Brother Zhu Youxiao

"jingle……"

The twelfth lunar month is also on the ocean, except that the location has changed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Little Atlantic Ocean, and from a deserted island to West Hong Kong Island.

West Hong Kong Island (Andaman Islands), as an archipelago stuck in the Little Atlantic Ocean and the Burma Sea, is only 400 miles away from Myanmar, and only [-] miles away from the northernmost coast of Myanmar.

The Ming Dynasty’s development of Xigang Island began in the eighth year of Tianqi, and it has been more than four years since then. There are more than 4 Han residents on the islands. Shen Tingyang set up Xigang County here, with six market towns and 22 villages.

Most of the villages are scattered on various islands, and the largest West Hong Kong Island has a total of 4000 people.

Although West Hong Kong Island only covers an area of ​​more than 1000 square kilometers, 17 mu of arable land has been reclaimed in the past four years due to the improper use of labor reform prisoners, which is more than five mu per capita.

Moreover, there are still [-] reform-through-labour prisoners on the island at this moment who are constantly reclaiming the land.

According to the estimates of the Secretary of the Government of the Old Port, the West Hong Kong Island, which covers an area of ​​more than 40 million mu, can reclaim a total of [-] mu of cultivated land, reaching an average of [-] mu of cultivated land per capita.

After that, the [-] reform-through-labour prisoners on the island will be sent to Luchuan to reclaim the arable land in Luchuan, and there are still six years before their reform-through-labour period expires.

Six years later, they will be sent to South Kunlun in Levia to monitor the life of the envoy.

However, these things are the problems of the chief envoy and have nothing to do with Huang Fei...

"How's the army ration preparation going?"

"Preparation is in progress, and six thousand shi of military rations have been produced."

"The ammunition must be waterproofed well, and the ammunition of the rifle cannot be soaked in water."

"Don't worry, governor..."

On the bustling Westport Wharf, Huang Fei in a round neck robe led the commander of the Navy's four guards to patrol the wharf.

The bustling pier was full of naval soldiers, and their goal was very clear, that is, to wait for news from Hong Chengchou, and then land on the beach from the sea, and stab them from the back of the Toungoo countries.

After half a year of training, the soldiers of the navy have been able to master the Tianqi [-]-style rifles proficiently. It is precisely because they have mastered the rifles that they will look down on the Taungoo countries.

In their view, when rifles appeared on the battlefield, the balance of the entire battlefield had completely fallen to the Ming army.

What they have to do now is to use the Dajinsha River (Irrawaddy River) on the west bank of the Dajinsha River (Irrawaddy River) after capturing the empty cities of Toungoo and Arakan in the rear, and use the Dajinsha River together with Hong Chengchou. In the ancient area, the Burmese army was completely wiped out.

As long as the main force of the 10,000+ Burmese army is wiped out, the remaining forces will not be able to organize large-scale guerrilla attacks. If Huanglong, like the Indian servants, fights against the Mughals in the north, there will be no rebellion in the south.

"Captain! The news is here! Hong Jinglue invites you to attack Toungoo and Arakan on Zhengdan Festival!"

When Huang Fei was inspecting the armaments, a fellow magistrate of the naval governor's office brought the good news that Huang Fei was looking forward to.

Hearing the words, Huang Fei quickly snatched up the letter, and after reading it at a glance, he turned around and issued a military order to the four commanders around him:
"Before the [-]th day of the twelfth lunar month, all kinds of armaments must be ready. The whole army will set off on the [-]th, and a general attack will be launched on the [-]th night of the twelfth lunar month!"

"The last general takes orders!" The four commanders responded decisively, and Huang Fei also looked at the sea with waves.

This is his first battle since serving as the captain of the navy, and this battle must be fought beautifully.

He knew in his heart that some people in the military governor's mansion said that he was too young to be reused, but he had to show it to those people and let them know how powerful he is!

Huang Fei got the news of Hong Chengchou and began to actively prepare for the battle, but on the other side of the ocean, Philip IV who got Zhu Youjian's handwriting couldn't laugh.

[If your Spanish Empire is willing to withdraw from the Americas, Ming Dynasty is willing to provide you with all the saltpeter you have won after this battle, and at the same time export a large amount of low-priced agricultural products and handmade products to stabilize prices for your empire. It doesn’t matter if you reject this proposal , this does not affect the trade between our two countries...]

When Zhu Youjian's lengthy letter was sent to the Spanish Royal Palace in Madrid and read by Felipe IV, known as the "King of the Earth", the King of the Earth immediately became upset.

