When Li Xuan paused, he once again looked around at the army and navy generals below, seeing that they were all looking at him, this is what he said: "The empire will never give up the interests that belong to the empire!" ”

Li Xuan didn't directly say what he wanted to do with Portugal, what he said didn't seem to have anything to do with the Portuguese, but as an emperor, his words must not just be taken on the surface, and sure enough, he continued:

"Any armed force of the empire should be fully conscious and earnestly safeguard the interests of the empire!"

"What are imperial interests? Obtain the living space they need for the people of the Tang Dynasty, and bring tangible benefits to the people of the dawn of the world, and the benefits that can be seen, so that the people of the world and my people are well fed and clothed! ”

"For this reason, any armed force of the empire must give full play to its subjectivity and dare to face any foreign forces that infringe on the interests of the empire and the interests of the people of the Tang Dynasty, whether this is the Portuguese or the Tatars, or some other cat or dog!"

"If they dare to come, we will fight!"

Li Xuan's words, listening to the ears of these military generals, were very pleasing to the ears, and Admiral Bao Yifen immediately stood up and said: "Your Majesty has the dawn of the people of the world in mind, which is really the luck of the Tang Dynasty and the luck of the world!" ”

This was just a flattery, but Li Xuan stretched out his hand to stop the other people from wanting to follow the hype, and continued: "For this reason, whether it is the army or the navy, they should make corresponding battle plans to deal with any contingencies!" ”

"But!" After Li Xuan said this, he emphasized one point: "I hope that your plan can be carried out without greatly disrupting the existing overseas trade of the Empire!" ”

Li Xuan: This is tantamount to giving the military, or more precisely, the navy a problem!

He wanted the military to combat the arrogance of the Portuguese, but not to disrupt the current overseas trade!

No way, the scale of overseas trade is too big now!

The cooperation between the Empire and the Portuguese was not confined to the East Asian-European route, but was in fact integrated into the entire East Asian trading system!

The Portuguese controlled the sea west of Malacca, and they transported a large number of materials from India, West Asia, Africa and other places, most of which were industrial raw materials, such as cotton produced in India, West Asia and other regions, which was imported by the empire from the Portuguese in large quantities in recent years.

Without the loss of the Portuguese cotton supply, many textile factories in the coastal areas of the empire dare not say that they will stop working immediately, but they will certainly be greatly affected.

In addition, the empire's main exports, raw silk and porcelain, will also be greatly affected.

In addition, even in the East Asian trading circles, the Portuguese were very involved, and the biggest influence was the spice trade.

The Portuguese actually controlled many spice products, although the Tang Dynasty opened up Luzon, Banten and other ports, but also obtained a part of the spice source, but the Portuguese control is still very large.

If the cooperation with the Portuguese is completely severed, the impact will be very large.

And this kind of influence is what the current empire does not want to see!

This is a major event related to many workers and countless silkworm farmers, and it is not allowed to be sloppy.

If this is messy, silk can not be sold, although the domestic market is still huge, but it will still cast a shadow on the most rapidly developing silk industry in China.

This is a big industry worth more than 100 million taels and affecting millions of people!

In fact, this is not only the concern of the Empire, in fact, the Portuguese side is also very entangled, they also obtained a lot of wealth from trade with the Empire, and this wealth cannot be said to be abandoned.

Otherwise, they would not sit idly by and watch the empire open up colonies in Southeast Asia and open up European routes, but they can only make some small moves, but the official level is the reason why they dare not directly intervene to sabotage.

They are also afraid of a complete fall out with the Empire!

Cooperate with each other, compete with each other, this is the current relationship between the Empire and the Portuguese!

The Son of Heaven set the tone for this matter, so it was basically announced that it was impossible to attack Malacca or something, and if he hit Malacca, it was basically declared that he had completely fallen out with the Portuguese.

But it's not okay to tolerate the Portuguese messing around like this.

The military must respond by telling the Portuguese that the Empire is not to be messed with, and the Imperial Navy is not to be messed with!

Since it is not possible to attack Malacca head-on, then it is naturally unreliable to directly send a fleet to block the ports of Malacca, or even block the Strait of Malacca, which is no different from a direct attack on Malacca.

For example, in the waters of Southeast Asia, in addition to having a large stronghold in Malacca, the Portuguese actually have some other small strongholds in the Indonesian archipelago, which is the Banten Islands in the mouth of the Tang Empire, mainly supply ports and trading stations.

Just because Malacca can't be beaten doesn't mean these places can't be beaten either.

Just because the navy can't be dispatched doesn't mean pirates can't be dispatched either.

Because of the prosperity of maritime trade in East Asia, this prosperous sea area also attracted countless pirates, and the Portuguese could use pirates to attack the overseas interests of the empire, and the empire could also use pirates to fight the interests of the Portuguese.

In addition to the waters of Southeast Asia, the Navy has also decided to do something in the Indian Ocean.

