Chapter 129 Captain
Alfonso, the Portuguese captain, was filled with regret. If he had not insisted on sailing in this bad season, he would not have been stranded in this hellish place.
This merchant ship departing from Malacca is a joint asset of the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Portugal and the Royal Family of Spain. Captain Alfonso is also an employee of the Portuguese Royal Family.
During this period of trade, he arrived at Yuegang, a smuggling paradise in East Asia, where he exchanged spices for raw silk and then transported them to Manila.
The Portuguese and Spanish in East Asia were both foreigners from distant lands. The Portuguese still monopolized trade with the Ming Dynasty and Japan, while the voyage to the New World was in the hands of the Spanish.
The Manila galleon had two crews, each engaged in the two sections of trade.
Captain Alfonso had walked this road several times.
Peppers from Sumatra and cloves from the Maluku Islands are both very popular goods in Yuegang.
The Daming raw silk from Yuegang, whether shipped to Japan or Manila, is a commodity that can multiply in value several times.
Unfortunately, the storm at sea this year was particularly severe. Captain Alfonso, who was anxious to make money and pay off his debts, insisted on sailing in this bad weather despite the objections of the crew. In the end, he was involved in the storm at sea. After the sail was destroyed, he lost power and drifted here. After a long stretch of sea, it ran aground.
Captain Alfonso was not sure of his position. He only knew that he was very close to the land. He just prayed that he would wait until daybreak to find someone willing to help them on the road.
"Captain! There is light!"
The lookout rushed into the captain's cabin. Captain Alfonso pinched his temples. He had given up teaching these Malacca natives the rules.
A qualified Portuguese sailor would never break into the captain's cabin without permission.
Captain Alfonso was also helpless. In East Asia, the Portuguese mortality rate was extremely high.
Portugal is just a small country with a population of one million. Those who are willing to come to East Asia are either vicious criminals or bankrupts with no way out. They are called adventurers and come here across the long sea frontier.
They are definitely not here for the development of the royal family or the missionary work of the Jesuits. They are here purely for money.
Alfonso once again cursed the corruption of the Portuguese. He followed the native watchman out of the captain's cabin and saw the flashing lights on the Changning Weifu ship from a distance.
Alfonso's mood was a little complicated. It was obvious that there was also a ship on the opposite side, and he was trying to confirm the status of his ship through light signals.
But this is not a light signal for Portuguese merchant ships. In the land of East Asia, the only people who still have an organized fleet are the Ming people.
Although Alfonso's sailing destination is Yuegang of the Ming Dynasty, after sailing on this land for many years, he understands that the Ming people of Yuegang are different from the Ming people of other places.
The Portuguese also tried to repeat what they did in the Indian Ocean, using strong ships and cannons to open the Ming Dynasty's ports and conduct so-called "free trade" in the Ming Dynasty.
But the result was a failure. The Ming Dynasty's fleet defeated the Portuguese fleet. The Tuenmen naval battle made the Portuguese understand that the Eastern Empire still had control over its maritime territories. With Portugal's financial and military strength, there was no way to open up the Ming Dynasty. coastal defense gate.
So the Portuguese merchants changed their strategy. They first disguised themselves as tribute envoys and wanted to do business with the Ming Dynasty through tribute trade.
But the disguise was exposed, and the envoy was intercepted by the Ming court.
The Portuguese, the Japanese, and the Ming Dynasty merchants conducted smuggling trade on Shuangyu Island, and were then captured by Zhu Wan's army.
The Portuguese bribed the officials of the Guangdong and Guangxi sea routes and refused to leave Macau, so they established a trading port in the Ming Dynasty.
Captain Alfonso knew that he had to be very cautious when doing business in the Ming Dynasty, and except for Yuegang, foreign ships were not welcome in other ports.
"Captain, they are coming!"
Captain Alfonso sighed. There were clearly five guns on the ship, but now that the ship had run aground, there was no way to turn the guns.
Captain Alfonso could only call on the crew to pick up their weapons, but before he could give the order, there was movement on the deck, and the ship was already approaching the other side!
The crew on Alfonso's ship encountered a storm and had been drifting at sea for many days. They had long lost the willpower to fight.
They surrendered to Lin Mojun with little resistance.
"Xiyi?" Lin Mojun frowned, but he didn't expect that the stranded ship turned out to be Xiyi's ship.
Su Ze was a little excited to board the Manila Galleon, which was a 400-ton ocean-going merchant ship. This ship departed from Manila and could reach Mexico across the Pacific Ocean!
