Dragon Sea Empire

The Portuguese left, and the Spaniards had been trapped at the pier for five days. The cannons of the Fort of the Grand Master were aimed directly at the Maria. Hundreds of guards surrounded the pier, and it was impossible for even a mouse to land on the shore.

"What's going on, why are we wasting time here, when will we be allowed to go ashore," Father Catalina, who has always been slow and slow, also exhausted his patience, and questioned the guarding Chinese company soldiers on the pier; "Why is there no People ask our ships, is this how the Chinese company entertains businessmen from all over the world?"

Blocking his way was a chief of the second infantry post, named Zhao Xuanming, who was a nephew of Zhao Tie's family in Zhaojiaao. My child is too young, but Zhao Xuanming immediately grasped the grammatical error in the priest's words, and immediately said loudly: "Our Chinese company makes friends and treats all businesses well in the world, but didn't you claim that you were tribute envoys earlier? They are diplomatic envoys, so our company naturally has to treat them with caution, but you are not merchants, and the warships that enter the port are not merchant ships, so of course you cannot enjoy the same treatment as merchant ships and merchants,"

Father Catalina was as unwell as if he had eaten a fly, but he couldn't get angry. He made a sign of the cross on his chest: "God bless, then, if we were merchants, we would have been able to go ashore a long time ago, isn't that right? "

"no,"

The other party's answer made Father Catalina's anger start to boil from the bottom of his heart again. The priest who finally controlled his mentality sighed and asked, "Why?"

Zhao Xuanming said loudly: "China United's system stipulates that it is not allowed to do business with Spanish businessmen. Because you are Spanish, you cannot be treated like businessmen,"

Governor Don Fernando couldn't bear the anger in his heart, so he got off the boat and came to Father Catalina, and asked coldly, "What are they talking about?"

The priest translated Zhao Xuanming's words to him, and Fernando looked angrily at the solemn young Chinese soldier in front of him, and said with a sneer, "Father, ask him; why is it forbidden to trade with the Spaniards?"

Father Catalina sighed, crossed himself again, and asked, "Why, why do you prohibit trading with the Spaniards?"

Zhao Xuanming's face was flushed red, and the iron-tipped spear in his hand trembled for a while. He raised his head and stared at Father Catalina with vengeful anger in his eyes: "This question should be answered by you, mine Two older brothers and one uncle were killed by you in Manila. Our Chinese company guards have strict discipline and orders from the captain, otherwise, I want to take revenge now."

Facing the anger in the eyes of the young Chinese soldier, Father Catalina took a few steps back, sighed, and said to himself, "I've thought of it for a long time, it must be such an answer," he turned his head, and said in Spanish Yu and Don Fernando said a few words, Fernando looked worried, but there was nothing he could do.

"They are trying to force us to surrender and show all the bottom lines of the negotiation," Don Fernando, who hadn't slept all night, found Father Catalina on the sixth morning and said anxiously: "The leaders of the Chinese company don't know What kind of person, but I can feel that he seems to know our details, "

"What do you mean, there are spies among our crew," the priest shook his head and said,

"No, our crew members are all white Christians. There should be no problem. However, you see that the Chinese company will send a fleet to intercept us on the sea in advance, and they can quickly mobilize people to surround the dock. These actions just show that the Chinese company It's been waiting for us to come."

"It's also possible," the priest thought for a while, and had no choice but to admit this possibility: "But, Mr. Governor, what should we do, should we go back with nothing?"

Fernando shook his head in distress: "I didn't expect that this group of biological people was just a mob without organization and discipline, but now they have such a large-scale influence."

Don Fernando pointed to the escort soldiers surrounding the Maria and said: "Fortunately, it seems that apart from the cannons of the fortress, their infantry weapons are still very backward, and their warships are just ordinary junk ships. Not a match for our warships,"

"Can the Maria break out of the port?" Father Catalina asked suddenly.

