On March 23, the fourth year of Jiajing, Xu Jin rushed to Hangzhou, and the next day he met with the Portuguese Indian governor Cabur. Nicknamed the "Great Conqueror", the governor of Kabul was about fifty years old, nearly two meters tall, with deep eyes and a hooked nose, and a face with hard and angular lines.

But so what?

As the saying goes, people have to bow their heads under the eaves, and come to the territory of the Ming Dynasty, no matter whether you are a dragon or a tiger, you have to curl up honestly, in the world of the weak and the strong, whoever has a big fist is the boss.

Compensation of five million taels of silver, this was the first condition that Xu Jin put forward at the negotiation table, Pires, who was in charge of the translation, suddenly turned green, and the governor of Caboul also frowned after listening to Pires's translation, and squeaked and muttered a lot in Portuguese.

"Lord Xu, Governor Kabul just said that he spent half a year coming to Daming, and he negotiated with you sincerely, and I hope that you can also show enough sincerity, five million taels of silver is too much, and it is completely beyond our ability to bear." Pires said cautiously.

Xu Jin picked up the cup of small black tea that exuded a sweet fragrance, Shi Shiran took a sip, and said lightly: "Your Excellency Pires, this official gave up his vacation and rushed to Hangzhou from thousands of miles away in a carriage for seven or eight days, isn't this sincerity enough?" ”

"But...... The compensation of five million taels of silver is too much for us to afford. Pires shrugged.

Xu Jin laughed and said: "When you occupied the royal city of Manraka, you not only plundered five million silver of property, but you also colonized Tianzhu Goa for nearly twenty years, and the value of the looted goods is more than 10 million, just the local spices are afraid that you will make a lot of money, spices are extremely expensive luxuries in your Europa." ”

Pires' face stiffened slightly, and he translated the original words to Kaboul, who couldn't help but glance at Xu Jin in surprise after hearing this, this young Ming official knew so much, it didn't seem to be easy to fool, and squeaked in Portuguese.

Pires translated: "Lord Xu, Governor Cabur said that he admires your knowledge, but we have come across the ocean, and the consumption is very huge, and we have not earned so much as you said, and we really can't take out five million taels of silver, but in order to express our heartfelt apologies, we are willing to earn one million taels of silver from Daming." ”

Wei Yuan, the governor of Zhejiang, who was sitting next to Xu Jin, couldn't help but pout, and said secretly, a million silver? Send it to Huazi, last year Lord Xu went to the Wa Kingdom and transported back more than 5 million taels of silver, these red-haired ghosts are really picky!

Xu Jin said calmly: "Your Excellency Pires, then please tell Your Excellency the Governor of Cabourg, now that you have a total of nearly 5,000 soldiers captured by our side, oh, including Your Excellency Pires, you are also our prisoner, and now you can stand here as an interpreter, it does not mean that you are free!" ”

Pires's face trembled, and he translated Xu Jin's original words to Kabul as if he were mournful, and the latter's expression suddenly became gloomy after hearing this.

It is said that before Hong Kong Island last year, the Ming army captured more than 2,000 Westerners, most of whom were Portuguese, and last year's battle for the capture of the royal city of Malacca, the Ming army captured more than 1,000 Portuguese soldiers, and then the governor of Cabur was defeated in the hands of Yu Dayou, and as a result, more than 1,000 soldiers were captured, and all of these captives added up to more than 5,000.

Portugal is only a small country with a population of hundreds of thousands, and the army under the whole country is only tens of thousands, and when it established a colony in India, it only stationed 2,000 soldiers, and later adopted the strategy of intermarriage with the locals, which "hybridized" tens of thousands of people, slightly increasing the proportion of Portuguese in the local population.

And just last year, the Portuguese had nearly 10,000 people in the hands of the Ming army, half of them were killed, half were captured, this blow is not heavy, has seriously affected the stability of the grape Indian colony, there are not enough manpower, then Portugal can not suppress the local indigenous population, and may even lose this colony.

Because of this, Governor Kabul was in such a hurry to come to the Ming Dynasty to negotiate, one of the purposes was to ransom the captured soldiers as soon as possible. Therefore, Xu Jin can hold Kabul's death hole with this hand!

The Governor of Cabur calmly discussed with several negotiators around him for a while, and finally said that he could only come up with a maximum of three million pieces of silver, of which one million taels were converted in the form of goods.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has opened the sea for trade, the Westerners will be an important object of trade, Xu Jin did not want to force it too much, and finally agreed, but two conditions were attached, that is, the smelting technology and shipbuilding technology of the Westerners, Kabul must send skilled craftsmen to the Ming Dynasty, and teach these two skills to the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty in their original place, until the latter fully mastered them before they were allowed to leave.

For Xu Jin, technology is priceless, if the reduction of two million compensation can be exchanged for the smelting and shipbuilding technology of Westerners, it is absolutely worth the money, not to mention anything else, smelting technology is very, very important for the manufacture of steam engines, maybe it can make Daming spend a few years or even more than ten years to build a steam engine.

Kabul obviously also understood the importance of technology, if he could get five million taels of silver, it was estimated that he would refuse Xu Jin in one go, but unfortunately he really couldn't take out this huge amount of money now, and he was in a hurry to redeem the soldiers, and after some bargaining, the two sides finally reached an agreement.

In the end, Portugal compensated the Ming with two million taels of silver, plus 500,000 taels of goods, as well as the two skills of smelting and shipbuilding, and the Ming released all the captured Grape soldiers and returned some of the warships.

After the two sides reached an agreement on peace talks, the next step was trade negotiations, which involved tariffs, exchange rates and other aspects, which were more complicated. Fortunately, since the implementation of the Kaihai trade last year, the household department has agreed on a set of specific regulations, and these specific affairs will be handed over to the people below to negotiate, but there is no need for Xu Jin to do it himself.

After another three days of negotiations, the trade agreement between the Ming and Portugal was finally finalized, and the resolute governor of Cabur immediately set sail for the Ming Dynasty and rushed back to transport the silver to ransom the people.

In order to show his sincerity, Xu Jin returned two bows and six masts of ocean-going ships to Kabul, and the latter purchased thousands of catties of black tea before leaving, and it is estimated that in the near future, Hekou black tea, known as the queen of tea, will be popular throughout Europe.

After sending off the Westerners, Xu Jin's vacation was almost over, and on the first day of the fourth month, he left Hangzhou by boat and returned to Beijing along the canal.

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