Since the end of September, more and more countries have become more and more welcoming in the face of the sudden appearance of the Ming Dynasty, from the initial precautions and fears.

The battle between the Ming Dynasty and Portugal in Ceuta, although it showed the strong combat effectiveness of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty did not bully the weak, but always used an equal attitude to face these countries that were weaker than them, showing an oriental civilization that Europeans envied.

This civilization was more advanced than the Europeans themselves, so they even approached the Ming with an attitude of admiration.

In addition to the battle of Ceuta, although the sea power of the Ming Dynasty was very strong, they also used the Mediterranean Sea as their living room to travel freely.

However, they did not show hostility towards any of the country's fleets, and even came to the aid of the Sardinian ships when they ran aground.

Because of their appearance, the pirate ships that have been roaming the Mediterranean have also disappeared in recent times.

The friendly attitude of the Ming Dynasty gradually spread, which attracted more and more national missions, and they showed fanatical interest in the face of various commodities whose prices were nearly half lower than in previous years.

More and more contracts were negotiated, and more and more buyers were found for Daming's goods.

But to Zhu Zhanji's surprise, the first goods sold out were not silk and porcelain, nor spices, but iron pots.

The sale of ironware was strictly controlled by the Ming Dynasty, and this time in Europe, the ironware of the Ming Dynasty was mainly based on shovels, sickles, and iron pots.

Shovels and sickles brought very little because of their low added value, but the iron pots filled a whole boat, tens of thousands.

There is no iron pot in Europe, and their iron pot is mainly made of iron tripod, which is made of very thick iron sheets, and the cost is surprisingly high.

An iron pot is not only unaffordable for the common people, but also for the minor nobles. If any nobleman has an iron pot, after his death, his children will fight for the inheritance of the iron pot, even if they don't want gold and silver.

The iron pots brought by the Ming Dynasty are all pig iron thin-skinned pots, which have been used in the East for thousands of years, although they seem simple, they have a very high technical process.

Europeans become crazy when they see these iron pots, and the price of an iron pot is dozens of times the profit, but they still rush to it.

Little by little, Daming's goods have become owner's things, but most of them still haven't found their owners.

It's not because these things are bad, it's not that they're too expensive, it's more important because they don't have the goods that Daming wants.

In addition to a small amount of gold and silver, Europe today mainly consists of horses, wool, and sisal.

The Arabs were a little richer in their hands, they still had cotton, paper, and copper mines.

But Zhu Zhanji is not afraid that his goods will not be sold, because there are still many countries that have not reached a trade intention with the Ming Dynasty.

Like the richest Venice, the Ottomans, and the Mamluk dynasty have not yet reached trade cooperation with the Ming Dynasty.

What's more, even if they can't be sold, Zhu Zhanji will leave these goods in Europe and sell them slowly.

By mid-October, the Ming fleet broke the Ottoman Empire and the Byzantine Empire's navy in the Aegean Sea, and the Ottomans and Byzantium immediately began trade negotiations with the Ming mission.

And the news that Ma Huan came back from the Mamluk Dynasty made Zhu Zhanji even more happy.

I don't know how Ma Huan negotiated with the other party, but the Mamluk king Faraj has now sent a waiter to submit a letter of state willing to establish closer relations with the Ming Dynasty.

There are two main contents of this national letter, the first is that the Mamluk Dynasty invited the Ming fleet to garrison in Suez to establish a military alliance, and was willing to cede 300 square kilometers of farmland north of Suez as a food supply base for the Ming garrison.

Suez is an ancient city that was an important bazaar for East-West trade 2,000 years ago. Although it is located on the edge of the desert, it is a fertile oasis in the north of Suez, 20 kilometers from north to south and 10 kilometers from east to west between the Great Bitter Lake.

Although it is not as fertile as the land of the Nile Delta, it can produce a lot of food every year if it is used well.

But for the Mamluks, it was a land of chaos.

Trade between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea began before the construction of the Suez Canal, and before the construction of the Suez Canal, the Egyptians used ancient canals to transport their fleets from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Bitter Lake, and then transported goods to the Red Sea by land for 20 kilometers.

