I'm really not doing business

Chapter 743: Loyalty that is not logical but realistic
"Your Majesty, Marquis Sishui beheaded two coastal defense inspectors, one of whom was a captain of the coastal defense team." The reason why Zhang Juzheng repeatedly mentioned in front of the emperor that Yin Zhengmao's anti-drug methods were too cruel was that his main consideration was the stable rule of the Ming Dynasty in Luzon.

Yin Zhengmao deliberately expanded the hostility by taking advantage of the orders of the Ming court. After all, because of such a small matter as drug control, Yin Zhengmao killed nearly 5,000 people, arrested more than 30,000 people, and whipped 70,000 people; secondly, on Yin Zhengmao's execution list this time, there was also a coastal defense captain and a coastal defense inspector.

The coastal defense inspectors were generally regarded as the minions of the Ming emperor and the emperor's tentacles in Luzon. Yin Zhengmao's execution of the coastal defense commander should not have made things difficult for the coastal defense inspectors no matter from which angle you look at it.

But Yin Zhengmao did it.

Which is more important, the Ming Dynasty's absolute rule over Luzon or drug control? Zhang Juzheng believed that absolute rule over Luzon was more important, while the emperor believed that drug control was more important.

The reason why Zhu Yijun's father-in-law Yin Zhengmao launched a war on drugs was actually because he discovered that some coastal defense inspectors were growing, producing, selling and using opium.

"This is the reason why we cannot retreat in the war against drugs. How heavy is the hydrofoil boat of the Coast Guard Patrol? Every time the Coast Guard Patrol goes out to sea, it is a huge adventure."

"A seaman who can ride the wind and waves and inspect the coastal defense is a loyal person to the emperor and the country! This captain of the coastal defense, Li Yizhen, has a wife who raises three children, and two concubines in Luzon. His family wealth is not huge, but it is definitely a luxurious family in Luzon."

"What turned a man who was so loyal to the emperor and the country, who was willing to give his life to me, the court, and the people of Ming, into a drug dealer?"

"Since Li Yizheng started taking opium, his wife has quarreled with him many times and even hit him many times. Was she following Li Yizheng across the ocean to Luzon to watch her husband become a drug addict? Obviously not, but she couldn't stop it."

"The Jiekuin said that if opioids are used for a long time, a demon will develop in the heart. This demon will gradually take over and become the master of some behaviors. I think the description of the great doctors is correct. Opium can indeed turn people into monsters!"

“So, we just have to be extra vigilant.”

Zhu Yijun answered Zhang Juzheng's doubts very solemnly. His Majesty was really good to the Ming army, but this time, His Majesty did not favor the elite among the elite, the captain of the coastal defense inspectorate, but approved Yin Zhengmao's request for immediate execution.

This is the lesson, a profound lesson.

Li Yizhen was able to climb to the position of a thousand households of coastal defense. He had made contributions to the Ming Dynasty, shed blood for the Ming Dynasty, and sacrificed a lot for the Ming Dynasty. But when he started to sell goods, he betrayed the people of the Ming Dynasty, betrayed the court, betrayed the emperor, and also betrayed his past self.

Because the trafficking is uncontrollable, once the trafficking starts, it will not be sold unless Li Yizhen orders it not to be sold to Ming Dynasty. Those crazy drug addicts will not obey his orders. Due to Ming Dynasty's strict anti-drug policy, Ming Dynasty has become a highland for the price of opium balls. A pound of opium balls costs as much as three thousand taels of silver!

Drug addicts will do anything for profit.

Zhu Yijun continued: "How was Li Yizheng discovered?"

"In the past, Li Yizhen was six feet tall (192cm), weighing more than kilograms, with broad shoulders and a thick waist. He could operate a hydrofoil sailboat by himself. He was extremely strong. He once sailed from Davao City to Songjiang Prefecture in just six days. To this day, no one has broken his record."