However, the main body of trouble is not the navy, and the navy's current business is only limited to the east and west of Malacca, which is the business scope of Datang Western Company.

Recently, the Tang Western Company has also been overwhelmed by the Portuguese, and they finally reached a cooperation agreement with the Spaniards, and they also initially opened up the markets of India, West Asia, and East Africa, and even successfully entered the market of the Ottoman Empire.

Well, it is worth mentioning that Ying Zihua led the fleet to attack the ports of the Ottoman Empire, and it has not been exposed until now, and the Ottomans have always thought that the Portuguese did it.

But this situation has only just opened, and before the Datang Western Company has even had time to make a lot of lucrative profits from it, the Portuguese have begun to wreak havoc.

In the tenth year of Xuanping, it has only been half a year, and Datang Western Company has already disappeared two merchant ships in the Indian Ocean!

Did it sink in a storm? Or was it intercepted by the Portuguese, and in the end the cargo ship was empty?

No one knows, but within the Tang Western Company, they believe that this is a ghost made by the Portuguese, and they hate the Portuguese.

Of course, the grape people also hate the Tang Western Company that has risen in recent years!

In the early days, Datang Western Company had not yet been made public, and was just an ordinary trading company in the eyes of outsiders, but with the end of the eighth year of Xuanping, after Datang Western Company initially established a route to India, it was officially opened, and began to raise a large amount of funds from the society in order to obtain rapid expansion of development funds.

This also exposes the extremely special product of Datang Western Company to the world!

And it was the first time that the outside world learned about the trade license of Datang Western Company!

Then, the company's shares are caused by a rush!

Because that license represents a monopoly!

In the future, in Datang, only Datang Western Company will be able to engage in maritime trade from the empire to India and even to Europe, and no one can say exactly how much profit is contained in this.

Therefore, when Datang Western Company first went to major financial institutions for private placement, it only used 20 percent of the shares, that is, it obtained an investment of as high as 8 million taels of silver.

This also means that the valuation of this company at that time has reached more than 32 million taels of silver, and the total investment of Datang Western Company in the past few years is only more than 1 million taels of silver!

In the autumn of the ninth year of Xuanping, Datang Western Company was officially listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and on the day of listing, the stock price rose by 30%, with a total market value of more than 60 million!

It has become the company with the highest market value in the Tang Empire!

At the same time, it has also become a company with the most special equity structure in the Tang Dynasty, because in this company, the shares occupied by the royal industry are only 16%, which is far from achieving the purpose of holding.

However, the Imperial Family Property Division has 33% of the voting rights in the company1

Because in the early days of fundraising, the contract stipulated that although some of the shares were used for financing, the voting rights still belonged to the Royal Family Industrial Division, and this part of the shareholders only had the right to dividends and no voting rights.

In addition, there are also some shares held by large institutions, and their voting rights are represented by the Royal Family Industrial Division, so the Imperial Industrial Division still firmly controls more than 51% of the voting rights of the company.

However, although the Imperial Property Division controls the voting rights, it still cannot avoid the problem of share dispersion!

What is more noteworthy is that almost most of the company's shares are held by major institutions, except for the Royal Family Industry Division, basically the domestic financial institutions that can be called the name, more or less hold the company's shares, and the real individual investors, although the number is also large, but the share occupied is quite small, the total will not exceed five percent!

There is no way, the market value of this company is too high, even if individual investors throw tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, it is useless, and the real large investments are those financial institutions that have gathered a lot of money.

With the money raised from several fundraisings, the company began to expand its shipping fleet, building supply ports and trading posts in Burma and India, and did not forget to expand its military power!

Nowadays, Datang Western Company has a formidable military force, their various armed personnel, and even the gunners and sailors on merchant ships that can also be put into war at any time are not counted, if only professional soldiers are counted, then there are as many as 5,000 people, and they together constitute the main military force of Datang Western Company!

At the same time, it is also the only unofficial armed force in the Empire that is currently in the official register: the fleet of the Datang Western Company!

They are officially registered with the Empire and have an official number, and they are the fourth military force in the Empire with a separate system in addition to the Army, Navy, and Guards!

This kind of regular military force is incomparable with the domestic law enforcement forces such as the tax inspection team, the armed patrol police, and the Hantong action team.

Differently, this fleet of the Datang Western Company, referred to as the 'Company Fleet' by the outside world, has been forever banned from entering the empire from the first day of its establishment.

Military operations of any kind were not permitted under any name on the territory of the Empire, and military personnel serving in it were required to wear civilian clothes and not carry any weapons in order to return home.

The company's fleet, in addition to more than 2,000 marines, also has four cruisers and eight frigates, and is also expanding rapidly, in addition to ordering new ships, it is also in contact with the navy to try to buy the navy's active ships.

Now the idea of the navy is to simply sell a batch of old warships to the fleet of the Datang Western Company, and let them make trouble for the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean!