I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 871: Europe is dominated by illegitimate children

On the sea 260 nautical miles southwest of Porto Galí, Spain.

A sailboat drifts on the waves. It is the Santa Maria, the flagship of the Spanish Armada.

The sun shines down warmly, making people feel warm all over.

The moist sea breeze made people's faces itchy, and the Burgundy cross flag on the mast of the Santa Maria fluttered in the wind.

On the sunken forecastle of the ship, Don Juan held up a monocular telescope and looked out at the sea in the distance.

In the flickering halo, seven ships opened one-third of their sails and slowly sailed towards this side.

After looking for a while, Juan put down the monocular and slowly put it away.

"Ming people!"

He lowered his head and saw a seabird engraved on the shining brass tube of the telescope, with a line of square words on it.

This telescope, which can see dozens of miles away, was also produced in the Ming Dynasty.

After the Beijing Optical Instrument Factory developed binoculars, monocular telescopes immediately went from being a sweet thing to being Mrs. Niu, and were disliked by the army and navy.

After binoculars were widely deployed, the Imperial Household Department and the Imperial Household Department removed monocular telescopes from the list of export-controlled goods and allowed their export.

The Arab merchants with extremely sensitive sense of smell spent a lot of money to buy a large number of monocular telescopes.

The goods were shipped back to the Ottoman Empire and then resold to Venetian and Genoese merchants at high prices. These greedy Italian merchants simply added a zero to the purchase price and sold it to nobles and military generals from various countries.

This is how the Seagull brand monocular telescope in Don Juan's hand, produced by Shanghai Optical Instrument Factory, came about.

His deputy and nephew Alessandro Farnese stepped forward and said in a deep voice, "General, we have the Santa Maria and forty artillery sailing ships. We can completely destroy this arrogant Ming fleet!"

Farnese was thirty years old, two years older than Juan.

His grandfather was Pier Luigi Farnese, the illegitimate son of Pope Paul III and the first Duke of Parma and Castro.

His mother was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire's Habsburg dynasty, Monarch of the Netherlands, King of Germany, and the first king of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. She was also Juan's half-sister, Margaret, Governor-General of the Netherlands.

Juan turned to look at his nephew and said, "With the Santa Maria, can we conquer the whole world?"

Farnese's eyes sparkled with fanaticism and admiration.

"Why not?
Even without the Santa Maria, we were able to defeat the powerful Ottoman navy in Lepanto, Greece under your leadership."

Farnese was talking about the year 1571 when Juan served as the commander of the Holy League fleet, leading a combined fleet of warships from Spain, Venice and other countries, and fought a fierce battle with warships commanded by Osman Ali Pasha in Lepanto, Greece.

Juan commanded the fleets properly, breaking up the fleets of various countries and re-mixing the formations, which was conducive to cooperation and mutual supervision among the fleets of various countries.

Six giant warships (six hundred tons) were lined up in front of the battle line, and artillery was used to disrupt the battle formation of the Ottoman Navy. The power of artillery sailing ships was fully utilized, and the Ottoman Navy, which was mainly composed of galleys, was severely defeated.

Forty thousand enemy troops were annihilated, and 224 ships were destroyed or captured.

Ever since the fame of the Spanish Invincible Armada shook the entire Christian world, Spain began its heyday of dominating the Mediterranean and Europe.

Juan shook his head. “So what about the Invincible Armada? We defeated the Ottoman navy, but we couldn’t lift the siege of Crete, and it fell into Ottoman hands.

We fought the crippled Ottoman navy and North African Muslim pirates for three years, but we still lost Tunisia."

There was a deep melancholy in Don Juan's eyes.

He was also an illegitimate child, the illegitimate son of Charles V and Barbara Blomberg, a famous singer from Regensburg, Germany, and the half-brother of King Felipe II of Spain.

Not long after he was born, Don Juan was taken away and given to be raised by a nobleman in Barcelona.

It was not until 1559 that his half brother Philip II brought Juan to meet his reclusive father for the first time. Juan was given the name Don Juan of Austria and officially recognized his ancestry.

