Zhu Linmiao was waiting for Du Chen to bargain, but she didn't expect the other party to agree directly, which was a little unexpected. To be honest, the content of this agreement is really unfair, and he himself is a little embarrassed.

However, since the Portuguese agreed, he naturally had no opinion, and added: "Then the provisional agreement will be signed first." But if your king refuses to sign it formally, I will see it as a serious provocation to the Ming Dynasty. ”

Du Chenxin said that the king definitely didn't want to agree to the previous conditions, but he couldn't beat the Ming militarily, so what could he do if he didn't sign it. As for the part of free trade later, he was too late to be happy, how could he refuse. So he hurriedly made repeated promises.

Zhu Linmiao didn't want to delay any longer, so he immediately asked people to redraft the temporary agreement, sign it with Du Chen, and take effect immediately.

Du Chen put the agreement away, and said to Zhu Linwei with some embarrassment: "Your Highness, since we have reached a new agreement, please release the Franc Machine soldiers captured yesterday." ”

"That's not going to work." Zhu Linmiao immediately shook his head and said, "Wait until the war reparations are paid before discussing the matter of releasing people." ”

Yesterday, Shi Lin had already roughly sorted out these prisoners of war, and there were some talented people among them. In the past, I wanted to recruit some Portuguese sailors but couldn't find them, but now that these people are in the hands of Zhu Linmiao, they naturally have to make good use of them.

Du Chen argued again, and seeing that he was resolute, he had no choice but to give up.

When the surrender meeting was over, Du Chen did not have much frustration at defeat, and the agreement with the Ming Dynasty on free trade in his hand was enough for him to retire from the governorship.

He hastily arranged for Kasro to act as an agent for Portugal in Daming, and he sailed to Batavia, which later became Jakarta, Indonesia, the next day. He waited there for a while, quickly boarded a caravan carrying goods back to Portugal, and returned to Lisbon a few months later.

João IV and his ministers were easily persuaded by the theories he "learned" from Kasro, and indeed because the Ming had not been to Europe for hundreds of years, they also felt that giving the Ming "zero tariff" and "extraterritoriality" was only symbolic.

João IV signed the "Ming-Buddha Trade Agreement" and ordered the new representative of the inhabitants of Franco, which was now accepted by the Portuguese as the official title of their supreme governor in the Far East, to be carried to the Ming Dynasty.

Pereira was accompanied by a large trading fleet organized by the King of Portugal himself, ready to go to the Eastern Empire to purchase large quantities.

In addition, although the outgoing Du Chen lost his Portuguese stronghold in Macao, he was awarded the title of baron for his "outstanding trade achievements" in the Far East.

It was hundreds of days before he was hanged for advocating a "traitorous agreement," and before that, he was still in good spirits.

At the same time as Du Chen left Macau, Zhu Linmiao was also in full swing to make arrangements for the expansion and management of Macao.

The first thing to bear the brunt of this is the establishment of a new "Guangzhou Customs Department", which will use the former cottage of Guangzhou Haiphong Tongzhi Yamen, and of course, it also needs to be appropriately expanded.

This Guangzhou Customs Department is not under the Ministry of Rites or the Ministry of Households, but temporarily directly under the cabinet, in fact, it is directly under Zhu Linmiao's orders.

Since the opening of Longqing, although Daming has been engaged in overseas trade for hundreds of years, it actually has no scientific management experience at all.

Zhu Linmiao plans to take Macao as an opportunity to set up the Guangzhou Customs Department as a pilot project, and then promote it to all ports in Fujing, Zhejiang and other places.

Eventually, the authorities governing these ports were merged into one "Ministry of Commerce", which was responsible for overseas trade, customs duties, anti-smuggling, and overseas colonies. It became the eighth department alongside officials, households, soldiers, criminals, workers, rituals, and proclamations.

The subordinate officials of the Customs Department have been appointed to the Ministry of Officials, but the post of director is temporarily vacant, and Zhu Linmiao plans to promote outstanding officials in the process of foreign trade in the future.

For the inexperienced customs department officials who are about to take office, Zhu Linmiao also took a lot of thought. He stayed up all night compiling a "Customs Management Regulations," which made detailed regulations on the collection of customs duties, port management, investigation and punishment of smuggling, cracking down on piracy, and escorting merchant ships.

In addition, in order to prevent Ming officials who are accustomed to corruption, he also specially ordered Zheng Guangying to transfer personnel from Jinyi Weinan Town to set up a "Customs Supervision Department" to verify customs accounts.

Of course, at present, the Customs Department is still an empty yamen, and the construction of the Macao Port can only be entrusted to the political envoy of Guangdong Province for the time being.

Macao is the port with the largest trade volume in the southern part of the Ming Dynasty, and it is also one of the important links in Zhu Linmi's overseas trade to support the Ming Dynasty's economic plan, so he spared no cost in the construction of the port of Macao.

When Sun Rui, the new political envoy of Guangdong, rushed to Macao, Zhu Linmiao immediately summoned him and instructed: "It is still good for the Francophone to build the port, and it only needs to be slightly expanded."

"It's just that the supporting facilities of the terminal are still extremely lacking. Just like the warehouse, there are only two in the port of Macao, and when more people come to do business, it is not appropriate to sell or buy goods in the open air. In the early stage, it will be expanded to 10 towers, and then rebuilt according to the situation.

In addition, it is necessary to set aside a vacant land in the port for a trading market, with hundreds of grass sheds in it, so that businessmen can see the goods and negotiate prices. There can also be more inns, restaurants, carriages and horses around it......

"Finally, we need to build a good road from the port of Macao to the city of Guangzhou. There is no need to spare the cost of this road, at least three carriages must be allowed to run in parallel, and especially muddy places can be paved with fairy stone powder. ”

"Fairy stone powder?" Sun Rui was surprised when he heard this, "Your Highness, this road construction is extremely expensive, and a road so wide will have to be at least tens of thousands of taels to ......."

"You don't have to worry about the silver, the Franc machine helped us out." Zhu Linmiao said with a smile, "This is just the beginning, when the trade volume is large in the future, it will have to be expanded several times." ”

After Sun Rui was ordered to leave, Zhang Jiayu presented a list of various assets in Macao that had been confiscated recently.

Zhu Linmiao took the book and flipped through it, only to see that the first page was: the Gasilan Fort in Nanwan, Macao, is in good condition, with two 32-pounder guns and three 18-pounder guns......

South Ring Fort, intact ......

Samba Fort, in good condition......

The Gathlan Fort, intact......

Foothill fort, intact......

There are a total of nine forts, which protect Macao and Hong Kong without leakage, and at the same time set up a lot of cannons, which shows that the Portuguese are operating Macao as their own territory.

Zhu Linmiao laughed in her heart, if the Portuguese agreed to give these forts to the Ming Dynasty at a discount, along with the city wall of Macao, I am afraid that five or six hundred thousand taels of silver would not be enough.

However, they chose to resist stubbornly, so now all this is free for Daming.