prosperous age

"Drake, is this Ming Country?"

As the Jesse sailed into the Old Port, a middle-aged man in fine clothes appeared beside Drake, emitting an air of nobility that was definitely not the temperament a grassroots knight like Drake could possess.

"Sir Robert, I have already said two days ago that this is just a port of the Ming Kingdom in the South Seas. Their homeland is still 2,000 miles to the north."

Drake immediately bowed and replied.

He was the deputy envoy of the British delegation to the Ming Dynasty, and the man in front of him was naturally the chief envoy of the delegation, named Robert Dudley, a minister of Queen Elizabeth I of England. He served as chief chamberlain and privy councilor, and was successively awarded the Order of the Garter and the title of baron.

As the Queen's most trusted minister, he was sent to the Far East this time, naturally with the purpose of knowing the situation in the Ming Dynasty more accurately.

There couldn't be a better choice than Robert.

Of course, this was also a punishment for Robert. Who told him to secretly marry the widow of Walter, Earl of Essex without the Queen's knowledge? Queen Elizabeth was furious when she heard the news.

Furthermore, he was almost exiled to the Far East to carry out the mission of visiting the Ming Dynasty.

Robert was the fifth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and his mother was a country noble.

In July 1553, King Edward VI died young, and the Duke of Northumberland supported Jane Grey as queen.

Jane Grey's maternal grandmother was the daughter of Henry VII and the sister of Henry VIII, and her husband Guildford Dudley was the son of the Duke of Northumberland and Robert's brother.

Although Henry VIII's eldest daughter Mary was considered a fanatical Catholic, she still received more support and became Queen Mary I, later known as "Bloody Mary" for suppressing Protestants.

So, Jane Grey failed and was executed, and the Northumberland family was arrested as a matter of course.

Robert was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he met his childhood playmate, Princess Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was the second daughter of Henry VIII and was also imprisoned for political reasons at this time.

So in the prison cell filled with a terrifying atmosphere, a group of noble prisoners communicated with each other while waiting to die.

In the autumn of 1554, after his father John and his brother Gilbert were executed, Robert and several other brothers were released due to the plea of ​​King Philip II of Spain.

Philip was married to the middle-aged Queen Mary at this time, and his confidants were close friends with Robert's brother-in-law Henry Sidney. Robert later often said that he owed his life to King Philip.

From then on, Robert's career depended on Philip's control. Only when Philip was around could the brothers enter and leave the court freely, otherwise they would be suspected of treason.

Between 1557 and 1558, Robert and Princess Elizabeth became increasingly close and they became good friends.

Robert was probably present when Elizabeth learned she had become queen in 1558, and the queen immediately appointed him Master of Horse, in charge of all the royal horses and dogs, as well as major ceremonies such as the queen's coronation.

The following year he was made Lord Garter. At this time, the 27-year-old Robert was in a very good situation. He was relied upon in many domestic and foreign affairs occasions. He was also regarded as the best candidate for the king's husband and received widespread attention from the British and mainland media.

However, his political enemies and colleagues opposed this, and there were even assassination attempts. Apparently, being the Queen's favorite was not so fun.

Elizabeth had hoped to ease the conflict between Scotland and England by bringing Robert together with the widowed Queen Mary Stuart.

At first Mary was not interested, but later Elizabeth proposed that if they got married, Mary would become Elizabeth's successor.

In order to make the other party more excited, Elizabeth expressed her willingness to make Robert the Earl of Lechester, and sent someone to hint that he might be made a Duke in the future.

Just when Mary was about to agree, Robert himself refused to cooperate. He said that he did not want this marriage to take place because Robert was also a passionate man, but because of the Queen, he really did not dare to be too ostentatious.

And last year, Robert secretly married a beautiful widow. Of course, public opinion said that the Earl of Essex was murdered and it was Robert who did it.

Queen Elizabeth was very angry because of this incident.

Especially her relationship with Robert.

For the sake of Britain, the Queen actually considered marrying a foreign nobleman, so she considered several nobles from the Valois and Habsburg families as marriage candidates, but nothing came of it.

Among them, of course, there is Robert's work.

So, taking this opportunity, the Queen sent Robert to visit the Ming Dynasty, actually she also wanted to be separated from him for a while.

"Is that their main battleship?"

Robert suddenly pointed to a double-decker gunboat anchored in the distance and asked.

