Although Zhu Youxiao was very sad and angry at the Spaniards' massacre of overseas Chinese, he knew that this was not the time to tear his face, and after consulting with the elite team of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court decided that it was safest to maintain peaceful trade relations with Europe for the time being. In order to resolve the conflict with them in Southeast Asia and South Asia, Zhu Youxiao borrowed American thinking to put forward the strategy of equalizing interests for the first time, and once again sent a business team to visit Europe, hoping that various countries could support the Ming Dynasty's sunset operation against the Japanese.

The first to respond to the Ming Dynasty was the Portuguese royal court, after being squeezed by Spain, the Netherlands, and England one after another, this first-generation maritime hegemon has been declining, and even has to look at other people's faces to carry out trade activities. For this reason, their king personally wrote a letter apologizing for the occupation of Macao, hoping that the Ming Dynasty would accept Masgarlu as the first ambassador to China, and in return they would open their trading posts in Vietnam, India, and the western route of Africa for Ming merchant ships to berth.

The second positive response to the Ming Dynasty was England, where King Charles I not only needed the help of the Ming Dynasty to gain a foothold in Asia, but he was also fighting against both France and Spain at the instigation of his confidant Buckingham. This was completely in line with the Ming Dynasty's diplomatic strategy of using razing to defeat raze, so Zhu Youxiao immediately replied to a handwritten letter and gave a valuable gift to show his attitude.

However, considering that Charles I would soon be guillotined, the Ming Dynasty decided to immediately appoint Zhu Yihai, the younger brother of Zhu Yipai, the king of Lu, as the prime minister of foreign affairs, and Zheng Zhihui, the descendant of Zheng He's adopted son, as the leader, and carefully selected 200 diplomats to visit Portugal and England. These people include the Siye and students of Taixue, the craftsmen of Wang Gongchang, the officials of the Six Ministries, the officers of the Royal Army, and the cadets of the Maritime Academy, which can be said to bring together the elite talents of the Ming Dynasty.

On the surface, he demanded that the delegation establish good diplomatic relations with various governments, humbly study European science and technology, military affairs, and culture, and hoped that they would return to serve the country as soon as possible, but secretly he summoned Zhu Yihai and Zheng Zhihui separately to give them a top-secret mission.

"Long live Lord, Prime Minister Zhu Yihai and team leader Zheng Zhihui ask to see you."

As soon as the two of them entered the gate of the Qinzheng Palace, Wang An said impatiently.

In fact, Zhu Youxiao has been waiting for them, and after hearing Wang An's words, he immediately retreated, and there were only three gentlemen and ministers in the upper study. Zhu Yihai and Zheng Zhihui originally thought that the little emperor was worried that they would go far away and wanted to give a few more instructions, but they were taken aback by this situation, and knelt on the ground and did not dare to act rashly.

Zhu Youxiao motioned for them to come closer, and then said in a low voice:

"The King of England has actually written two letters to me, do you want to know the contents of the other?"

Although Zhu Yihai was born in the royal family, he has always been keen on politics, and when he heard this, he immediately replied:

"The minister would like to hear about it."

It turned out that Charles I had long had an insight into the desire of the colonial merchants in the country to control the parliament, overthrow the divine ruling order, and establish a constitutional monarchy ruled by them. To this end, he sent his henchmen to carry a letter of blood with him, hoping that the Ming Dynasty would help him crack down on the English merchants entrenched in India, relieve him of the pressure at home, and when the time came, he would bloodied the parliament controlled by these merchants.

Regarding Charlie's request, Zhu Youxiao naturally readily agreed, so he decided to secretly summon Zhu Yihai and Zheng Zhihui to inform him of his plan.

"The sectarian chaos in Europe, Charles's relationship with the Catholic Church in Rome was very close, and he tried to carry out the internal reformation by suppressing the power of overseas merchants, which made him at odds with the merchant group represented by Cromwell. I have promised him to look for an opportunity to crowd out the English in India, but you two must not easily fall into their civil strife when you go to Europe, and you must remain neutral on the surface and secretly facilitate Charles.

