Hassan couldn't help but smirk as he came out of Sanchez's office. The www.biquge.info of the pen "Fun" Pavilion and the entourage waiting outside playfully asked what was going on, and Hassan smiled and showed him the approval document in his hand: "Look, this time we have obtained permission to buy copper ingots, and we can buy as many as we can on the ship! Sanchez, the iron rooster, was finally caught by me this time!"

Hassan is very proud of the results he has achieved with his clever words, but he also knows that this kind of attempt will not succeed in return, this time it is a chance to meet the Spaniard who has something to do with him, and the next time he plays tricks with Sanchez, it may not work. As a businessman who travels back and forth to the major trading ports in the South China Sea all year round, Hassan has actually decoded some deeper information from the information he has and the reaction of the Spaniards, and can somewhat understand why Sanchez is in such a hurry and needs to make a trip to Sanya by himself.

What Hassan saw and heard on the southern islands of Java and Borneo was far more detailed than the Spanish hearsay in Manila, and Aragonés and others could only speculate on the true intentions of the Haihan, but Hassan knew that the Haihan people did not invite people from other countries to send people to the conference for the purpose of forming any military alliance, but related to the cross-border maritime trade in the region. This was because the Haihan fleet had held talks with the local governor Apondu after arriving at the port of Surabaya in East Java, and Hassan happened to have a good relationship with one of Apondu's subordinates and privately inquired about some inside information about the talks between the two sides.

However, due to the cunning peculiar to the merchants, Hassan deliberately did not tell Sánchez about this passage after arriving in Manila, hoping to gain more benefits by disturbing the Spanish position. Sure enough, the Spaniard really guessed and scared himself, giving him the opportunity to make a small fortune.

However, Hassan did not look down on the Spaniards because of this, and he knew that if Sanchez himself went to Sanya to see the local situation, he was afraid that he would be even more panicked than he was now. Aside from military strength, Hassan believes that Haihan is far superior to Spain's predecessors in infrastructure construction and international trade alone, as evidenced by the rows of merchant ships from various countries docked in Shengli Port and Sanya Port. Many foreign businessmen like Hassan have given up on buying in places like Guangzhou, Zhangzhou, and even Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and have chosen to go directly to Sanya, where they can buy almost all kinds of goods that foreign merchants can buy in Daming, and some of them are even cheaper in Sanya than in their place of origin because of tariffs.

The Spaniards also thought that Manila's decline was due to the gradual monopoly of the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade by the Han Dynasty, but Hassan believed that it was entirely because the Spaniards did not understand the relationship between the Han and the Ming Dynasty. Not to mention anything else, just talking about race, Haihan is easier to make the Ming people feel close than this deep-eyed and high-nosed Westerner, and there is no barrier to language and writing, and the Ming merchants are naturally willing to do business with the Haihan people who can also afford money and speak credit.

Although the Haihan invaded the territory of the Ming Dynasty, almost all the Ming officials who managed these places had already taken root with the Haihan, so there would be no conflict that the Spaniards had anticipated. On the contrary, Hassan knew that there were still many local officials in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty who hoped that the Haihan people would go to the enclosure and open the port, because the Haihan people are now the same existence as the God of Wealth, and they will bring wealth wherever they go, even if it is a barren mountain and a lonely island in the sea, the Haihan people can turn it into a prosperous town and port, so that the local officials can have a lot of stable income.

Of course, not all officials will eat Haihan's sugar-coated shells, but as far as Hassan knows, most of those so-called "backbone" officials will only end up being transferred or simply abandoned. Anyway, the Haihan people will not do anything to disturb the place, but will help maintain local law and order, and collect some benefits for some convenience, so why not?

The situation of the Spaniards under Haihan came almost exclusively from word of mouth from merchant sailors, as well as reports from a few of their men lurking in Sanya once a month or so. This fragmented information can also piece together some facts, but it does not achieve intuitive results, and Hassan also believes that the Spaniards' espionage methods are pure nonsense - if the report sent back is objective and comprehensive, then the Spaniards should have wisely given up against the Haihan people a long time ago.

Fearing that things would change, Hassan immediately took people to the warehouse outside Manila to pick up the goods, and at the same time ordered someone to return to the dock to give an order to remove all the ballast on the ship to make room for the loading of copper ingots. He is not worried that he will encounter trouble in sales after transporting it, the Haihan people have long announced that the copper is as much as it is collected, and this trip will definitely make more money than transporting cattle and sheepskins.

Early the next morning, Sánchez personally brought a letter sealed with fire paint to the dock and handed it to Hassan, who was about to leave the port: "Don't forget to bring his reply to Manila!"

"Okay, when I get back, don't forget to pay me another fifty silver coins for the delivery fee. Hassan took the letter and put it in his arms: "Goodbye, Sánchez-sama." ”

Sanchez snorted, but didn't say anything like "have a nice trip", it was clear that his dissatisfaction with Hassan had accumulated to a certain extent, but it was just a temporary inconvenience. However, he was sure that this was the last time he saw Hassan, because in this secret letter to Hassan, he had ordered the local infiltrators to try to rid him of the unstable hidden danger.

Hassan, an Arab businessman, was not an intelligence agent of the Manila authorities, but simply a courier who received money to do things. However, the courier knew too much, and the position he was showing was clearly unstable, which had already created a certain risk to the Spanish intelligence system. Sanchez wasn't sure when this guy would sell his subordinates for money, and the most radical solution he could think of was to make Hassan disappear from the world.

Of course, this will also put the local sleepers in Sanya at risk of revealing their identities, but Sanchez believes that it is better than being betrayed by Hassan and letting the Haihan people come to the pot, as long as Hassan can be eliminated cleanly, then the Spanish intelligence system in the local area can at least maintain normal operation for a period of time to come. As for who the future of the messenger should be entrusted with, Sanchez did not think that it was a matter of urgency, and that it could be resolved slowly. You must know that there are tens of thousands of Chinese in Manila, and many of them are diehards who have worked for Spain for generations, and it should not be particularly difficult to select some people to re-establish intelligence channels.

Hassan's ship, a sloop he had purchased from the Spaniards in Manila in his early years, had a displacement of about 100 tons, and there were more than twenty sailors on board, most of them from his native Persia. However, because of the relationship with various forces in the Far East, Hassan also successively recruited several Han Chinese and South Asian natives, and even sheltered two Europeans who could not get along in Manila. This would basically ensure that his caravans would not encounter language or writing barriers when traveling between the major trading ports in the Far East.

Normally, Hassan would determine the destination of his next stop based on the season and ocean currents, as well as the various goods that would need to be procured at the current port, and he was supposed to continue westward to Annam after anchoring in Sanya, but this time Sánchez asked him to send the information of the local lurkers back to Manila as soon as possible. This meant that Hassan's sailboat had to sail against the currents on its return journey, and in doing so, it would have to make a long circle in the South China Sea to avoid the westward current, which meant an additional three to four days of sailing. But Hassan did not intend to obediently follow Sanchez's orders, and he had other plans in mind for this operation.

Hassan was not willing to relay information to the Spaniards, mainly to keep his trade qualifications in Manila. Relying on this relationship, he was able to buy more in-demand goods such as leather and copper ingots. As for the dozens of silver coins collected from Sanchez, it was only a compensation that was better than nothing, and Hassan did not feel that the risk he had taken was worth it. But as Manila's trade situation declined, Hassan decided that there was little point in continuing to rely on the Spaniards, and that smart people should plan ahead and take decisive measures when it was time to change their courts.

It has been nearly three years since Hassan traveled to Sanya to trade, and every time he goes there, he feels that the strength of the Haihan is constantly growing, not only in the Haihan fleet anchored in Shengli Harbor, but also in the increasingly prosperous market, the locals who are dedicated to supporting the Haihan, and the various strategies adopted by the Haihan to expand abroad. The longer he looked at it, the more he understood that the trend of the Haihan becoming more powerful was difficult to stop, and that Spain's deliberate means would not be able to stand in the face of the development trend of the Haihan after all, and if the relationship between the two sides deteriorated further in the future, the people sent by Spain to lurk in Sanya would not only fail to make a name for themselves, but might aggravate the contradictions between the two sides. And as a messenger who has been transmitting information for the Spaniards for a long time, he probably can't escape the fate of being listed as a target for capture by Haihan.

Hassan didn't want to be regarded as an enemy and rival by the Haihan, let alone a fugitive wanted by the Haihan with a bounty. He was well aware of how terrible the arrest warrants of the Haihan people were, and that there were quite a few bounty hunters in the South China Sea who specialized in arresting wanted Haihan criminals in various places, and when they caught them, they cut off the big toes of their two feet, so that they would not die from their injuries and could not continue to escape. After such prisoners are brought back to Haihan, because they have lost the ability to work, they will not be sent to hard labor camps, and they will generally be chained in densely populated places such as ports and victory squares after trial, and used to warn the people. Hassan would rather be beheaded than chained outside like a dog for onlookers to watch.

If he wants to completely clear his name, Hassan has only one feasible way, that is, to surrender to the Haihan, and by the way, to reveal the Spanish tricks and distortions, so that Haihan can capture the Spanish spies in order to prove his innocence. If we can gain the understanding of the Haihan people, then we can continue to rely on the trade system established by the Haihan people to make money and make a fortune in the future, which is much better than being a thankless messenger who has to take huge risks.

After this trip, Hassan does not plan to go to Manila again in the future, he plans to follow Haihan's fleet north to the legendary Shuangyu Port to see it. It is said that the place and the surrounding area have been occupied by Haihan, and in a few years, it is estimated that another trading port similar to Sanya will rise in the local area. Hassan plans to try his luck and take advantage of the fact that the local development is not high and there are still relatively few foreign maritime merchants, so he will go and occupy a seat first.

The straight line from Manila to Sanya was seven or eight hundred nautical miles, and Hassan's sailboat traveled for nearly a week before finally arriving safely off Qiongzhou Island. After bypassing the Luhuitou Peninsula from the south, Hassan, standing at the bow of the ship, could already see the exit of Sanya Port. It is as busy as ever, with merchant fishing and cargo ships plying the waters of the Strait at the exit of Sanya Port under the command of the guide vessel.

"Lower the sails and slow down!" Hassan was not the first time to come here, and he knew the rules well, so he immediately ordered to start slowing down.

Soon a small guide boat approached and asked the people on board for their origins. After a brief question-and-answer between the two sides, Hassan's boat followed his ass into the harbor as the other had arranged.

The passage of Haihan is the same as on land, driving on the right, so that ships entering the port can just see the Sanya Port Fort on the coast. This fort was built almost at the same time as the port of Sanya, but after it was completed, it did not come in as much use as the port, and so far no daring armed force dared to attack the port of Sanya and let the fort open the meat.

On deck, you don't need a telescope to clearly see the black hole in the battery, and at such a distance, you don't even want to avoid the battery's fire. And what it would be like to be hit by a 24-pounder gun or even a much larger 48-pounder shore defense gun, Hassan does not know and will never want to know. According to the rumors he had heard, even if Haihan's own fleet passed through here and bombarded the batteries on the shore, it would not want to take advantage of the slightest, and those who doubted this could try it for themselves and appreciate what it was like to be taught to be a man by the shore defense artillery.

Hassan's sailboat slowly sailed across the strait into the river port of Sanya, but he didn't need to guide the boat to lead the way, and he himself knew where to dock. The special wharf allocated to Persian merchants in the port area is located on the bank of the Linchun River, and the level of wharf construction is much better than that of the crooked melon and cracked date project in the port of Manila.

(To be continued.) )