I'm really not doing business

Chapter 950 Pacific Rim Business Alliance
Although the Strait of Magellan is like a prostitute's belt, you can enter by paying money, but it is all done in secret, with bribery and turning a blind eye. If the locals ask, they will say that the passage is through the Drake Strait, the violent devil's sea. Anyway, the locals cannot come to verify it.

But Gao Qiyu made it clear and told the Spanish envoy Pedro that the Strait of Magellan belonged to Spain, but the ships of the Ming Dynasty could pass through it unimpeded.

In fact, this is exactly the same reason why His Majesty the Emperor asked the Governor-General of Peru to come to Ming Dynasty.

Divide and intensify the conflicts between Spain and its colonies.

Island countries are not the forte of being picky and aggressive. The literati of the Ming Dynasty are also very good at it. When the literati used their knowledge to deal with the foreigners, the foreigners immediately felt the malice from the scholars and how terrifying it was.

The second one is to open up free trade in the Viceroyalties of Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Granada and Brazil. This is actually being realized. The Ming Dynasty's Pacific routes can visit these Viceroyalties twice a year.

Since last year, the Ming Dynasty has completed the distribution of goods in various Ming stores, and even reduced the previous taxes.

The tax rates of these governorates were synchronized with that of the Ming Dynasty, all 13%, so that these governorates were more like those of the Ming Dynasty rather than those of Spain.

Of course, the unsuccessful war situation in mainland Spain gave these governorates courage.

But in fact, the most important thing is that the silver, sugar, coffee, cotton, etc. produced in these places cannot be exchanged for enough goods. Many times, the trade between the Governor's Office and the mainland is extremely exploitative.

The Viceroyalty of Peru produced eight million ounces of silver every year, and more than half of this silver was taken away directly by treasure ships without being exchanged for any goods.
The saltpeter from the Chilean Governor's Office could not be exchanged for any valuable goods. In fact, because saltpeter was used for military purposes, it could not be exported elsewhere.

The existence of this kind of exploitation was natural before the Ming Dynasty opened its seas. After all, the governor-general's office had no way to obtain supplies from other places. But when the Ming Dynasty's sailboats arrived at these governor-general's offices, this kind of exploitation became particularly glaring.

During the long colonial life, irreversible localization was taking place. The colonists had their own interests, and those interests were not always the same as those of the locals. The divergence of interests became increasingly greater. Once the Ming Dynasty was able to provide security guarantees, it became natural for them to sit on the fence.

The third article is that the Ming Dynasty and these governor-generals will sign separate trade agreements. If Felipe and Pedro agree, it will mean that these governor-generals will be completely out of control.

Each of these three points was more deadly than the other, and Pedro didn't dare to agree to any of them. However, Gao Qiyu seized on the case of Lancilotte and made a big fuss about it.

This case is very troublesome. Once the Ming Dynasty gets hold of this case and sells military supplies to England, Felipe's expedition will inevitably fail. I can't say anything else, but Pedro will definitely be hacked to death.

The Ming Dynasty could use the Ryukyu Islands of the World to limit the ban on Japan's cargo list, but Felipe did not have the Ryukyu Islands of the World to stop Ming merchant ships.

If Pedro agrees, he will die. If he doesn't agree, Daming will not let go of the case and Pedro will also die.

The crux of the problem is how to calm the Ming Dynasty’s anger.

Zhu Yijun did not interfere with Gao Qiyu's idea. If a sufficient price was not paid and Lancilote was captured, Felipe would send people to the East to continue selling saltpeter to Japan, which would be extremely unfavorable to the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yijun let Gao Qiyu continue to torment Pedro.

Marion, the Patriarch of the Great Light Church, sent a congratulatory letter to congratulate the emperor on his birthday, and then sent a gift, a coral about two feet high and hundreds of pearls.

Marion was leading the Knights of Freedom towards Paris, starting from the Cité de l'Illuminati, the mouth of the Seine River.

When the galleon set out, Marion had already captured six towns and was still two hundred miles away from Paris. During the entire process, the Free Knights did not encounter any effective resistance.

