Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1447 The Big Winner ([-])

The Spaniards soon arranged for Special Envoy Li Qing to meet with them in Madrid.

From July 1666th to 7th, 25, Li Qing stayed in a manor near Madrid for several days, conducting secret talks with officials of the Kingdom of Spain.The talks covered many aspects, including commercial agreements and discussions on the military alliance against France. In the end, Special Envoy Li Qing also expressed the hope that Spain would consider the losses of the people on the east coast in this military operation against the French as appropriate (that is, loss of commercial interests), because if commercial sales cannot be resumed within four to five years, then the people on the east coast will in fact bear an economic loss of more than 30 million yuan, which is unacceptable to them, so Li Qing suggested that the Spaniards Add some compensation, otherwise it may dampen the enthusiasm of the navy and army on the east coast.

Faced with such a "rogue" request from the people on the east coast, the Spaniards were angry, but they were helpless.Although they believe that the East Bank's request for additional compensation is a temporary price increase, which is unreasonable and unacceptable, but the cruel reality forces them to be unable to open their mouths, because the arrogance of the French envoys in Madrid has been deeply stinging each of their eyes.Nowadays, there are probably few countries that can contain these fanatics, and it just so happens that people on the east coast can threaten the interests of the French without worrying about retaliation-of course, it means from the sea.

After starting from this perspective, the Spaniards didn't feel so much anger in their hearts. Instead, they gradually understood the requirements of the people on the east coast.Yes, let’s not talk about when the war between the East Coasters and the French will end, but even after it ends, for various reasons, the East Coasters may not be able to recover their sales share in the French market, so this loss may be It's more than 100 million yuan, and it's close to 150 million yuan if it's not good, so they need to weigh it.

The plan proposed by Li Qing, the special envoy of the East Bank, was that Trinidad and the Mesopotamia region (that is, the inter-river area) should be handed over to the jurisdiction of the East Bank in accordance with the secret agreement as a reward for the dispatch of troops.In addition, in order to make up for the losses suffered by the East China Republic’s business circles, the Spaniards had to make another compensation, that is, ceded the Chilean area west of the Andes and south of the Bueno River to the China East Coast Republic, so that they could slightly calm down the lower east. The anxiety of the shore government.

The Spaniards' reaction to Li Qing's suggestion can be described as "frightened and pale". They were really scared by the greed of the people on the east coast for land.Moreover, some people also vaguely feel that if they use land to repay debts and send troops so unscrupulously, sooner or later, the Kingdom of Spain will cut off the land at hand. When that day comes, how will they deal with themselves? ?

In fact, if the Spaniards have studied some ancient Chinese articles, then they will definitely gain some new understanding from the pile of old papers-"cut five cities today, cut ten cities tomorrow, and then sleep overnight. Looking at the four realms, And the Qin army is at the end. However, the land of the princes is limited, and the desire to tyranny the Qin is insatiable, and the desire to serve it will make it more complicated, and the desire to invade it is urgent. Therefore, if there is no war, the strength and weakness will be judged."

Isn't today's East Bank the same as the "tyrant Qin" who extorted endless land, and the Kingdom of Spain is about the same as the countries of South Korea and Wei that frequently ceded land.Although the Spaniards had never read ancient Chinese books, they still understood the truth behind them. Therefore, they felt very helpless and faintly angry that the people on the east bank claimed new land outside the secret agreement.

Therefore, they had to temporarily suspend the talks, and then returned to the Madrid court to discuss with the Queen Mother, Don Juan and other noble officials to see if they should agree to the "unreasonable request" of the people on the east bank this time, and once agreed, Whether there will be any adverse consequences in the future, in short, be very cautious.

