When Zhao Shizhen walked into the mansion of a Spanish merchant in Changsheng County, the young Fu Ge'er was wearing a finely crafted Ming-style robe to teach his nephew how to be a noble-born man.

As if to make it easier to deal with the people of the Ming Dynasty, there was also a square patch hanging on the front and back of his blue robe, on which was the huge word 'Fu' woven for him by a skilled weaver in Mexico City with black thread, and the handwriting made Zhao Shizhen very familiar.

Zhao Shizhen didn't even need to distinguish that the word Fu on Fu Ge'er's clothes was his handwriting, and it felt like it had been cut out and enlarged from the document he wrote to him.

He pointed at Brother Fu with a smile on his face, and said, "You are still wearing it, it's really festive, seeing you is like the New Year." ”

As the only Spanish merchant who freely entered and exited the border with Zhao Shizhen's personal customs clearance seal, Fu Geer bought a set of two-entry courtyard houses at the street corner of the Changsheng County Market guarding the City God Temple.

However, because he has not yet obtained the right to open a shop in Changsheng, he has neither a shop nor a warehouse, and a group of more than ten people lives in this place, which makes the yard a little crowded.

The furnishings in the house were all brought by Fu Geer from Mexico, including oriental tapestries, Spanish plate armor, and portraits of family ancestors, and the room was in a mess, and the young maid was busy cleaning up, and when she saw the guests coming, she hurriedly stepped aside.

"Lord Zhao is here!" Brother Fu didn't know where he learned Chinese, he had a Luzon flavor, and he hurriedly invited Zhao Shizhen to sit down with a smile, and did not forget to tell the servants to go to Qingliangju to buy tea, and said with a smile: "Lord Zhao must have good news to tell me when he comes to visit, right?" ”

Zhao Shizhen was about to speak, suddenly heard a strange noise in the inner room, Fu Ge'er smiled apologetically, turned his head into the house, and not long Zhao Shizhen heard Fu Ge'er say: "Karin, uncle has told you many times, after blowing your nose, don't open the handkerchief to check, as if it was pearls and gems that fell from your head!" ”

"Uncle is meeting with an important guest, don't make a noise for the time being, stay here and don't go anywhere, okay?"

Not long after, Fu Ge'er walked out of the inner room again, and Zhao Shizhen found that although his long shirt was no different from the ordinary Ming clothes, the inner middle single was specially made, and the sleeves grew out, allowing him to walk with his hands in front of him and just cover his hands.

Recalling Fu Ge'er's movements and demeanor when he commanded the servant, Zhao Shizhen couldn't help but think, was this sleeve specially designed to show that he could always use other people's hands?

"I'm sorry Lord Zhao, my nephew is still young, and he doesn't know how to be a decent nobleman."

Listening to the thick accent, Zhao Shizhen finally couldn't help but ask, "Brother Fu, who did you learn Chinese from?" Forget it, tell me about your family. ”

Brother Fu smiled and said, "If the adults don't plan to use General Chen to mock me, of course I am willing to introduce my family to the adults." ”

"You know that, too?" Zhao Shizhen was a little embarrassed, pursed his lips and said: "It seems that this matter has spread in Mexico, that person is asking for his own hardship, I will not squeeze you, let's talk about it, I want to know." ”

The incident they mentioned happened after the Battle of the Canyon, and there was a baron among the captured Spanish knights, who was dissatisfied with the treatment of the captives by the Ming Kingdom, and complained to his fellow captives in Spanish, thinking that he should at least live in the castle and not with the Indians, but was heard by Zhao Shizhen and was beaten up.

Zhao Shizhen said: I saw that there was no flag army escorting you, they all had land; Seeing the horse rider in front of him, he used to be a hereditary hundred households in Daming, living in the castle from childhood to adulthood, and the outside was full of his fiefdoms and servants, everyone was the same, they gave up the life in the castle, gave up the fiefdom and gave up the subordination, and crossed the ocean to fight this battle.

If you're still alive, it's enough to burn incense, and if you complain about what you have, no one really cares about the ransom for your life.

In fact, Zhao Shizhen only told part of the truth, if the ransom was sent to the flag army, the mortality rate of the Western cavalry on the battlefield would be at least fifty percent lower.

"The Fugger family was the richest family in Europe twenty years ago, but our family history is not very long, and when we talk about Fugger, we have to start with Augsburg more than 200 years ago, when the bustling trading center slowly recovered after a terrible plague."

"The influx of immigrants from far and wide brought new life to the town, and my ancestor Hans was one of them, the son of a peasant from a village called Graben."

"At that time, Graben was a small place, and people who didn't know the road well, even if they had a map, couldn't find it."

"It was not easy to come from a small village to Augsburg, where he studied under a weaver, and although my ancestors were farmers, he was industrious, thrifty, dexterous and decisive."

As he said this, every word that popped out of Fu Ge'er's mouth, his hand waved and paused, and Zhao Shizhen listened attentively, trying to get the information he wanted from it.

Suddenly, he saw Brother Fu smiling at him, and said, "Otherwise, how could the weaver marry his daughter to him?" There is also a weaving workshop, from which my family started. ”

"He knitted more and more cloth, and finally had to push a cart to sell the cloth to Nuremberg and Munich, and then his two sons were also sent to Venice, the best commercial city, to apprentice people and learn how to trade."

"When Hans died, there were already three houses in the city and the land left by their ancestors in Graben, and the two sons took over the business well, one in charge of production and the other in sales, and they did not get along, but they worked together for a while, and they did a great job."

"At that time, not only cloth was sold, but also spices, copper, silver, silk and cotton, but the silk was not woven by the Ming Kingdom, Ottoman, Ottoman silk, sometimes it was more like a tapestry, with wool, silver, gold, very beautiful and valuable."

"Then they separated."

Zhao Shizhen propped his head and raised his eyebrows, and finally waited for a sentence that was not a messy place name and he could interject: "Brother separation? ”

"The Richs took risks and speculated, just like me now, so they quickly ran out of money; The Riley family avoided risky business and had become the seventh richest family in Augsburg by the time of the death of their chieftain Jacob a hundred years ago. ”

"Aren't you the richest man in Europe from the Fugger family?"

Zhao Shizhen frowned, after listening for a hundred years, from a small village to Augsburg, the result is that two generations are gone, and they are still in Augsburg, and they are still in Augsburg, and they are still the seventh...... What is the difference between this and your two generations of your family who have been mixed for a month?

"Don't worry, the third generation is named Jacob, he did three things that changed the fate of our family, he founded the Fugger Federation to avoid the loss of property in the family dispute; Banks were set up for the Church and Rome, and the funds were borrowed from the nobles to obtain collateral for minerals; Finally ......"

When Fu Ge'er said this, his face showed extraordinary fanaticism, and he raised his finger to look at Zhao Shizhen's eyes with blazing eyes: "He bought the Caesar throne of Holy Rome, Maximilian I and Charles V, twice!" ”/14_14088/