In order to delay England's overseas expansion, you must find a way to get rid of Cromwell, and if necessary, suggest that he go to the Ming Dynasty as ambassador to China. As long as this can be done, on the day of return, I will make you the prince and arrange for Zheng Zhihui to be the eunuch of the ceremony. ”

When Zhu Yihai heard that the little emperor was going to crown him as a prince, his scalp was numb with excitement for a while, and he couldn't believe his ears. However, he soon regained his composure, and then fell into painful thought. There has never been a free lunch in this world, and it can be said that the credit that can match the prince can be said to be as difficult as heaven, so it seems that this Cromwell is definitely a powerful person.

Regarding the doubts of the two, it was really inconvenient for Zhu Youxiao to tell them the importance of Cromwell to England on the road to capitalism, so that the two people mistakenly thought that he wanted to maintain the status of imperial power, for fear that such a group would also appear in the Ming Dynasty.

The third person who wanted to establish diplomatic relations with the Ming Dynasty was France, but Zhu Youxiao would never have anything to do with the Bourbon Dynasty. At this time, their king was Henry IV, and after ascending the throne, he took the initiative to stop the war with Italy externally, and adopted a policy of recuperation and recuperation at home, which made France gradually enter the peak period.

His two bishopric ministers, Richelieu and Mazarin, were the top elites in Europe at that time, among which Richelieu was as famous as Bismarck, the iron-blooded chancellor of Germany, and was known as the two greatest statesmen in Europe. Before the age of forty, he became the first Duke of Bourbon and had a dominant influence on Henry IV's political decisions.

He is best known for his modern pragmatic mercenary diplomacy, which enabled France to gain enormous benefits in the "Thirty Years' War" in Europe, laid a solid foundation for Louis XIV, the self-proclaimed "Sun King", and allowed France to dominate the continent for more than 200 years.

Playing with such a master can be said to be a zero-sum game, either you die or I die, so Zhu Youxiao chose to be hostile to France from the heart. Moreover, Richelieu also established an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, which made the whole of Europe hate this "traitor".

In order to further divide Europe, Zhu decided to establish a strong maritime alliance with Portugal, England, and the Netherlands, sharing the interests of the three countries around the world, while secretly supporting the Habsburgs in their war with France and destroying the privileges it had gained within the Ottoman Empire. On the Tsarist side of Russia, Zhu Youxiao also sent a delegation to persuade them to attack Poland, Sweden and the Crimean Khanate, provoking World War I in Europe.

The essence of this "Thirty Years' War" in Europe is that the emerging bourgeois forces challenge the traditional hegemony of the church, which is unstoppable from the perspective of the laws of history, although the Ming Dynasty in the far east cannot fundamentally change the outcome of this war, but at least it can delay the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, Austria and Poland, so as to contain the rise of France, the Netherlands and other upstarts, and win enough time and help for the Ming Dynasty to complete its strategic layout in Asia.

When the Ming Dynasty sent missions to Europe with great fanfare, the ambitious Zhu Youxiao and his supporters could even see the rise of a new maritime empire. However, the conservative forces within the imperial court soon questioned this, and their twists and turns were like snowflakes piled up all over the dragon case in the upper study, and Zhu Youxiao could even smell the spittle stars inside.

These objections can be summed up as two views: one is that they claim to be the superior kingdom of the Celestial Empire, and should not take the initiative to establish equal diplomatic relations with those barbarians who value profit over righteousness and are ingenious; The second is that they believed that the Ming Dynasty was a traditional land state, and the main threat was the nomadic people on the steppe, and that the main energy and military force of the imperial court should be deployed on the northern border.

For these conservative ministers, although Zhu Youxiao felt that they were too pedantic and blind, he also knew that this was the general perception of the scholar class. After all, thousands of years of Chinese civilization have always been rooted in the land, and no dynasty or emperor has ever really attached importance to the sea. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty was mostly a wild land, far less rich than the Central Plains, so there was really no need to abandon the basics and take the initiative to expand overseas markets and develop foreign trade.

In order to change the thinking of these people and prevent them from getting in the way, Zhu Youxiao, on the one hand, ordered Yan Siqi, Yang Tiansheng, Li Dan, and others to write overseas teaching materials to analyze the huge benefits obtained by Europe in overseas colonization, and on the other hand, he reorganized the Huayuan Trading Company into a joint-stock system, openly raised funds from the ministers of the DPRK and China, and distributed dividends according to profits every year, tying them to the ship of overseas expansion. At the same time, he boldly used those newcomers who supported the hegemony of the ocean, gradually weakened and disintegrated their power, and fundamentally lifted the shackles around the neck of the Ming Dynasty.