prosperous age

The document submitted by the navy to the Ministry of Rites caused a huge uproar, instantly causing an uproar in the officialdom of the capital.

The foreigners came to the Ming Dynasty and plundered and sold people on a large scale decades ago. This happened from the Zhengde period to the middle of the Jiajing period.

However, since Emperor Jiajing reiterated the maritime ban and prohibited trade with the barbarians, the barbarians were unable to land in the Ming Dynasty and could only do some business in Haojing. The human trafficking was mainly carried out through the Japanese pirates, who bought the captured Ming people from them.

As the Japanese pirates were banned, the strength of the Ming navy increased significantly, and this business was cut off.

Like Spain, Portugal also engages in large-scale human trafficking, which is also related to its small size and population.

Spain's development of America was to capture African slaves and Native Americans in large numbers to mine and build castles for them, and the Portuguese did exactly the same.

So at first, wherever the Portuguese arrived, in addition to trade, they also plundered and sold people.

In fact, there is something that many people don’t know about the so-called Age of Discovery, which is that the development of maritime trade is not as simple as everyone thinks, and there are many twists and turns.

When Portugal and Spain launched their maritime expeditions in the 15th century, Europe was facing a shortage of gold and silver.

Italians had dominated trade with Muslims through the Mediterranean for nearly four centuries by this time.

Although the Mediterranean is an inland sea with a short sailing distance, it can transport bulk goods such as food, timber, minerals, etc., and even sell white people to the Middle East as slaves, but overall these exports are still not worth the value of imported Asian spices, and the trade deficit has to be filled with precious metals.

The Portuguese in sub-Saharan Africa and the Spanish in America could get some gold, but the amount was limited.

After the Indian channel was opened, ocean trade with Asia could no longer transport bulk goods and could only exchange precious metals for spices. The loss of gold and silver accelerated, and it was questionable how long it could last.

Europe, which was short of production, seriously lacked the capital to trade with Asia during this period.

Therefore, in the early days of the Age of Discovery, the volume of intercontinental trade was actually very limited.

Vasco da Gama's fleet sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and completed the journey to discover India. However, after the Portuguese ships entered the Indian Ocean carrying copper basins, honey, butter, hats, etc. produced in Europe, they were ridiculed all the way from East Africa to India and were even treated as thieves.

Asia had many goods that Europeans coveted, but Europe did not have the agricultural products or handicrafts that Asians wanted.

Although Indian pepper was much cheaper than European pepper, the money earned from selling European goods at a low price was not enough to fill the ship's hold.

The situation did not begin to improve until the Spanish accidentally discovered unprecedented and unparalleled super-large silver mines in northern Mexico and southern Peru.

Europe received huge amounts of gold and silver, which were hard currencies that were acceptable to both the East and the West.

Later, although Portugal did not acquire large gold and silver mines in the Americas, they controlled the Asian routes at that time, and the spices they brought back and the people they captured in Africa were urgently needed by Spain.

With the injection of this batch of gold and silver, the trade volume in the Age of Discovery really began to take off and grew rapidly.

With spices and African slaves, Portugal could easily exchange gold and silver from the Spaniards and expand its trade in Asia, so by this time, they had rarely continued to traffic in people in Asia.

However, many of the Ming people who were captured still live in the Portuguese colonial settlements along the Indian Ocean coast, and some came to Europe on merchant ships.

However, their status was very embarrassing because according to Portuguese law at the time, they were slaves.

But there are always exceptions. After the Portuguese sold these Chinese slaves to the Spaniards, once they entered Spain, they would often ask to regain their status as free citizens.

Because the decree issued by the King of Spain prohibited the transportation of indigenous peoples of the Americas into Spain as slaves, and the Spanish government reiterated this ban many times since then.

However, while the Spanish decree clearly prohibited the enslavement of "Indians", it also made the following provision: as long as the slave owner could prove that the slaves he owned came from Portuguese colonies rather than Spanish colonies, then he could legally continue to own the slaves.

Therefore, it was this loophole that allowed the Chinese who were trafficked to Europe to complain to the authorities after entering Spain, saying that they came from Spanish colonies and that they were brought to America by Spanish merchants and then sent to Europe.

In this way, they were able to gain freedom by virtue of the Spanish king's previous regulations prohibiting American slaves from entering Europe.

Because such legal cases were very serious in the 16th century, the Portuguese also heard about it, but they knew that these people might be human traffickers by their predecessors.

However, the case occurred in Spain, so the Portuguese just told it to the Ming naval officials for fun.

After all, these things have nothing to do with them.

