Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1415 Jiannei
"No, the Chinese are very timid," Weiss sipped slowly with a glass of wine. This party made him feel extremely awkward. Fortunately, there was a cool and delicious sherry that had been chilled in the well water. "And I only need to give the innkeeper half a piastre, and he will send his two sons to stand guard at the door of my room all day with spears on their shoulders."

"The lord of Kelantan hired a Chinese guard of honor for half a piastre—" The speaker sat at the far end of the table and looked about fifty years old, with a hooked nose and a pair of vicious eyes above his high cheekbones. The eyes, the locks of hair on the kyphosis were neat and shiny with oil, and his head reeked of spoiled butter for this reason.The mayor gave him an annoyed look, but found that the count was still sipping his sherry calmly, as if he hadn't heard the rude words at all.

"Your Excellency, you may be too generous to the Chinese," Sebastian Andrade, the colonial treasurer, said this time, "half a piastre is enough for a Tagalog with a family to live for four days." Expenses."

He began to enumerate how the Chinese in the Philippines were rich, but when the Governor wanted to charge them a special residence fee in exchange for their right to live outside of Parian, they kept procrastinating and crying poor.The sins of the Chinese also include using the bad habit of gambling to confuse the pious indigenous residents. The Governor of Salamanca even agreed with the Chinese to build cockfighting casinos in Tondo and Binondo, although these two casinos handed over [-] pesos to the colonial government every year The gambling tax, but God knows how much money has flowed into the hands of the Chinese.

Andrade rattled off a lot of figures, pointing out that more and more Chinese merchant ships sailed into the port of Manila every year, but with the joint efforts of Chinese brokers and port tax officials, the treasury of the royal colony failed to increase much. Income - because the figures on the submitted report are still so few ships.The rest of the ships - though they were all in port - were reported missing.

There was talk of how much the Governor and his cronies had benefited from this blatant fraud in order to be blind to such disparities.Of course, this kind of discussion can only be whispered behind the scenes with close friends.

Obviously, His Excellency the Governor still has his own worries.He lived in constant fear of the imaginary threat of the Dutch army joining forces with pirates from all over the East Indies to invade Manila. He had already spent 30 pesos on fortifications and recruiting troops, and was prepared to spend more. money.Reports to His Majesty and the Privy Council were always full of desperate appeals, as if he were languishing in a besieged fortress.

Now the Aussies were added to his fearful fantasies.The Spaniards learned from Macau that the Australians had concluded a trade agreement with the hateful lowland bandits, and not only that, they had simply launched a hateful piracy operation.Last year (1632) two galenic ships from New Spain loaded with royal grants were robbed by nasty Australian pirates not far from Manila.

The news immediately set off a small earthquake in Manila.The hijacking of SAN LUIS and SAN RAIMUNDO was not just the simple fact that the governor lost 23 pesos of royal grants. The ship was also loaded with a large amount of goods and cash from New Spain: both legal and illegal.Involved almost all the powerful in Manila.So that after the two ships were taken away, how much damage was caused has always been a mystery.

Not long after the exact news of the hijacking of the two ships came out, several big businessmen in Manila declared bankruptcy, followed by a large number of small and medium businessmen.The money in Manila and even the entire Philippines was once tense, interest rates rose accordingly, and the discount rate of money orders was unbearably high. For this reason, the Chinese loan sharks in Jiannei made a small fortune.

"The Australians used to be very peaceful. They were doing profitable business with the Portuguese and selling a lot of wonderful goods—" Andrade seemed regretful, "It is said that there are many believers of the Lord, Jesus Would be great with them. Pity they've gotten dirty with lowland brigands! Luckily they're still buying abaca!"

Andrade runs a large abaca export business in Manila, earning tens of thousands of pesos a year from this business.Australians are the biggest buyers.

"They're all atheists who deserve to be burned at the stake!" Someone's religious fanaticism kicked in after a heavy dose of alcohol.

……

Weiss sipped his sherry slowly without interrupting.He wrote down these valuable news and figures, and was thinking about how to write the first report sent back to Lingao.The servant brought dessert and cigars.

"Here, Your Excellency the Earl," Andrade leaned closer to the candlestick, lit a cigar, and continued: "Before you is the most worthwhile investment in the entire Philippine colony. The tobacco here is by no means inferior to Cuba and Mexico. Produce from the best plantations. But now there is no hope of private profit from it."