Later, he received education in the Spanish royal palace together with his nephew Don Carlos and nephew Alexander Farnese who were of the same age.

In 1568, the -year-old Juan began to fight for Spain and his brother, leading a squadron to suppress the Barbary pirates.

He was appointed commander to suppress the Moorish uprising in 1569. The following year he successfully put down the Moorish rebellion and ended the Morisco War.

In October 1571, the 10-year-old Juan led the Holy League fleet and won the Battle of Lepanto.

He had just returned from the southern Mediterranean, exhausted.

There, the Spanish fleet he led was defeated by a fleet of the rebuilt Ottoman navy and was forced to abandon Tunisia.

Farnese said quickly, "General, it's different. The Santa Maria weighs eight hundred tons and is equipped with forty guns. It is the largest warship in the Mediterranean. One of it is worth ten."

The Santa Maria is indeed the new generation of capital ships of the Spanish Navy.

It absorbed the advantages of the Nordic galleon and was redesigned with the forecastle and stern lowered to make it more wind resistant.

The ship was enlarged to a full 820 tons and equipped with 40 guns, more than twice the size of the previous Carrick sailing ship.

The fighting power suddenly increased, which made Farnese full of confidence.

"The Farnese is a Ming warship. It's no smaller than the Santa Maria and has more guns."

Farnese frowned and said, "General, the Portuguese are trying to make themselves look good. They were defeated by the Ming people in India and the Far East, and in order to find an excuse to shirk responsibility, they deliberately exaggerated the size of the Ming warships and the number of artillery."

Juan shook his head: “Farnese, it is not difficult or shameful to admit that others are stronger than us.

The Portuguese were defeated by the Ming in India and the Far East, so what about us?
We have lost Peru, Bolivia, and Potosi in the New World, as well as a large tract of land in the northwest of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and now even Zacatecas is in danger.

Our navy in the New World was also defeated by the Ming people. The naval officers and soldiers who escaped back described the same situation as the Portuguese. "

Soon, the Ming escort fleet sailed to within three nautical miles of the Spanish fleet.

Juan raised the telescope and looked through it for a moment, then handed it to Farnese.

In the field of view of the telescope, Farnese saw the huge hulls of the Yunyang and Lund, estimated to be thousands of tons. In front of them, the Santa Maria was just a fishing boat.

The gun port on the side of the ship was opened, and the dark muzzles of the guns could be seen inside. The calibers were large and the power was huge.

There were also five warships behind them, the smallest of which was only slightly smaller than the Santa Maria, and it looked like there were thirty or forty guns. Juan saw Farnese put down the telescope and asked silently with his eyes.

My clever nephew, how do we fight this battle?
Farnese looked solemn. He slowly put away the monocular telescope in his hand. His Adam's apple twitched back and forth a few times, and then he spoke.

"General, the Ming's warships are strong and powerful. We can win, but the losses will be very heavy."

Juan nodded with relief: "Farnese, you are right. We can win, but what will happen if we win? The Ming people will just leave, what will we do in Spain?

To the north are France, the Netherlands, and Germany.

To the west is Portugal and England.

To the east are the Ottomans and the North African pirates.

To the south are the Moors who are unwilling to accept defeat.

They waited with eyes wide open for Spain to grow weak.

Farnese, this is why His Majesty the King is hesitant to send the Invincible Fleet to reinforce us as we continue to lose ground in the New World."

At this point, Juan sighed and said, "We in Spain are the most devout Christians, the chosen children of God, and the protectors of the Christian world.

But our treasury and our strength can no longer bear such a heavy responsibility."

He turned to look at Farnese and said seriously, "We think we can win, but what if we fail?"

Farnese was shocked and said in disbelief: "Failure, how could we fail?"

“Why can’t we fail?
We failed in the New World, we failed in Crete, we failed in Tunisia, why won’t we fail here?

If we fail, Ming warships will sail to the waters of Seville, Cadiz, Málaga and Valencia and fire at the ports.

What do you think will happen, Farnese?"

