Chen Mu didn't prepare seven kinds of wine, he just said it casually.

But the greatest benefit of power is that the lies that can be easily made come true, and when the banquet begins, every party in the Royal City of Manila has seven famous liquors, from rice wine to soju, on the table in front of them.

are all experts in war, when talking about the Lepanto war, Chen Mu is talking; When talking about the siege of Manila, Don Juan was cliché; Each of them regulates the war to the other, and at the same time gets the information they want.

I want to be equal to each other, but Chen Mu thinks that he has earned it, because what he wants to know is not the tactics and intelligence of the Spaniards, but the Ottoman Empire.

With regard to the Ottoman Empire, Don Juan had no sense of secrecy and knew almost everything.

What is there in Spain that Chen Mu is curious about, what should be known is basically known during the war.

He was only surprised by the Ottoman shipbuilding ability, because in terms of land, population, and bureaucratic system, these two behemoths had a lot in common, on the other hand, Chen Mu saw that the Ming was a strengthened version of the Ottoman Empire.

More than twice the country, more than three times the population, and a more advanced bureaucracy were the advantages of the Ming Dynasty, but it was also more complacent, and the main wars were within the Greater China Circle, making the war extremely lacking in military improvement.

Ten years ago, the Ming Dynasty replaced the Ottomans to fight the Battle of Lepanto with the Holy Alliance, and only used more than three times the number of troops on the books to fight a crushing defeat or a crushing victory, with no better result.

But in the same situation, after the defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto and the destruction of 230 galleys, they launched the fleet in just one winter with more ships than before the battle.

Don Juan drank two bowls of soju, sipped his pipe, and said with a bitter face: "I won the battle, but the Holy Alliance lost the war, and only half a year, the Ottomans still signed a treaty with Venice, which was a meaningless war. ”

Then he said to Chen Mu: "General, just like the war in the Philippines and Guam, there is no point, this is a war that can be avoided. ”

"Alas, yes, in Luzon and Linlai, we have lost too many tiger and wolf armies, if your king had sent you earlier." Chen Mu picked up the wine bowl full of rice wine and drank it all, waved his hand and said: "It's useless for you to come early, it was impossible to negotiate peace at that time, Luzon, Sulu, and Borneo are all tributary states of the Ming Dynasty, do you know what a tributary state is?" ”

"It's like the Netherlands and Milan in Spain, it's not the same as the America, and if my army sets foot in Mexico, your king will be angry, but is it the same as me sending troops to the Netherlands?"

"The war in Luzon is inevitable, but we can avoid the war in Mexico, the second Luzon or the war in Seville." Chen Mu raised his hand and lit on the wine table and said, "If you want to stop this battle, now is the right time." ”

Chen Mu said and pulled the silk towel and wiped it on his mouth, clapped his hands happily to let the drum music in the banquet be removed, and said: "Now let's talk about compensation, seven million taels of silver, Salcedo should have sent this news to Madrid before he died, right?" ”

Seven million taels of silver, Tang Juan had a headache when he heard this measure word, but he had already prepared to be embarrassed, he apologized to Chen Mu, and then said: "General Chen, the seven million taels of silver you asked for, Spain really can't afford to pay, let alone to avoid a war in the Netherlands, even if you can really send troops to the Netherlands, His Majesty the King probably has no opinion." ”

"The Manila route was cut off by war, the royal fleet could not carry goods, the king could not borrow money to pay for huge amounts of silver, if there were other parties ......"

Before Libera could finish translating the first paragraph, she was interrupted by Chen Mu: "Do you think I look like a poor person?" Not to mention money, you can pay with other methods without silver, barter, even with intangible things, no problem, put the heart back in the stomach. ”

Chen Mu smiled kindly: "Chen is not a strict person, the people and officials of the Ming Dynasty are extremely generous and hardworking, it is really not good, I can send people to Spain to open customs, the world is so big, how can it not accommodate Spain and the Ming Dynasty?" ”

"Eh, I really think it's good for Daming to go to Spain to open customs, your finances are thorough, and the king is actually asked to borrow money from the war, so it's better to give me the customs, and turn losses into profits within five years, Daming officials have experience in governing three Spain-sized lands, you see Luzon."

"What were the Spaniards like when they were here? Now that things are in order, times have changed, and you are still using the management methods of antiquity. Chen Mu said like a princess selling melons: "Have you heard of modernization? The Ming Dynasty has been modernized. ”

People in the sixteenth century said that the modernization of the sixteenth century seemed to be fine.

Sea, customs?

The word modernization, not to mention that Father Libera, who is the translator, can't translate it, and Gao Gong, Xu Wei and others, who were sitting in the middle of the banquet and listening to Chen Mu's unashamed words, could only look at each other, and the ghost knew what he was talking about.

Father Libera seemed to understand the translation, Don Juan was also ignorant when he heard it, and said in a daze: "Barter is okay, the price can be renegotiated, the arrears are difficult to pay in a year, can there be a grace period of a few years, the king's request is that from the date of peace, Manila and Spain will resume trade, and only with trade can there be money to repay the reparations." ”

"The resumption of trade and installment payments depends on the conditions of peace, in fact, I think that there is not only war and trade between Ming and West, war wins and losses, trade gains and losses, but cooperation is a win-win situation." Chen Mu spread his hands and said: "The two countries are too far away, and we have many things that we can cooperate with, such as opening mines together, establishing customs together, and even more like Seville, where the king leased a piece of land to our merchants. ”

"Not only did the western ship come to Manila, but the Ming ship also went to Seville, and we made this trade route more prosperous." Chen Mu thought about this for a long time, and he said: "I heard that the king of Spain often mortgaged his taxes and mines to merchants to get loans, even if he borrowed all the merchants from his country, how much can he borrow?" Your population is small, and you don't have many utensils, so why don't you come to me? ”

"Let's set up a treaty port in Spain and lease me a piece of coastal wasteland, that land belongs to Spain, the Ming Dynasty is just a lease, and the Ming people are responsible for building houses, land, and shops locally, such as renting for a hundred years, where it is very prosperous after a hundred years, it still belongs to Spain."

"Of course, this is also beneficial to me, my merchants can make more profits when they go to Spain, but unlike your merchants, our merchants borrow your land, and the local people do not pay taxes, so 20% of the profits of each store are directly handed over to the king of Spain."

"At the same time, if the king agrees, I can lease this land for a hundred years at the cost of one million taels of silver out of the arrears."

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