Marion neither asked the Ming Dynasty to provide more five-masted ocean-going ships nor asked for sufficient saltpeter and gunpowder. He only asked the Ming Emperor to bless the march towards Paris.

Provide blessings from the prophet for this Great Light Church advance.

Zhu Yijun was not very familiar with the geographical situation of Paris, but he was not optimistic about Marion's advance this time.

Because the foundation of the Great Light Church in the West was too shallow, even though her father, the French Army Marshal, was the biggest supporter, in Zhu Yijun's view, Marion was still too impatient and was somewhat dazzled by the continuous victories.

Zhu Yijun wrote a very long letter, blessing Marion with a successful start and a march all the way to Paris, but he also warned Marion to be prepared for a long struggle. If she failed, she could return to the Great Light City, build high walls, store up food, and slowly become king.

Even if you are an opponent, you must strive for it if you can. Gaining more support is always the theme of the struggle. Zhu Yijun also specifically told Marion not to trust the nobles' promises too much, because the Great Light Church is not a qualified tool of rule.

The Great Light Church has no gods, only wisdom. This means that compared to Western religions, the Great Light Church lacks the means to fool the people. Any promises made by the nobles must be handled with extreme caution and never be taken seriously.

Once these nobles discover that the Great Light Church cannot effectively exploit the people below them, they will lose patience and even bring the Roman Catholic Church back to France.

The road will inevitably be very tortuous, so be prepared for failure.

At the end of the letter, Zhu Yijun once again wished Marion good luck and hoped that wisdom would always be with her.

"Your Majesty, there are some things you won't learn from unless you make the same mistake yourself." Feng Bao carefully reminded his majesty that this letter might not produce very good results, and might even be considered as a sermon from the East by Marion, who had won consecutive victories.

Continuous success will blind people's eyes and make them unable to see the truth. Repeated military victories have made Marion unable to see the horror of failure.

"Listen if you want to, forget it if you don't want to. It's just a chess game. It would be best if there is a good result." The help Zhu Yijun provided was very limited, and he did not intend to interfere too much in Marion's career. He just reminded her of the dangers.

"Rotation." Zhu Yijun picked up the memorial from the Minister of War Zeng Xingwu, stating that the coastal defense inspectors in various parts of the Ming Dynasty would be rotated regularly.

There was a problem with the coastal defense inspection at Naha Port in Shuri Prefecture, which led to the appearance of saltpeter on ships bound for Japan. To solve this problem, the coastal defense inspections at Shuri Prefecture, Nagasaki, Luzon, and Old Port had to be rotated, with a small rotation once a year and a large rotation every three years.

Zhu Yijun approved this memorial, saying that this method could greatly reduce the corruption of coastal defense inspectors.

The other memorial came from the Womagang Mine. The most abundant material in this mine was coal, followed by iron and copper, and finally gold and silver.

This mine has become the most important fulcrum for the Ming Dynasty to enter the Xianbei Plain. Three hundred adventure teams set out from here and returned here, like migratory birds.

Every June, it was time for adventure teams to enter the Xianbei grasslands to collect furs. In addition to expensive furs, the rye that grew everywhere was also an object of purchase by the Ming Dynasty. Under the education of Duntai Yuanhou, the Xianbei people even learned to reclaim wasteland and widely plant rye to survive the harsh winter.

The development of the Xianbei Plain was not all smooth sailing. The Cossacks were a strong opponent. The Cossacks had four legions and, like the Ming Dynasty, they would cross the Ural Mountains every June to compete with the Ming Dynasty for furs.

The Ming Dynasty bought, and the Cossacks robbed. They took away the furs and killed all the people in the tribe.

Moreover, Duntai Yuanhou had fought with the Cossacks several times and discovered that they were really good at fighting bad battles. The worse and more shaky the battle was, the more the Cossacks could thrive and come up with new tricks. In the end, they became evenly matched with the Ming adventure team and the Xianbei alliance, and even improved their skills.

In July last summer, Duntai Yuanhou organized the Xianbei people and launched a large-scale decisive battle and surprise attack, finally driving the Cossacks back to the west of the Ural Mountains. However, Duntai Yuanhou reported that these Cossacks would make a comeback because of geographical reasons.

