ten people represent hundreds of noble rights in the Republic of Venice with the "golden thin".

"Gentlemen, news has just arrived from the Ottoman Empire."

"The army of the Ming Empire from the far east defeated the army of the Ottoman Empire again in the city of Erzincan. It not only captured the city of Erzincan, but also wiped out the [-] army of the Ottoman Empire again."

Dill looked at the other nine people and said loudly.

As Doge of the Republic of Venice, he felt that the opportunity the Venetians had been waiting for had come.

Since the rise of the Ottoman Empire, the contradiction between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice has become more and more serious, the most important of which are two points.

One is the competition between the two parties for the dominance of the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea. As a country that has developed through trade, the importance of the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea to the Republic of Venice is self-evident. If the Republic of Venice loses Without the right to rule here, the Republic of Venice lost its commercial foundation.

The second is the commercial conflict.

The Republic of Venice is mainly engaged in intermediary trade, mainly transporting spices, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cane sugar, gemstones, and silk products from the East to Western European countries to obtain high profits.

In terms of prosperity, the Republic of Venice can obtain more than 97 ducats (ducat gold coins, with a gold content of about 3.6%, and each weighing about [-] grams) from it every year.

But with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire began to block the trade of the Republic of Venice, because spices, silk fabrics, etc. from the East had to pass through the Ottoman Empire, which seriously affected the trade of the Republic of Venice.

This is also the root of the contradiction between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire, so the war between the two sides has lasted for about half a century.

However, the Republic of Venice is obviously good at doing business, but it is far from being an opponent of the Ottoman Empire when it comes to war. In the Zonchio naval battle a few years ago, the Republic of Venice was defeated, which made Venetian merchants always worry about it.

"Your Excellency, what do you mean, our chance has come?"

Paul, the speaker of the Great Council, thought for a while and asked.

"Yes, Your Excellency Speaker~"

"This is a great opportunity to take back what belongs to our republic."

Dill nodded very solemnly and said.

"But Your Excellency Governor, although the Ottoman Empire was defeated by the Ming people on land one after another, their sea power has not been affected in the slightest."

"The fleet of the Ming people is still on vacation in Italy."

Paul expressed his dissent.

"Your Excellency Speaker, and gentlemen~"

"The times have changed. Now Western European countries no longer need to go through the Republic of Venice to obtain spices, silk, sugar and tea from the East."

"They can directly trade with the Ming people from the Americas, and they can also contact the Ming people from Africa. The Spaniards replaced us. They enjoy exclusive trading rights, so they can earn tens of thousands of dollars every year. Millions of Ming silver dollars."

"Compared to the huge trade on the ocean, our Republic of Venice has always been confined to the small harbors of the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea."

"If we don't seize the opportunity to work hard, believe me, in a few years, even the Mediterranean business will not be ours."

Dill said worriedly.

In the past few years, the trade volume of the Republic of Venice has plummeted. Although it can still rely on a good geographical location to obtain some business, the profit has dropped very sharply.

The Ming people in the East are now directly trading with countries in Western Europe. The prices of spices, silk, porcelain, sugar, cloth, and many other commodities from the East have dropped dramatically.

This made the life of Venetians, who used to make a lot of money from transit trade, suddenly become extremely sad.

The goods they sold from the Ottoman Empire at a high price could not be sold in Western Europe at all. Now the only hot business is the slave trade.

The great eastern empires have a huge demand for slaves. They love European white slaves. A slave can be sold for twenty taels of silver to the Ming people. In Eastern Europe, due to many factors such as war, turmoil, and poverty, The price of a slave is often less than three taels of silver, and the profits are huge.

An extremely large slave market has even been formed in Venice, specializing in the sale of slaves. A large number of slave traders from Eastern Europe bought slaves to the Venetians, and the Venetians resold the slaves to Egypt, and the Egyptians sold them to the Venetians. The Ming people of the East.

The traditional trade has no profit at all, but the slave trade has great risks. The pirates of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean will not let go of any opportunity to loot them.

You must know that the current Ottoman Empire is similar to the Venetian, having lost the advantage of a transfer station, the Ottoman Empire is also in a huge financial crisis.