Felipe IV, as he is called the Great by the people of Castile, at this moment is the king of the Habsburg dynasty of Spain, the third king of the Habsburg dynasty of Portugal, and the king of the Southern Netherlands. A lord of (Netherlands).

Its kingdom still controls a territory of 3000 million square kilometers, but economic and political problems at home and in the colonies, and war problems abroad make him miserable.

In order to win the 30-year war, he continued to expand the military regardless of the domestic economy, in order to use the war to solve some political and economic problems.

It's just that the good times didn't last long. With the sudden rise of the Ming Dynasty and the looting of the Nanyang colonies, Spain's economy once weakened.

In order for the Ming Dynasty to resolve the economic blockade and continue the ocean trade between the East and the West, Spain had no choice but to give up the interests of Luzon, Southeast Asia, and India.

Fortunately, there are still some rewards for such a surrender. For example, the annual saltpeter trade of several million catties is enough for him to not have to worry about gunpowder on the battlefield.

At the same time, with the industrialization of Daming, a large amount of brown sugar, white cloth, and tea from Daming poured into the country, which suppressed the domestic inflation caused by the inflow of cheap gold and silver from America.

Because of this, Spain, which was supposed to go bankrupt in the seventh year of the apocalypse, miraculously lasted until the 11th year of the apocalypse, and will soon last until the 12th year of the apocalypse.

However, even so, the situation in Spain is still not comfortable.

At sea, Britain and the Netherlands continued to attack the Spanish treasure ship, causing a severe recession in the Spanish economy, but the Dutch economy was booming.

Gradually, Felipe IV also discovered that the current Spanish navy could no longer cope with the growing naval threats from various countries, not only the Netherlands, but also France and the United Kingdom.

Although I don't want to admit it, since 1623, Spain's monopoly of America has been broken by them, and parts of Brazil, St. Kitts, Jamaica and other places have been invaded.

It was also because of the occupation of South America that merchants from Britain, France, the Netherlands and other countries began to sell some things that were prohibited in Spain, such as the rubber tree seeds obtained by Xu Xiake.

It doesn't matter if America's interests are encroached upon. Relying on the saltpeter trade with Ming Dynasty, the Spanish army can still compete with the Protestant League on the European battlefield. Not allowed.

In the letter, Zhu Youjian promised that Daming would provide enough saltpeter to win the 30-year war, and that its Qi State would provide Spain with a large amount of agricultural products after taking over the Americas to help Spain restore its people's livelihood and economy.

As the world's first empire on which the sun never sets, literally speaking, no matter what time the earth is at or what angle it turns to, the land of the Spanish Empire will always be illuminated by the sun, so it is called For an empire on which the sun never sets.

This shows the extent of the Spanish colonies on all continents.

But a vast territory does not mean that a country is strong. In the eyes of later generations, colonialism must be highly bound to capitalism.

But for Spain in this era, although they adopted the means of colonial expansion, the domestic political system has always been feudalism.

Among the European feudal royal powers, Spain has the strongest feudal color, and Spain's national power is highly concentrated in the hands of the king.

In order to run the entire huge country, the king must continue to maintain power through small nobles. Although the large amount of wealth brought about by colonial expansion stimulated some factors of capitalist development within the Spanish country, this is only a factor. All In a feudal environment, favorable conditions will be transformed into the power of the king to rule the country alone.

For example, in the [-]th and [-]th centuries, due to the continuous development of the European commodity economy, the seeds of capitalism began to appear in Western European countries.

Under such shocks, feudal lords in many countries lost their feudal privileges, but Spain was different.

Under the same conditions, the feudal privileged status of the Spanish feudal lords not only did not shrink, but continued to expand. The Spanish king, as the most powerful person in the country, continued to reward the small nobles with the feudal privileged status with tax-free land.

In addition, Spain stipulates that every Spanish citizen must hand over to the king one-tenth of the wealth they obtained through colonial plunder in the New World, and two-fifths of all the gold they have obtained. Come to the king.

This kind of very unfair behavior was quite normal in the Spanish Empire under the management of the feudal system.

Therefore, when Felipe IV succeeded to the throne, he faced a small nobleman who was less than one-fifth of the total population and held more than [-]% of the country's wealth. The Spanish Empire never sets.

The minor aristocrats are different from the bourgeoisie. After accumulating original wealth, the bourgeoisie want to use the wealth for reproduction and expand the scale of production to continuously accumulate wealth. However, the minor aristocrats have a lot of power. In pleasure, not keen on expanding wealth.

The value of honor and disgrace formed by them from childhood drives them to turn their wealth into gold, silver, jewelry, houses and all items that can show power, instead of buying more means of production for production, all the wealth is used by them Maintain feudal relations.

Under such conditions, all the wealth obtained by the Spanish Empire was continuously circulated upwards, and eventually concentrated in the small nobles and kings, rather than being circulated among the society.

In a country with such a strong atmosphere of feudalism, the method of colonial expansion is used to accumulate primitive wealth of capitalism. The economic base is contrary to the superstructure. One side must defeat the other side, which will inevitably lead to adverse consequences.

Therefore, in the Age of Discovery, no matter how vast land and wealth Spain acquired through colonial plunder, it did not shake Spain's feudal system and social structure in the end, nor did it stimulate Spain from the inside out to become a feudal country. transition to a capitalist state.

Although the Spanish Empire in the hands of Felipe IV looks extremely powerful on paper, it is like a aggressive wolf, participating in every major war in the world
Under feudalism, the absolute power status of the Spanish king also determined that the national wealth of Spain should be used by one person.

If he wants to maintain his absolute power position, he has to pay money continuously.

As a result, the Spanish king at that time was not keen on putting the existing wealth into production and transforming it into greater wealth. Instead, he used a lot of money to maintain its huge state machine, and even invested it into endless wealth. war.

The current 30-year war is actually a battle that determines whether the Spanish Empire will rise or fall.

If this battle is won, Felipe IV can use the prestige brought by the victory of the war to carry out some political reforms and economic reforms, thus bringing Spain back to life.

If this battle fails, there is no doubt that Spain will gradually decline, falling from a world-class country to a second-rate country.

Therefore, each of the contents of Zhu Youjian's letter pinpointed the fate of Philip IV.

There is no doubt that war consumes money. A country engaged in war will not put more energy on the operation of the national economy and national society. Not only will the national economy fail to develop, but war will even destroy a country. national economy.

When the front line is tight, the country must continue to obtain wealth from the people at the bottom to maintain the consumption in the war.

In feudal countries, this kind of money circulation is unidirectional and unconditional. The king of Spain, who has absolute power, can expropriate the property of the whole country as long as he gives an order. This is undoubtedly a disaster for economic development.

For Spain at that time, no matter whether the war was won or lost, it could not obtain any economic benefits. The king continued to increase domestic tax revenue, but no one could stop him. Everything seemed to be taken for granted.

However, as a past under feudalism, every action of his will lead to certain consequences, and the overthrow of the Spanish Empire is accumulated in this bit by bit.

As an out-and-out feudal country, Spain has led to a feudal mode of production under the feudal rule.

First of all, the whole country of Spain is dominated by animal husbandry, and agriculture is not well developed, let alone industry and commerce, which basically disappeared. Shipbuilding, weapon production and silk weaving are the only industrial sectors in Spain.

Even with a territory of more than 3000 square kilometers, the single industrial structure has led to difficulties in the development of Spain.

The fragility of Spain's industrial base made it particularly difficult for Spain to develop its own industry.

It is not that Felipe IV did not try to change this situation, or that several Spanish kings before him were interested in developing industries, but the commodities they produced had no advantages.

These commodities could not compete with other countries in terms of quality or price, so during the long price revolution in the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain could no longer meet the colonies' needs for various industrial commodities and daily necessities. .

The large number of colonies is no longer Spain's wealth, but has become its burden.

Spanish merchants had to import various commodities from all over the world, and then transfer them from Spain to their colonies, and the Ming Dynasty became the top priority of western merchants' ocean trade because of the Longqing switch.

Spices from India and Southeast Asia, porcelain, tea, brown sugar, white cloth, silk and satin from Ming Dynasty all flowed into Europe continuously. Spanish merchants, as the vanguard of east-west trade, kept transporting oriental goods to Spain.

However, in this way, Spain's handicraft industry is constantly being impacted by handicraft products from Eastern countries.

Without the support of the state, the hope of the local handicraft industry to rise began to become increasingly slim, and the gold and silver from the colonies continued to become popular in the East. , the reason for earning hundreds of millions of taels of silver.

Whether it is silk, embroidery, porcelain, tea that the nobles like, or brown sugar and cloth that the common people like, these handicraft products produced by Ming Dynasty are very cheap. Therefore, the Spanish nobles are not proud of developing commerce and manufacturing goods, but using other The goods of the country are proud, thus forming a vicious circle.

Under the influence of the price revolution, the prices in Spain are much higher than abroad, which makes the goods in Spain have no price advantage in the world.

Even in the Spanish colonies, foreign goods can still enter quickly with extremely low price advantages, and then quickly occupy the market. Even Spanish merchants themselves are constantly buying foreign goods, and then selling them in the colonies.

They are not keen on producing goods by themselves, but reselling goods all at once, which makes Spain's domestic economy even more unable to develop.

Spain's European trade cannot balance the trade deficit. At the time of Felipe IV, Spain even had to rely on imports for food, and the foreign trade of animal husbandry alone could not reverse Spain's domestic and foreign trade. deficit.

Under such a vicious circle, Spain's economy naturally cannot support Spain's management of vast colonial lands, and cannot control the colonies through economic means.

The land area of ​​Spain itself is not large, and the population is not dominant.

It takes a lot of manpower and material resources to control such a vast colony with a small population. If it cannot be restricted economically, it must be suppressed by force, but this is obviously not feasible, because Spain does not have So many troops came to suppress.

Therefore, even with the help of Ming Dynasty, the phenomenon of extreme poverty in Spain is still very serious.

Outside the palace of Felipe IV, there is only a wall. Beggars are everywhere outside, and agricultural products are expensive.

If this continues, there will be more and more rebellions in Spain. Therefore, the agricultural product plan proposed by Zhu Youjian also solves the problem from the root of Spain.

Saltpeter was used against war, agricultural products were used to stabilize the populace, and handicraft goods were used against the nobility.

"He's a brilliant politician."

Looking at the letter written by Zhu Youjian, Felipe IV could only give such an evaluation.

It could be said that this Daming man whom he had never met knew better than him what kind of problems the empire in his hands was facing.

Each of his solutions is so simple, but each of them can solve the problems facing Felipe IV.

However, these problems were not enough for Felipe IV to support him to abandon the vast colony of America.

Perhaps Zhu Youjian also knew that he would not give up this colony, so he also noted that "the proposal does not affect trade."

It's just that Felipe IV knew that if the Great Ming Qi King really wanted the American colonies, then the current army in the Americas might not be his opponent, after all...

"You said that their fleet that arrived in Europe this time has nearly 2 people?"

Felipe IV looked at the nobleman kneeling in the center of the palace, and the nobleman nodded quickly when he heard the words:

"Yes, Your Majesty, the tonnage of their fleet far exceeds that of other countries. The largest one is probably [-] tons, and the other warships also range from [-] to [-] tons, and they have thousands of cannons."

"However, they were very polite and did not act recklessly because of their powerful force."

"Daming is a country of etiquette after all." Some nobles in the palace praised Daming after hearing the words, but Felipe IV knew that no matter whether the other party kept the etiquette or not, in short, the sudden appearance of such a powerful regional fleet would cause great harm. Unbalance the battlefield on the European sea.

Although Xu Xiake and the others are only parked on a deserted island not far from Gibraltar, such a powerful warship will definitely make Britain and the Netherlands fall into the trap. In addition, Xu Xiake and the others need livestock, and the most commendable thing in Spain is animal husbandry. A good thing to do business while guarding Gibraltar with the Ming fleet.

"Tell Real that Da Ming's supply ship can enter the port of Cadiz, and at the same time..."

Felipe IV glanced at the nobles in the palace, and then said: "They need enough livestock, tell the lords everywhere that they can go to Cadiz to sell the livestock."

The short-sightedness of Felipe IV was revealed at this moment. He handed over the trade orders of Xu Xiake and others to the Spanish nobles instead of the very poor Spanish commoners.

For the nobles, this is just a side fortune, but for the common people, it is a good opportunity for them to alleviate their poor lives.

However, such an opportunity was wasted by Felipe IV.

"Your Majesty, you have made a wise choice..."

The nobles in the palace praised Felipe IV one after another, but Felipe IV continued:

"If possible, let Real ask the Ming people if they are willing to cooperate with us in animal husbandry in the long run."

Felipe IV wanted to use animal husbandry to earn back the trade surplus with the Ming Dynasty. Even if he sold all the livestock short, he would not be able to earn back the gold and silver that Spain had flowed to Ming Dynasty over the years, but the return of these trades would allow the fiscal Embarrassed Spain returned some blood.

But not surprisingly, he will hand over these orders to the nobles later, so the nobles all praised Philip IV's wise decision.

Soon, the nobles of Cadiz started their return journey, but at the same time, all countries also received the strength and purpose of Ming's second voyage to the West.

The muddy waters in Europe continued to be muddied, but compared to Europe, Daming's eyes were always on the domestic New Deal.

Moreover, the day when the New Deal will be implemented is getting closer...

There will be a meeting tomorrow, the update of the two chapters is estimated to be in the evening