The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 28 Five Liang of Thousand Words
Long Guolu asked: "Is Xiangshan Ao also the location of the Portuguese business office?"

Wang Wenlong nodded, "The Portuguese have several forms of business establishments. If it is easy to invade and colonize a country, they will establish armed forces there and even enslave the local people. If it is difficult to invade, the Portuguese will do business honestly and make friends with officials. Trying to gain a foothold.”

All Ming officials and even Gao Yin felt a little uncomfortable when they heard this.

Sixty years ago, the Portuguese bribed local officials in Guangdong to obtain the right to dock ships and conduct trade at the Macau pier. More than 60 years ago, they settled ashore on the grounds that their goods were exposed to the sun and were soaked in water.

Nowadays, the Portuguese presence in Macau is in a gray area. Guangdong and even the Ming Dynasty officials all benefited from this chain of interests, so they turned a blind eye to it.

According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, Macau is now only a port leased by the Portuguese and has the right to dock ships and trade. But after Wang Wenlong said it, it turned out that the land of the Ming Dynasty was actually a colony in the eyes of others. Naturally, many officials thought that Mixed feelings.

Long Guolu and others even subconsciously wanted to find a way to drive away the Portuguese in Macau, but after thinking about it carefully, they found that the matter was very difficult to handle.

Although the Portuguese were operating in Macau, they did not cause much harm to the Ming Dynasty. They even actively paid taxes and promoted the Ming Dynasty's commerce. There was no reason to expel them even according to the Ming Dynasty laws.

All the officials felt that they were being taken advantage of but were unable to resist.

At this time, the focus of the audience had already focused on Wang Wenlong, and what was originally a tea party almost turned into a speech by Wang Wenlong alone.

Li Guoshu asked: "Since the Portuguese have established so many business houses and are so powerful at sea, why were they still annexed by the Spanish?"

Wang Wenlong smiled and said: "Because the successors of the Portuguese were the Spanish, they also learned the Portuguese business model and went further."

He explained: "Portugal is a small country and the people are poor, so they can only pursue profits from trade, but Spain's national power is far more powerful than Portugal, and they can colonize even barren lands."

"Spain arrived in the desolate and backward America to open up wasteland and mines, and captured natives from Africa as slaves. They used the slaves to harvest large amounts of grain, cotton, sugar cane, gold and silver. The Spaniards on the American continent who were unable to operate for Portugal could also make profits from it."

"The Spanish became stronger step by step from this, and then challenged the Portuguese hegemony at sea."

"At the same time, Portugal also faced challenges from countries such as Tianzhu and Persia where they had established colonies. Since the opening of new shipping routes hurt the interests of Venice, the former hegemon of the Mediterranean, the Venetians also united with the Muslims in Persia to start a war with Portugal, and subsequently rose to prominence. The Western European countries were also jealous of Portugal's monopoly on the new shipping routes and attacked Portugal's colonies one after another."

"The King of Portugal wanted to imitate Spain and occupy colonies and open up plantations to become a powerful country. King Sebastian went on an expedition to Africa for this purpose but ended up dying in battle. Portugal's national power plummeted. In the end, Portugal's landowners and merchants wanted to preserve their navigation interests. It had to merge with Spain 18 years ago.”

"The Spanish came to the vicinity of Luzon decades ago in order to open up a new colony here and compete with the Portuguese for control of their so-called East Indies."

Everyone here sighed when they heard Portugal's final outcome.

Several officials frowned in thought. They were also shocked by what Wang Wenlong said about Portugal's magnificent voyages. Even the slightly sensitive people felt that these countries might pose a threat to the Ming Dynasty in the future.

Xiong Qingbo asked: "According to what you said, Spain will become the maritime overlord that will succeed Portugal?"

Wang Wenlong thought for a while: "Spain owns many large gold and silver mines in the Americas, as well as vast plantations. At the same time, it has learned the Portuguese's business model and will become the new maritime overlord in at least the next few decades."

"It seems from sir's tone that there are still variables?" Han Zhuo asked curiously. Although he is the prefect of Zhangzhou, he couldn't help but use a respectful tone towards Wang Wenlong at this time.