Spices and silk fabrics from the East in the past doubled the price after passing through the hands of the Ottomans, allowing the Ottomans to easily obtain huge wealth to maintain their huge empire.

It is different now, whether it is the opening of the great navigation route, or the route through the Mamluk Kingdom of Egypt, it is easy to sell goods to Europeans, which cut off the Ottoman Empire’s financial resources, and also made Egypt People began to get rich quickly.

"But Your Excellency Governor, what should we do?"

Everyone was silent for a while, the current Republic of Venice is really hard to live, and it is indeed necessary to find a way out.

"Of course I cooperated with Daming~"

"Everyone, look at this huge time map. The Ming people have already occupied most of the world. They have the most extensive territory. It is said that there is still a huge population of [-] million."

"That distant eastern country, just like what Marco Polo described, is extremely rich. It is said that last year's fiscal revenue exceeded [-] million taels of silver."

"With such a huge and rich empire, why should we not cooperate with them properly?"

"The reason why their fleet still stays on the Italian side is mainly because they are not familiar with the Aegean Sea and the distribution of pirates in the Ottoman Empire."

"As long as we are willing to cooperate with them, I think the people of Daming are very happy. Of course, in exchange, we can make some demands on the people of Daming, such as obtaining the exclusive trading rights of Ming products in the Mediterranean."

Dill said very confidently.

The Ming Dynasty has become popular in Europe now, and everything about Ming Dynasty is so novel, which makes everyone full of curiosity.

The goods and goods from Ming Dynasty are all expensive, whether it is silk, porcelain or snow-white cane sugar, or exquisite and durable cloth, or spices from the Nanyang region of Ming Dynasty.

In addition, the wealth and power of the Ming Empire also left a profound impact on Europeans.

It was only a fleet of Ming Dynasty that arrived in Europe, defeated Portugal and England with ease, and even forced France to sign a peace treaty. Now, is there news that the Ottoman army was defeated by the army of the Ming Empire? .

All of a sudden, the whole of Europe was discussing the powerful and rich Ming Empire.

European businessmen dream of doing business with Ming people.

The Spaniards, who had exclusive trading rights, made a lot of money because of this. Just by promising some insignificant things, they obtained huge wealth, which made countless people jealous.

Spain even gained friendship from the distant Eastern Empire, and many Spaniards made good friends with businessmen from Ming Dynasty.

The goods of Ming Dynasty are very popular in Europe, no matter what it is, there are people who pay for it. The nobles and royal families in Europe have become crazy about the goods of Ming Dynasty.

Of course, the financial strength of the Ming merchants is beyond doubt.

As long as you have what the merchants of Ming Dynasty need, they can easily buy all the goods in your hands. Among them, the most popular one is the slave trade.

The Ming Dynasty needed a large number of slaves, far exceeding the slave trade in any previous period.

In the past, slaves were bought and sold on a case-by-case basis. At the top, it was hundreds of thousands of transactions, but when you met a Ming merchant, it was often thousands or tens of thousands of transactions. Buy all your slaves.

This is Daming.

Powerful and rich.

It is not a day or two since the Venetians want to do business with Daming, but they have been confined to a small place like Venice, confined to the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea, and they have never been able to release themselves to Daming. Goodwill, now finally came the chance.

Hearing Dill's words, the others couldn't help nodding slightly. It's time for Venice to change. If it doesn't change, the Republic of Venice will just wait to close down due to financial problems.

"I support His Excellency the Governor's proposal and take this opportunity to teach the Ottoman Empire a lesson and let them know how powerful our Republic of Venice is."

"I also support His Excellency Governor's proposal. The people of Ming Dynasty need us, and we also need people of Ming Dynasty."

"The Ottoman Empire has already sunned down. I heard that the Hungarians, Austrians, and Poles are organizing coalition forces to attack the Ottoman Empire's territory on the Balkan Peninsula. The progress is very smooth. The Ottoman Empire, which has mobilized most of its troops, is at its weakest time."

The other congressmen stood up one by one to express their views and opinions.

"Since everyone agrees, let's go to war against the Ottoman Empire!"

(End of this chapter)