Section 182 Borrowing Soldiers

Negotiations are still ongoing, and the Portuguese council in Australia is interested in the proposal of Cantonese officialdom - after all, securing trade with China is their primary concern. The Australian Yang Fan's swaggering entry into the Pearl River estuary also made the Portuguese feel an unprecedented threat.

The so-called "Australians" in Lingao have so far not directly harmed the interests of the Portuguese - they have made no major moves in overseas trade, except for granting concessions to a few ships in the Indo-Lingao trade. The jiāo of the Chinese in Guangdong, most of them are bulk goods such as grain, cotton, and various minerals, metals, and timber, which are of no interest to the Portuguese.

In general, the Portuguese and the Australians in Lingao did not interfere with the water of the river, and each took what he needed - the Australians sold the Portuguese a large number of high-quality and low-cost industrial goods, which made the Portuguese profitable in many distribution and resale markets. The Portuguese also sold a lot of "Indian goods" to Lingao. This made the Portuguese, who were originally desperate to open up the Chinese market, interested in the Australians, believing that if they could establish stable trade relations with the Australians, they might be able to open up sales channels to Australia.

However, the defeat of the Ming army at Lingao, and the subsequent entry of the fleet into the Pearl River, alerted the Portuguese - the Australians were clearly not a band of pirates or merchants who were content to be entrenched in the deserted county town of Xiǎo. They have bigger intentions.

Among the Chinese in Guangdong, there is already a faint rumor that has reached the ears of the Portuguese: Australians are Chinese who fled overseas centuries ago and are now returning to reclaim their ancestral thrones, titles and fiefdoms.

Every few days, Geranzani was kept updated on the progress of the meeting - and it is not surprising that the intermediary who came to negotiate in the Cantonese officialdom was Li Luoyou, who had lived and studied in the Society of Jesus as a teenager, and even though he had his own residence in Macao, the Society of Jesus would visit several priests he knew every few days.

Li Luoyou did not hide the purpose of his visit and the content of the negotiations. In Mén, the Jesuits have a great influence on the Mén Municipal Council. So he thought it would be useful to let the Jesuits know about the negotiation process.

Li Luoyou was shocked by the Ming government's attack on Lingao. He hadn't expected the government to act so rashly at Lingao—didn't they know to send someone to inquire beforehand? Li Luo thought with regret that if they could personally send someone to take a look, this big battle might be avoided. And the officers and men have also preserved more vitality. From his understanding, the officers and men of Guangdong were by no means opponents of the Australians. Li Luoyou knew that if there was no numerical superiority, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty might not even be able to deal with the Portuguese army that had been put together by various people, not to mention the Australians, who were ten times stronger than the Portuguese in terms of weapon quality and training organization.

When the wealthy merchants and gentry in Guangzhou were caught in the competition for the purple brand, and many merchants cut off business contacts with the Australians for various reasons, Li Luoyou still continued to maintain the Jiāo Yi with Lingao. Boatloads of yào materials, metals, grain, and cloth were transported to Lingao. In exchange for him, he needs all kinds of Australian goods. It was not until the officers and soldiers blocked the Qiongzhou Strait that it was stopped. This kind of trade made his Qionghai trading house in Lingao make a lot of money, which surprised Gu Baocheng, who was doing business in person for the first time.

In Li Luoyou's business, in terms of scale and efficiency, the Qionghai is not ranked at all, but Li Luoyou set up this place as an important business base, and it is also Gu Baocheng's first business industry -- he has a lot of regard for this industry as the Gu family's revival of the family business in the future, so the investment in this can be called generous.

Li Luoyou spared no expense to buy a large piece of land in the newly developed area of East Mén City. Some of them built houses and built Qionghai trading houses, and for the rest, he took care of Baocheng to put up the place first, not in a hurry to use it, and not to sell it easily.

"Isn't it a pity that this haode world is so wasted?" Gu Baocheng asked.