With a displacement of four or five hundred tons, although it is still not as large as the Jesse under its feet, it is still considered a large battleship in Europe.

As for the Ming gunboat that had brought them into the port earlier, with a displacement of less than 300 tons, it was not even worth Robert's attention.

Although, a 300-ton battleship is actually not small.

The port on the other side was obviously a civilian port, with more than 20 merchant ships docked there.

There were many porters on board several of the boats, loading and unloading cargo.

"The Ming officials are here."

Drake suddenly spoke up.

At the dock, a centurion came over here with two general flags and several soldiers.

The patrol boat had reported the purpose of the British ship's arrival to the centurion, who immediately sent someone to notify the city's garrison.

I believe Chen Lin will come here soon after receiving the news.

After the Jesse docked, the gangplank was set up and Drake was the first to disembark and communicate with Ming officials in Portuguese.

The centurion certainly did not speak Portuguese, even though he had come into contact with many Portuguese merchants here.

However, the army also recruited interpreters, and a small flag behind him stood up to act as an interpreter.

They were all ordinary old Hong Kong people who used to make a living through this business at the docks.

In fact, there are many people here who are familiar with foreign languages ​​such as Portuguese, and they are not scarce, so joining the Ming army is also a stable employment opportunity.

At least, you don’t have to worry about eating.

The South China Sea Navy does not have the habit of withholding military pay like the inland garrisons. In addition to having adequate food and drink, the soldiers can also receive 50% of their military pay.

In fact, Baihu and Drake had met each other before, of course, when Drake and the Golden Deer came here last year.

It’s just that people from the East and the West may have some face blindness, and the two people didn’t recognize each other at first.

However, with the help of an interpreter, we quickly understood the other party's situation and started communicating.

"Your country is not far from Old Port. You have traveled back and forth in just one year."

Baihu was a little surprised, because the Portuguese merchant he had contacted before said that it would take about half a year to transport goods from the old port to Portugal.

"No, no, no, it's actually very far. My country is farther than Portugal."

Drake knew that the Ming people had little idea about Europe, but they could use Portugal, which they were familiar with, as a comparison.

Although the people of the Ming Dynasty actually didn't know where Portugal was, they often saw Portuguese merchant ships arriving here, so they must have a more detailed understanding of it.

Sure enough, not long after, Chen Lin came over in official uniform. It was not a military general's armor, but an official uniform embroidered with tiger and leopard patches to greet him.

When Chen Lin arrived, Drake immediately invited Robert off the boat and introduced them to each other.

"Then please ask Baron Robert to go to the garrison to rest first." After the introduction, Chen Lin extended the invitation.

"Mr. Chen, we are in a hurry to go to Ming to attend the emperor's wedding. Please prepare some fresh water and food for our ship."

Drake spoke first immediately.

He had no time to stay in the Old Port. He needed to replenish supplies as soon as possible and set off again. It would be best if he could have someone from the Ming Dynasty to guide him to the Ming Dynasty.

"Of course, just ask your people to make a list of the supplies they need."

Chen Lin laughed out loud.

Soon, everyone returned to the garrison, where the food and drinks had already been prepared.

No matter what, the Ming Dynasty will not treat its guests badly.

Thus, Robert and other members of the British delegation had their first Chinese meal.

Although Jiugang is far away from the Ming Dynasty, the navy fleet travels back and forth to Southeast Asia regularly, and naturally transports all kinds of supplies to Luzon and Jiugang.

In fact, the various spices in the Ming Dynasty are not even as rich as those in Southeast Asia. As long as they are cooked according to Chinese cuisine, the taste is not inferior to domestic cuisine.

Perhaps it was their first time eating Chinese food, so except for Drake and a few other people who had been to Old Port last year, everyone else showed obvious expressions of discomfort, including Robert of course.

Well, perhaps at this moment, in his opinion, British dark cuisine is much more delicious than Ming country’s “delicacies”.

Especially the white wine and yellow wine on the table. The yellow wine is okay, but the spiciness of the white wine is no less than that of European spirits.

Yes, the popular spirits in the UK at that time were Scotch whisky and gin imported from the Netherlands, which were also famous spirits in later generations.

For seafarers, it is sometimes really sad if they cannot have a drink of liquor when going out to sea.

Among the spirits recognized by the world in later generations, whiskey, gin and white wine are all on the list.