However, after seeing the documents submitted by the navy, Xu Xuemo immediately brought officials from the Ministry of Rites to summon the Portuguese and Spanish envoys and asked them to deal with the matter immediately.

All Ming people who were abducted and sold must be restored to freedom unconditionally and compensated.

Even the people purchased by the Portuguese from the Ming Dynasty must be restored to free citizen status as long as they are not slaves.

The reason why this matter is singled out is that there were indeed cases in the Ming Dynasty where people sold their family members for various reasons.

However, according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, the buying and selling of human beings was prohibited except for slaves, so this kind of transaction was illegal, even if the Portuguese had the indentures given by the slaves' families.

The imperial court in the past chose to forget these things.

But with the delivery of the navy's documents, the Ministry of Rites could no longer pretend to be deaf and dumb, so it took an extremely tough stance.

"The agreement between the two countries must include a clause prohibiting the enslavement of civilians of another country, except for prisoners of war."

In front of the envoys of the two countries, Xu Xuemo strongly demanded that this clause be included, otherwise there would be no room for negotiation.

The envoys of the two countries did not expect that the agreement that was almost completed and was going well might be aborted because of slavery, so they were naturally unwilling to give up.

After various explanations failed, the two messengers gathered together for a discussion.

The Spanish actually did not have many Chinese slaves. Those they did have were bought from the Portuguese, and they were all skilled craftsmen.

The Portuguese knew that they did have some Chinese slaves, but not many, and many had already saved up money to redeem themselves.

After all, that was all many years ago. Although many wealthy people have hired many Chinese slaves over the years, the actual trafficking of Chinese people is rare.

Maybe there are, but they are the so-called refugees of the Ming Dynasty, and no one pays attention to them at all.

You don't even need to use force or spend money, you can take the person away just by giving him food.

"We in Spain shouldn't have many Ming people. When I return, I will ask the king to abolish Ming slavery and restore their freedom."

The Spanish envoys thought about it and realized that they had only captured some people in the Philippines in the early days to go to America to mine, and there were not many Chinese among them, and perhaps they had already left.

After all, mining conditions are harsh and only one in ten can survive.

The Ming Dynasty only required the prohibition of enslavement of Ming citizens, but did not prohibit the enslavement of other people.

Moreover, even if there really were Chinese slaves, they were far away in America and the Ming Dynasty had no way of knowing about it, so he didn't care about the demands of Ming officials.

He didn't know that even in Spain, there were already hundreds of people from the Ming Dynasty living there. They were all sold by the Portuguese. There were also Chinese who were suing in Spain to regain their status as free citizens.

The Spanish envoy looked at the Portuguese envoy and asked with a smile: "It is you who are responsible for trafficking the Ming people. What do you plan to say?"

"We haven't been trafficking in Ming for a long time. We mainly captured slaves in Africa. We did in the past, but that was in the past."

The Portuguese envoy replied, "So what are you going to do? I will accept the Ming people's request and add this clause to the terms."

The Spanish envoy laughed.

Spain was the buyer of slaves, and it was mainly the Portuguese who captured slaves, so in their view, it didn't matter who they bought.

Besides, once the terms are decided, if the king disagrees, the worst that can happen is that he can come again and continue the talks.

The Portuguese envoy actually had a similar plan and agreed to it first. After all, it was only the Ming Dynasty that agreed to the agreement.

As for whether the country accepts it, that’s none of their business. At worst we can continue to negotiate.

Moreover, the Portuguese envoy himself was the Governor of Haojing and had many contacts with Ming officials.

In his opinion, Ming officials actually don’t care about the lives of civilians at all, as long as they don’t show up in public.

Of course, it’s another matter once it’s on the table.

Since the situation has changed now, let's agree to it first. If there are different opinions in the country later, we can discuss it with the Ming court privately.

“We also agree to their request.”

Therefore, the envoys of the two countries easily agreed to the request made by the Ministry of Rites of the Ming Dynasty to restore the identities of all Ming people, but they only noted that it would be implemented after the agreement between the two countries came into effect.

In the duty room of the chief minister of the cabinet, Wei Guangde called Yu Dayou and Liu Shouyou, and even called the centurion who was communicating with the Portuguese at that time from Tianjin to the capital, and reported the conversation in detail.

"You go down first."

Zhang Juzheng listened to the report of the navy captain at the top and waved his hand to let him go first. After the people left, he looked at Wei Guangde and said, "Shandai, what do you think? Tell me."

"Brother Uncle, have you read the two documents I handed you before?"

Wei Guangde spoke, and when Zhang Juzheng nodded, he continued, "It seems that the barbarians have surpassed our Ming Dynasty in firearms and shipbuilding.