Li Luoyou took care of him, found a few vegetable farmers, and contracted out the vacant land to grow vegetables first. Growing vegetables is a very profitable project in Lingao -- a large number of industrial, mining, administrative, military and other non-agricultural populations need a large amount of vegetables as non-staple food.

"Growing vegetables isn't just about making a few extra bucks." Li Luoyou earnestly taught, "In order not to let people gossip about the long grass in the empty land, others will not think of anything else when they see it, they will only think that we are tyrannical." ”

"Nephew understands."

"You want to get the land that can't be wasted, that's the strength." Li Luoyou expressed his appreciation to him.

On the eve of the officers and soldiers beginning to blockade the Qiongzhou Strait, Li Luoyou, who got the news, sent a messenger to Lingao secretly. Because the officers and soldiers were fighting against Lingao with great momentum, some of the men and stewards of the Qionghai were in a panic. kept pouting Gu Baocheng to go back to Guangzhou first to avoid the limelight.

"The master said, if the young master here feels that the situation is critical, he can come back. The old man will never blame the young master. The messenger said.

"You go back and tell the master." Gu Baocheng said with confidence, "Although the Australians have a hard battle, it is difficult for the officers and soldiers to win. ”

The messenger replied to Li Luoyou with Gu Baocheng's words in the same way. Li Luoyou nodded secretly, although this kid's vision is still a little worse, in the end, he is no longer the same as the clouds, and he has his own insight - the insight is not bad.

He Rubin's entire army was annihilated in Chengmai, and then besieged in Qiongshan. None of this surprised Li Luoyou. Even when Li Fengjie quietly sent someone to summon him and ask him to act as an envoy to Australia to negotiate, he was not surprised. The reckless campaign launched by the Governor was bound to fail, and after that failure, someone had to clean up the mess. This one who cleaned up the mess is, of course, Li Fengjie.

Li Fengjie was Li Luoyou's biggest backer in Guangdong, and Li Luoyou was in charge of many business affairs of the governor, including investment and lending, and also came forward to run many pawnbroking, sea trade, and sī industries that were not well-known or were not allowed to be touched by officials, but were lucrative. The collusion between the two can be called close. When Li Fengjie proposed to compete for the post of governor of Liangguang, Li Luoyou immediately took care of the people and remitted 5,000 taels of silver to the governor's office in Beijing as an activity fund.

This kind of jiāo affection is certainly not the same. Therefore, as soon as Wang Zunde fell ill, Li Fengjie came out to arrange the defense of Guangdong while secretly preparing for peace talks, so he invited this "business partner" out -- and asked him to come forward to talk with the Portuguese to help defend the Pearl River Estuary.

"Brother, I'm afraid you know." When Li Luoyou met with He Chengzong, who came to Foshan to visit in the starry night, he was very unsightly, "The thief has entered the Pearl River and is now looting and burning Dongguan, Xin'an, Shunde, and Nanhai counties three ......times a day."

"I heard that it occupies Tiger Mén?"

"The tiger is dangerous, and the thief took two days." He Chengzong was frustrated and uneasy, "A complete defeat." He gave a general account of the battle of Tiger Mén, and when he talked about the Australians' "strong ships and guns", Li Luoyou was secretly surprised, because he heard from the other party's words: The Australians did not dispatch either the big iron ship or the iron clipper. With only fifty or sixty ordinary sailing boats and xiǎo boats that emitted black smoke on their own, they captured the tiger with many batteries and hundreds of gun emplacements, and 2,000 officers and soldiers were defeated.

Unexpectedly, the Australian navy was so powerful, and Li Luoyou originally felt secretly satisfied with the defeat in Guangdong, and felt that this was a very good lesson to those arrogant officials. Now they are worried - the Australians are so powerful in the military, and now they are at odds with the Ming Dynasty, and it is difficult to guarantee that they will not be another Jiannu in the future

"Dong Weng has important things to entrust." He Chengzong said, "This matter can only be done with one step, and after the matter is completed, Dong Weng will be grateful."

