What Almantha said was completely different from what Almantha did.

After implicitly conveying a message to the corps commander Bernal along the lines of 'Chen Mu is teasing them and looking down on them', he walked through Mexico City's Plaza de Armas.

Once the capital of the Aztecs, Mexico City was home to 300,000 people at its peak, and the Plaza de Arma, which used to be the largest temple for the locals.

To the north of the square is the cathedral, which began five years ago and was repaired, but then expanded again and continues to this day, and no one knows exactly when it will be completed.

No one knows how majestic the church will be when it is completed.

Either way, Governor Almanza entered the church, and not long after the friar José Acosta stepped out of the church, turned from the wide, dusty dirt road of Mexico into the dark alleys, and finally disappeared into the streets.

In the unknown attic, a candle is lit, apparently a warehouse, littered with cotton cloth dyed in various colors.

Amid the brightly colored and dusty cotton cloth, the governor of New Spain, Almanza, sneezed, and said intermittently to Brother José: "Chen Mu of the Ming army wants to declare war on us on the grounds that the soldiers of Bernal's regiment are attacking the people of the Chinese monarch in the north. ”

"In his letter to me, wanting to get all the coastline on the west coast except Mexico, the north is not important, but the south has a lot of metal, and he seems to know how important the silver mine of Potosi is to us, and he did not choose there."

"It is very difficult for us to win in a war, and even if we win, it will only bring about a new decline."

"The nobles of the New World said 'I obey, but I don't carry out' against the royal family, we have too many new nobles, they have wasted so much income, and the New World, which could have brought Spain a huge amount of income, has become a poor place with debts in addition to providing for the needs of the royal family."

"The king, in order to confront them, forbade the New World to withhold silver mines, and the more they did not carry out the royal orders, the more the royal family had to restrain them, they had ruined the army of the Netherlands, and one day they would destroy Spain."

"His Majesty is said to be keen on war, but he is not, and when the kingdom is in His Majesty's hands, it is already struggling between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean, the Netherlands in the north, the Mediterranean in the east, and of course the West Indies."

"To keep the kingdom alive, we have to get entangled with the Dutch, the Arabs, the English, the Italians, and maybe now the Chinese."

"Chen Mu said that in order to get the land on the west coast, he can take two million ducats worth of silver from Potosi every year, mint 1.3 million ducats of silver for us, and provide 200,000 ducats worth of good iron-cast artillery, muskets, and gunpowder."

"This is very advantageous, enough artillery, muskets, gunpowder, can give the kingdom an advantage in the battle in the Netherlands, stabilize the Netherlands, and the war will not burn to Spain itself."

"I would like to ask Your Excellency to visit Chen Mu in the northern harbor of the Ming army, and negotiate with him on my behalf, while the various legions will prepare for war, and whether the negotiations are successful or not, a war will break out in the New World."

Brother José Acosta listened quietly to the Governor's words until then he raised his head and asked, "What is Your Excellency's plan?" ”

"He wants the land of the north, two thousand miles north of Mexico; The land south of Panama may also be given to him; Only the region close to the Caribbean Sea cannot be given to him, and the Ming people cannot be given access to the Caribbean Sea - their country is huge, and there are countless goods, and we must be the only one in Europe who can trade with them. ”

"One of the conditions for this contract is that all the minerals of these lands cannot be given to him, since he wants to fish, then he can fish well, and it is beneficial to us, we can get those metals without maintaining a huge military expenditure, and at the same time let the splendor of the gods shine on the people of the Ming Kingdom, and this is our opportunity to understand them."

"In the past they have not allowed us to enter their country, and now that these lands are given to them, we must have the right to live there, and they need to fight against our enemies, as they have signed in the peace treaty."

Brother Acosta said, "We will lose a lot. ”

"But we will get more, as long as the Caribbean can still provide sugar, cotton, and tobacco, as long as the New World can still provide gold, silver, and copper, as long as the Ming army can bring us artillery and gunpowder, and lose the land and even some new nobles who are greedy and do not obey orders, what is the point?"

"I heard that there is a saying in China that a strong man breaks his wrist, when a person's arm is bitten by a poisonous snake, only a warrior who dares to cut off his arm can survive - in the negotiation of Your Excellency's expedition to the northern military station of the Ming army, I will enter the camp of the Ming army and wait for this to end."

José Acosta had been nodding slowly in his previous listening, the large number of nobles has always been the biggest ill of Spain, because they traditionally have some nobles owning land, but more nobles are not tied to land, and it takes a lot of money from the state to feed them.

The royal power could not eradicate the power that the nobility could not control in the New World due to distance, and the explorers of the past from low backgrounds became the new nobles, who initially brought them titles and wealth for the killings they brought here, but as the colonial situation stabilized, the tyranny of the new nobility became an obstacle to the spread of faith.

The wise monk heard the meaning of the words of the governor Almanza, and said: "Your Excellency should know that if the negotiations fail, there will inevitably be a war with the Ming army, which is not a European country, and it is even better to fight with us for eight hundred years, they will not capture you to demand ransom." ”

"If the negotiations fail, Your Excellency will die."

"Negotiations will not fail, and the monk will guarantee that negotiations will not fail."

Almanza said conclusively, as if Acosta could control the outcome of the negotiations, and said: "Chen Mu doesn't care about gold and silver, nor does he care about strengthening us, it seems that he only cares about land, I guess it's to show merit in front of his emperor." ”

"Any extra piece of land is earned for him, and he will not let the negotiations break down easily."

"I did not enter the camp of the Ming army to force you, but to save your life, when the negotiations are reached and the Ming army enters these lands, the Viceroyalty of Peru and the new nobles of the north of New Spain will definitely fight against the Ming army, as long as I live, they are rebels."

"Your Majesty won't blame me, the only thing the royal family wants from the New World is a regular and fixed amount of silver coins to provide military expenses and artillery, and all this can be resolved through negotiation."

"As for the new aristocracy." Almanza smiled, his smile was cold: "Washing them with the hands of the Ming army will make Spain healthier and stronger." ”/14_14088/