prosperous age

Chapter 1015 Chapter 1106

"Ten prisoners for one silver coin?"

Deng Zilong had now left the artillery position and returned to his temporary camp on the front line to rest.

After hearing the report from Wang Wanggao's personal soldiers, he was also surprised.

To be honest, the heads of Japanese pirates are no longer valuable now.

In the late Jiajing period, the price of a Japanese pirate's head once reached fifty taels of silver, far exceeding that of the Mongols.

But that was also because they were forced into a corner, especially when the Japanese pirates actually ran to the outskirts of Nanjing city, holding umbrellas and showing off their power, which deeply irritated the man in the Golden Palace in Beijing.

However, at that time, it was indeed difficult to obtain real Japanese heads, so it was normal for the price to be high.

If you don't see the heads of the real Japanese pirates, they are almost cheap. The highest price for a young and middle-aged pirate is only five taels.

However, as the Japanese pirates were gradually surrounded and suppressed, the price plummeted. Now the head of a pirate is not worth more than one tael of silver. Even if it is a real Japanese pirate, it will not be worth more than five taels of silver.

Even after the price dropped, there was no way the pirates could sell it so cheaply.

  When Deng Zilong was calculating the price of these pirate captives, he suddenly realized that he was not running a pawnshop, so why would he sell captives?

In fact, Deng Zilong could guess what the barbarians wanted to do by taking these people away.

As far as he knew, in order to build the city of Manila, the barbarians captured many people from the surrounding tribes.

But later, the surrounding tribes migrated one after another, making it impossible for them to find more laborers, so they offered high prices to hire local people to help them build the city.

I think the same is true for the thousands of prisoners captured this time.

Can these people be asked to help the barbarians build a city?

Of course not, that would be tantamount to aiding the enemy.

Deng Zilong now actually regarded the barbarians as enemies, so naturally he would not agree to sell prisoners to them.

"Go back and tell Wang Wanggao that no matter what the barbarians say, these captives must be brought back."

Deng Zilong gave the order.

"Yes, my lord."

When the personal guards received Deng Zilong's order, they immediately clasped their fists, turned around and went back to report the news.

"Sir Wang, the Ming Dynasty does not allow the buying and selling of civilians, but it does not restrict the sale of slaves.

These captives were all Japanese pirates. According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, the men would be beheaded and the women would be sold.

Rather than transporting them back, it is better to sell them directly. We settle in cash and will never sell on credit."

At this time, outside the prisoner camp set up by the Spanish, Wang Wanggao and Miguel were still discussing this matter.

Of course, the translator Lin Bixiu is still here, otherwise the communication between the two sides will be affected.

"That's what I said, but if I hand over my Ming people to you, our master might be impeached if we go back. The risk is too great. I think you should hand the people over to us and wait until we have eliminated Lin Feng."

Wang Wanggao had not received any message from Deng Zilong at this time, so he didn't dare to give in.

"They are just a bunch of pirates. You can report to the court and kill them. How would those lords know what's going on here?"

Lin Bixiu answered immediately.

He knows something about China's officialdom.

Although those bigwigs do have great power, they will not make enemies for no reason. Unless they are already at odds with the people behind this group of officers and soldiers, they will take the opportunity to cause trouble.

Otherwise, who would stir up officialdom struggles for the sake of ordinary people?

"Our master also said that he could offer one tael of silver for five captives, which is not low."

Lin Bixiu continued.

Wang Wanggao just shook his head. This price was far beyond what he could afford and of course he could not accept it.

If we really want to make this deal, we need to pay at least one or two taels of silver for each prisoner, so that we don't lose money.

Moreover, it doesn’t matter whether these prisoners are taken back or not, as long as Lin Feng’s head is taken back, the mission will be completed.

Having said that, this is not the way it should be.

It still depends on Deng Zilong's attitude. If he does not agree to the deal, it will be useless to discuss the price.

"In fact, there is no need to do that. Just hand over the people to me. As for the labor you need, there are so many locals on this island. As long as you are willing to pay, you won't have trouble hiring people to do the work."

Wang Wanggao continued to persuade, hoping to convince Miguel to release the person.

However, he also knew that the two people here, whether it was him or Miguel, actually did not have the final decision-making power and were just following orders.

"We are under the supervision of the imperial court. We dare not let this happen. The imperial court's laws are written there."

Wang Wanggao continued to complain.

Miguel lowered his head and listened to Lin Bixiu's translation, and soon frowned.

They had been negotiating here for quite some time, but the Ming general still insisted on taking the prisoners. Although he mentioned the price a few times, his mission would not be accomplished as long as he did not admit to giving up the demand for prisoners.