Soon, Su Ze and Lin Mojun met the captain of the ship.
Alfonso was doing business in East Asia, so naturally he could speak Chinese. When he saw Lin Mojun's cotton armor, he didn't panic anymore.
He has taken this route more than once, and has also encountered Ming ships patrolling the sea. Based on his experience in dealing with Ming people, as long as he bribes Ming officials well, he will be released soon, and even if he has enough money, he will be released soon. For money, Ming soldiers would also send him supplies and help him repair the ship.
The degree of corruption of these coastal defense troops of the Ming Dynasty was even worse than that of the employees of the Portuguese Governor-General in Goa. The only advantage was that these Ming soldiers were poor and not as greedy as the employees of the Government-General of Goa.
For businessmen, if paying money can solve the problem, then it is not a problem!
But for Alfonso, there is still a problem, which is to identify the two people in front of him and who is the commander of the Ming Dynasty.
The complex hierarchy of the Ming Dynasty gave Alfonso, an old captain who could speak Chinese, a headache. If he got the "hierarchy" wrong, it would be a disaster.
However, the God of Luck was still on Alfonso's side. He took the lead in saluting the tall Su Ze. The Ming officer did not raise any objection, which showed that Alfonso's good luck continued.
Being stranded in the waters near the Ming Dynasty and meeting the officers of the Ming Dynasty patrolling the sea was almost the luckiest thing.
In East Asia, the Ming Dynasty was the only one capable of repairing its own warships.
If the storm hits the Japanese country, it is equivalent to hitting the savage country. Then we can only hope that other ships will find us.
Su Ze watched the "Western Yi" captain in front of him salute to him. His smooth Chinese words reminded Su Ze of those foreign Internet celebrities in China in later generations. Alfonso praised the Ming Dynasty in a disgusting way, and almost knelt down and said, " "I love Daming"!
"You set sail from Manila to Yuegang?"
Su Ze also wanted to know the current situation in Southeast Asia and asked.
Alfonso was stunned for a moment. The officers of the Ming Dynasty were often vulgar and uneducated people, while the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty were full of arrogance towards the world outside the Ming Dynasty and had no interest in understanding it at all.
The tall young soldier in front of him suddenly mentioned Manila, which filled Alfonso with surprise.
"Yes, the New World is going to Moon Harbor to buy raw silk."
"New World? Is this ship going to the New World?"
Alfonso was shocked now!
It’s not unusual for people from the Ming Dynasty to know about Manila. Manila is a paradise for adventurers, and many adventurers from the Ming Dynasty also gathered here.
Almost all the Ming merchants in Yuegang knew about Manila, but Su Ze was able to say "New World", which surprised Alfonso.
Su Ze asked again: "Are you Spanish? Or Portuguese?" Alfonso was completely dumbfounded at this time. Ming Dynasty called them Europeans Xiyi and had no idea what countries they belonged to.
Su Ze's question also surprised Lin Mojun. Are the Western Yi countries divided into different countries?
Alfonso put away his confused thoughts and said respectfully: "I am a royal chartered merchant working for the Portuguese royal family."
Su Ze nodded. Today, Portugal still controls the East Asian routes, and the newly rising Spanish are still catching up. .
Su Ze also breathed a sigh of relief. If they want to compete for maritime hegemony in Southeast Asia in the future, the Portuguese will be easier to deal with than the Spanish, British and Dutch.
As a small country, the Portuguese's colonization during the Age of Discovery was relatively mild (I just want to be relatively). The reason for their relative mildness is simple: they are poor.
The Portuguese's purpose in opening the Asian route was to bypass the Venetians and Genoese, two famous second-tier traders entrenched on key roads, and purchase goods directly from the South Asian subcontinent to monopolize East-West trade.
When Vasco da Gama went to India, his slogan was "Starve the Venetians to death."
The Portuguese's voyage to India was also smooth. They also obtained the source of Indian spices, but they never monopolized the spice trade.
Their idea of starving the Venetians to death failed to materialize, but instead reduced trade costs for the Venetians, allowing the Venetians to sell spices at a cheaper price than they did.
The reason is also very simple. Portugal's weak national power cannot control all the important ports on the east-west routes. They cannot form a monopoly, so naturally they can only earn some freight fees.
This is especially true in the Far East. The greatest achievement of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia was to control the city of Malacca, the most important trading port in Southeast Asia.
But after controlling the city of Malacca, the only thing the Portuguese could do was to stay in the city and collect taxes. They could not even drive away the Malay plantations dozens of miles away from Malacca city. In Southeast Asia, they had to spend their own money to buy spices, not themselves. Reclamation and planting.
