Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1082 A Thousand Sails Overwhelm the Sea (Part [-])
Gao Jing is not very unfamiliar with the Spaniards in Luzon, but he is obviously not familiar with "Mexico".In fact, the Mexico he just mentioned refers to Mexico City.

In terms of current administrative divisions, Mexico City is the seat of the Governor General of New Spain in the Kingdom of Castile.

The jurisdiction of the Governor of New Spain is very large, including Mexico, Central America (except Panama), California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and the Philippine Islands in Asia— ——that is, Luzon, as the Ming people called it, is the most important overseas territory of the Spanish colonial empire.

As for the transportation of silver from the Americas to the Philippine Islands, this is a phenomenon that existed in ancient history, and under the influence of high pragmatism, the scale of the Spaniards' silver transportation surpassed history.

The foreign trade of the Ming Dynasty has two most notable features. One is that the merchants of the Ming Dynasty almost only accept precious metals, mainly silver and supplemented by gold; value, thus becoming a global precious metal black hole, especially silver black hole.

As we all know, after the discovery of the Iwami Silver Mine in Japan, according to the estimates of historians, in the century from 1540 to 1644, an average of 75 tons of silver flowed into Daming from Japan every year, with a total of about 7500 tons, or 1.5 million taels of silver ( According to the previous instructions in this book, the Ming system weight was converted into the current Shijin and Shiliang, so this data is approximately equal to).

In other words, in Japan alone, an average of about 150 million taels of silver unilaterally flowed into Ming Dynasty every year.

But although Japan has a geographical advantage, it is only one of the sources of silver entering Ming Dynasty, and the other larger source is the Americas.

In the 24th year (1545) and 27th year (1548) of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, the Spaniards successively discovered super large silver mines in Potosi (later Bolivia) and Zacatecas, Mexico.Since then, a large amount of low-cost American silver has been continuously injected into Spain and other major European countries through various channels such as international trade, financial operations, smuggling, pirate plunder, and war reparations.

But what is more funny is that most of the American silver that flowed into Europe at the beginning was finally shipped to Daming, where it was used to purchase Daming’s world-exclusive and irreplaceable products.

At the very beginning, its silver circulation route was: Spain's famous "Armada" loaded with silver, departed from Mexico, Panama, Peru and other places, passed through the port of Lisbon in Portugal and Seville in the southern part of Spain, and bypassed the Cape of Good Hope in Africa , arrived at the port of Goa, India.

Along this line, there are buying and selling, loading and unloading.After arriving at the port of Goa, a large amount of silver from the Mediterranean and Middle East markets flowing into India was added, and then transported to Macau via Malacca.In the end, the Portuguese used the silver to purchase the huge amount of Ming goods needed by markets in Japan, India, the Middle East, the Near East, Central Europe, and Western Europe—the Ming Dynasty actually acted as a "world factory".

At that time, only Portuguese merchant ships transported silver from Goa Port to Macau every year at about 12 taels at the beginning, and then gradually increased to about 60 taels.

In the fifth year of Longqing (1571), the Spaniards established a colonial capital in Manila, Philippines.Since then, the waterway has changed. American silver began to cross the Pacific Ocean directly, transported to Manila, and then transferred to Ming Dynasty through trade. This is the famous "Manila Galleon" trade in world history.This route also became the main channel for importing American silver into Ming Dynasty in the late Ming Dynasty in the original history.

In the last 50 years or so of the original history, the total amount of silver that flowed into Daming through the America-Philippines-Daming route reached at least 4620 tons, or 9240 million taels.

In fact, during the period after the middle Wanli period, the world's silver production, including Japan and the Americas, accounted for one-third or even one-half of the total, and eventually flowed into Daming.It is clear that the statement of silver black holes is not a joke.

The root cause is that "Made in China" in the late Ming Dynasty was so competitive that it could be called invincible.At that time, the whole world benefited from the high-quality and cheap commodities exported by Ming Dynasty, such as tea, porcelain, silk, cotton cloth, medicinal materials and so on.

Looking at the world from the perspective of Daming, the goods that can be sold to Daming in other places are very limited, which forces them to use silver as currency to do business with Daming.

According to historical records, when foreign merchant ships came to Daming for trade, "they carried very few goods, and most of them belonged to Fanyin".The reason why the later emperors of the Qing Dynasty would habitually claim that there was nothing lacking in the kingdom of heaven may be due to the inertia of thinking that China had maintained a large trade surplus for three to four hundred years before 1800.

Let me tell you a funny thing. In the tenth year of Chongzhen (1637), when the merchant ship of the British East India Company arrived in Ming Dynasty for the first time, the British were very excited, thinking that they could finally make money from Ming Dynasty.Who knew that the slap in the face came too fast, they couldn't even sell a single piece of British goods, and in the end they just threw out 8 Spanish silver dollars, and then returned with a full load of goods from Ming Dynasty—what's even more funny is that they took the goods back Selling them made a huge profit, which was much more cost-effective than selling British goods in Daming.