The Ural Mountains are endless grasslands, coniferous forests and gravel roads. The population there is sparse, there are many roads, and there are no passes built. The Cossacks could appear from anywhere, so the Ming Dynasty Duntai Yuanhou had to carry out a comprehensive expulsion of the Cossacks every year.

The envoys of Russia naturally arrived in the Ming Dynasty and strongly protested against the Ming Dynasty's attempt to seize the Xianbei grasslands, but it was just a protest. These unowned lands would naturally belong to whoever conquered them.

Zhu Yijun handled all memorials on foreign affairs and gave clear instructions, allowing his ministers to act boldly and all the sins were blamed on him.

Pedro looked for Le Gasi four times, but Le Gasi hid in the Northern Pacification Office and did not see Pedro. Le Gasi gave Pedro a letter and sternly rejected Pedro's request for help. Originally, Le Gasi, an old hand who had worked in the Ming Dynasty for many years, could have eased the situation.

But Lancilote framed Ligas and put Ligas in a very embarrassing situation. It was understandable that Ligas refused to help.

It was not Lancilote who wanted to kill Legazpi, but the King Felipe of Spain who wanted to kill him, and he did so through the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

Li Yashi hid in the high walls of the Northern Pacification Office and concentrated on translating the Outline of Astronomy, which contained many professional terms. He would make plans after meeting Michael.

Li Yashi said to Chen Mo: "Michael has a genius apprentice named Kepler. I have asked Michael to invite his student to come to Daming."

"Kepler was truly a genius. With the extremely crude instruments of Württemberg, he was able to calculate that the failure of the formula might be due to the ellipse of the planetary orbit."

"Such a genius is really wasted in Taixi. Because of the existence and widespread influence of the church, all his research can only be carried out in secret."

Chen Mo asked curiously, "Why didn't Michael take this talented student with him when he traveled across the ocean this time?"

Li Yashi frowned and said helplessly: "Because Kepler's grandfather is Boulder Kepler, the mayor of Württemberg, so this genius student has a noble status and there is no need for him to go out to sea like Michael to find the answer."

"I hope the invitation will be successful." Chen Mo had heard that the mayor of Taixi was roughly equivalent to the prefect of Ming Dynasty, and Württemberg was also a relatively prosperous place in the Holy Roman Empire.

Going to sea is the choice of poor laborers, and has never been the choice of nobles. His Royal Highness Prince Lu had long been prepared to be enfeoffed in Jinshan City, but Empress Dowager Li firmly stopped him.

"What are you writing?" Chen Mo asked curiously.

Li Yashi handed the article he had written to Chen Mo and said excitedly, "The decline of the Ming Dynasty is a huge loss to the world. This is the direction I just came up with recently. As a writer, I want to contribute to the newspaper in exchange for a living."

"Your Majesty fined me 700,000 silver. I took out the last silver in my family, and I still owe 3,000 silver. I need to pay off the debt quickly. As a scribe, manuscripts have become my source of income."

"Commander Chen, what do you think of this title?"

After Chen Mo finished reading the first two paragraphs of the article, he looked at Li Yashi in doubt and said, "Li Tongshi, are you sure you are a foreigner from the West and not a Ming scholar? You have gone even further in the road of flattery than the Ming scholar-officials!"

Le Yashi's flattery was much more ruthless than that of the literati, and he flattered everyone in the Ming Dynasty, which really found a new track for Le Yashi.

"Did I write it wrong?" Li Yashi stood up and said loudly: "If the Ming Dynasty declines, the whole world will lose its direction and the guidance of wisdom. This rotten world will only get worse!"

"They say that God loves the world, but I have never seen God's light shining everywhere!" "In the 41st year of Jiajing, I was in the Governor's Palace of Peru. The Governor of Peru took the local Yi people to the plantation to cut sugarcane and grow cocoa. The Yi women had a lot of trouble with their menstrual period every month."

"For this reason, the Governor of Peru specifically made these barbarian women pregnant. After they gave birth, the injuries caused by childbirth and the heavy physical labor caused their uteruses to fall out. After cutting them off, they used irons to burn the wounds to stop the bleeding."