Wang Wenlong nodded and said: "Although the Spaniards established colonies and commercial houses, their colonization still operated with the idea of ​​using the colonies to make money to support the mother country."

"Recently I heard that the red-haired people have a new model called a chartered company. The sovereign country gives power to the colonies and allows the colonies to operate independently. The colonial companies have financial and military power and act like a country. They only need to hand over a fixed amount of benefits to the sovereign country. If there is If a country colonizes in this way, Spain’s maritime hegemony will not last long.”

Everyone in the flower hall was silent. This group of upper-class people in the Ming Dynasty were all imagining what the concept of a chartered company mentioned by Wang Wenlong was like.This is no longer about opening a government office and building a government, but almost splitting the land and dividing the territory. A king gave his territory to businessmen for management, and even let the businessmen form an army, all for the purpose of pursuing the greatest benefits.

This scene made these Ming characters shudder.

At this moment, someone suddenly shouted: "Stop! Where do you want to go?"

When everyone reacted, they saw Li Bagin pulling Zhang Ni's clothes. Zhang Ni's face was ashen and he had already run to the door of the flower hall.

Seeing this situation, Gao Yin didn't realize that Zhang Yi was just a liar.

He thought that he had almost been deceived by this guy and reported his plan to mine Yishan to the emperor. If that was the case, he didn't know what kind of disaster it would cause.

Gao Yin quickly scolded Zhang Ni with a straight face and said, "I have long seen that you are a liar, and today I have specially arranged staff to expose your lies. What else can you say?"

Zhang Ni was frightened, and Gao Yin said to Han Zhuo: "Prefect Han, this man is from Zhangzhou. I have exposed his lies here. This boy is so bold. Let the prefect see what to do."

Han Zhuo felt contempt in his heart. How could Gao Yin see Zhang Ni's lies just now? But now he naturally had to help Gao Yin act, and said with admiration on his face:
"My father-in-law is wise, please hand over this thief to me, and I will make him tell the truth!"

Gao Yin nodded, then looked at Wang Wenlong. He stood up and entered the back room without saying anything.

Wang Wenlong didn't panic at all. He knew that although Gao Yin had a very bad character, he had a good mind.

His performance today even saved Gao Yin. Even if Gao Yin felt that he was losing face, it would be difficult to do anything to him.

At this time, Xiong Qingbo came up and said with a smile: "Sir's discussion about Portugal is really wonderful. I am planning to publish an anthology of poetry recently. I wonder if you can write an article for me about what you said earlier. Anthology published?”

Wang Wenlong said: "I am writing a related book. Now I only have the manuscripts of the first few chapters. It will take time to complete the book."

Today's discussion about Wang Wenlong will definitely spread soon. Xiong Qingbo is afraid that if he does not print the book in time, he will not catch up with the hot topic. There are many people who can write articles at today's gathering. If they go back and write Wang Wenlong's words into articles, they will publish them. The books I published were slower than others.

Xiong Qingbo laughed quickly and said: "This kind of collection of essays is published one by one, and fragments can also be printed."

To show his sincerity, Xiong Qingbo added: "I can give you a manuscript fee of fifty taels per thousand words, and I promise that all subsequent manuscripts of this book will be at this price."

After hearing this, everyone standing nearby looked at the two people in surprise.

They thought Wang Wenlong's comments were quite clever just now, but when they heard Xiong Qingbo quote such a high price, they realized that Wang Wenlong's words had such high value in the eyes of these bookstore owners.

Fifty taels per thousand words is already a very high fee for essay submissions. If Wang Wenlong hadn't said this at Gao Yin's birthday banquet today and caused everyone's surprise, I'm afraid he wouldn't have paid such a high price.

The amount of money even made some Qingshui Yamen officials a little envious.

This was exactly what Wang Wenlong wanted. He thought for a moment and agreed: "In that case, I will take the manuscript to Brother Xiong later."

　Drive out a chapter_('-'_)⌒)_
　　
　
(End of this chapter)