The Mamluk system, like the two thousand years ago in the East, belonged to the Iqta feudal state. The so-called Iqta is actually a feudal system, and although the king has nominal management rights, he has little constraints on the local area.

Suez, a major trading town, has always been a cash cow for the major tribes in the vicinity, who occupy most of the interests here, and even the king has limited benefits from it.

Sixteen years ago, when Timur invaded, Faraj called on the major tribes to send troops to fight Timur in Syria, only to be defeated.

The power of the Mamluks was greatly damaged, and the major tribes ignored the central government.

The environment in Suez is complicated, and Faraj has almost lost his prestige here.

However, he was still a king after all, and by various means, although he lost most of the trade duties, he took control of a large area there.

At least nominally, these lands belong to him.

And now, he wants to win over the Ming people through these lands, make the Ming Dynasty their eastern vassal, and help them deal with the threat from the east.

Although he knew that the situation there was relatively chaotic, but this bait was too fat, and Zhu Zhanji was willing to accept this condition without the slightest hesitation.

300 square kilometers of land can support at least hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, and the importance of this dividing line between Africa and Asia is even more important in terms of geographical location than Gibraltar.

As long as the Ming Dynasty guards this place and builds a canal in the future, then the shipping from Asia to Europe can save 20,000 kilometers of distance.

The second is that on the basis of this cooperation, the Mamluk dynasty needs to become an important business partner of the Ming Dynasty, forming a dual military and economic cooperation and alliance.

Zhu Zhanji did not have the slightest opinion on this point.

With the support of the Mamluks in the east and the Marin in the west, the Ming fleet held Suez and could directly protect the trading center on the island of Crete.

In the west, with the support of the Marin Dynasty, the Ming fleet held the Strait of Gibraltar. This east and west directly encompass the Mediterranean Sea under the protection of the Ming Dynasty.

So seeing this news, Zhu Zhanji was already planning in his heart how to reward Ma Huan, a meritorious man.

The time entered the second half of October, and the busyness of Ceuta came to an end. The envoys of various countries received satisfactory results, and now they all returned to their countries and began to collect all kinds of goods.

At the invitation of various countries, Zhu Zhanji is also preparing to leave Ceuta for a visit to various countries and sign formal trade contracts at the same time.

Most of the fleet will not accompany the trip, and most of the trade team will stay in Ceuta except for high-ranking figures. And almost all the cargo ships are still in Ceuta, waiting for a later deal.

At the same time, a large number of navies will also stay in Ceuta, accompanied by mainly diplomatic missions and the naval fleet that protects him.

Of course, Yu Linwei was unmoved to accompany him, and in addition, there was half of the young army, which had nearly 25,000 fully armed troops, plus the escort navy and mission, and the number of people also reached nearly 40,000.

Except for a few countries, most of them do not have such a large reception capacity, and just arranging Zhu Zhanji's itinerary is an extremely cumbersome task.

This time, the pregnant Shen Daier was also left in Ceuta, and as punishment, the two daughters of Qingmei and Luzhu were also left behind. Liu Chenghui arranged two Persian girls who had learned the Ming dialect to be responsible for serving Zhu Zhanji in the bath.

They don't have a complicated background relationship, and they are relatively fresh, if they are used smoothly. Zhu Zhanji plans to arrange a group of exotic girls to serve him in the future, so as to save the women in the harem from worrying.

received the task arranged by Zhu Zhanji, Liu Chenghui attached great importance to it, because if a third-party force was really formed in the harem in the future, as the concubine who formed this force, her power would increase greatly.

During this time, she has been busy training these girls, and secretly identifying their identities and training them to be her own help.

She is now extremely satisfied with her original choice, and only by following Zhu Zhanji's side can her strengths be brought into play.

Although she is still a Chenghui now, she believes that as long as this matter is done, there will definitely be a place for her in the harem in the future.

And following His Royal Highness on a voyage of 100,000 miles, the experience gained by this experience is even more incomparable to other concubines.

During Zhu Zhanji's visit, he first arrived at the Kingdom of Granada, the closest to Ceuta.