"I have seen it with my own eyes. I have killed many, many barbarians, comparable to the Northern Barbarians you have killed, but those were all direct conflicts, not this kind of cruel slaughter. I believe in God because I recognize the morality advocated in the doctrine, but I have never seen these virtues."

"Every year, many women from Annan go to Guangxi to cut sugarcane, but the landlords of the Ming Dynasty have never thought of removing the wombs of these Annan women!"

These things were not made up by Legazpi. Pedro was in the Ming Dynasty. All he had to do was ask him, or simply ask a few Ming merchant ships when they were trading, and he would get the answers.

Legazpi had always said that the Ming Dynasty had a high moral disadvantage in its development. This was a high moral disadvantage. The Governor-General's Office in Jinchi was always harassed by the natives? If all the natives were killed, would there still be harassment?
The high morality of the Ming Dynasty is indeed a disadvantage on the road of expansion, but if the world is ruled by brutal people like the Western colonists, this world will be too bad.

Legashi highly recognized the values ​​of the Ming Dynasty. To a large extent, the Ming Dynasty's pursuit of morality was a good thing for the whole world.

"I don't understand what you are saying." Chen Mo expressed his confusion. He had never been to Southeast Asia, let alone Guangxi, so he didn't know whether these evil things were happening. Even if they were happening, he didn't think there was anything strange about it.

Chen Mo was walking on the grassland. He had seen the filthiness of those temples. Compared with what Li Yashi said about removing the uterus, those temples used human bones and skins to make various ritual instruments. At that time, Chen Mo couldn't understand: were the civilians of the Northern Tartars all sheep? They were so cruelly treated, yet still so submissive?
But as time went by, Chen Mo no longer had so many doubts. This world is always so contradictory. Where there is good, there must be evil. What the Zhenfu Division has to do is to eliminate them. If you have anything to say, just talk to Emperor Taizu Gao!

We need to eradicate evil spirits and get people out of an environment that requires evil religions. Now in Suiyuan, those lamas have no space to survive.

Chen Mo read history and knew that the skull of the Southern Song Emperor Lizong was made into a wine vessel by an evil monk. It was only after Xu Da conquered Yuan Dadu that he found the skull.

In the second year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the Ministry of Rites to rebury him in the Yongmul Mausoleum of Song Lizong with imperial rites.

These evil monks have been doing this for hundreds of years.

Legazpi continued, “I have complete logic and ample evidence to prove my point.”

"Why could the Ming Dynasty's iron horses achieve the miracle of doubling their horsepower and scale in one year? It was because the Ming Dynasty Institute of Gewu could go deep into all the workshops with mechanical workshops and understand the problems in the operation of the machines with the craftsmen. Scale is the prerequisite for technological progress."

"The more iron horses and mechanical workshops are set up, and the larger the scale, the faster the progress of the Ming Iron Horse will be. The scale represents the increase of accumulated experience, and the accumulation of experience is carried out by the craftsmen."

"Once the Ming Dynasty is no longer morally noble, these craftsmen will be busy trying to make a living. Who will think about how to improve the machinery?"

Li Yashi was talking about the official factory system. These resident craftsmen were an important source of opinions on the improvement of iron horses for the Ming Dynasty Academy of Sciences. Sometimes, some wonderful ideas were not meaningless, but on the contrary, they brought huge improvements.

For example, there was a craftsman who thought that the iron horse water tank could be made into a honeycomb boiler smoke box. The hot air would heat each heat pipe more evenly and increase the steam pressure more quickly. This suddenly enlightened the doctors of the Institute of Natural Sciences.

The new Shengping No. 180 iron horse, which is about to be released, has a powerful power of more than horsepower, and the water consumption per miles is reduced to liters, and the coal consumption is reduced to kilograms. This is a huge improvement, and the consumption of water and coal is reduced by half.

Moreover, a new improvement plan has been put on the agenda. If nothing unexpected happens, in the 18th year of Wanli, the Ming Iron Horse will directly transition from Shengping No. 8 to Shengping No. 9, with 450 horsepower. However, the consumption of water and coal will not increase, thus achieving two replacements a year.

