I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 744: Wind from the South Sea

In April of the fifth year of the Wanli reign, a warm sea breeze blew over the surface of the South Ocean, and two large sailing ships of the princes braved the wind and waves and sailed eastward.

The three masts were covered with bulging sails, like layers of white clouds piled up together, and the bow split the waves, splashing white water.

"Guangshun No. 1."

"Guangshun No. 2."

Here are two 600-ton princely sailing ships, armed merchant ships.

These days, only armed sailing ships dare to sail out to the ocean.

The two ships belong to the Nanhai Shipping Company, which is headquartered in Guangzhou, and specialize in the route from Goa Port in India to Guangzhou.

In addition to transporting goods, it also carries people.

It is a sunny day today with a gentle sea breeze. Apart from the busy sailors, there are passengers walking in groups of three or four on the deck.

Two of them were dressed gorgeously and behaved elegantly. Other travelers, especially those from the Arabs and Europe, would stand aside and bow and nod when they saw them.

The man in his thirties is Leon, a Portuguese naval officer, former deputy governor and military commander in Malacca, and interim governor of Goa, Conceda Aveiro Leon.

He is now Baron Sebania.

The man opposite, who was in his fifties, with gray hair and beard and more gorgeous clothes, was Fernando Cassel da Marcelo, the Marquis of Mahazan, Portugal.

The two men went to the Ming Dynasty in the name of King Sebastian I of Portugal, carrying letters of credence.

Standing on the spacious deck at the bow, the two watched the sailors busy at work.

Several sailors took buckets and scooped up sea water from the side of the ship, then wet mops and wiped the deck.

More than a dozen sailors stood on the horizontal bars of the three masts in turn, tying ropes to reinforce the canvases that were under stress.

On the right deck, three sailors were leaning against the side of the ship.

Two of the sailors were operating a cylinder.

The cylinder was placed on the side of the ship, with a long rope underneath with rings evenly tied on it.

The sailors threw it into the sea, letting the rapidly flowing water drag it away. The cylinder kept turning, making a rustling sound.

"Record, speed ten knots."

The third sailor replied while recording, "Recorded, speed eight knots!"

After completing the operation, the three people removed the cylinder, moved to the middle part of the hull, and continued measuring.

"Leon, the Ming people's navigation technology is very advanced?"

"Yes, Marquis. They are much more advanced than us. They have a very amazing measurement technology that can accurately measure their location on the earth."

"God, is this so magical?"

"Yes, it is very advanced, so advanced that it is somewhat mysterious and magical."

“Can we learn it?”

"These techniques are mastered by the surveyor on board. His position on the ship is second only to the captain. The captain also knows some, and many of them have been surveyors.

They are very loyal to their country and they have strict laws.”

"law?"

"The Great Ming Regulations on Confidentiality and the Great Ming Regulations on Navigation.

Leaking measurement technology is a serious leak of secrets and a serious violation of the code of navigation. They will be sentenced by the Military Administration Court or the Maritime Administration Court, with the highest penalty being death. And their families, parents, brothers, children, nephews, will all be implicated. "

Marcelo was silent for a moment. “It takes such strict laws to keep it secret, which shows how precious it is.”

He stopped talking about the surveying technique and turned to the ship under his feet. "This ship is really big, two or three times the size of our sailboat. When I boarded the ship in Goa, I was deeply shocked."

"Mr. Marquis, what shocked us even more was that the Ming Kingdom used this type of ship to run regular routes."

Marcelo was confused. "Leon, what does this mean?"

"It means that the Ming navy and various merchant caravans have enough such ships, so they are used to run fixed routes."

Marcelo is also an old sailor, and he immediately understood what Leon said.

Needless to say, the navy is equipped with the latest, largest and best ships. The merchant fleet is rich, and the ships they are equipped with are also good ships.

Ships that run on fixed routes are generally ships that have been eliminated by the navy or merchant caravans.

But these two ships look very new and don't seem to be discarded.

This shows that the Ming Dynasty had a very developed shipbuilding capability. It was common for them to build such ships, which were available in large quantities and at low prices, which is why they were used on fixed routes with generally high profits.

Leon continued, "I have talked to some Ming people, Arabs, Indians, and Portuguese who stayed here to do business in Goa. In the past two years, there have been fewer and fewer Wusong ships coming here."