Fernando was stunned and shook his head: "Didn't you see the cannons of that fortress? If we force our way out under these cannon muzzles, we will definitely suffer a lot of casualties; besides, please look at the sea, there are nearly 30 ships at most Armed junk ships are blocking the port and are towing fire ships. It is too dangerous for the Maria to get rid of the entanglement of these sailing ships and at the same time fight against the cannons of the fort. If we get nothing, the economic situation of the Philippine colony will still be irreversible, and the cost of our maintenance of this colony will be too high... What will those people in Madrid think of us, "

Father Catalina nodded heavily: "You are right, but the other side has been refusing to negotiate with us, what should we do?"

At this time, the crew of the Maria shouted: "Dutchman!"

The two of them went to the bow of the ship and took a closer look: they saw a few red-haired Europeans in Western-style attire leading a group of neatly dressed Chinese in black, walking forward to the C-shaped pier, as if they were fighting with the soldiers guarding the pier. Succession.

This group of Chinese soldiers appeared to be younger, all of them were only sixteen or seventeen years old, their weapons were very messy, some were holding knives and guns and other cold weapons, and only half of them were holding matchlock guns.

These are young students from the military academy, led by the Dutch instructor Leiden and others, who came to confuse the Spaniards.

"Sure enough, the Dutch intervened," Fernando slammed on the side of the ship angrily.

Father Catalina said coldly: "No matter where, there are these gangs of rebels making trouble. I guess, the Chinese company's armed forces were trained by the Dutch, so they look completely different from the normal people in Manila."

The following student army and Zhao Xuanming's troops completed the handover and began to guard around the Maria, but several Dutch officers walked to the side of the Maria, pointing and discussing there.

Father Catalina said to the captain of the Maria behind him: "Captain Andrea, let the cable go, I'll go down and talk to those people,"

"The Dutch are our enemies, will they help us?" Fernando said hesitantly.

"Anyway, after all, we are white Europeans, so it is easier to communicate," said Father Catalina. In fact, he was not very sure. Over the years, the Dutch, taking advantage of the complete stagnation of China and Manila's trade, became Chinese. The largest re-export merchant of the product, the Spanish envoy inquired about the news in Macau; this year, nearly 4000 dans of raw silk and silk have been sold to the Dutch through Taiwan, Batavia, and the Netherlands has become the largest in the European market. Even the Spanish royal family had to buy raw silk from the Dutch in a roundabout way. The silk production in Spanish Mexico even had to be bought from the Dutch when the galleons from Manila were unable to bring raw silk to China. Raw silk raw materials, which is one of the fundamental reasons why the Philippine authorities lowered their arrogance and lowered their voices to negotiate with a Chinese-dominated trading company.

The Dutch officers were quite polite when they saw the priest. Captain Layton smiled and said in Spanish: "Sir, it looks like your ship is trapped here."

The priest smiled slightly and said, "Are you all Dutch?"

"We are from the United Provinces, but we are now employees of the China United Company and have not received an order to go to war with you. You can rest assured, haha," another Dutch officer laughed mockingly.

Father Catalina didn't change his face, and said with a smile: "We are just trade envoys from Luzon, and we have no malicious intentions. Since you are employees of the Chinese company, you should be able to meet the high-level people of the Chinese company."

Captain Layton had already received Yin Feng's instruction, so he asked very cleverly at this time: "Mr. Priest, do you want us to convey it for you?"

"If you can agree, I will be very grateful. We just want to explain our intention to the company's leaders. They have been refusing to contact us and cannot solve the problem,"

Captain Layton pretended to think about it, tilted his head and said: "The high-level people in our company were all the people who were almost killed by you in the city of Manila. I think they have restrained their attitude towards you. The massacres you committed in the Netherlands and other places are probably similar to the Manila incident."

Father Catalina pretended not to hear the thorn in Captain Layton's words, and continued: "We are here to solve this problem, please convey the following to the senior management of the Chinese company: the Philippine colonial authorities are willing to die The biological people have made compensation, and we are willing to return part of the property they left in Manila to the families of the deceased. We hope to restore trade relations, and the Port of Manila will reduce or exempt various taxes for Chinese merchant ships and merchants..."

