There is a hegemon in this world, and he is certainly not the young son Wanli who has just ascended the throne, but the king of Spain, Philip II, also known as Philip II.

Countless lands combined into a vast empire, and his bloodline and power made him a leader in Europe.

But compared to the entire European royal family, Madrid does not have a palace worthy of a king, nor is it a city worthy of the capital.

The streets of Madrid are mostly narrow and closed, and even when walking in the capital, men with swords at their waists still walk close to the left side of the walls, and there are low two-story buildings everywhere, and if there are buildings beyond this height, they are either churches or monasteries.

There are no fountains, no gardens, no tall arches and no chic royal palaces, everything here is incompatible with European royal families.

Because the city was ruled by the Habsburgs from Austria, for whom extravagance and waste were by no means worthy of praise.

Philip II, however, had a large palace barely worthy of his status, a rectangular palace with four floors, a relatively narrow entrance on one side, seventeen tall and spacious windows on each floor, and a huge ceiling of stained glass covered with religious paintings.

The palace was not built by Philip II, but was a gift from the Archbishop of Toledo, who did not have the money to build a palace of this magnitude and opulence.

The wandering painter with his charts and secret letters, dressed in embarrassing clothes, stood at the foot of the stairs in front of the palace gate, waiting for the king to summon him.

In a period of unprecedented prosperity in the whole of Europe, when gold and silver from the Americas and spices from East Asia entered a period of unprecedented prosperity, it was very rare for a painter to be as poor as him, which can explain the level of his painting to a certain extent.

In order to earn money to fill his stomach, and perhaps two new clothes, he has just returned from Morocco. On the boat crossing, he hoped that the different scenery on the other side of the strait would bring him gold coins, but that apparently did not work, but God answered his prayer and sent another man to his side.

The man who had died was Salcedo, who, according to him, was a Spanish Filipino colonel, who was shipwrecked at sea with important letters and washed up on the coast.

The wandering painter was the first to meet him, and at that time Salcedo was suffering from a severe scurvy and was a worthless man, saying that if the painter could find someone to cure him, he would be rewarded handsomely when he returned to Madrid.

It's a pity that the painter can't afford to hire a doctor, let alone a doctor, and he can't cure Salcedo.

Before he died, he gave a long letter to the painter, asking him to go to the palace and deliver it to the king.

But Salcedo did not tell the painter - the king did not seem interested in meeting him.

Mr. Philip does have more important things to do.

Inside the palace, through the cloister decorated in a carved Gothic style, the heavy gate at the end slowly opened, and the court physician who straddled the weapon box walked out quickly to meet the noble ministers waiting outside to report on the king's illness.

"His Royal Highness is in a very poor state of mind, and his violent temper makes him unfit to make any decisions." The court physician patted the weapon box on his waist and whispered, "I will watch the stars and find the right time to perform surgery on the king to bleed, and the brief weakness after bloodletting will help calm the irritability of His Royal Highness, my lord." ”

What could the court advisor say, he really didn't want the arsenal disguised as a medicine box to be used against the king, but there was obviously no way to do it at this moment.

Just three days earlier, Philip II had summoned his court ministers in the hope of declaring the country bankrupt for the second time.

Philip was bewildered by the conundrum of the bankruptcy of the empire, and the lack of any financial wisdom in the whole country, which made him unable to figure out what he could do in the face of financial bankruptcy to turn the situation around.

He was accustomed to doing everything himself, and at most he would even read 400 letters from all over the world a day, and even on average, he would need to read 30 letters and make a decision as quickly as possible.

If that wasn't enough to exhaust him, the Ottoman Empire's capture of Tunisia completely neutralized Spain's advantage at the Battle of Lepanto, and the rebellion of the Dutch for independence was almost the straw that broke the camel's back.

The country's credit is getting worse and worse, and if you can't borrow money, you can't repay the interest on the loan, you can't borrow new money if you can't pay the interest on the loan, you can't start the next war without new money, if you can't start a war, the Netherlands will become independent, and Spain will be poorer after independence.

The king, who was ignorant of finances, never understood that he was not at all poor and extravagant, and even now he still owes the money for the paintings of the court painter Titian, why could his country not even pay the interest on the loan?

"No, no, no!"

Half-open-eyed and tired, Philip II dozed off and replied to the letter, waving his hand back to remind him that there was an advisor waiting for a painter outside.

See, the painter must have come to ask for debt!

Philip II clutched his hair irritably, and if he declared bankruptcy this time, one or more Prussian banking families might go bankrupt as a result.

But there is no way to do it, and when last year's Manila galleon arrives in Spain with its goods, the money from the sale will have to be paid back to the Genoese bankers - those people will be armed to collect debts, and this talent cannot be ignored.

"Ugh..."

With a long sigh, Philip II silently sighed in his heart, the galleon that set sail from the Philippines last year should have arrived a long time ago, how could it be delayed for so long.

These days, it's hard to be a king, it's even harder to be a king who can pay his debts, and it's even harder to be a kingdom where there are bankers who come to borrow money one after another!

"Message from Salcedo?"

Philip II's eyes widened, "Salcedo ......"

"Who is he?"

The court advisor was silent, as if reciting a formula, and said: "Navy Colonel Salcedo is the grandson of Sir Regasby, the Governor of the Philippines, and commands the Manila Army. ”

"Let him in, Manila, Manila!"

Among the many Spanish colonies, Manila was not important, even if you counted the profits brought by the Manila galleons, what really mattered in Spain was the Americas and the Netherlands.

But at this moment, Manila meant that more than thirty tons of silver were procured, and when they arrived at the port, they were sold out, in exchange for enough money to pay off the interest on the loans of Genoese bankers.

The cramped painter entered the palace with his thumb-revealing shoes and handed the letter from the distant ocean to the emperor, and just as he was thinking about how to speak to Philip II about the reward that Salcedo had promised him, he saw his beloved king rise sharply, clutching the letter but unable to speak, and staring straight at his face.

Then, leaning back, his eyes rolled over in his chair.

The court was in chaos, and the painter's face turned pale.