Smuggling Daming

"Let them come up!" Alfonso, who was sitting on the bow, ordered, and the soldiers below immediately agreed. After a while, a group of businessmen from Ming Dynasty accompanied the soldiers to the ship. With an uneasy look, but the short and strong young man in the lead had a calm face, but when he saw the weapons and soldiers on the Portuguese battleship, the young man's eyes flashed with surprise.

"Grassmen pay homage to the general!" After seeing Alfonso sitting there, these Ming businessmen immediately stepped forward to salute. After all, they are now in the enemy's hands, so naturally they must be courteous.

Alfonso has also made full preparations for his visit to Malacca this time. He has an interpreter who understands various languages ​​by his side. I have always yearned for it, but unfortunately I have not been able to go, it is really a pity, I wonder if you are here today, what is the matter?"

Seeing that Alfonso asked the question knowingly, the merchants of Ming Dynasty were taken aback for a moment, and then they looked at each other. In the end, everyone looked at the short and strong young man in the front. After all, the reason why they dared to come this time was precisely because There is this young man.

Seeing that the young man did not refuse, he stepped forward and bowed: "My lord, the villain is Sun Pinghai, the manager of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce of the Ming Dynasty. This time he was sent to India by fate. He has just returned and is about to return to the Ming Dynasty. But I didn’t expect to encounter a general who was at war with the Kingdom of Malacca, so we were blocked in the port, please let us go!”

When Sun Pinghai spoke, his tone was neither humble nor overbearing, and his expression was calm and composed.Much stronger than those businessmen behind him.But this is not surprising, because behind Sun Pinghai is the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce, as the largest smuggling chamber of commerce in Ming Dynasty, and Zhou Zhong is the backing of Sun Pinghai, so he is naturally full of confidence.

In addition, Sun Pinghai's identity is not simple. His father is Sun Tong, one of the three veterans of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce. Management, although Zhou Zhong recruited some people from outside to share Sun Tong's management of the fleet.However, Sun Tong's position in the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce is still irreplaceable. As his son, Sun Pinghai has lived at sea since he was a child. The captain of the team has a heavy responsibility.

It's also Zhou Zhong's fault.Although he had known for a long time that the Portuguese would attack Malacca again on July [-], he underestimated the shamelessness of the Portuguese, and he did not expect that the other party would block the entire port and prevent the ships in the port from leaving. Otherwise, if he If they had known this earlier, they would have informed the merchants of Ming Dynasty not to stop at the Port of Malacca on July [-]st.

Alfonso heard Sun Pinghai's words.Seeing that the other party looked neither humble nor overbearing, he also asked curiously: "Is the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce very powerful? How many people are there in your Chamber of Commerce?"

Sun Pinghai was taken aback when General Frangji asked him about the power of the chamber of commerce, but he quickly reacted and said, "General Qi, I don't know the exact number of people in our chamber of commerce, but There are at least three to four thousand people. As for the power of our chamber of commerce, it is no exaggeration that among our chambers of commerce in Daming, except for a few, there is no other chamber of commerce that can compare with our Nanyang chamber of commerce."

Hearing that a small chamber of commerce actually has three to four thousand people, this made Alfonso unable to accept it for a while. You must know that the army he brought this time did not exceed 4000 people, and even their Kingdom of Portugal was only a million population.However, Alfonso soon thought of the description of the Central Plains Dynasty in Marco Polo's travel notes. The merchants in front of him came from that extremely prosperous country, and it is not surprising that they can have such a huge chamber of commerce.

"So that's it!" Alfonso nodded to himself at this time, and then he said curiously: "Your chamber of commerce has so many people, so the owner of the chamber of commerce must be very rich, I don't know if your chamber of commerce Is the owner the richest person in Ming Dynasty?"

As far as Alfonso was concerned, he didn't mention letting them go at all, and he kept asking these inexplicable questions. Sun Pinghai was also very helpless, so he could only reply patiently: "General Qi, the owner of the humble chamber of commerce." The Lord is indeed very rich, but our Emperor of Ming Dynasty is rich all over the world, so His Majesty the Emperor is the richest person in the world!"

When he said this, Sun Pinghai hesitated for a while, and finally gritted his teeth and continued: "In addition, the proprietor of our Chamber of Commerce is also working for His Majesty the Emperor, and has now been promoted by His Majesty to be Admiral of the Four Seas, in charge of all maritime affairs of my Ming Dynasty. , it can be said that he is deeply trusted by His Majesty the Emperor, if the general can go to Daming in the future, the villain can introduce our proprietor to the general!"