He spoke of the Governor's decree for the monopoly of tobacco throughout the colony, and the establishment of exclusive cigarette factories. "This will give the Governor an additional income of at least forty thousand pesos a year," he said. "The Governor will hand over a huge sum of money to that amazing Japanese to make a cannon with a range of one league and a single hit A shell that can blow up a ship. This marvelous shell costs five hundred pesos a piece."

A remark by the treasurer sparked a noisy discussion at the banquet. "Pure nonsense!" shouted a judge of the Philippine Royal Court of Attorney: "Even a little tobacco grown in the yard for one's own enjoyment is subject to exclusivity tax. Doesn't Salamanca know that he doesn't add new money at all?" The right to tax. Has the fool not read the royal decrees?"

"It's nonsense," the commander of the San Diego Fortress after a full meal was pouring one cup after another into his mouth, and he couldn't speak clearly: "Everyone, has any of you heard of or seen it with a range of one league? Cannon? What nonsense."

"It's so ignorant, my dear Echassou," said a shrewd-looking officer, the prefect of the Cavite Fortress. Flew to the place where the sage guarded the lunatics——Xia Langdong landed. You should be familiar with the place, dear Echasu."

"Hey, Alfonso—" the angry old colonel let out a drunken groan, and pointed a threatening finger at his colleague sitting across the table.

"Don't talk about cannons and bombs," the mayor stepped up to smooth things over. "Without cannons, the king's brave knights could have defeated heathens and Calvinists. God's favor and glory will always belong to the great Catholic king." !"

There was a burst of banging of porcelain and silver cups, accompanied by shouts of "Long Live the King" and "Long Live Manila", fireworks started to be set off on the lawn, and the atmosphere of the party reached its climax.

Parian, this Chinese district outside Manila is dark and silent at night.The former mercenary jumped off the horse and asked Shlick to lead the horse back to the stable of the hotel.The hotel was a two-story wooden building with a tiled roof, and he walked up creaking stairs.The shop owner's two young sons put their sharpened bamboo spears across their legs and slept soundly by the stairs until they were awakened by the sound of footsteps and hurriedly stood up.Weiss waved the two of them away.

Weisslando took over the entire second floor of the hotel, although he only occupied the largest room.He patted the door knocker: "Open the door, Mimi, it's His Excellency Count Van Nova."

The bolt behind the door panel clicked a few times, and he pushed the door open and walked in.There was no light in the room, and the moonlight from the window on the side of the porch could clearly illuminate the appearance of the person entering the door.Weiss knew that if it was not him but a stranger standing at the door, he would probably be greeted by 9mm bullets immediately.

The half-dark coconut oil lamp was lit, and Mimi was running around the room fetching towels and washing water for him.Lucia, or the maid Weiss called Mimi, was small, dark-skinned, and looked nothing like the "Five Branches"-this is Weiss' private name for the Political Security Bureau-an ordinary secret agent. different.Weiss knew very well that the "center" had transferred this woman over and sent her to him as an assistant as a personal maid. An unspoken task was to monitor him.The weapon assigned to her was a Zastava CZ99 automatic pistol, not Lingao's homemade black powder revolver.Thinking that one day his head would be pierced by the weapon he brought into this world, Weiss could only shrug his shoulders.

"What's the news on the pier?" The fake earl tore off the fancy outfit one by one. These clothes were soaked with sweat and gave off an unpleasant smell.Right now he just wants to take a good shower.It's a pity that there is no sanitary equipment here, so you can only go to the yard of the inn to take a shower, and use a wooden bucket to draw water from the well to take a shower.

"Including those entering the port today, there are a total of 21 Chinese ships and [-] Portuguese ship." Thanks to Sarina and Miss Mendoza, Mimi's English is very good, and Spanish is also good. "There are two ships in the Chinese ship. One will go to Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and the others are Fujian ships."

"To Hong Kong? That's great. Tomorrow we'll see if we can bring some goods home. I can't bear this will-o'-the-wisp, Mimi, go light the candles, I have to finish my report to Jiang tonight. We're going to To set up an intelligence station here, we cannot even have a radio station.

(End of this chapter)