The Arabs ruled the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth century, and during the 700 years of their rule, the Arabs and the Romans were actually one, except for their differences in faith.

From the 14th century onwards, the Castilian people raised the banner of expulsion of the Arabs, and most of the Arabs in present-day Iberian Peninsula were driven to Portugal, as well as the Kingdom of Granada in the southeast.

The Kingdom of Granada, which also became the last stronghold of the Arabs on the European continent, seems to have fallen until 80 years later, according to Zhu Zhanji's impression.

As for the country of Spain, it was a few decades later that the Sevillians, Castilians, Granadas, and Aragonese united to form the new country of Spain.

That is, now there is no such country as Spain at all.

The Ming army easily drove out the Portuguese in North Africa, and it also gave the Granadians enough confidence that they did not believe that they would be defeated.

Of course, in order to defeat the Castilians, it is not enough for them to be on their own, they need the support of the Marins of a nation, and even the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, in order to curry favor with the Ming people, they almost broke their money to trade with the Ming Dynasty, except for some necessities of life, they basically did not ask for any luxury goods, but bought a batch of iron weapons shipped by the Ming Dynasty.

Daming's spear and iron knife have improved their quality a lot after raising the furnace temperature and learning to remove the carbon in the molten iron.

Today's spears and iron knives can no longer be said to be iron, but steel. The people of Granada tested the sharpness and tenacity of the Ming weapons, and regardless of the cost, they bought all the weapons that were already small.

Although muskets are now popular in Europe, today's muskets are very backward. Today's European muskets are expensive to build, but they are inefficient, less than two rounds a minute, they are easy to explode, and gunpowder is difficult to make.

So although most armies are armed with muskets, muskets have not yet become universal weapons and can only be used as auxiliary weapons.

The Granadians did not have enough resources, and they could not afford to be armed with muskets in large quantities, so these steel weapons did not lag behind.

Of course, Zhu Zhanji hopes that these Granadaans can continue to fight with the Spaniards, and the stronger their strength, the more they can drag down the development time of the Spaniards.

At the famous Sun Beach in Spain, Zhu Zhanji met with King Mohammed VIII of Granada, and although the two sides did not sign any paper contract, Zhu Zhanji promised to provide a batch of weapons to Granada free of charge when the next batch of Ming fleets arrived.

Armed with countless gold and silver, Zhu Zhanji separated from Mehmed VIII and continued his fleet north to Barcelona, the capital of Aragon.

Today's Aragon is actually more powerful than Castile, and at the beginning of the thirteenth century, after the annexation of Catalonia and Valencia, they became a regional power.

In the late thirteenth century, they defeated the Kingdom of Sardinia and Sicily, annexing Sardinia, Sicily.

Just as Zhu Daming's fleet arrived in the Mediterranean, Aragon's fleet attacked the Kingdom of Naples and annexed all the southern part of the Italian peninsula, becoming a Mediterranean power.

Their kinship with Castile and Portugal is very complicated, involving several generations of love and hatred. Internally, they are constantly fighting, but when faced with an external enemy, they quickly join forces.

Because of the Battle of Ceuta, their attitude towards the Ming Dynasty was very vague at first, and they even recalled the Italian fleet for defense.

But after the Portuguese Ming reconciled, they actively traded with the Ming.

The people of the Iberian Peninsula were a people who enjoyed luxury exceedingly, and in the Age of Discovery, Spain brought back countless gold and silver from the Americas, and countless silks, teas, and spices from Asia, which became the capital of the aristocracy to show off.

They used this wealth to buy all kinds of luxuries, build lavish churches, palaces, but never give the common people any benefit.

This also led to the country's rapid rise and fall, and after being defeated by the British, it gave up the title of the empire on which the sun never sets, and gradually declined into a second-rate country.

But this quality is very in line with the interests of the Ming Dynasty, in the trade with the Ming Dynasty, countless silks, spices turned into wool, turned into gold and silver, so that the Ming Dynasty made a lot of money.

Because Toledo, the capital of Castile, was far inland, and the local nobles of Seville had gone directly to Ceuta to trade with the Ming, so the trade between the Ming and Castile was also carried out in Barcelona.