The Gewu Newspaper of the Gewu Academy made this matter very clear, hoping that craftsmen from all regions could pool their wisdom and continue to promote the development of iron horses.

What Li Yashi said made a lot of sense. The Ming Dynasty pursued morality, established the Labor Party, provided schoolhouses, official residences, public pharmacies, rice, flour, grain, oil and other supplies for craftsmen, and improved the treatment of craftsmen, which could indeed quickly increase productivity.

After Chen Mo and Li Yashi finished writing his article, they went to Tonghe Palace to report. There was new progress in Lanqilote's case.

"Lanqilote's smuggling of saltpeter into Japan is definitely not something that can be done by bribing a few coastal defense inspectors. The Tiqi have been searching for Lanqilote's accomplices during this period, and the Luzon Governor-General's Office is actively arresting them." Chen Mo reported the progress.

There were some people among them that made Zhu Yijun feel particularly surprised, because most of the people used by Lancilote were Japanese slaves.

After their bells were removed at the Nagasaki Governor's Office, these Japanese slaves were sent to various parts of Southeast Asia to perform forced labor. Gangs were formed among these forced laborers, and the way Lancilot smuggled the saltpeter was to hand over the saltpeter to these Japanese slaves in Davao City on Mindanao Island.

This Japanese slave gang that was widely present in Nanyang was called the Baoguo Association, and its slogan was: Serve the country for seven lifetimes to vent national anger.

These Japanese slaves voluntarily allowed themselves to be castrated and went to Southeast Asia in order to open up the smuggling route for saltpeter and, by the way, help the Japanese people of Japan sneak into Southeast Asia to reproduce and thrive. Some Japanese people bypassed the castration of the Nagasaki Governor-General's Office, hid at the bottom of the cabin, and arrived in Southeast Asia.

Lancilot didn't know much about the situation of the National Assembly. His gang had about six or seven branches, and there were more than 20,000 gang members. This was Lancilot's own estimate, and he didn't know the exact number.

This is the fundamental reason why Lancilote was able to succeed in smuggling. Japan lacked saltpeter. These Japanese slaves who wanted to serve the country thought that as long as they smuggled saltpeter into Japan, they could avenge their previous shame. But unfortunately, the quality of Japan's gunpowder was still very low.

The smuggling of saltpeter had just been going on for more than a year and had just been carried out twice, but it was wiped out by the Ming Dynasty. When the smuggling of saltpeter was carried out, the country was dug out.

Luzon is now carrying out a full-scale crackdown on the Patriotic Association. The reason why the Luzon Governor-General's Office did not pay attention to this Patriotic Association before was entirely because this Patriotic Association usually operates as a member of the Pure Land Church, which has many believers in Southeast Asia.

"Then we should conduct a thorough investigation. They are still not behaving themselves even in Southeast Asia." Zhu Yijun approved the decision and sent a memorial to the Governor-General's Office of Luzon, asking them to arrest the man and report that the National Congress' main activities were in Luzon.

Ling Yunyi also suppressed a group of rioting Japanese pirates in Korea. These Japanese pirates have never been really honest.

Zhu Yijun opened Li Yashi's article, read it for a while, picked up several memorials on the table, compared them, and didn't know what to say.

Ling Yunyi encountered great resistance when he wanted to conduct a comprehensive cleanup of government-owned factories.

First of all, there were some people in the Legislative Affairs Office who were not doing their job properly and the supervision had become somewhat ineffective. For this reason, Ling Yunyi had to second dozens of imperial guards to reorganize the Legislative Affairs Office.

The overall situation was very good. Due to the very standard enforcement of the laws, the government-owned factories were immediately given a new look. All the craftsmen who had not been to work for many years were laid off. Of course, there were also many complaints, which were even reported directly to the emperor by the Labor Party's agents and co-organizers.

The treatment was too hasty and the changes were too sudden, so the craftsmen were at a loss. Some agents believed that Ling Yunyi was not doing a clean-up at all, but was ganging up on dissidents and arranging his own people.

This is the pain that government-run factories must go through. Zhu Yijun could only admonish these memorials and asked these agents to jointly implement Ling Yunyi's regulations for the rectification of government-run factories.

