Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1519 Portuguese (Part [-])
Obviously, Special Envoy Alfredo cannot accept that Musali's behavior is just "housekeeping", because in the eyes of Mr. Special Envoy, the border military exercise is equivalent to a threat of war.

Gao Ruichu's "holding high the banner of peace" cannot conceal Musali's increasingly aggressive aggressiveness.The Portuguese Governor of Malacca learned through various channels that the armed forces in the southern Siam region are quite powerful, with two township-level establishments, the fourth town of the Dingnan Garrison and the Siam Independent Garrison Division (town).

The fourth town of the Dingnan Garrison is one of the "Five Towns of Dingnan", with a full staff of more than 12700 people, which is actually full.The town has two standard infantry associations, three independent artillery units, one independent cavalry unit, and two engineer battalions.

This force is regarded by the Malacca Governor's Office as its greatest land threat, because they are a standard field force with a large number of artillery, including the army's largest artillery that Jinghua calls the "No. One can imagine the powerful.

The Siam Independent Defense Division is also a town-level unit. The reason why "divisions" are used to distinguish "towns" is because Jinghua currently uses towns as the standard army configuration, and divisions exist as auxiliary forces-mainly guarding local areas. Specially trained in city defense, city offensive and defensive warfare, etc.

However, they also have certain field combat capabilities, and related field training is also available, but the training intensity is slightly lower than that of the garrison, and the artillery equipped is obviously less than that of the garrison, but they can still quickly replenish the "suppression force" when needed. "Level garrison establishment.

The staffing of the Siam Independent Garrison Division is slightly smaller than that of the town, and the division currently has more than 9000 people.Its organization is much simpler than that of the fourth town of Dingnan Garrison, consisting of two infantry concorde and two engineer battalions.

That is to say, in the southern Siam area alone—that is, the northern part of the Malay Peninsula, Jinghua stationed about 22000 troops.Referring to the situation of the Spaniards in the Philippines, the current Malacca Governor's Palace has no chance of winning against this army.

The Governor of Malacca expressed pessimistically in a letter to the Governor of Goa: "...please understand the dangerous situation I am facing: if there is no substantial change in the existing balance of forces, unfortunately there will be a war (with Siam) , the best I can do for the Kingdom of Portugal is to try my best to ensure that the city of Malacca will not fall on the day when the siege battle broke out."

The Governor of Goa was of course shocked by this, but he also knew that Portugal's main strength in Asia was concentrated in the Arabian Sea region and India, and its strength in the Far East was limited.

However, the status of Malacca is still very important, because it is the hub of trade between Portugal and Far Eastern countries and regions including Ming Dynasty.Silk and porcelain from China, cloves, cardamom, pepper, and ambergris from the Spice Islands, gunpowder raw materials from Japan (yes, Portugal also buys sulfur in Japan), each of which is very important, and Portugal cannot give up at all.

In particular, there is another very important but easily overlooked situation, which is the importance of Portugal's trade and cultural penetration to Japan.

Before the 16s of this century (the 40th century), Japan's activities in the world were limited to Asia, and the only countries with which it directly communicated were Ming and Korea.

After the 40s, the scope of their activities expanded, and there was a record in the history books that the Japanese traded with Luzon in 1567 AD.In fact, their contact with Europeans began in the 40s.

In the 12th year of Japanese Astronomy (1543), a Portuguese ship originally intended to sail to Ningbo, Ming Dynasty drifted to Tanegashima in Kyushu, Japan (later belonged to Kagoshima County) due to a storm. The Portuguese on board was the first Japanese to see Europeans.

The owner of the island, Tanegashima Shiyao (Tanegashima is his surname, or Miao character), bought two Portuguese rifles at a high price of 2000 taels of silver, and quickly learned how to use and manufacture them.

This new type of weapon quickly spread throughout Japan and was loved by the Sengoku daimyo.Soon, cities such as Kai in Izumi, Nelai in Kii, and Kuniyu in Omi became famous for producing guns. This kind of matchlock gun has a special name in Japan, called "Iron Cannon".

The use of guns changed the tactics of fighting with primitive weapons such as knives, swords, spears, bows and arrows at that time. The main combat force was changed from cavalry to infantry (called "Ashigaru" in Japan).

If we go back to the source a little bit, it probably starts in 1510 AD, when the Portuguese captured Malacca in the Malay Peninsula shortly after they occupied Goa, India that year.Then it occupied most of the Sunda Islands and the Maluku Islands (Spice Islands), and successively came to Guangzhou and Ningbo of the Ming Dynasty. In 1553, Portugal showed its weakness instead of being strong, and used deceit and bribery to seize Macao, which was considered a "useless place" by local officials of the Ming Dynasty.