But now the Spaniards have not enjoyed the treatment of the British in this story, they still have no way to directly drive the merchant ships into Daming, they can only do second-hand trade through the relationship of the Portuguese in Haojing (Macau) .

If not, they can only wait in the Philippines, waiting for the merchants of Ming Dynasty to come to trade on their own initiative.Fortunately, the Spaniards found that Ming's merchant ships seemed to be growing rapidly in recent years, especially the "Jinghua Maritime Trade" fleet, which often made appointments with them to come directly to the Philippines for transactions.

However, as King Philip II of Spain took advantage of the succession crisis of the Kingdom of Portugal and forcibly "unified" Portugal on the basis of Spain's strong force (of course he did have the right to claim), this situation may have a chance to change.

At least the Spaniards in Luzon feel they have this opportunity and are working on it.

But they didn't know that the Portuguese had no interest in giving themselves one more competitor for no reason at all.

And the time when the Jinghua Expeditionary Fleet went to Burma happened to be the first attempt by the Spaniards to take over the "Daming Trade Concession" currently in the hands of the Portuguese.

It is especially coincidental that Gao Jing, a Spanish fleet that had just arrived in Luzon from the Americas, had just completed a major transaction with the Jinghua Nanyang Fleet in Luzon and Quanzhou Port, and was heading to Malacca, preparing to return to Europe.

Forty Spanish galleons have set off from Manila for two days, and they are already approaching Changsha (which belongs to Guangdong, that is, the Nansha Islands), and the Jinghua Expeditionary Fleet, which departed from Jingang more than a day earlier, has also arrived at a place that history buffs may be more familiar with. The location: near the waters of Natuna Island—but at this time, Natuna Island was not called by this name, and Da Ming called this island Wansheng Shitang Islet.

The origin of this name is related to Zheng He. The meaning of "Wansheng Shitangyu" means that the island is the island where Zheng He's soldiers lived and produced here.

According to Gao Jing's suggestion, the Jinghua Fleet will temporarily stop at Wansheng Shitang Island today to replenish supplies such as fresh water and fruits on the island.

In fact, this is also considering that the army has only undergone sea adaptation training for a short time after all, especially the wolf soldiers under Huang Zhiting's command.After all, in a highly pragmatic way, Guangxi wolf soldiers belong to the professional arms of mountain warfare and jungle warfare. Less than a month of sea adaptation training may not be able to guarantee that they can drift at sea for a long time, and then they will be able to fight immediately after disembarking. Into the intense battle, so the necessary stopovers are necessary.

Of course, Wansheng Island belonged to the Ming people. To be precise, it is now the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and there is a major surname in the area called Zeng.The ancestor of the Zeng family was called Zeng Yuanfang, who was a group of boatman leaders who were ordered by the emperor to stay on the island during the Xuanzong period. Later, the Zeng family gradually became the actual masters of the island.

The reason Zeng was able to become the de facto "owner of the island" was that although Emperor Xuanzong stopped sailing to the west, he ordered Zeng Yuanfang and others to guard the island. words.Therefore, Wansheng Islet is the official name of Wansheng Shitang Islet, and the meaning of "Anbuna" is said to mean "guarding the island with peace of mind and not paying taxes"-anyway, that's what they told the people in Jinghua.

It is not the first time that people from Jinghua Maritime Trade have come to Wansheng Island, but the people who came this time are too high-ranking. The head of the Zeng family generation heard that they were the "Deputy Commander of the Annan Metropolis of the Ming Dynasty", and was immediately frightened. one jump.

After further questioning, I found out that this deputy commander-in-chief is not only a dignified third-rank official of the Ming court, but also brought a large army with him this time. The people sent by Gao Jing took the boat he sent to show him off in the sea What is "the heavenly soldiers are huge, and the thousand sails cover the sea".

Needless to say, Zeng Yongcheng, the current Patriarch of the Zeng family, was too busy arranging the reception.

However, although the island is large, the population on the island is not very large, probably less than [-], of which the main city of the Zeng family only has more than [-] people.The so-called port is even more cramped, and it is impossible to dock such a huge fleet.

Therefore, after dispatching small boats to discuss, Huang Zhiting and Gao Jing decided to dock only four warships into the port, and the rest of the ships anchored on the offshore coast outside the port.Fortunately, the water depth inside and outside the port in this place is sufficient, otherwise there will be other troubles.

Seeing the majestic giant ship of the "motherland" sailing into the harbor, the islanders on Wansheng Island were extremely excited and cheered. Some old people even bowed their heads and shouted something.