In Wang Chonggu's past management, the drawbacks of being too personal had already become apparent. If things continued unabated, the Ming government factory would probably have to sell coal at 200 wen per pound in order to support so many rentiers.

Li Yashi's observation was correct: the state-owned factory system did promote the development of productivity, but he did not realize that perfecting the state-owned factory system was by no means a simple matter.

If the law is not effective, it is violated from above. Every law and regulation formulated by Wang Chonggu is very good, but because Wang Chonggu is too sentimental, some of these laws have become meaningless.

"If he is willing to go, let him go. What he says makes sense. Keep him locked up for a few more days and release him after the Western envoys leave." Zhu Yijun did not make things difficult for Li Yashi and forced him to choose between Ming Dynasty and Spain.

For the sake of the fact that Legazpi is still translating the Outline of Astronomy.

On June 24, the 18th year of the Wanli reign, Gao Qiyu once again brought many officials from the Ministry of Rites to engage in a verbal battle with Pedro and several of his staff. Five days later, they finally reached a seemingly plausible negotiation result.

The Pacific Rim Business Alliance, led by the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Rites and with the participation of all governor-general's offices in the Pacific, was born during the negotiations in the name of free trade.

This business alliance even included the four governor-general's offices of Nagasaki, Luzon, Jiugang, and Jinchi, but did not include Japan, Korea, and Ryukyu. Japan was a hostile country of the Ming Dynasty, while Korea and Ryukyu were territories of the Ming Dynasty.

The three core rules of the business alliance were derived from the three compensation conditions proposed by Gao Qiyu.

What is particularly ironic is that both Gao Qiyu and the Spanish envoy Pedro could loudly declare, "I won."

The three core demands of the Ming Dynasty were achieved, and Pedro could also declare that he had won, and won big.

The Ming merchant ships took a detour through the dangerous Drake Passage in order to avoid the reasonable tolls of the Strait of Magellan. But today, Pedro himself used his superb negotiation skills to change the Ming merchant ships' detour behavior, and the toll revenue increased significantly. This was the first victory.

In the past, the Governor-General's Office was not open to trade in the Ming Dynasty, but now it has all been incorporated into the Pacific Rim Business Alliance. With just words, the closed trade door of the Ming Dynasty was opened. This is the second victory.

Based on the framework of the Pacific Rim Business Alliance, it becomes very reasonable for the various governor-general's offices to sign various trade agreements with the Ming Dynasty. After all, the Governor-General's Office of Peru can also sign a trade agreement with Luzon, which is fair.

Pedro used his wisdom to help Felipe regain part of the trading rights in the Western Pacific, which was a great victory.

Among the dozens of pages of regulations of the business alliance, there is an inconspicuous one: the Governor-General's Office under the Ming Dynasty needs the approval of the court and the emperor's red seal to sign a trade agreement;
There is also an inconspicuous one: Ming Dynasty ships can freely dock at the ports of major governor-general's offices, but Western ships still need pilotage.

There is also an inconspicuous rule that each governor-general's office can negotiate tariffs with the Ming Dynasty.

"This Pedro, he didn't even translate these three points into Latin?" Zhu Yijun frowned. The negotiations had only produced a rough outline, and Pedro's Latin version did not include these three key points at all.

Feng Bao whispered, "Pedro's idea is actually quite simple. Felipe doesn't understand Chinese. After the Latin text is submitted, Felipe can simply take a look at it and declare victory. What Felipe wants is victory, not the details and regulations."

The reason there are dozens of pages is not because there is so much to write, but to fill it with redundant and useless information so that Felipe cannot see the problem.

Anyway, what Felipe needs is to win, and as long as he can win, everything will be fine.

"No, the missing parts must be translated in." Zhu Yijun made a very important instruction. These Spanish court secretaries are indeed very good at breaking down a matter into several legal little things, and then escaping the responsibilities they should bear.

But Zhu Yijun asked for a Latin translation.

This is a very serious historical document. The West does not have the habit of recording history, but the Ming Dynasty does. Creating such an ambiguous document that even lacks several translations would be ridiculed.

(End of this chapter)