It was under such circumstances that Portuguese ships appeared in Japan, and they sailed into Kyushu ports one after another after 1543.With Malacca as the center, they operated the highly profitable Asian intermediary trade between Japan, Nanyang, Ming and India, and transported Chinese raw silk, satin, porcelain, and Nanyang spices (cloves, cardamom, pepper, ambergris, etc.) Japan, earned a large amount of silver from Japan and shipped out swords, copper, seafood, lacquerware and other goods.

The daimyo of Kyushu, Japan, who attempted to gain trade benefits, welcomed the Portuguese to their territory for trade. Hirado, Nagasaki, and Bungo's Fuuchi (later Oita Prefecture) in Hizen became the centers of this so-called "Southern Barbarian Trade".

In the 6th year of Japan's Tensho (1578), Portuguese ships entered Misaki in Sagami again, and traded with the lord Hojo.In addition to daimyo, merchants from Kyoto, Kai, Hakata and other places also joined the ranks of trade with the Portuguese.In the 12th year of Tensho (1584), Spanish ships also came to Hirado.

In the original history, these trades have been relatively smooth, and they were basically replaced by the Dutch until Zheng Zhilong had to pay the toll.

In this world, however, their business was hampered early on.Due to the rapid rise of Jinghua, especially after the coalition forces of pirates in the Fujian Sea were annihilated by the Jinghua fleet, the Portuguese enjoyed the treatment of "paying tolls" in advance.

But even with the payment of tolls, the Portuguese still maintained great interest in this trade line.One reason is that Jinghua’s tolls are not too harsh, and the Portuguese’s business profits are large enough that there is no reason to give up.The second is because of the spread of Catholicism.

A few years after the Portuguese ship sailed to Japan, that is, in the 18th year of Astronomy in Japan (1549 AD), Catholicism spread to Japan.The first missionary to come to Japan was the Spanish Jesuit Francis Xavier.After arriving in Japan in 1549, he first preached in Kagoshima, followed by preaching in Yamaguchi and Bungo, and also visited Hirado, Kai and Kyoto. He left Japan two years later.The Japanese call the Catholicism he introduced as "Chezhidan" or "Gilizhidan" (transliteration of Portuguese cristao).

As we all know, the Jesuits were an important tool in the European Catholic Church to oppose the Reformation, help the feudal rulers suppress the people and colonize the outside world.Some of the Jesuits who came to Asia and Latin America acted as the vanguard of the European colonists as religious figures, and Xavier was such a missionary.

In his letter to the Jesuits in his country, he said that he came to Japan to preach "to save the souls of the Japanese people from the hands of demons and hand them over to God", and to turn the Japanese into "faithful followers of the kings of Portugal and Spain". subjects".The Jesuits who went out to preach were also the advance team of traders from the sending country—this can also be seen from the participation of representatives of various religious orders in the recent Manila negotiations.

Xavier wrote in a letter from Kagoshima to a priest living in Goa, India on November 1549, 11: "I am sending a list of commodities that are particularly important when doing business with the same border. Those who sail with us will be rewarded with enormous amounts of gold and silver if they bring the commodities listed in the table."

So, following Shabu, Catholic missionaries came in droves.They collude with some daimyos by helping them obtain huge trade benefits and satisfying daimyo's requirements for buying weapons, and make those daimyos baptized and become believers, thus gaining the right to preach in the territories of these daimyos.

The baptized daimyos were called "Kirichitan daimyos" at that time, such as Bungo's Otomo Soshi, Hizen's Arima Harunobu, Omura Juntada, etc., were the first such daimyos.

In order to ensure its trade interests, Omura Junchu donated the territory of Nagasaki and the nearby Motegi area to the Jesuit Society in the 8th year of Tensho (1580).This move threatened to make Nagasaki a sort of Indian Goa colony, but no one could dissuade him from it.

The three daimyos, Otomo, Omura, and Arima, even sent a young envoy to Rome in the 10th year of Tensho (1582) in order to express their devotion to the Pope. They have not yet returned to China (the original history went up for eight years).

The spread of Catholicism spread from Kyushu to other areas. At this time, Japanese farmers were disappointed with the Buddhist belief. The so-called "everyone is equal before God" preached by Catholicism gave farmers new spiritual comfort.

The missionaries also catered to Japanese customs, wore monk clothes, and opened hospitals and organized charities when they were preaching in various places.By around 1582, there were 15 believers and more than 200 churches across Japan.In addition to farmers, there are also a small number of warriors and businessmen among the believers.

European missionaries also opened church schools in Japan, and introduced advanced scientific and technological knowledge such as astronomy, geography, mathematics, navigation, shipbuilding, and Western movable type printing, as well as Western oil paintings and music.Japan used movable type to print and publish books such as "Catholic Doctrine", "Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary", and Japanese translation "Aesop's Fables".

The descendants of European culture led to the appearance of the first European loanwords in Japan, such as pen (pao in Portuguese, bread), botan (cotao in Portuguese, button), meriyasu (medias in Spanish, knitwear) and so on.