Farnese's face turned cold and became more serious.

He lowered his head and thought for a while before answering, “General, if the bad news spreads, the bankers in Venice and Genoa will refuse to lend money to His Majesty the King and may even start demanding repayment.

France and Portugal will form an alliance and begin to encroach on Spain's overseas territories and interests.

England and Germany would form an alliance to support the Netherlands in its rebellion and break away from Spain.

The Ottomans would continue their advance westwards, landing at Malta, at Sicily, at Sardinia, and at Naples.

The order established by Spain will be destroyed, and we will be surrounded by wolves and be bruised and battered."

Juan nodded with relief: "War is not just a military operation, it is also a continuation of politics and economy. The aggressiveness of the Ming people is only a distant threat.

The Netherlands, France, the Protestants and the Ottomans are Spain’s biggest concerns.”

Juan is Felipe II's half-brother, and Farnese is Felipe II's nephew. Both are his confidants and are well aware of the current situation in Spain and its predicament.

Farnese couldn't help but ask, "General, a distant threat, is losing the New World also distant?"

Juan looked at his nephew and said earnestly, “Everyone says that there are mountains of gold and silver in the New World, which are constantly flowing into the Spanish treasury.

But you and I both know the truth.

The gold and silver dug up in the New World were first passed through the hands of the nobles and officials of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and New Grenada, and 30% of them were gone.

On the way back to Spain, another 30% of the silver was lost. When the silver ship finally arrived at the port, the nobles had to share the silver 40% with the king, with the nobles taking 40% and His Majesty the King taking 60%.

Farnese, calculate how much gold and silver has entered the Spanish treasury?
But when the Invincible Fleet was formed, the great squares were trained, the Moors were driven out, the Protestants were suppressed, and the Christian world was defended from the Ottomans, the nobles kept silent. "

The conflicts between the central government and local governments, and between monarchs and aristocratic families, are the same all over the world.

The situation in Europe is even more serious.

They implemented a feudal system in which the subjects had nothing to do with the monarch.

Do you really think that the Magna Carta of Britain and the Estates General of France are democracies?
That is an important tool used by the nobles to fight against the monarch!

To put it bluntly, democracy only exists between the king and the nobles.

Private property is sacred and inviolable, which protects the nobles' property from being easily taken away by the king.

What property do ordinary civilians have that is worth protecting?

In the noble territory, everything belongs to the nobles, including the house you live in, the water you drink, the land you plant, the firewood you chop, and the grain you produce. All of these are the property of the nobles.

In the war to recover the Iberian Peninsula and drive out Muslims, Spain established a more powerful monarchical system than other countries, so it was able to carry out the great voyages without restraint and concentrate its financial resources to build an invincible fleet and a powerful army.

But as time passed, Spain, like the mysterious Eastern country, saw its monarch's power gradually eroded by the nobles.

These nobles, like the aristocratic families of the Ming Dynasty, only want to enjoy rights but not take responsibilities.

Why couldn't Philip III make up his mind to send the Invincible Armada to recover the New World?

The Invincible Fleet was established with all my hard work and military funds saved up bit by bit.

If I am sent to the New World to fight the Ming people until both sides suffer heavy losses, and then recapture the New World, how much benefit can I get?
After a careful calculation, all the benefits were taken away by the nobles of the New World and the local area, and I still have to pay to fill the bottomless pit!
Will Felipe III agree?
Juan and Farnese knew very well what Felipe III was thinking, and they also knew the value of the fleet they commanded.

It is the property of His Majesty the King and an important weapon to protect the King's property.

Juan and Farnese remained silent. The sea breeze was still blowing. The Burgundy Cross flag fluttered above their heads. The red cross on a white background was particularly eye-catching in the sunlight.

"General," an aide-de-camp came forward and said to Juan sternly, "the ships are waiting for your orders."

Yes, the enemy is right in front of us, should we fight or not? As the commander, Juan, you have to say something.

Juan slapped the guardrail and made up his mind, "Pass on my order!"

(End of this chapter)