Li Qing smiled and watched the Spaniard go back to discuss, and she was not in a hurry, anyway, the time and situation were on the side of the people on the east coast, and the Spaniard, who was facing the embarrassing situation of fighting on both sides, should be worried.With their weak army and corrupt and incompetent aristocratic bureaucracy, how can they fight against the 20 elite army of the Kingdom of France, which is on the rise?Just kidding!No way, in the end, they still have to hold their noses and agree to the request of the people on the east coast. This is almost a high probability thing.So Li Qing was not in a hurry at all. He even had time to visit and inspect the branches of Bank of La Plata in Spain. After all, the East Coast Republic also held half of the shares in this bank.

Bank of La Plata now has many branches in Barcelona, ​​Zaragoza, Madrid, Seville, Cadiz and other places, and many of them were established in recent years. The in-depth penetration of financial and trade forces on the east coast in Spain.This well-known bank in the old continent (one of the two major clearing banks for bulk trade at the Qingdao Trade Fair) is mainly engaged in bill remittance and delivery services, and facilitates the import and export of enterprises on the east coast. The bank opened frequently-used accounts, so the influence of Banco de la Plata can be said to have gradually increased, and it is already inseparable from the Sao Paulo Bank, Palermo Bank, San George Commercial Bank, etc. that guaranteed it at the beginning, which made Li Qing see. I am also extremely gratified-who would have thought that the Bank of La Plata, which was only regarded as an entry ticket for European trade at the beginning, would gradually develop to this point?This may be related to the rising national strength of the East Coast and the rejuvenation of Italian capital.

Everything in this world really depends on strength!

On August 8, the behavior of the Spaniards perfectly proved the extreme correctness of this sentence. Don Juan, the illegitimate son of Philip IV, rushed to Li Qing's residence in person and had a careful discussion on the compensation issue.According to later recollections of the officials who participated in the negotiations with Li Qing at that time, the Spaniards resolutely did not agree to hand over the Chilean area south of the Bueno River to the people on the east bank, even though they had a population of 5 in Puerto Barrios (the other city of Maolin City). count) and some small-scale villages, and even got into a fight with Special Envoy Li Qing for a while.

The reason why the Spaniards refused to give up this small piece of land (about [-] to [-] square kilometers) is also complicated.One is that over the years, all the land in the southern New World that originally belonged to them in name has been swallowed up or eaten away by the people on the east coast. , but the face is really not good-looking.And they also understand now that although these lands do not have gold or silver mines, they are all good agricultural and animal husbandry lands, and it is not a problem to feed many people. But people can exert the greatest effect in their hands, so they don't want to cede the land easily now, so as not to take advantage of the increasingly powerful people on the east coast.

Secondly, many conservative aristocrats and priests in Spain do not agree to do this. These people are already hostile to the east coast where there are many pagans, and they are quite dissatisfied with Spain's policy towards the east. The reason is that once the land south of the Bueno River is given to the people on the east coast, they will be one step closer to Valdivia, the famous silver mine transshipment center. This has undoubtedly threatened the core interests of the Kingdom of Spain— — At least part of the core interest, because the small silver mines in central Chile are not producing enough silver.

But in any case, their reason did resonate with many people. They feel that they are facing certain threats in terms of security threats. In addition, people on the east coast have been asking for land from Spain over the years. It is a bit ugly. Hidalgo and Spain Anti-Eastern sentiment had accumulated in the priesthood for a long time, so it would erupt at the same time, making the Spanish royal family unable to make the decision to cede this part of the land to the people on the east coast.

However, the French threat facing the Kingdom of Spain is real and imminent. They are afraid that if they do not agree to this article, they will directly lead to the people on the east coast not working hard, and even form a tacit peace with France in private. Speaking of it, it was too terrible.Therefore, the mature and prudent Don Juan, who had defeated the French army in the Southern Netherlands, was invited out to deal with Li Qing, the special envoy of the East Bank, trying to make the people on the East Bank give up this "unrealistic fantasy".

