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Chapter 356 Everyone makes the best use of their talents

But there are a few people who are not easy to arrange, such as the baron and his wife, the maid, the ship's clerk, and the two Spanish officials who went to Manila to work in the bank. They can neither sail nor fight nor build ships. Apart from being good at talking, they are basically useless to the navy.

Useless? There is no word waste in Hong Tao's dictionary. Unless you are dead, as long as you are a human being, you must be useful. Whether you can use it, whether you dare to use it, and whether you know how to use it is the key.

On the fifth day after Huang Nanping led the fleet to arrive at the Haihe Shipyard, the baron and his wife, plus the maid, clerk Sanchez, and bank clerks Diego and Dominguez, were secretly sent into the Forbidden City by two carriages from the Imperial Horse Guards.

After a brief exchange, Hong Tao once again reiterated the treatment of prisoners as an emperor. It would be impossible for these men to return to Spain for a long time, and no ransom, no exchange, and no one would admit to hijacking the Montanis.

If you don't want to work hard to death in factories and mines, you must go to Nanhai Zihuangzhuang to study Chinese hard. When you can communicate normally with the emperor in Chinese, you will get a job.

In addition to studying, Baron Silva also needs to write an introduction to the current situation of European countries in Latin, with as many angles as possible, as many characters as possible, and as detailed as possible.

The same goes for clerks and bank clerks, who must clearly describe the bank's operating model and accounting methods in Europe. Only the baroness and the maid received preferential treatment and were allowed to stay in the harem as Latin teachers.

It cannot be said that Hong Tao made this arrangement without any selfish motives, but most of it was for work. When such a big thing happens, the Spanish in Manila will definitely not give up. Whether it is a war or a peace, they will always send people to negotiate. When the time comes, they can let this pretty eye-catching baroness be their secretary and translator.

At first, the Baroness was quite proud, thinking that the young emperor would fall under her skirt like many European nobles. She kept thinking about how to use her charm and skills to turn her imagination into reality as soon as possible.

At this time, the emperor was really willing to be approached. Apart from his strange accent and lack of proficiency in vocabulary and grammar, he spoke Latin well and was very talkative and easy-going. He seemed to be a very easy person to get along with.

But after more than ten days of contact, the Baroness put this little idea away. This man is very scary. There is not even a trace of desire in his eyes, which are clearer than the eyes of the red archbishop. For women who use beauty as a weapon, a man without desire is a natural enemy and almost impossible to defeat.

What's even more terrifying is that there are at least thousands of castrated male slaves in the palace. This kind of thing in Europe may be traced back to the ancient Rome, but now it is happening before our eyes. Not only do I have to interact with them every day, but I also have to give lessons to hundreds of young slaves who can speak Latin, correcting their pronunciation and grammatical errors.

And the most terrifying thing is that the emperor is very familiar with Europe, which is not surprising. As long as you want to learn, as the emperor of a big country, there are many ways to learn about the situation in other countries, even if they are thousands of miles away.

But the Europe that the emperor was familiar with was not the Europe of today, but more like the Europe of hundreds of years ago. When chatting, I would often blurt out the secrets of some people, and they were all famous families in medieval Europe, including two popes and many red archbishops.

What kind of Eastern emperor would be so familiar with the secrets of European courts and churches hundreds of years ago, yet know nothing about the European royal families of today? Whenever the Baroness thinks of these questions, her back will feel cold and her heart will grow weary. She is both afraid and curious, and she really can’t figure it out but is also curious.

The Baroness did not know how to swim, but she learned it on her third day in the harem. When he was about to drown, he clearly saw the emperor smiling, and then his body slowly floated up. According to students, this is how they learned to swim. If you are not thrown into the water, the learning process will be very slow, or you may never learn. The emperor's explanation was even more irritating. He said it was because he wanted to have a beautiful woman to swim with, and all the women in his harem, including the queen and the two concubines, were very resistant to exposing their bodies.

As for whether the queen and concubines are like this, the Baroness doesn't know. After entering this huge palace, he could only live next to the large lake called the West Garden and could not enter the real harem at all.

The people who come into contact with the most every day are slaves, old, young, teenagers, all kinds of slaves. Occasionally I saw a few young women who seemed to be slaves of the emperor, a bit like maids in European palaces.

Apart from a lot of confusion and discomfort, the Baroness quite approves of the palace life here. The first thing is to eat well. All kinds of food that I have never eaten before are placed in front of me in different styles every day, including sweets and fruits. There are so many varieties that I still haven’t figured out the names.

The second is clothing. It seems that there is no emphasis on wearing corsets and bustles here, but the exquisiteness of the fabrics of the clothing is even better than that of European palaces, and the precious jewelry is even more diverse.

In terms of living comfort, the Oriental Palace is much better than those in Europe. The room is very luxuriously decorated, with gold and silver inlaid everywhere, exquisite patterns carved on the furniture, and thick Persian carpets underfoot. When the weather is hot, slaves will find ice cubes to cool down.

If it weren't for the fact that the young emperor loved water so much that he asked those around him to bathe in hot water every day, living in this huge palace would indeed feel like heaven.

"Your Majesty, your country is so rich, why did you hijack a Spanish silver ship? This is not an ordinary merchant ship, but the property of the king and the church.

You must know that Spain has the most powerful fleet in the world. In addition to the New World, it also occupies many overseas territories in the East Indies. It is very unwise and very unworthy to annoy a powerful country for a ship of silver. "

Even so, the Baroness missed her previous life more and did not want to be locked in a cage and be a canary. But she knew better that the only way to gain freedom was to persuade the emperor to agree to pay a ransom and let her go.

"No more fearless attempts. I will not release you until I feel it is appropriate. I will not even publicly admit that I have hijacked the Montanis, and I am not afraid of the Spanish Navy.

You don’t have to wonder why, Eastern culture is completely different from Europe. There are no church ties here, and no recognition from other countries is required. Regardless of reputation or not, the emperor can do whatever he wants, and no one dares to object. "

Sitting under a parasol on the shore, the water droplets on my body are evaporating at a speed visible to the naked eye. This summer has been extremely hot. Hong Tao's eyes seemed to be fixed on the Baroness's body, but in his heart he was thinking about whether the northern provinces would experience a large-scale drought. He didn't even think about what he said.

(End of this chapter)