How could he know that the Ming Dynasty actually had no rule that if its citizens committed crimes in foreign vassal states, they should be handed over to the Ming Dynasty for punishment. This was just a random fabrication by Deng Zilong and Wang Wanggao.

Although Lin Bixiu was a descendant of Chinese, he had never been to the Ming Dynasty and had never read the Ming Dynasty laws. He only knew the laws of the Song Dynasty.

Although there was no such rule in the Song Dynasty, he was also clear that officials had to say whatever they said and no rebuttal was allowed.

Therefore, Wang Wanggao’s reasons were not taken into consideration at all, and were actually untenable from the very beginning.

You know, decades later, because Emperor Wanli was deceived and became interested in the legendary gold mine on Luzon Island, he sent eunuchs to Luzon. In the end, the gold mine was not found, but the Manila Massacre occurred.

Yes, the Spanish massacre of the Chinese in the Philippines actually had its root cause in Emperor Wanli.

When the Ming Dynasty showed interest in the Philippines, the Spaniards who occupied the Philippines became very nervous, fearing that the Ming Dynasty would take action there.

In order to prevent the Chinese on the island from helping the Ming army when it attacked the Philippines, they chose to take the initiative and massacre the Chinese on the island in advance.

It can be seen that the Spaniards have always been worried about the Ming Dynasty's actions against Luzon and have been on guard at all times.

The attitude shown by Emperor Wanli after learning that the Spaniards were massacring the Chinese in Luzon was that he declared from the beginning that "your Luzon tribes have killed more than 10,000 of our Zhangzhou and Quanzhou merchants for no reason", which was a serious crime.

But later he said that he took into account the other party's good attitude in admitting guilt, and "the culprit of the overseas fight is unknown; and among the four classes of people in China, merchants are the lowest, so how can we start a war with the lowly people?"

In the end, it ended up in nothing.

As for what happened at the beginning, it was actually that Emperor Wanli believed the words of the foolish man Zhang Yi, who thought that Jiyi Mountain on Luzon Island was rich in gold beans. If people were sent to develop it, immeasurable benefits would be obtained.

Therefore, Emperor Wanli rejected the advice of his ministers and ordered Xu Xueju, the governor of Fujian, to handle the matter.

Xu Xueju's efforts were fruitless, so he had to send Wang Shihe, the magistrate of Haicheng County, and others to go to Luzon Island with Zhang Yi for an investigation.

After Wang Shihe and his party arrived at Luzon Island, they confirmed with the local Chinese and found out that there was no Jiyi Mountain where "golden beans grew by themselves", and what Zhang Yi said was pure nonsense.

Wang Shihe and others found themselves in trouble and immediately returned to the country to report.

Although the incident was extremely absurd and ended in a dramatic way, the Spanish colonial authorities believed that the Ming Dynasty was trying to gather intelligence and contact Chinese leaders in order to prepare for a military operation to annex Luzon Island in the future. This incident happened in the 31st year of the Wanli reign. In October of that year, the Spanish colonial authorities launched a massacre of the Chinese living in Manila and used cannons to flatten the settlement of Chinese merchants in "Jiannei", forcing the Chinese to flee to Dalun Mountain for refuge.

However, due to lack of food and clothing, the Chinese in Dalun Mountain soon fell into famine, and finally had no choice but to take the risk and attack Manila at the risk of their lives.

However, faced with the colonial army's superior firepower, the Chinese, who fought against them only with their flesh and blood, were quickly defeated. As many as 2.5 people were killed, and only people survived by chance.

Although the Spanish colonists strictly blocked the news, some Chinese still managed to escape from Luzon and reported the news back to their country.

Fearing that the Ming would take military action and impose trade sanctions on their country, the colonial authorities, after much deliberation, sent envoys to China the following year to "apologize" in the hope of gaining the Ming's understanding and continuing to maintain trade.

Wei Guangde, this history idiot, knew about the Chinese massacre, but he didn't know the time and reason. He only knew that the Spaniards massacred the Chinese several times in the Philippines, and that neither the Ming Dynasty nor the Qing Dynasty took effective countermeasures at the time. As a result, similar incidents occurred in Southeast Asia until before the new century.

The root cause was that the Ming Dynasty’s reaction was not intense enough, otherwise there would have been no possibility of a massacre of the Chinese.

The capture of Luzon was actually a measure taken by Wei Guangde to nip the problem in the bud.

As long as the Ming Dynasty could occupy a piece of territory in Luzon, similar incidents would naturally not happen.

Although the Spaniards were very wary of the Ming's actions at this time, they did not think of using force to eliminate the Chinese in the Philippines.

What's more, most of the Chinese they come into contact with now are those who fled here when the Song Dynasty fell. They have no sense of belonging to the Ming Dynasty, so they don't feel a sense of crisis.