However, what kind of person is Li Qing, who has been in Europe for many years and knows the internal situation of various countries, so how could he be easily fooled by the Spaniards?Therefore, even though the fight was red-faced and even broke up, he still insisted on claiming the sovereignty of the area south of the Bueno River in order to compensate the people on the east bank for the economic loss of the French market.He even hinted locally that if the Spaniards could not meet the requirements of the people on the east coast, then the navy and army on the east coast would only dispatch a "minimum scale". This made Don Juan feel a little uneasy, and the negotiations stalled for a while.

It is worth mentioning that the conditions for the cession of the area south of the Bueno River were not proposed by the Executive Committee, but Li Qing, the special envoy to Europe with full powers, exerted her subjective initiative and used Spain, France, Portugal, Austria, etc. The intricate relationship between countries was raised temporarily.To put it bluntly, it is to take advantage of the Spaniards to memorize words, and temporarily impose conditions to blackmail. If you can, it doesn't matter if you can't.

When Li Qing proposed this condition at the beginning, it was actually just a temptation.It's just that a series of actions by the Spaniard later made him deeply aware of the guilty conscience of these Hidalgos, so he immediately added this condition, and as the negotiations deepened, he felt more and more interesting, and realized that it was very possible Really got something out of the Spaniards, especially after this Don Juan came.

You know, this person is considered an outlier in Spain, so he should not be underestimated.He was originally the illegitimate son of Philip IV, but it is rare for him to be a top-notch one, and he once led an army to defeat the French in the Southern Netherland during the most difficult time of the Kingdom of Spain, although it was difficult to restore Spain's defeat , but it is already a rare shining point.Therefore, he had a high prestige in the army, and before his death, Philip IV recalled him to Madrid and entrusted him with important tasks.

However, due to his sensitive identity as the illegitimate son of the former king, Don Juan also received hostility from many people, and these people often came from the top of the Spanish power pyramid, so life was very difficult, and his future fate also ended in tragedy. Having said that, at least Tang Juan still has some high-spirited spirit at this time.

The "competition" between Li Qing and Don Juan ended in a stalemate for several days, and finally ended with the Spaniard's concession.The turning point of the matter occurred on August 8th—the National Day of the Republic of China on the East Coast—the news from the North Sea reached Madrid, and England and the United Provinces fought again in early July, this time in Brittany, France Near the Nigerian Peninsula, Dutch Admiral Druyter escorted a large number of Dutch fishing boats returning from the Northwest Atlantic, and encountered the main force of the British Navy nearby, and then a fierce naval battle broke out that lasted for a whole day.In this battle, the Dutch navy relied on its numerical advantage to gain the upper hand. It sank more than ten British ships and injured even more, but its own losses were relatively slight, but only seven ships were sunk. There are only four ships, which can be described as a complete victory.

In this fleet decisive battle known as the "Battle of Brittany", more than a dozen brand-new escort gunboats ordered from the east coast joined the Dutch battle order and played an extremely critical role. The final defeat of the British Navy made no small contribution.The Spaniards naturally saw this matter, and then naturally raised their evaluation of the East Coast Navy. Therefore, after a fierce court debate, the Spaniards finally succumbed to the pressure of reality and made some Concession, that is, they reluctantly agreed to hand over the Chilean area west of the Andes and south of the Bueno River to the East Coast people in the form of lease, with a lease period of 30 years and an annual rent of [-] pesos; The two main cities of Sri Lanka are open to the Spaniards, where the Spaniards can freely settle, do business and conduct religious activities, and the people on the east coast are not allowed to interfere.

After careful consideration, Special Envoy Li Qing agreed with the Spaniards in principle, but he requested that the lease period be increased from 30 years to 50 years, and the rent could even be paid in one lump sum.Don Juan finally agreed to this after communicating with the Hidalgos of the Madrid court. Then, for the sake of insurance, the two parties re-signed a supplementary agreement on the East-West secret agreement on August 8, adding this clause. This matter is finally settled!Li Qing skillfully took advantage of the situation and the fragile psychology of the Spaniards, and successfully won a lot of benefits for the East Coast Republic of China, making the East Coast Republic more solidly the big winner in this war.

(End of this chapter)