I have already sent a note to the Ministry of Industry, asking them to speed up the project of copying the Europa ship model. However, in addition to this, we also need to take advantage of this diplomatic mission to visit Europa to obtain more technology.

I was still worrying about how to get technology from them before. Now that the Ming people have been captured and brought to Europe, I can naturally make good use of them.

They are familiar with European customs, so it is much easier for them to collect these technologies than our delegation.

Jinyiwei can also contact them, recruit them to serve the court, and collect and spy on overseas intelligence. "

The value of these people is very great in Wei Guangde's eyes.

They already live in Europe and are familiar with the environment, making them good candidates for spying.

Moreover, since they have already settled down, we can obtain a steady stream of intelligence from Europe through them.

This is much more convenient than sending a group of Jinyiwei to inquire about the news. After all, Eastern faces are different from Western faces and it is easy to expose one's identity.

Zhang Juzheng saw the Jinyiwei's evaluation of the Ming Dynasty's firearms by the Western delegations two days ago, and saw the ship type analysis submitted by the navy to the Ministry of War yesterday. Naturally, he knew what technology Wei Guangde wanted to learn from Europe.

Zhang Juzheng naturally would not think that these were strange tricks. In fact, anyone who came from a military family would not think so.

By then, firearms had become the Ming army’s most powerful weapons in combat, and it was no exaggeration to say that they were important military weapons.

The official army at the end of the Ming Dynasty had actually completed the transition from cold weapons to hot weapons. At this time, the Ming army's firearms were no less advanced than those of European armies.

It can be said that the military strength of the Ming Dynasty is actually very different from that of Europe, and it is definitely the ceiling of combat power of this era.

Of course, the Ming army lost to the bandits and the Qing army, but it was definitely not a problem of the army, but was caused by the improper policies of the court.

Therefore, when the surrendered Ming army received sufficient military pay from the Qing court, the combat power they unleashed was no less than that of the so-called Eight Banners Army.

Don't forget that the Ming army still has the advantage in military strength.

It is no wonder that many people in later generations said that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was strange, and that it was really God's will to destroy the Ming Dynasty.

"In addition, now that merchants from the Ming Dynasty are going out to sea, their merchant ships are reaching as far as Western countries. It is not convenient to go to other countries with only the ship permits issued by the government. The government that opens the ports should issue special official documents to the people going out to sea to prove their identities."

Wei Guangde continued, "For the Ming people living overseas, we should also consider adding a document.

Otherwise, if I were to be exiled to another country, I would have no way to prove my identity as a citizen of the Ming Dynasty, and I would be enslaved again."

What Wei Guangde was considering was naturally the passports of future generations. All Ming Dynasty citizens who went abroad had to report to the government and obtain documents.

The Ming Dynasty's method of identifying migrant population at this time was very simple, that is, the travel permit. If someone had a travel permit, he was naturally not a refugee, but if he did not have one, he was a refugee and the government would punish him.

As for going abroad, merchant ships carried ship permits, but they only proved that the ship came from the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, it also indirectly proves that the people on the ship were all Ming Dynasty citizens.

But this is obviously not enough. For example, if the boat falls into the water, the guide will be lost.

According to the saying of that era, if you fell into the water and were rescued, your life would belong to someone else. If you didn't have money to redeem yourself, you would become a slave.

It’s that simple and straightforward, because you just get up and they give you food and drink, it’s like it’s free.

Zhang Juzheng didn't care. He agreed with Wei Guangde's previous suggestion to use overseas Chinese to gather intelligence.

In fact, the Jinyiwei had already done so in Southeast Asia and the West.

It’s just that Europe has not been involved, so naturally there is no time to make arrangements.

As for what Wei Guangde said, he didn't care, so he just nodded.

"I don't know how to write this paperwork. If something unexpected happens, I'm afraid I won't be able to stay here."

Paper documents probably cannot be preserved after an accident.

"A wooden plaque, with the word 'Ming' engraved on one side and the information of the holder and the issuing authority on the other side. It would be best if it was numbered so that the authorities can find it easily."

In the Ming Dynasty, all military households had wooden plaques as identification marks, so Wei Guangde naturally thought of the Ming army's wooden plaques.

"The most frightening thing at sea is falling into the water, but with the wooden sign, you don't have to worry about it."

Wei Guangde smiled and said, "Also, it would be best to engrave 'The Great Ming Cabinet asks the governments of various countries to provide necessary assistance and protection to those holding this sign' below the word 'Ming'. In addition to Chinese characters, engrave multiple languages.

Well, let’s call it a passport.” (End of this chapter)