When Robert was in London, he was particularly fond of Scotch whisky, and recently he has become fond of Dutch gin. At this time, many distilleries in the UK are also learning how to brew gin.

“This wine is quite tasty.”

After being on the ship for nearly half a year, Robert quickly fell in love with the taste of Ming Dynasty liquor for the first time. He drank it in big gulps, which stunned Chen Lin.

Well, after a few glasses of white wine, Chen Lin had to admire the British guys' good drinking capacity.

However, Chen Lin and the Ming generals he brought with him were naturally good at drinking, and soon they started drinking with the British delegation.

Robert drank a lot of white wine. In fact, his original intention was to use the taste of the wine to suppress the taste of Ming food, which he was not used to. Unexpectedly, he ended up competing with the Ming people in drinking capacity.

But at this time he would not back down, so he and Chen Lin started drinking one cup after another.

Not to mention, after a few glasses of white wine, I don’t know if the taste of my tongue has changed, but at least I feel that Ming country’s food is not so bad anymore.

Throughout the night, the soldiers kept carrying jars of white wine into the banquet hall. No one wanted to drink rice wine anymore, and everyone was drinking white wine.

In a blink of an eye, it was the next day, and the group of drunkards finally sobered up.

Although Robert was still not completely sober, he still remembered his mission to come to Ming Country, and immediately found Drake next door, "We have to get things done as soon as possible, let Chen send someone to take us to Ming Country.

Before he got drunk last night, he seemed to have said that their embassy had returned to Ming two months ago."

Of course, Jiugang did not receive any official reports from the capital and did not know the time of the emperor's wedding.

However, for such a major event, even the old port would be notified in advance.

However, Robert and others did not know that the Ming Dynasty had something like the imperial gazette, which was specifically used to convey information from the court.

Of course, the official reports that had been circulated in China since the Han Dynasty eventually developed into a written form such as an announcement, and did not become something like a newspaper.

However, even in Europe at that time, there were no real newspapers.

However, at this time in London, there were already regularly published printed materials reporting on business conditions, shipping schedules and foreign situations.

In fact, at that time, both the East and the West were equally backward in information dissemination, and the Ming Dynasty's official bulletins were already considered the most advanced information dissemination tool.

When Robert and Drake found Chen Lin, he had just sobered up.

“Okay, Robert, Drake, I’ll arrange for someone to guide you today.

I remember that the Admiral seemed to be going to Guangzhou first, so I will send someone to take you to Yuegang first to see if we can catch up with the fleet of the delegation."

Chen Lin said immediately.

"We still need to replenish a batch of supplies on our ship. Please arrange for someone to deliver them to the ship as soon as possible."

Drake reminded immediately.

"Of course, as long as the people on your ship gave the list of supplies to be replenished to the dock yesterday, they will prepare it for you.

I'll send someone over to let them know and restock your supplies in advance."

Drake and his crew went out to sea only after replenishing supplies, otherwise the ship would be tantamount to suicide when it reached the sea.

It is impossible for the docks of the old port to have sufficient supplies.

Because ships usually rest for a few days after arriving at the port, it will take a few days to prepare supplies.

Chen Lin agreed to give them priority in replenishment, which was already a great favor.

Of course, replenishing supplies at the port is not free of charge. It is impossible for the Old Port to provide them with supplies free of charge just because you are a foreign diplomatic mission. You still have to pay for it at a clearly marked price.

This is the income from operating a port in this era, which is actually a considerable income and a near monopoly transaction.

Goods can be purchased from the market, but supplies for the ship can only be purchased from the dock.

It only took one day, and by the afternoon the supplies for the Jesse had been delivered.

Chen Lin arranged for a sailor to lead them to Fujian, and originally planned to keep them for another day to rest, but Drake could not wait any longer.

The development of navigation technology has enabled them to sail without fear of any weather.

As long as you go out to sea in non-typhoon weather, you can navigate by starlight.

So, in the evening of that day, the Jesse left the Old Port and headed north.

"Are we going directly to Moon Harbor?"

On the bow, Robert asked the Ming sailor, the pilot sent by Chen Lin.

"Let's go to Hawksbill Harbor first, and then go north to Moon Harbor from there."

The Ming sailor said truthfully that this was the safest route and would not take up much time.

"Then please."

Robert said. (End of this chapter)