"And Shi Longbo Deng Zilong recently discovered that Li Yizhen has become thinner, weighing only about 140 pounds. He is so thin that he looks unrecognizable. His cheeks are fleshless, his eyes are hollow and lifeless, and he can't even wear armor. He is out of breath after walking a short distance, let alone operating a hydrofoil. At the age of 30, his physical strength is not even as good as that of Sishui Hou."

"Deng Zilong discovered something unusual about Li Yizhen, and the Governor's Office began investigating."

"I am very sad, but I have to kill him."

Zhu Yijun was a bit nagging. He actually didn't need to tell Zhang Juzheng these words. As the emperor, he just made the decision. But Zhu Yijun had no one to talk to. When he approved the beheading of Li Yizhen, he felt very reluctant. It was a pity to see a hero become like this.

He once thought about forgiving him, but ultimately he ordered his execution.

The Li Yizhen of the past might really hate the way he is now. He was a man who could stand tall and upright, but now he has become a dog that can only beg for a breath of air by crawling on the ground and wagging its tail.

When Li Yizhen was tied to the bed and was awake, the words he said most often were "kill me".

In the side hall of Wenhua Palace, the emperor and Zhang Juzheng were silent. After a long time, Zhang Juzheng bowed his head and said, "Your Majesty, I think we should write about Li Yizheng's affairs in the court bulletin so that people will know the harm."

"Use a pseudonym and don't write your name." Zhu Yijun took a deep breath and gave Li Yizhen the last bit of decency.

Zhang Juzheng thought that His Majesty would be disappointed, disappointed at Li Yizhen's betrayal. This kind of disappointment, when accumulated, would become strange. However, His Majesty's emotion was very clear. It was pity, pity for Li Yizhen, not disappointment.

Your Majesty still knows very well that people's hearts are fickle.

Zhu Yijun stood in front of two huge screens. Both screens were more than ten feet tall and contained two feng shui maps. One was a general feng shui map of all nations, which was a world map, and the other was the current feng shui map of the Ming Dynasty.

He looked at the geomancy map in front of him. This map was not very detailed. Because the Ming Dynasty had limited means of observation, the observations of some longitudes and latitudes were not very accurate. In addition, due to long-distance sea travel, there were errors in judging the direction, position, and distance. Therefore, this "General Geomancy Map of All Nations" still had shortcomings such as unbalanced proportions and inaccurate place names.

But this map is already the most accurate map in the world.

The other one is "General Map of Fengshui of the Ming Dynasty". This map is extremely accurate. It is a precise drawing based on the triangulated geodetic surveying method. If you look at it from the side, you can see dense longitude and latitude lines and grid drawing, which is the most accurate drawing method of the Ming Dynasty at present. It is very close to the real proportion and almost all the mountains, rivers are marked.

This is the general geomancy map. The Ming Dynasty also has sub-maps for various places, including the two capitals, sixteen provinces, and four governor-general's offices. Each map is very detailed, because it is one's own territory, and one can make careful calculations openly.

From Heilongjiang in the north to Jiugang Xuanweisi in the south, from Nagasaki Governor-General's Office in the east to Hami Kingdom in the west, all of them are grid-like drawings.

This general geomancy map of the Ming Dynasty is one of the highest secrets of the Ming Dynasty. Even the fact that the Ming emperor was frugal and proud is not a secret. Many aspects of the geomancy map are unacceptable to the Confucian scholars of the Ming Dynasty. For example, the Ming Dynasty is not actually very big, the Ming Dynasty is not at the center of the world, and the Ming Dynasty is even backward in some areas, such as mathematics.

It was probably the shattered dream of the Celestial Empire.

Zhu Yijun pointed to the New World of North and South America and said, "Sir, if we look at the map of all nations, the current world structure is actually very simple."

"The colonists from Spain, Portugal, England, and the Netherlands in the West used cruel means to exploit the people in the colonies, making them slaves, producing goods and mining minerals for them. All these harvests were then shipped back to the West, and there was a lot of silver among them."