Compared with the British in later generations, the Portuguese colonization was full of a wasteful warmth. Of course, this warmth mainly came from facing powerful forces, such as the Ming Dynasty and Womore in India.
Vasco da Gama killed a lot of weak natives during his voyage.
Now is the time when the Portuguese control East Asian trade, and they are much easier to deal with than Spanish bandits and British pirates.
Su Ze was very satisfied with Captain Alfonso's respectful attitude. He asked, "What cargo do you have on board?"
Lin Mojun's musketry team had already taken over the ship. Alfonso still said with luck, "It's just food. I came to Yuegang this time to repay an old friend's favor and bring him food from Nanyang."
Alfonso was indeed right, most of the ship was filled with food. This is a mysterious merchant from Yuegang. Ordered from him.
However, Alfonso knew in his heart that most of the people buying food at this time were Japanese pirates or merchants with Japanese ties.
But what was really valuable was not the food, but the boxes of spices Alfonso had hidden.
Alfonso did not think that his lie would be exposed. He was the only one on the entire ship who could speak Chinese, and the box containing the spices was very small and hidden in a secret room below the deck. It was impossible for this Ming officer to find it.
Alfonso was confident, but Su Ze didn't believe him.
Only a fool would believe that they only transport food! How much money can you make by transporting food to Yuegang? This route is extremely rich!
It seems that the Portuguese captain is not as honest as he seems.
Su Ze suddenly said: "Is there a Jesuit priest on board?"
Alfonso was stunned. This Ming man even knew about the Jesuits?
According to the regulations of the Portuguese royal family, there must be two Catholic priests on board any royal ship to be responsible for prayers, healing and funerals on board.
Alfonso's ship was no exception. He just ordered his first mate to call the priest who was accompanying the ship.
Father Pierre didn’t understand Chinese anyway, so he had to translate it himself in the end.
A priest came out from below the deck. Su Ze searched for a sentence in English and greeted the old priest.
Not only Alfonso and the old priest, but also Lin Mojun were shocked.
Does Su Ze know the Xiyi language?
[Learned the skill "English", the combined evaluation level is Lv3, 1/300]
Only Lv3?
Hey, the college entrance examination is the peak of English proficiency. After CET-4 and CET-6, the English proficiency drops rapidly. Su Ze did not time-travel after working. If he time-traveled again after working, he would probably lose his Level 2.
But as soon as he spoke English, Su Ze regretted it. As expected, the old priest showed an angry expression.
How could I forget this!
The Portuguese, who believe in God, are sworn enemies of the English, who believe in Protestantism!
English is not a world language these days.
But you don’t know other languages?
The old priest chattered for a long time. He seemed to be speaking French?
[The Manila Galleon was found at the location where you can learn the skill "French". Do you want to learn it? 】
Needless to say, study!
[Learned the skill, French, Lv1, 1/100]
However, Lv1 French was not enough to understand the old priest's protest. Su Ze picked a formal greeting, and the old priest immediately stopped.
In a faraway eastern country, are there people who can speak French?
The old priest also spoke Portuguese, but he always insisted on praying in French. The old French priest believed that French was the most beautiful language in the world.
However, Level 1 French can only exchange simple greetings, but this is enough to expose the captain's lies.
Under Su Ze's warm greetings, the old French priest happily told Su Ze the place where the captain hid the spices. The clergy were senior personnel on the ship, and the crew often came to them to make confessions. The secrets on the ship could not be hidden at all. them.
Captain Alfonso's face turned pale. Su Ze was the strangest Ming Dynasty officer he had ever met. He couldn't even speak the complicated French fluently. Su Ze could actually talk to the old priest?
After collecting the spices, the next step was the highlight. Su Ze asked Captain Alfonso with a smile on his face:
"Captain, where is the gun room?"
1 In the thirty-third year of Jiajing, Spain had not yet annexed Portugal.
2 The Society of Jesus, a Catholic organization established in France, mainly opposed to Protestantism.
3 The history of the West in this era cannot but talk about the struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism. I will write about it slowly in the future.
4 We need to look at many Western characters dialectically. They are adventurers and executioners.
5 We must also look at certain religions and Christianity dialectically. The Sudan of this era is obviously more enlightened.
6 The financial issues of the Ming Dynasty will be discussed soon. This is a huge and complicated pit. It even corresponds to some current phenomena. Fat Bird has no meaning to reflect it. , it can only be said that there is nothing new in history.
(End of chapter)