After several years of operation, the Daming Times finally changed from a tabloid for the emperor's own amusement to an important propaganda agency that was enough to influence public opinion in the Ming Dynasty. This change in influence also caused a change in the political status of Daming Times.

This also made the Daming Times move out of the original Dongchang site and move to the Beijing Library and Tongwen Museum next door, a large mansion covering an area of nearly 10 acres. At this point, the looming background of the East Factory behind the Daming Times finally began not to be mentioned.

This mansion is a typical courtyard pattern in Beijing, with four-tenths of the buildings and six-tenths of the gardens, which is in line with the aesthetic concept of the Ming people living in the city, but always wanting to be close to nature. For the twenty-seven-year-old Alessandro, such a building was a masterpiece that made him want to praise God.

Alessandro, a painter from the Venetian school, could not technically be called a painter, but only a painter who had recently completed his apprenticeship. Anonymous painters like him abound in Italy, and Alessandro is one of the more common painters.

After graduating from his teacher's studio, he did not stay to work for his teacher, but came to Rome to try to make a name for himself here and open his own studio. However, it is obvious that a painter who has no characteristics and has not been appreciated by nobles cannot stand out in the city of Rome, which is full of talents. During his three years in Rome, Alessandro did not produce a single painting worthy of a work, except for repairing icons in churches and doing odd jobs to make ends meet.

Just when he was disheartened and was about to return to his hometown in the countryside to inherit the family business, he happened to encounter an incident in which the Chinese mission came to visit the Holy See, and the Chinese mission was still recruiting some people with special skills to go to China. Alessandro decided to take an adventure in the Far East before giving up his career as a painter.

He offered the Chinese mission an annual salary of 300 guilders and was willing to sign a three-year employment contract. Although Alessandro vigorously touted his painting skills, the Jesuit clergy soon revealed that he was nothing more than an anonymous painter with no works, earning no more than 100 guilders a year.

However, since Alessandro was the only Western painter to be recruited by the mission, and the gorgeous colors and secular atmosphere of the Venetian paintings were very satisfying to the leaders of the Chinese mission, he was eventually accepted by the Chinese mission. The annual salary was reduced to 200 guilders, but the mission offered to pay for his round-trip fares, of course, after he had completed his three-year employment as agreed.

After experiencing the rough seas of the Pacific Ocean and the hardships of various voyages, Alessandro finally arrived at his fantasy of the East, but this East world did not match the one he imagined. But this real oriental world has brought even greater surprises.

Alessandro felt that three years might be enough time for him to complete a real work, and that the adventure to the East would not be in vain. It's just that he didn't expect that his first job was to serve a newspaper, not the emperor or a nobleman.

Opposite Alexandro, who was looking around and looking around, Sun Zhiqi was holding a sketch portrait and looking at it. This is his own portrait, and it is the first time that Sun Zhiqi has seen a portrait that looks so similar to himself, which is almost comparable to the brushwork of several well-known painters of this dynasty.

After putting down the sketch in his hand, Sun Zhiqi said to the interpreter on the side: "Tell him that the newspaper needs a standard portrait of His Majesty to be printed in the newspaper now, and as long as he can help us solve this problem, then I will recommend him to become an official court painter." ”

After listening to the words relayed by the interpreter, Alessandro immediately looked at Sun Zhiqi opposite seriously and said: "Please help me tell this lord that even if I become a court painter, I should be paid a separate remuneration for each work I paint, and the minimum for an oil painting shall not be less than 300 guilders." ”

Sun Zhiqi was a little impatient with this scheming Western painter, but he finally put up with his disgust when he thought that if a clear and accurate portrait of the emperor could be published in the newspaper, he would have a sense of disgust for the newspaper's political propaganda.

"Tell him that as long as he can fulfill my request, then each of the paintings that will be offered to him* in the future can be priced individually. Of course, the value of his oil paintings depends on his painting level..."Sun Zhiqi vaguely agreed, but in his heart he felt that no one should spend 150 yuan to ask him to spend any oil paintings, and this price is not far from the paintings of top painters in the Ming Dynasty.

Alessandro, who received the promise of Sun Zhiqi, was very happy in his heart, and a famous painter in Europe made a work, about 1000-3000 guilders, and his paintings were able to reach 300 guilders, which means that here he finally stepped into the threshold of a painter, and was no longer an ordinary painter without creativity.

Like Alessandro, dozens of people with special skills recruited from all over southern Europe are being assigned to the right places according to their own talents. Some brought grape varieties suitable for making red wine, others brought improved varieties of European hops and beer brewing methods, and others brought merino sheep breeding and wool processing techniques.

These good varieties and crafts from the West have greatly promoted the understanding of agriculture by the Daming Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and also given a lot of inspiration to the workshops of Daming. However, the exchange of science and culture is also two-way, when the Ming Dynasty absorbed the crystallization of agricultural and scientific and technological development from Europe, these Europeans who came to China also understood for the first time the accelerated role of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in agricultural technology research, and realized what is called standardized production and what is large-scale industrial production.