Captain Layton hurriedly raised his hands and said: "Okay, okay, these are enough, I'll try it, I can't guarantee anything, I'm just in charge of spreading the word,"

Father Catalina crossed himself: "God bless you, we will thank you,"

Captain Layton didn't walk away, he still stood on the pier and said with a smile: "Then, how will you thank me?"

Father Catalina looked up at Captain Layton, and found his greedy and cunning eyes, so the priest kept praying in his heart, may God punish this heretic.

Captain Layton's purse was full of Mexican silver dollars, and he happily went to pay Yin Feng.

On the morning of the seventh day, the China United Company sent a woman to negotiate on the Maria, which almost made the Spaniards faint. In their understanding, China is a woman who is confined at home and has no right to participate in politics. However, this Chinese company actually sent a woman as a negotiator, which was beyond the wildest dreams of the Spaniards.

Immediately, Captain Andre recognized this woman who used to often appear in the social occasions of Manila ladies. She was the favorite oriental decoration of various Spanish ladies. She is the younger sister of the great businessman Li Dan: Miss Elizabeth, Andre I remember that Governor Acuna's nephew had once pursued her, but Elizabeth back then was just an embellishment for Spanish social occasions, a rare oriental plaything.

But now, Miss Elizabeth claims to be the wife of Yin Feng, the president of Zhonghua Company, and she is already the person in charge of external relations of Zhonghua Company, which makes Mr. Fernando and Father Catalina have to come out to greet her in person.

"We don't need to beat around the bush, let's talk about practical issues directly," Li Lihua said straight to the point.

She was sitting gracefully behind a large table on the pier. In front of her were the Spanish envoy Don Fernando and the priest Catalina. Behind her, Yin Feng's personal guards, including Chen Zhongji and Yan Siqi, were standing there holding their arquebus guns. Even though the front remained motionless, the Chinese company still did not allow the crew of the Maria to leave the dock.

"As for the compensation and return of property you mentioned, I will show you a document now," Li Lihua said with a cold face, and handed over a thick document to the other party.

Father Catalina opened the document and found that it was a bilingual document in Chinese and Spanish; it listed in detail the list of victims and places of origin, as well as the list of related property losses. At the same time, the document finally proposed compensation for each victim 500 taels of silver, and indicate: Since many victims did not leave their hometowns and names, China United Company reserves the right to seek compensation in the future.

The priest handed the document to Fernando with a gloomy face, and said in a low voice, "This document is very detailed, and it must not have been prepared in a short period of time. You are right, they knew in advance that we were coming,"

Catalina turned to Li Lihua and said, "Mrs. Yin, we are willing to compensate you for your personnel and material losses, but your personnel compensation standard is indeed too high. This is a completely impossible condition,"

Li Lihua said coldly: "Do you mean to say that the lives of Chinese people are not worth this little money?"

"No, no, about human life..."

Li Lihua interrupted Father Catalina and said with a sneer: "As for the price of human life, China United has a clear attitude: this is a non-negotiable condition."

The priest gasped. He didn't expect the attitude of Zhonghua Company to be so tough. He rolled his eyes, smiled and said, "Miss Elizabeth..."

Li Lihua raised her hand: "Stop, please call me Mrs. Yin,"

The priest ignored her words and said slowly: "Do you want to know the whereabouts of your brother?"

Li Lihua had been prepared for a long time, and smiled coldly: "If he is still alive, he must be doing hard labor somewhere."

"The Spanish authorities in the Philippines can release him..."

Li Lihua interrupted Father Catalina again: "You can directly say what you want,"

"The Philippine colony and the Chinese company are developing trade relations in an all-round way," Catalina said, seeing that Li Lihua was not willing to enter, and was extremely tough, so he had to throw out the bottom line of the negotiation.

Li Lihua sneered: "Until the issue of compensation for the victims in Manila is not resolved, our attitude towards this is: this is non-negotiable."