It was only in the following twenty years, with the arrival of more Ming merchant ships, bringing a large number of people to Southeast Asia to make a living, that the Chinese population in the Philippines increased dramatically, and people began to develop a sense of crisis.

While they were still discussing the whereabouts of the prisoners of war, the personal soldier who had returned to report the news also came back behind Wang Wanggao and whispered a few words in his ear.

"Oh, I see."

Wang Wanggao received Deng Zilong's order and knew that the talks could not continue. He immediately put away his smile and said, "Miguel, there is no other way. I just sent the news back to the camp. General Deng rejected your request to trade prisoners of war."

Miguel's face changed when he heard Wang Wanggao's reply.

"General Wang, is there really no possibility of negotiation? These prisoners of war are actually of no use to your country."

Miguel wanted to fight for it again, so he said hurriedly.

"I understand what you mean."

Wang Wanggao could only nod and say, "But my general said that we cannot leave the people in Luzon. We must bring them back to Ming and let the court decide their fate."

"Why not just report him dead in battle? Why send him all the way back to be dealt with?"

Miguel didn't give up and continued.

"How about this, you give the person to me first, since we can't send him away in a short time anyway.

I will talk to the general about this matter after I return, and we will discuss what to do after we wipe out the Lin Feng Pirate Group. "

At this time, Wang Wanggao's mind was thinking quickly. Deng Zilong's order to him was to take people back. It would be best if he could provoke a conflict, so as to avoid a fallout in the future.

If we can successfully get the people back, we can pass the test. After all, the admiral's army has not arrived yet.

In this case, it is better to give the barbarians some hope first, letting them think that there is still a chance to keep these laborers after the war.

If possible, avoid taking action before the army arrives.

So at this time, Wang Wanggao's face had changed, and he deliberately showed his greed for money on his face.

"this."

After listening to Lin Bixiu's translation, Miguel wanted to refuse, but Lin Bixiu suddenly reminded him in a low voice: "Sir, I think the generals of the Ming Dynasty want to sell those prisoners for a good price after the war. Look at the eyes on the other side.

Ming officials are greedy for money, and they probably think our price is not sincere enough, so they want to deliberately support us."

After Lin Bixiu's reminder, Miguel looked at Wang Wanggao and realized that the other party might mean this and wanted to get a higher price from them.

Moreover, the other party is really greedy. They don't even want to talk about the price now, but want to talk about it after the war.

At that time, it would be easy to negotiate if we could reach an agreement. If we couldn't, we could just send the prisoners of war onto the ship and force them to surrender.

Obviously, handing over the person would increase the Ming people's bargaining chips, but he had no say in this matter.

It can only be said that the attitude shown by the Ming people now seems to be to negotiate a good price, otherwise Wang Wanggao would not have discussed the price with him before.

"That's fine, but there's no need to send prisoners back and forth. Your country can send soldiers here to guard them, which will be the same."

Miguel still wanted to fight for it, so he suggested.

"Our camp is not far from here. Besides, they are just a group of pirates. Why should we care so much about their lives?"

Wang Wanggao pretended not to care.

"Well, please wait a moment, General Wang. I can't make the decision. I have to go back and ask the commander."

Miguel had no choice but to say.

So, he left Lin Bixiu to continue negotiating with Wang Wanggao, and he went back to see Savilla. When he told her the current situation, Savilla also frowned.

We haven’t talked about the issue of prisoners of war before, but it doesn’t seem good if these people have a falling out with the Ming Dynasty.

"Are you sure the other party is just trying to raise the price?"

Savera asked.

"That's possible. Those prisoners of war are of little use to them. If we capture Lin Feng or kill him, the Ming people will be more interested.

As for the prisoners of war, they would just kill them if they were captured and brought back, which did not help much in improving their merits.

So I guess Deng came up with this idea just to get us to offer a higher price.

At this time, we all have a common enemy to eliminate, so it is not easy to turn against each other.

So he wanted to control the person first, so that he would have the upper hand in negotiations no matter what happened in the future. "

Miguel analyzed.

  “If they can’t reach an agreement, they will take people away.

I have to say, I am convinced by you. This is what Deng must have thought. He is such a greedy general. "

Savera said helplessly.

“It’s because we are short of manpower. There are too few soldiers in the Philippines. If we just go around arresting people, we are worried that they will riot.

After this battle, we may be able to obtain two to three thousand prisoners to help us build the city, so it is worthwhile to pay a little money. "

Miguel spoke up.

"Is there no other way?"

Savera asked solemnly again.

Miguel shook his head and responded.

"Well, give them the men, and when we buy them back, we only want strong captives."

Savera said.