"I don't dare to take it seriously." Li Luoyou saw that his face was strange, and he knew that it must be something important - most of this matter was related to the Australians, so didn't he want him to come forward to talk to the Australians? He also said, "What are you going to do next?" ”

"This matter is not for outsiders." He Chengzong continued.

"Rest assured"

He Chengzong said his purpose in a loud voice, and Li Fengjie asked him to personally go to Macao to let the Portuguese send troops to blockade the mouth of the Pearl River.

“…… There are seven or eight big ships like a city in the Hao realm, and the artillery on them is like a forest. Even a thief's warship may not be able to win. He Chengzong said, "The thieves are now rampant on the river, but the guns they use are all transported from Lingao, as long as the Francophiles cut off their supplies, the thieves are short of weapons and ammunition, and there is only one way to retreat." ”

Li Fengjie chose Li Luoyou as this messenger, first of all, of course, because he was his own cronies, so he could rest assured; secondly, Li Luoyou has a deep relationship with the Portuguese; Zuihou, Li Luoyu was a businessman, not an official, nor a person in his shogunate.

The matter of letting the Portuguese send troops to help, to put it bluntly, is to seduce the foreign vassals. Let the Imperial Historian know about it, and it will set off an uproar*. Only a businessman like Li Luoyou, who has no official background, can make it easier for officials to deny and deny the news in case it leaks -- after all, he is a decent "citizen" and is not even a "temporary worker."

Li Luo was silent by Shen Yín. He found it tricky. He was unsure whether the Portuguese would do so or not. As a Chinese who is very close to the Portuguese and understands their mindset, he knows that the Portuguese are willing to maintain the smooth flow of their commercial trade, but there is a question mark about their determination and ability. In addition, since the opening of the port of Macao by the Portuguese, the relationship between the Ming and the Portuguese can hardly be said to be harmonious - at most they are tolerant of each other. Calls for the expulsion of the Portuguese in the official circles have not stopped. Especially recently, there has been news that the high inspectors are going to expel the Portuguese and ban trade, which is so clear and vivid that even the Portuguese have heard about it.

In this case, the Portuguese are still to send troops, and the other party is really not sure what he will think.

"It's a tricky matter." Li Luoyou decided to tell the truth, "Gao Xun's twists and turns, now the city is full of wind and rain, and most of the people in the Francophone also know about it, how to deal with it when the time comes?" ”

"Let's just say that there is no such thing."

This is simply child's play Li Luoyou thought to himself, Gao Xun will not be empty about the matter of the twist and turn, and he vetoed it without explanation, in case the Portuguese get the exact news in the future, don't they regard the Ming officials as people without integrity?

"This ...... If something really happens in the future, wouldn't it be a big loss of face for the government......"

He Chengzong smiled indifferently: "How could the government have said this? The face was very complacent.

Li Luoyou glanced at him in disbelief - he completely understood what He Chengzong meant, and this was not said by anyone from the Guangdong government, but by him, the representative. And Li Luoyou is not an "official", so there is no problem of the government lying. Besides, at that time, the government could completely deny that Li Luoyou had anything to do with the government.

This group of people thought it was so ridiculous that they actually regarded lying as a kind of strategy, and He Chengzong was proud, and said this sentence without subtlety, it seems that it is obviously not a big deal to let Li Luoyou tell a few lies from such a businessman. I suddenly felt an unusually chill.

"This class of readers, all the books have been read into the dog's belly. Any despicable and shameless idea can be played. Li Luoyou was furious in his heart. But he was not shocked on his face, but smiled slightly: "This, it's not very appropriate, right?" ”

He Chengzong still had a good face: "What's wrong? You've always been a businessman, so what's the point of saying a few wrong words? Let's deal with what is in front of you first. ”

“haha，haha。” Li Luoyu played haha. He can gain a foothold in the mall, and he can rely on "integrity". If he had deceived the Portuguese this time, it would have been difficult for him to gain a foothold in the Australian business world in the future. Therefore, he absolutely cannot say this "Li Dai Taozhuang" type lie.