Although Europe did not know what industrialization and industrial revolution were at this time, as the Ming Dynasty continued to expand its exchanges with the outside world, the Ming Dynasty's industrialization path still vaguely pointed out the direction of the development of the times for European countries.

It should be said that at this time, under the impetus of Chongzhen, Daming is like a giant bear that has just woken up from hibernation. The giant bear came out of its den hungry and looked out into the forest beyond its territory for the first time, trying to find a new place for itself to hunt.

Leaving the territory they are familiar with and entering the unfamiliar forest to hunt for food is a new adventure for all classes of the Ming Dynasty. Their enemies are no longer the familiar northern nomads and the southwestern-minded Tusi, but the distant unknown natives and the blond, blue-eyed Westerners.

However, compared to the benefits of the old territory that have been divided, there are many ownerless riches hidden in the strange forest, and whoever strikes first can take these riches into his arms first. There is no order in these strange forests, so people do not have to worry about the wealth they have acquired being taken away by the powerful of the country.

Under the pressure of domestic reform policies, some vested interests have also reined in their own deeds and begun to turn their attention overseas. But the first to wake up were the merchants of the Ming Dynasty.

The opening up of overseas trade and the victory of the Japanese crusade finally made the merchants realize that it seemed that it was easier for them to obtain wealth overseas than at home, and it also allowed them to gain the honor of patriotic merchants.

For example, the Ming merchant representative meeting, which was originally only used as a merchant for trade negotiations, added some additional discussion content at the beginning of the sixth year of Chongzhen. In addition to the routine discussion of the troubles of the merchants of the provinces in trade disputes, the annual meeting of the representatives of the merchants of the Ming Dynasty for the first time raised the matters of division of power and overseas cooperation.

In fact, these representatives of Ming merchants have been divided into six major merchant groups due to different regions and trade industries. The merchant groups of merchants from the northwest provinces, the merchant groups of Shanxi merchants and the Bank of Shanxi, the merchant groups of Hebei, Shandong and the Central Bank and the Bank of Communications, the merchant groups of the southern coastal areas engaged in overseas trade, and the merchant groups of Sichuan and Yunnan regions.

In order to be able to concentrate on developing the vast overseas market, these six major business groups first reached a carve-up and compromise on the domestic market, so as to integrate their resources to attack overseas.

By this time, the merchants' congress had become dissatisfied with the independent foreign merchants' association, which had been used to recruit pirate groups along the southeast coast of An, but had now become a privileged body used by some overseas officials to monopolize overseas trade. This was so dissatisfying to the merchants who had just entered the overseas trade that the congress passed a resolution to petition the imperial court to merge the Foreign Merchants Association into the merchants' congress.

Naturally, this decision was vetoed by the Foreign Merchant Association, which benefited not only the pirates who had been recruited, but also the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the banks. To a certain extent, pirates such as Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang, and Yang Tiansheng, who were recruited, are now being scolded for the Internal Affairs Department and various banks.

In contrast to the old and clumsy methods of the pirates, the new style of maritime trade, which combined industrial manufacturing and financial control, allowed the Ministry of Internal Affairs and banks to amass resources and wealth from overseas at an unimaginable rate. Even Chongzhen himself, after comparing his income expectations, said that the conditions for the merger of the merchants' congress and the foreign merchants' association were not yet ripe, and it was better to wait a few more years.

However, Chongzhen also realized that the domestic merchant class already had an initial need for external expansion, and this was also the best time to divert the surplus population overseas.

After receiving the booty sent back from Malacca by Su Yue, Yang Tiansheng and others, as well as their descriptions of the local forces, Chongzhen thought about it for several days, and finally summoned Isabella and Bishop Antonio for a conversation.

After Zhu Youzhen gave the two of them a map of the situation around the Strait of Malacca, he said to the two: "At present, except for the Portuguese colonial villages on some small islands near Java, all the Portuguese forces in the east of the Strait of Malacca have pledged their allegiance to the Restoration Committee.

I thought that as long as we sent emissaries to persuade the colonial villages that were not in the climate, as long as we took the Portuguese colonies in India, they would soon succumb.

The first thing we encountered when we wanted to seize the colonies in India was Chittagong on the lower reaches of the Gornopuri River, which was also our gateway to the Indian mainland.

But even if we occupy the city of Malacca and control the Straits of Malacca. An expedition to Chittagong from here is still too far away. Therefore, it is inevitable to find a transit point in the southern coastal zone of Myanmar.

I have heard that you once occupied Saleng on the left bank of the lower Yangon River, but you were driven out by the Burmese more than ten years ago. I thought it was time for the Restoration Council to retake Salian and open up outposts for the Empire's entry into mainland India..."