"The influx of a large amount of silver into the West also caused some problems. Too much silver and too few goods made people's lives very difficult because the prices of various items were too expensive."

What Zhu Yijun described was an objective fact. Since the great geographical discoveries in the 1024th century and the beginning of colonization, 2.24 million taels of gold and million taels of silver have flowed into the West. This is just the wealth obtained from the colonies, not to mention local mining in the West. The West itself has many high-quality silver mines.

The vast amount of silver and gold was like a pair of invisible hands sweeping by, and a common phenomenon appeared wherever these hands passed.

Commodity prices are rising rapidly, currencies are depreciating rapidly, various counterfeit currencies are appearing, and speculation is very active.

With the end of the Black Death in the Middle Ages, the population of the West was recovering rapidly. The most terrible thing finally came. The price of food began to soar. It would be fine if other things rose, and people could just not use them, but the soaring price of food was unacceptable to people, and disputes began.

This period of time was later called the Price Revolution by Westerners.

Zhu Yijun continued, "With the opening of the Ming Dynasty to the sea, the sea merchants who had been traveling between the four oceans finally found the source of goods. Countless silver and raw materials poured into the Ming Dynasty, and these large sailing ships took away a large amount of goods from the Ming Dynasty."

"And these silver coins gradually alleviated the money shortage in the Ming Dynasty. More than billions of copper coins and tens of millions of silver coins were produced every year, making the Ming Dynasty more vibrant."

"In short, the Tessie colonists plundered the colonies, and we plundered the Tessie colonists with goods, at least that's how it seemed to them."

From the perspective of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty provided high-quality and high-value goods, but these Westerners never mentioned it. In their view, the silver they had worked so hard to obtain was taken away by the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty was very strange in not wanting gold, causing many people who hoarded gold to lose money every day.

If we look at this issue from the perspective of Westerners, it is also correct, because the Ming Dynasty also needs to make money. Many products are unique to the Ming Dynasty and have a high premium. The Ming Dynasty believes that the products are of good quality and low price, but Westerners believe that the Ming Dynasty makes too much money.

Relying on its strong strength and commodity production capabilities, the Ming Dynasty continued to plunder the wealth they had worked so hard to obtain.

Since the beginning of the Age of Discovery, it has always been the Westerners who have robbed others. How could they have been robbed?

"To be precise, Felipe II is willing to maintain good trade relations with the Ming Dynasty entirely because he needs the Ming Dynasty. He needs the Ming Dynasty to absorb the silver that the West does not want to suppress the danger of rising commodity prices. As a large amount of silver flows into the Ming Dynasty and the prices of Western goods stabilize, they should refuse to trade with the Ming Dynasty." Zhu Yijun expressed his concerns.

The influx of silver was related to the transformation of the Ming Dynasty from a small peasant economy to a commodity economy. Zhu Yijun would never allow this process to be interrupted.

No one can stop the Ming Dynasty from becoming great again, including the Ming Dynasty itself.

"Your Majesty, why don't the Ming Dynasty try to accept gold?" Zhang Juzheng tentatively put forward his suggestion. He felt that the spread of this resistance was partly due to the fact that the Ming Dynasty did not accept gold. The Ming Dynasty only wanted silver, which caused many people in the West who hoarded gold to suffer losses.

Perhaps accepting gold is also a good idea.

Zhu Yijun shook his head and said, "Gold is acceptable, but it can only quench your thirst temporarily."

"Moreover, the Ministry of Revenue believes that we should not accept large amounts of silver. The Ming Dynasty already has a copper-silver bimetallic standard. If gold is added to the monetary policy, it will become even more chaotic."

Would the Westerners maintain their friendship with the Ming Dynasty if it accepted the gold? Zhu Yijun thought not.

Moreover, it was difficult for the Ming Dynasty to accept gold. The copper-silver bimetallic standard was already complicated enough. Adding gold would impact the Ming Dynasty's monetary policy.