In case the Portuguese really wanted to ask about the high patrol, he decided to make a straightforward statement: he did not know about it. Let the Portuguese judge for themselves. There are people in the city of Guangzhou who are willing to sell everything for foreign money. They themselves will naturally find the real answer.

After He Chengzong took his leave, he began to seriously consider this task. Of course, unless he doesn't want to do business in Guangdong, Li Fengjie's request cannot be refused. And we have to find a way to get there.

Even though he was a business partner for the Australians, he thought the Australians had gone too far this time. Disturbing Guangdong will only allow Daming's already severely weakened body to further bleed - in his opinion, it is better for Australians to continue to stay in Lingao and sell Australian goods. Although the Portuguese may not always be successful, a little pressure can help.

The tricky thing was that it was difficult to do - the Portuguese might have sent warships on patrol to try to drive out the Australians for commercial purposes. But their navy, Liliang, was so impressive in East Asia that it could even make Liu Xiang afraid to attack the Portuguese merchant ships, but it was simply vulnerable to the Australians. As long as one of the four clippers appeared at the mouth of the Pearl River, they could single-handedly defeat all the Portuguese naval liliang in Australia. He had no doubt about that.

Regardless of whether the Portuguese were capable of expelling the Australians, the government did not offer any favorable conditions to the Portuguese, since it was demanding. The senior bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty have a kind of thinking of "drinking water and not forgetting the well diggers", and they always regard themselves as well diggers. In the eyes of Li Fengjie and his staff, the Portuguese were able to settle in Australia because of the grace of the Ming Dynasty. If the Portuguese want to stay here, they have to serve the local officialdom unconditionally.

If they could not understand this, the bureaucrats were ready to use threats to force the Portuguese to realize this.

In other words, it's not a reciprocal negotiation, it's a constant threat of "if you don't, you'll lose."

Of course, threats are also a means of negotiation, as long as they are strong enough to be fulfilled at any time. But he was embarrassed to threaten potential allies when he needed help urgently. The Australian Mén City Council must have wondered what it could gain by spending a large amount of money on military and sending warships to enemies the Australians, who had always been a close friend.

Li Luo thought about it, so he had to use the big topic of maintaining China's trade, which the Portuguese were most concerned about, to persuade them to dispatch warships: if they wanted to maintain the status of Australia in the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade, it was necessary to maintain the water security in the Pearl River valley. Guarantee the safety of ship traffic.

The request of the governor of Canton, brought by Li Luoyou, was immediately brought to the council of Mén, Australia, for discussion. The Portuguese elite and the dignitaries of the business associations had a long discussion on the subject, resulting in two very different opinions.

Although the Portuguese did not like the Ming Dynasty, after all, this government gave them a place to stay, and they were given a monopoly on trade with China under the mindset of not wanting to fight with foreign merchants, and once the Australians and the Ming were caught in a long-term war, the lucrative trade operated by the Portuguese in the Pearl River Delta would be unsustainable. Therefore, the call to help the Guangdong government fight the Australians has been very high.

But others, who saw the Ming as not a haode trading partner, constantly restricted the trade of the Portuguese, limited the type and quantity of goods they could buy, restricted the cash they carried, and even forbade them to hire and buy slaves for the local people in Guangdong, and there were constant calls to expel them from the colony. Some even argue that this "megalomaniacal" politician should be taught a "profound lesson" - that if the Australians are willing to do so, there is no need for the Portuguese to intervene. On the contrary, the Portuguese could even use their transcendent position as an intermediary between the two sides in peace talks to reap greater benefits.