Marcelo listened quietly.

"The Wusong ship is a traditional Ming ship type, combined with the prince's sailing ship, and there were thousands of them. This type of ship is a very good ship for us, including the Spanish, Indians and Ottomans.

But for the Ming Dynasty, the Wusong ships were a transitional type of ship. The Ming people in Goa said that most of the ships sailing on the ocean in the Ming Dynasty were the prince's sailing ships, and the Wusong ships were used for coastal routes. "

Marcelo immediately heard the key point, "Leon, does this mean that the Ming Kingdom has thousands of princely sailing ships?"

"I'm afraid there's more."

"This ship, from the outside gun ports I saw, has about twenty-four guns."

"The quality of the Ming people's artillery is very good. With the same weight, the shells they fired are heavier and can reach farther than ours. We have experienced this deeply in several naval battles.

And they have a satanic weapon."

"rocket missile!"

"correct."

"Twenty-four guns would be a main battleship in Portugal, or even in Spain. But here in the Ming Dynasty, it can only run fixed routes.

Leon, have you seen the Ming navy's flagship with your own eyes? How does it compare to this ship?"

"Twice as big as this. I've heard from two Ming naval officers that their battleships are called Class B battleships, which have sixty-eight to eighty guns."

"Oh my God!" Marcelo couldn't help but make the sign of the cross.

"My Lord Marquis, Yi means second in Ming language, which means there are bigger battleships with more guns."

Marcelo could no longer call out the name of God, because deep down in his heart, he felt that even God could not protect him.

He looked at Leon and said meaningfully: “Leon, maybe you are right.

The Ming is so powerful that Portugal should not be its enemy. The world is so big that it can accommodate both the Ming and us. "

How can we tolerate Spain, which has always been eyeing Portugal?
Leon didn't say anything, but nodded knowingly. "Chi-Chi."

Two seabirds flapped their wings, hovered over the bow for a while, and then landed on the oblique mast, looking down at the two of them with their small round green eyes wide open.

"Seagull, is there land nearby?"

Leon thought for a moment and said, "According to the route, we should be near the Andaman Islands now."

"Anman Islands?"

"Yes, to its north is Bagan, and to its south is the Yanxi Islands, which are the extended islands west of Sumatra. Now the Ming people call the islands near Malacca the Yanzhou Islands. Sumatra is called Yannan Island, and Java is called Yanzhong Island.

The peninsula where Malacca is located is called Sanbaofu. When I was in Goa Port, I heard from the Ming people that it is now renamed Sanbao County. It is under the jurisdiction of the Yanzhou Governor's Office. "

Maanlig murmured, "Malaka, the Spice Islands."

Leon understood a lot from his regretful tone, and shrugged and replied, "There's nothing we can do, God is not on our side this time.

But we have one huge advantage.”

Ma Anlige turned around and said, "I know you have analyzed these situations with His Majesty the King. His Majesty agreed with it, so he sent the two of us to the Ming Kingdom.

Leon, do you think we really have an advantage? "

"Mr. Marquis, although we, Portugal, have had a series of unpleasant wars with the Ming, it is undeniable that we are the first Europeans to have a direct battle with the Ming people and then have a deep understanding of them.

Now that the war is over, the Ming people have not continued to fight with us. They have also allowed us to do business in the Indian ports they occupied; allowed our Portuguese ships to pass through the Malacca Strait and enter the Port of Longkou; allowed us to continue north to Xinzhou, Hue, Jing'an (Haiphong), Guangzhou, Quanzhou and even Shanghai.

My Lord Marquis, the Ming Dynasty’s ships only went as far as the Cape of Good Hope, and their trading posts only went as far as Mogadishu, Malindi, and Mombasa.”

Ma Anlig looked at Leon, "You mean, we can take advantage and monopolize the business between Europe and Ming."

"Correct!"

"But we just went to war with the Ming Dynasty." Ma Anlige still felt something was wrong.

"Mr. Marquis, the way the Ming people do business is different from that of us Portuguese and even Europeans."

"How is it different?"

"Wherever our merchant ships go, the navy will follow. Where the Ming people's navy goes, the merchant ships will go there. When they enter a new area, the navy will first establish its prestige and publicize it to all directions, and then the merchant ships will continue to follow."

