Zhang Bin's way to deal with the European powers is to compete with each other for the fisherman's profit, such a simple trick Zhu Cihong can naturally think about it, and Zhang Bin will understand it as soon as he prompts him.

However, this trick is easy to say, but it is not so easy to make people fight according to your ideas, fortunately, the European powers were already besieging Spain, otherwise it would be difficult for Daming to be this fisherman.

Thinking of this, Zhu Cihong couldn't help but rejoice: "This is really God helping me to Ming, let them fight, we take this opportunity to help the major merchants to make their business bigger, and at the same time build warships and develop sailors, so that our Daming sailors can be invincible in the world." ”

Zhang Bin nodded, and said quite proudly: "Your Majesty, the benefits of letting them fight in the dark are more than that. ”

When Zhu Cihong heard this, he couldn't help but be curious: "Oh, what other benefits?" ”

Zhang Bin smiled: "After all, Spain and Portugal have also dominated the sea, they will not be willing to stay under the Ming fence forever, looking at the face of the Ming Dynasty, they also want to revive and rise again." ”

Is this a good thing?

Zhu Cihong was puzzled and said: "Master, didn't you say that the barbarians are all tiger and wolf hearts, and it is good for the Ming Dynasty to let them rise again?" ”

Zhang Bin followed up and explained: "It is naturally not beneficial to make them strong enough to surpass the Ming Dynasty, but it is beneficial and harmless for the Ming Dynasty to make them strong enough to entangle other European powers, and they can't make advanced muskets and artillery at this time, let alone make sharp weapons like the Weiyuan battleship and the Zhenyuan cruiser, they can only buy it from our Daming, so that we have a lot of money to develop the military industry and strengthen the footmen." ”

When Zhu Cihong heard this, he couldn't help but be surprised: "Sell weapons to them?" ”

Zhang Bin nodded slowly and said: "Yes, sell weapons to them, Spain and Portugal have so many colonies, and there are many benefits, we are now helping them defend the colonies, so naturally we have to earn some benefits." ”

How much can this earn, if the two countries die, they can sell them two or three hundred thousand troops of weapons and equipment, Zhu Cihong still knows a lot about the cost of weapons and equipment, and the cost of muskets and artillery equipped with two or three hundred thousand troops is only a few million taels, is it necessary to make this money?

He was puzzled: "Master, we don't need to make this money, it's only a few million taels to die, and we have to prevent them from backing up when we sell so many weapons." ”

Zhang Bin understood as soon as he heard it, Zhu Cihong was calculating profits according to the price of ordinary goods, he shook his head and said: "Your Majesty, the price of weapons and equipment cannot be calculated according to ordinary things, at least ten times the profit before we sell it." ”

Minimum 10 times the profit!

What are you kidding, it's not that the materials of this weapon and equipment can't be seen, and the profit is more than ten times, will people pay this price?

Zhu Cihong was dumbfounded and said, "Will they buy more than ten times the profit?" ”

Zhang Bin said proudly: "Of course, they can't build it, if they want to revive it, if they want to turn over, they have to buy it from our Daming, Wechen has already negotiated the price with João IV and Philip IV, and João IV has bought us 10,000 new flintlock pistols and 50,000 guns, which are just used to build a musket factory and a cannon foundry." ”

The price has been negotiated, and Zhu Cihong was surprised: "Master, what price did you offer?" ”

Zhang Bin truthfully reported: "The new flintlock pistol is fifty and twenty-one, and the flintlock pistol is eleven and one; Fifty pounds of franc cannons, five hundred taels of silver, one hundred taels of silver, and other artillery, according to weight; The light ironclad ship is 50,000 taels of silver, the Zhenyuan cruiser is 500,000 taels of silver, and the Weiyuan battleship is 1 million taels of silver, which is still sold to Portugal and Spain, which can only be regarded as half price, and other European powers have to double it if they want to buy it with us. ”

"Ahh , Zhu Cihong has not seen silver, but this price really scared him, this is simply selling copper as silver, this is still half price!

He said in disbelief: "They all buy it at this price?" ”

Zhang Bin nodded proudly and said: "Of course they will buy it, no matter how expensive it is, they will buy it, because if they don't buy it, they will have no hope of revival, and they can only act according to Daming's face." Wechen is still based on their income to set the price, in fact, even if it is twice as expensive, they will buy it, but in that case, they will be more painful, if they feel pain, it will definitely affect our alliance relationship, so Wechen gave them half the price. ”

This is indeed true, just like when the Ming Dynasty couldn't build a slave, the Portuguese merchants came to sell the Hongyi cannon, the price was also ridiculously expensive, the Ming Dynasty didn't buy it, a country would still care about that money when it couldn't even resist the enemy's invasion, as long as it could turn the tables, no matter how expensive it was, it would be bought!

Zhu Cihong thought about it carefully, and then nodded and said: "Master, what you said is very right, as the king of a country, no one will want to look at the faces of other countries, let alone lose to their enemies, this price is indeed not too much." By the way, how much do they want to buy, and how much do we get in a year? ”

Zhang Bin smiled: "Naturally, they want to buy as much as possible, but Portugal can gather a total of 50,000 horses limited to its own population, according to the navy and half of the army, Portugal will give us about 5 million taels a year to buy weapons and equipment in the next five years." As for Spain, if we open up and sell, it is estimated that they will be willing to pay tens of millions of taels every year, and they will not be too much to buy hundreds of millions of taels of equipment. ”

Hundreds of millions of taels!

Zhu Cihong was really taken aback by the fact that he could make so much money by selling weapons and equipment, and he was dumbfounded: "Spain can spend hundreds of millions of taels to buy weapons and equipment!" ”

Zhang Bin smiled and explained: "They spent more than hundreds of millions of taels on weapons and equipment, since the Ming Zhengde and Jiajing periods, Spain has obtained a large amount of gold and silver from the American colonies, under normal circumstances, the value of gold and silver they obtain from the Americas every year is more than 10 million taels of silver, if you add their taxes in the European territory, Spain's annual income is definitely not less than 20 million taels of silver." It has been more than 100 years since the Zhengde Dynasty and the Jiajing Dynasty, but Spain has not amassed any wealth, and even now they still owe a lot of debt. In other words, they have squandered at least nearly two billion taels of silver in the past hundred years! ”

Two billion taels!

Zhu Cihong's eyes were about to pop out, and he said in disbelief: "How did they squander so much money?" ”

Zhang Bin gave an example: "For example, their invincible armada, in the heyday of Spain, can indeed be called invincible at sea, because their fleet has more than 100 super battleships, thousands of guns, and thousands of large and small warships. If calculated according to the price at which we sold the warships, it would take hundreds of millions of taels of silver to form an invincible armada, even if it was calculated at the cost price of one percent, it would be tens of millions of taels, and in the naval battle with Britain from the sixteenth to the twenty-ninth year of Wanli alone, Spain lost five invincible fleets successively, that is to say, they lost hundreds of millions of taels in a total of only ten years! ”

The "boldness" of spending money in Spain really amazed Zhu Cihong, who can spend hundreds of millions of taels in more than ten years, it seems that these hundreds of millions of taels of business are really done, because people don't care about this money at all!