The trade between the Ming Dynasty and the West was like a huge water pump, constantly extracting large amounts of silver from the West and its colonies. As the Ming Dynasty opened up its seas in an all-round way and the scale of handicraft workshops continued to expand, the pump sucked more and more powerfully.

With the dumping of millions of pieces of cotton cloth a year, the Ming Dynasty completely monopolized the cotton textile industry, and the woolen cloth and textile industries in the West suffered a fatal blow. The Ming Dynasty said that the Ming Dynasty wanted to develop, but in the eyes of the Westerners, the Ming Dynasty was like a monster, sucking their blood and flesh and destroying their vitality. For fourteen years, the Ming Dynasty's appetite was getting bigger and bigger, and the trade surplus made the Westerners hate it, but they had no better solution.

Many handicraft workshops in the Netherlands had closed down and moved to Portugal due to the impact of Ming Dynasty goods, the threat of war, and the more stable environment in Portugal. The once prosperous and high-spirited Netherlands even fell into depression.

Workshops kept closing, insurance dealers went bankrupt, ships were quietly anchored in the port, sailors had nowhere to go and began to act recklessly, and wives with stable lives had no choice but to sell their bodies for bread.

Ming Dynasty is currently the largest producer and consumer in the world. Its colonies assume the ecological niche of raw material countries, while the West is a consumer country. The raw material countries provide raw materials to Ming Dynasty and silver to the West. The West consumes Ming Dynasty products, and finally all the silver flows into Ming Dynasty.

"So, we need colonies, lots and lots of colonies." Zhu Yijun pointed the long pole in his hand at the location of Peru. He said with certainty: "The New World is not the private land of the Westerners. The Westerners can rob it, and the Ming Dynasty can also rob it."

"The cost of Ming's war is rapidly decreasing as firearms become more widely used, and long-distance deployment is becoming possible."

On the Korean battlefield, the Ming Dynasty estimated that it would need 30 million silver coins to complete the task of pacifying Japan. A protracted war always costs so much.

But as the war progressed, the Ming Dynasty discovered that the burden of tens of millions of silver coins that had been expected to be incurred a year had only consumed less than 900,000 silver coins in just a few months. Moreover, according to Qi Jiguang's strategic plan, the total consumption this year would be only two million silver coins.

It took three years to quell the Japanese invasion of Korea and recover the lost territory, and only six million silvers were needed. If there was enough redundancy, ten million silvers was more than enough. The cost of the war was reduced by several times. This was the result of the emperor providing too many artillery pieces, which put pressure and waste on logistics.

"This is a nice place, Pengju Port." Zhu Yijun pointed above Peru.

There is a city here, which was founded by Spain in the 14th year of Jiajing. It is called Guayaquil. The main part of the city is built on the foothills between Santa Ana Mountain and Santa Carmen Mountain. The two mountains are like a roc that is preparing to take off and spread its wings.

When Liu Ji, a captain of the Ming Dynasty ocean-going merchant fleet, arrived at the port, he quietly marked this place as Pengju Port. Liu Ji named it this way because of the similarity in appearance, and on the other hand, Pengju is Yue Fei's courtesy name. The Ming Dynasty had a wide range of Yuewang Temples, and the Martial Saint of this era was not Guan Yu, but Yue Fei.

Zhang Juzheng understood the emperor's plan. If he eliminated the middleman, Taixi, the Ming Dynasty would directly obtain wealth from the New World and would not allow the Westerners to act as middlemen. Both the Ming Dynasty and the New World would make money, but Taixi would definitely try hard to protect its own purse.

"It's a good place, but it's too far away. If something happens, the Ming Dynasty will not be able to take action in time and will not be able to cross the ocean to provide support in time. Moreover, there is a sturdy castle here that has been built for 51 years." Zhang Juzheng said solemnly.

It’s too far away and too difficult to attack.

This is what Zhang Juzheng was very worried about. If he sent a navy from the Ming Dynasty, the journey alone would take four months, and that was without a storm. Even if they arrived safely, it would be extremely difficult to seize the castle from the Westerners.

The natives of the New World are still resisting, so the castle is built extremely solidly. In addition, there are about a thousand fully armed and experienced red-haired foreigners in Pengju Port City. The Ming Dynasty needs to carry heavy artillery and quickly repair the castle to resist the enemy's counterattack before the surrounding colonists react. Even if it is difficult to take it, it will still have to pay the price of being hostile to the West.

At present, the trade between Ming Dynasty and the West is extremely stable, and silver is still flowing in in large quantities. There is no need for Ming Dynasty to plan for a new world in such a hurry.

The New World is Felipe's core interest, and he will never give it up easily like he gave up the Governor-General's Palace in the Philippines.

In Zhang Juzheng's view, this risky move was not worth the cost.

Zhu Yijun took out a report from his sleeve and handed it to Zhang Juzheng, saying, "This year's sailing ships have arrived in Davao City. According to the report from the coastal defense inspection, the silver carried by the Western sailing ships has been reduced from 6 million taels to 2 million taels. More importantly, the size of their fleet has been reduced from ten five-masted ocean-going ships to five, and the cargo they carry has also been reduced accordingly."

"I can understand Felipe's decision, which he made based on the interests of his country."

Spain and Portugal were called traitors of the West by the Westerners and were tributary states of the Ming Dynasty!

Portugal doesn't care. It is well known that Antonio was able to sit firmly on the throne with the support of the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Portugal will correct the views of the West. Portugal is clearly a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty!

There is an essential difference between vassal states and those wild dogs running around.

But this kind of accusation is extremely fatal to Spain. Portugal has the Ming Dynasty's goods to distribute, and the Westerners are drooling with envy. No matter how loudly they shout, they still have to do business with the Portuguese honestly. But Spain does not have this advantage.

This accusation created great resistance to Spain's recovery of the Netherlands and caused the prestige of Spain, the overlord of the West, to plummet. Even the Ottoman Sultan mocked Felipe, the ruler of the British Empire, for becoming a running dog of the Ming Dynasty.

In addition to diplomacy, the biggest reason is that Spain does not want too many Ming Dynasty goods to flood the West, which would damage its interests as a hegemon. Spain has also been impacted by Ming Dynasty goods. A lot of excess silver has been squeezed out and prices have stabilized.

In short, the honeymoon period between the Ming Dynasty and Spain, which lasted for fourteen years, finally ended.

Zhu Yijun pointed at Spain with the long pole in his hand and said, "There are only interests between countries, and it is impossible to maintain intimacy forever."

"Even if Antonio robs Ming's ocean-going merchant ships one day, or does not allow Ming goods to enter the port, I will not be surprised. A king of a country should first consider the interests of his own country. This is natural. I am such a person."

There is no unbreakable alliance, nor iron-clad relations between countries; they are all based on exchanges of interests.

"But Pengju Port is not so easy to attack." Zhang Juzheng said solemnly, "We have to think about it carefully, Your Majesty. I think we can have a private talk with the governors of Peru, Chile, and Mexico. After all, the interests of the governor's office and Felipe II are not completely consistent."

Zhang Juzheng did not like war, so he proposed another solution: to leave the Spanish mainland behind and establish trade relations between the Ming Dynasty and several governor-general's offices.

In this way, we can avoid war and complete hostility, and maintain a stable inflow of silver. Ming Dynasty and Spain are similar at present. They do not have strong ocean-going deployment capabilities. The current colonization is mainly to grab land from the indigenous people. Whoever grabs the land will own it.

Port cities were the easiest to develop during the Age of Discovery. As long as they seized territory and built castles, they would naturally attract people and eventually become a nail stuck in the colony that was very difficult to pull out.

The natives are easy to fight. Many of them are in the Bronze Age or even the Stone Age. Facing firearms, they have no ability to fight back. However, it is not a wise move for the Ming Dynasty to rashly go to war with a country that also has ocean-going capabilities.

"Liu Ji, the commander of the ocean-going troops, has also had contact with them, but they have shown their loyalty to Philip II." Zhu Yijun said very clearly: "These governorates need the support of Spain to maintain their existence, firearms, gunpowder, trade, faith, etc."

"There wasn't even any bargaining, just polite contact."

"I don't like war either, but sometimes I have to do it for the benefit of Ming Dynasty."

These governors showed a loyalty that was not quite logical but was in line with reality. They did not bargain with Liu Ji, the commander of the Ming Dynasty, on tariffs or the quantity of goods, but directly rejected the issue.

Indeed, there were certainly various conflicts between the Governor's Office and the mainland, but the colonists were an absolute minority in the New World, and the cost of abandoning their mainland was even more expensive, while the silver that illegal merchants could provide was extremely limited.

This is the dilemma encountered by the Ming Dynasty when it opened up the sea. Spain, which has the first-mover advantage, is adjusting its policies to ensure that its advantage can be sustained.

The Governor-General of the Philippines is not Spain’s core interest. It is too close to the Ming Dynasty. As long as the Ming Dynasty wants, the Governor-General of the Philippines will be unable to resist.

"How do we fight this?" Zhang Juzheng looked at the geomancy map, sighed, and shook his head.

Zhu Yijun smiled and said, "A sneak attack, a sneak attack at all costs, a sneak attack with internal and external support, isn't that what war is all about? Of course, I will send a letter to Philip II, accusing him of undermining free trade and requiring him to provide sufficient silver every year as usual. If he refuses to give it, we will have to take it ourselves."

"Also, it will take a long time to prepare to capture Pengju City."

The necessary procedures must be followed, and the righteous cause must not be lost. Free trade is a banner, and when the Ming Dynasty has absolute commodity advantages, it must take up this banner.

"I obey your order." Zhang Juzheng thought for a moment and bowed his head to accept the order.

Your Majesty, like him, does not want to start a war, but opening up the sea is the chariot that will lead the Ming Dynasty to greatness again, and it is the strongest horse. When action is necessary, action must be taken for the sake of development. This has nothing to do with morality, but only with development.

The Ming Dynasty needs to maintain its status as the Celestial Empire. Only when the people of the Ming Dynasty are they the subjects of the Celestial Empire can they have a more stable living environment.

Pengju Port City is located by the mountains and by the water, with its back against the mountains and close to the ocean. In addition, what makes the attack even more difficult is that there is a Puna Island on the sea of ​​this port that serves as a natural barrier. The colonists built a small castle and military port on the Puna Island. The enemies on the sea need to conquer the Puna Island before they can continue their attack.

The castle on Puna Island itself is difficult to attack, and the colonists of Pengju Port City will definitely find out.

Even with a sneak attack, it would be difficult to achieve the goal, and most of the ports in the New World are in a similar situation, easy to defend but difficult to attack.

The Ming Dynasty and the Governor-General's Office of Gua'a fought for two and a half years, and the battle for the Malacca Castle alone took more than a year. The Ming Dynasty also had the advantages of sea vessels and supplies. However, if it were not for the infighting among the rulers in Malacca, it would have taken at least half a year to eliminate the scattered camps and forts outside the city one by one.

There is only one way to remove it, and that is to blow it up with heavy artillery.

Landing operations themselves are very difficult, not to mention the Pengju port city tens of thousands of miles away.

In the imperial study of Tonghe Palace, Zhu Yijun held a memorial and said with a frown, "Mil Mahama, the governor of Hami Guard, hopes that the Ming Dynasty will help him restore his country, give him enough support, help him get back his own territory, and give him the right to sell cotton cloth so that he can make more money."

"In Mir's eyes, is our Ming Dynasty court the victim of a scapegoat?"

"Your Majesty, this was indeed the case in the past," Feng Bao said with his head bowed.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty’s foreign policy was to be lenient towards foreigners. To put it simply, they were the ones being taken advantage of.

(End of this chapter)