If Gao Wushi came here in person, she would definitely be very moved, but Huang Zhiting is not a time traveler, she just watched silently for a while, and said to Gao Jing: "Like Wansheng Island, the islands are all the islands of the survivors of the Ming Dynasty. Is there any more?"

Compared with Huang Zhiting, Gao Jing was more familiar with it, nodded and said: "Of course, there are actually quite a lot of survivors of the Celestial Dynasty in Nanyang, but there are not many survivors of the Ming Dynasty like Wanshengyu, and most of them are mixed in. Among the natives. The master told us before, let us get in touch with them, the reason why the Nanyang Fleet can get so much news in Malacca is thanks to this."

Huang Zhiting thought for a while, then suddenly asked: "I remember Senior High School Cheng told me that the key to overseas development is to master sea routes and seaports, and use each seaport as a springboard to connect them together. Like a pearl necklace, each seaport is Each pearl, the line in the middle is the waterway, thus forming your own chain of maritime power—have you not considered Wansheng Island as one of the 'pearls'?"

"Why didn't you think about it?" Gao Jing said with a wry smile: "The little one wrote a letter to report this to the master himself, but the master refused, saying that since the people on Wansheng Island thought they were my Ming people, they still held If there is an edict from Xuanmiao, then don’t take it by force... What the master means is that we can only occupy islands that have nothing to do with me, Ming Dynasty."

Huang Zhiting frowned slightly, and asked, "So what's the result now?"

"Annan Squadron has not achieved anything worth mentioning yet." Gao Jing spread his hands helplessly: "At present, Jinghua is concentrating on migrating population to Annan, and Annan can't handle it, so how can there be extra people moving to Nanyang?

Dutong, if the island wants to become the "pearl" that the master said, it is useless to erect a stone monument. It can only be discussed after the population has been relocated, and towns and seaports have been established.According to my little knowledge, there is only one such target on our Nanyang Fleet side, and that is Hong Kong... oh, it's called Taiwan now. "

Huang Zhiting smiled, nodded and said: "It seems that I am too ambitious, presumably your master must have his own plans in mind for these things."

This is not easy to answer, neither can it be said that the master has no plans in mind, nor can he offend Deputy Huang Dutong in person, admitting that she is "so ambitious", so Gao Jing just gave an apologetic laugh, then changed the subject, saying: "Dutong, Although Wansheng Islet is not under the control of our Jinghua, the difference is not too big, because the imperial court has actually not had much control over Wansheng Islet for a long time—the Guangdong navy may come to patrol the sea every three to five years. , but because Wansheng Island doesn’t have to pay taxes, so when the Guangdong Navy comes, it’s at most the same as ours this time, coming here to replenish fresh water and food, and will not interfere in the affairs of the island.”

Huang Zhiting heard Gao Jing's subtext, Liu raised her eyebrows lightly: "You mean, Island Master Zeng...well, will be very happy to cooperate with us?"

"I don't know if he is 'very happy', but he will definitely cooperate when he 'cooperates'." Gao Jing said with a smile: "Don't say that with our current strength, we can easily win the whole island, even if only you With the seal of Guan Fang, they did not dare not to cooperate. After all, his Zeng family was able to be the leader of Wansheng Island, relying on the imperial edict from the Xuanmiao to let them guard the island. Ling, what island is he guarding? Why should the people on the island obey his family? You know, his family’s ancestors were only boatmen’s chiefs, not chieftains.”

Huang Zhiting was very satisfied, nodded, and asked, "For such a big island, fresh water should be sufficient, but food and fruits..."

"Food doesn't matter, we brought more than enough." Gao Jing said: "It's mainly fruit, but this is not a problem. There is no distinction between spring, summer, autumn and winter in Nanyang, so it's hard to say anything else. Fruits really have everything that one expects to find, and almost You don’t need to plant them, they are everywhere in the mountains and plains, you just need to send people to pick them.”

At this moment, the two of them were just about to disembark when suddenly a small centipede speedboat drove up behind them, and the Jinghua crew members on the speedboat waved the flag vigorously.

Huang Zhiting and Gao Jing were reminded by the sailors on the observation deck to turn their heads to look, but Huang Zhiting did not understand the semaphore and did not know what the crew on the small boat meant, so they had to look at Gao Jing.

Gao Jing looked at it for a while, then immediately frowned, her face became very serious, and said to Huang Zhiting: "The fleet guard formation sent a report, saying that a Spanish fleet was found in the Wanli Changsha waters. They didn't They know whether they should be regarded as enemy troops, so they are approaching us... Well, they also said that they have sent two fast boats to monitor the movements of the Spaniards, but please give us an order as soon as possible.”

Huang Zhiting's face changed when she heard it, and she asked in a deep voice, "Spanish? Is that the fleet with forty large Galenic ships you mentioned earlier?"
-
Thank you book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your support, thank you!
Thanks to the book friend "Disrepair nn" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
(End of this chapter)