Alfonso originally wanted to learn about Da Ming's affairs through Sun Pinghai, but when he heard that the owner behind the other party turned out to be a Da Ming official and was in charge of all the maritime affairs of Da Ming, he was also shocked. Standing up from the chair, he looked at Sun Pinghai with an uncertain expression.

Regarding entering the sea area of ​​Nanyang, the Kingdom of Portugal still held a cautious attitude. After all, they also knew that Nanyang belonged to the sphere of influence of Ming Dynasty, and they did not dare to go too far before they found out Ming's attitude.Alfonso also had an attitude of awe towards Da Ming, at least when he fully grasped Nanyang, Alfonso didn't want to offend Da Ming too much.

It was precisely with this kind of thinking in mind that Alfonso walked back and forth on the deck a few times, and finally raised his head and said to Sun Pinghai with a smile: "I didn't expect that the owner of your Chamber of Commerce was an official of Daming. I have admired him for a long time, and I will definitely visit Daming in the future, it would be great if I could meet your master!"

"Hehe, our proprietor likes to make friends from all over the world. If the general goes to Daming, the proprietor will definitely set up a sumptuous banquet for the general." Hearing General Frangji's tone soften, this Sun Pinghai also secretly heaved a sigh of relief. It was his last hole card to bring out Zhou Zhong's identity. The bet was that the other party would be wary of Daming's deterrent power. Now it seems that it really worked.

Concerned about Zhou Zhong's identity, Alfonso had already decided in his heart to let these Daming merchants leave. After all, in his impression, Daming was the overlord of the Nanyang area, not to mention that the owner of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce turned out to be a person in charge of maritime affairs. No matter whether the matter is true or not, the officials of Ming Dynasty made Alfonso very scrupulous.

But before Sun Pinghai and the others were released, Alfonso asked the other party about the situation of Nanyang Chamber of Commerce and Daming, and Sun Pinghai also answered them one by one, but he also knew that the other party released them because of the strength of Daming and the Chamber of Commerce. Therefore, it is natural to exaggerate the strength of the Chamber of Commerce and the military power of Ming Dynasty. For example, Zhou Zhong only has [-] sailors in his hands, but in his mouth, it suddenly became [-].

Although Alfonso knew that there must be water in Sun Pinghai's words, at least a considerable part of them was credible, especially since he also confirmed from Sun Pinghai's mouth that Daming's territory is indeed very vast, and it takes at least a few miles to walk from east to west. According to Alfonso's estimation, the total population of Ming Dynasty is definitely larger than the total population of Europe. I am even more in awe of Daming.

After getting the information he wanted, Alfonso finally nodded and agreed to let Sun Pinghai and the others go, but they had to pay Alfonso a tax, because according to Alfonso's explanation, when their warship arrived at the port of Malacca , this place already belongs to the territory of the Portuguese, and Sun Pinghai and their ships are moored in the port, so naturally they have to pay taxes to them.

Regarding Alfonso's explanation, although Sun Pinghai and others scolded the other party for being shameless in their hearts, they could only hand over the money with a smile on the surface. After all, compared with the people and goods on board, a mere tax is nothing at all. Just drive the boat away safely.

In this way, Sun Pinghai and the others left the port of Malacca after paying an extra tax. Part of them planned to go to India through the Strait of Malacca, but now seeing that Malacca is about to go to war, God knows that the shameless Portuguese will not The strait will be blocked in the future, so they dare not go to India again. In the end, they can only deal with the goods in the Nanyang area, and sail to Daming with Sun Pinghai and the others.

Perhaps seeing the ship of Ming merchants leaving, merchants from other countries in the port also saw hope, and they also united with merchants from their own countries to seek Alfonso, hoping to leave the port, but Alfonso was concerned about Daming's strength, But he was not afraid of other countries at all, so he rejected all the requests of these businessmen. Some businessmen even wanted to make trouble because they refused to accept it, but Alfonso ordered them to bombard the opponent's ship. Now the merchants in the port They were all honest, and none of them dared to stay on the boat anymore. They all ran to seek refuge in the city of Malacca, and at the same time put pressure on the Kingdom of Malacca to drive the Portuguese away quickly.

Alfonso also had unexpected patience for this attack on the city of Malacca. He was blocked outside the port for more than half a month. It was not until July 24 that Alfonso organized a tentative attack, and he also He tried to drive the battleship to the Malacca River next to the city of Malacca, so that he could directly bombard the city of Malacca with the artillery on board, but unfortunately he failed to grasp the local tide time, and the people of Malacca relied on the bridge on the Malacca River to resist resolutely. Alfonso could only order a retreat.

However, the first defeat did not discourage Alfonso. After half a month of rest, Alfonso, who was well prepared, organized another powerful attack. This time he was determined to win! (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation.)