This is different from the situation when Western culture was first introduced to China and only remained in the hands of the court, officials, and scholars. This "Southern Barbarian culture" was spread to a certain extent among the Japanese people, laying the foundation for Japan to learn Western European culture.

This point even attracted the attention of Jinghua’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. A spy who pretended to be the second shopkeeper of Jinghua’s firm in Osaka once reported the matter, saying: “The Maritime Trade Alliance will cut off the Nanban trade and replace the role of the Portuguese. , in order to maintain the alliance's absolute monopoly on Japanese trade."

A few months later, a letter of reply with the three-character "Jian Xin Zhai" stamped in a vertical rectangle on the inscription gave him a reply: the author will check and verify the theory in detail.

There were only seven words in total, but it made this person very excited.Because, in terms of Jinghua's internal rules, when he reports things in this capacity, usually the reply letter is just a seal with the words "Baiyuloupan"-Baiyuloupan, that is where Heiding (Ministry of Internal Affairs) is located.

The owner of Jianxinzhai is Gao Yushi, and the only one who can stamp the seal of "Jianxinzhai" is Gao Yushi himself, so this reply letter is Gao Yushi's own handwriting, and the weight of it can be imagined.

Although Gao Wuwu did not express whether he agreed with his judgment in the reply letter, since he was instructed to "check the verification theory in detail and report back", it is like saying "reinvestigate and report again" to Tanma when commanding a battle, which means that he is very serious about the received information. The news is taken very seriously and is prudent enough.

The three countries on the Iberian Peninsula (Castile, Aragon, and Portugal) are devout and resolute supporters of Catholicism. Since the Portuguese missionary work in Japan is so smooth, how can Portugal tolerate the severing of direct ties with Japan? ?

Some people may ask, since Jinghua's power only reaches the Malay Peninsula and has not set foot in the Nanyang Islands, even if Malacca is lost, the Portuguese can just go a little farther and go across the Sunda Strait. What's the big deal?

This point has actually explained the reason when talking about ocean currents before-the ocean currents are heading due west from the Sunda Islands to central Africa. If the Portuguese go to the Sunda Strait, it is equivalent to going upstream.

Moreover, in terms of the wind direction, most of the time it is against the wind. These two unfavorable factors are really painful torment for Western soft sailing ships, and the risk of navigation has also increased a lot, which is completely inconsistent with the principles of commercial navigation.

The best case scenario for the Portuguese is of course to keep the overall form of Malacca and the surrounding area unchanged.If not, if the military power is not enough to say "no" to Jinghua, it will have to settle for the next best thing. The key is to ensure that the Malacca Strait routes will not be cut off at will.

That is to say, Portugal needs a treaty to ensure the smooth flow of its Far East shipping route, and this is exactly the mission of Alfredo to come to Dingnan this time.

Captain Pedro has proved that he is a China hand, and his frankness and wisdom have been affirmed by Alfredo. Therefore, after thinking about it, Alfredo informed Pedro of these situations and hoped that he would express his sincerity. own opinion.

Pedro is not particularly surprised by this news. Although Portugal often shows a tough face in the Arabian Sea region and India, since Portugal itself is a small country with a sparse population, they are not blindly tough, at least compared to Castile. As far as the Liams are concerned, their methods are much more flexible.

In some situations where it was necessary to show weakness—for example, after losing the small-scale war against Ming, they could even pretend to be very pitiful, as if begging for mercy from the other party.

Facts have also proved that their method is quite effective for the "Heavenly Kingdom" of the Ming Empire. Since this is the case, Pedro thinks that they just need to proceed as usual.

"Showing weakness..." Alfredo frowned and said, "For the benefit of the kingdom, I don't mind saying some compliments against my will, and even humbly asking for gifts from the other party. But Pedro, you can be sure that His Excellency Gao Mengnan can represent Did Jinghua Company sign a guaranteed contract with us?"

"Mr. Special Envoy, I don't know if His Excellency Gao Mengnan's signature is necessarily valid, but I think, if you are still not at ease, you can ask—oh no, it's a request—to ask His Excellency Huang Zhiting to come and sign.

As far as I know, she once signed the "Treaty of Huang Zhiting" on behalf of Jinghua Company with His Majesty Maha Tamaraja, King of Siam, which actually put Jinghua Company above the King of Siam, making Jinghua Company a Siamese Luo's King of Kings.

Based on this, I think that since she has the right to sign such an important treaty, her position within the Jinghua Company, or in front of His Excellency Gao Wushi, is unquestionable.This also means that she also has the right to sign a Malacca navigation treaty recognized and strictly abided by Jinghua Company. "

"You're right..." Alfredo didn't seem to be very happy, but rather depressed, lowered his head, and whispered: "But it means that we may have to hand over the important city of Malacca, and Pin the hope of a smooth sailing on Jinghua Company to abide by the agreement. To be honest, I don't like it very much, and I am not used to it."
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(End of this chapter)