"Establish your authority?"

"Yes, Lord Marquis. When the Ming people were exploring new markets, they would first send their navy there to find the strongest and most capable force in the area, and then find a random excuse to cripple it.

Then we told other forces in the area that we are here to do business and we can all live in peace from now on.”

Marcelo stroked his chin, not knowing how to start.

"The business thinking of the Ming people is really weird and hard to accept."

Leon sighed, "The Ming people have a history of three thousand years, which has continued uninterrupted. They call themselves the Celestial Empire and think they are the center of the world.

We explore the world to understand it; they explore the world to let the world understand Ming China."

I want the world to know about Ming Dynasty!

Marcelo understood, and he nodded slowly: "The Ming people are really confident in their culture."

"They prefer to call their culture civilization."

"civilization?"

"Yes."

Marcelo thought of another question, "Leon, we Portuguese have fought and dealt with the Ming Dynasty. The Spanish have also fought and dealt with the Ming people.

Do you think we have an advantage over the Spaniards? "

"Your Excellency the Marquis, we have a huge advantage."

“What are the advantages?”

"The biggest advantage is that the Ming fleet has now reached the west coast of the New World and is engaged in a fierce war with the Spanish fleet.

Marquis, we are in Lisbon and have heard a lot of news from Seville."

"That's right. According to the news from Seville, the Spanish suffered a great loss in the New World.

It is said that the Ming people built five ports and six castles in the northwest region of the Viceroyalty of Mexico, reclaimed more than 100,000 acres of fertile land, and immigrated 50,000 to 60,000 people, all of whom were young and strong, and almost all of them were soldiers.

What is even more amazing is that the Ming people quickly won over the indigenous people there, doing business with them, teaching them to build houses, farming, and intermarrying with them. The glory of God did not awaken those indigenous people, but the Ming people easily won their hearts. "

"My Lord Marquis, from my limited knowledge of history, any empire originated from a city-state or tribe. This was true for the Roman Empire and the Mongol Empire.

The same is true of the Ming Empire. They have a history of 3,000 years, which has never been interrupted. Their history books say that their ancestors were tribal leaders, and then they expanded to the territory they have today.

What is even more terrifying is that the Ming Empire was different from other empires. It had the same writing, the same culture, the same ideology, and the same political system for three thousand years.

It is not like the Roman Empire, which was eventually destroyed by barbarians; it is not like the Mongol Empire, which was eventually assimilated by the local people; nor is it like India, which has countless scripts and languages.

Well, the last metaphor is not appropriate. India is not really an empire, it is just the back garden of the empire. "

Marcelo nodded. "Leon, I understand what you mean. The Ming people's means of expansion are different from ours. Their long history and profound culture, like the sea, will merge different city-states, tribes and countries.

This is what happened to the native peoples of the New World.”

"Yes."

"According to the news from Selivia, there are over 200,000 native people from the New World who have become dependent on the Ming people and have become their vassal army.

They grazed cattle, sheep and war horses for them, cultivated farmland for them, built castles for them, and followed them to attack the Spanish strongholds in the Viceroyalty of Mexico.

At sea, the powerful fleet of the Ming Dynasty made it so that not a single Spanish warship could be seen on the west coast. About a thousand Spaniards from the Viceroyalty of Chile fled across the snow-capped mountains and through the jungles and returned to Bogota, with only less than four hundred people left.

But Spain."

Marcelo paused. “The Spanish are too arrogant.”

"Yes, Marquis. They are too arrogant and greedy. The New World is so big that the Ming Dynasty cannot destroy all the Spanish strongholds in the New World at once.

Why not negotiate? Spain manages the east, Ming manages the west, they have nothing to do with each other.

Marquis, when we passed Madera, I met an old Spanish sailor in the tavern. He told me that the Ming ships bypassed the Strait of Magellan and appeared in the Caribbean Sea. In three months, they sank eleven Spanish ships of various sizes.

Marcelo sighed and said, "Leon, I believe you now. Mingguo is a giant dragon. Any small move he makes can be earth-shattering to us."

The sailboat continued to sail with the wind. At noon that day, we could see land, a lighthouse, a castle, and ships coming in and out in the distance on the right.

Marcelo pointed and asked, "Leon, where is that?"

(End of this chapter)