When he left Barcelona, Daming had one more gold ship, and then several more ships full of wool, which were arranged to be sent back to Ceuta.

When the fleet arrived on the south coast of France, the Ming fleet was also warmly welcomed, and a month ago, the Ming mission arrived here, and then countless nobles transported gold, silver, and perfumes to several cities on the south coast, waiting for trade with the Ming.

Although today's France lost half of its territory in the Great War with England. But for the aristocracy, it's because the battle for the throne is dog-eat-dog, and whoever is in power can't do without their support, so they don't care who is the king.

The goods of the Ming Dynasty were both a luxury and a necessity for them, and they were reluctant to give the king a little military support, but they were willing to exchange countless gold and silver for silk, tea, spices, and the fine porcelain.

When Zhu Zhanji arrived in Barcelona, he went ashore with great interest to contact the nobles of Aragon, but as soon as he entered the city, he was smoked by the stench of the sky.

This made him lose the slightest interest in Europe in this era, and at the port of Sète, Zhu Zhanji simply did not go ashore.

But when he arrived in Marseille, not only many great French nobles came, but also an envoy sent by King Charles VI of France, so Zhu Zhanji could only pinch his nose and enter Marseille.

In later generations, because of the application of modern electrical appliances, the major cities of Europe appeared antique and full of history.

But today, these fortress-like houses are dilapidated because the windows are too small, and they are all mud and stone walls, and there are no electric lights.

What is even more unacceptable is that they do not pay attention to hygiene, regardless of men and women, defecate everywhere, even if because of Zhu Zhanji's arrival, the locals have cleaned up these yellow and white things, but the city is still filled with a stench that cannot be dispersed.

The houses here are not as good as Daming, and people's clothes are much worse than Daming.

Most of the people wore sacks of linen, which they draped over their bodies and tied them with hemp rope to make clothes. Untie it when you sleep, and it can be used as a quilt again.

Whether it is a small noble, or a common person, or a soldier, most people are dressed like this.

Only the rich can wear the cotton cloth transported by the Arabs, and the silk of the Ming Dynasty is the most luxurious enjoyment, and only the great nobles can afford it.

However, this does not mean that the market for silk is small, because even a handkerchief made of a small piece of silk can become fashionable.

Those women who do not take a bath all year round, no matter how poor they are, must save money to buy a handkerchief or shawl made of silk, and if they have an opinion about clothes made of silk, they will definitely become the envy of everyone.

In addition to silk, perfume is also an essential necessity for them.

Both Southern Europeans and Arabs are proficient in perfume making. In addition to wool, horses, gold and silver, paper, and perfume were also important goods for the exchange of goods between the Ming and the Europeans.

All kinds of perfumes of different fragrances were shipped on the ship in a jar, and those craftsmen who could make perfumes were also worth a hundred times and were recruited by the Ming Dynasty.

Everywhere the Ming fleet went, countless craftsmen recommended themselves, hoping to be picked by the Ming people and go to the wealthy Daming.

There are countless agricultural talents, perfumers, and countless architectural talents.

Because of the generality of mathematics and geometry, Europeans are actually not inferior to the Ming Dynasty in terms of architectural design, and there are even more.

They were already able to build a stone hall more than sixty meters high in this era, but the Ming Dynasty couldn't build it. Zhu Zhanji also intends to bring these talents back to China, eroding today's Confucian monopoly on academics from the side, and changing the Ming Dynasty's current atmosphere of emphasizing literature over art.

No matter how high the literary talent is, the contribution to the society is limited, and no matter how powerful a Confucian mouth cannon is, in Zhu Zhanji's view, it is not as great as the contribution to the society of a craftsman who can repair bridges.

But in the Ming Dynasty, as long as Confucianism is highly educated, you can become a master and enjoy glory and wealth.

No matter how skilled you are in building bridges, you are only an inferior person.

First bring a group of Western craftsmen back to add a little vitality to the science and engineering disciplines that are now stagnant in the Ming Dynasty, which is a plan that Zhu Zhanji had before coming to Europe.

In Barcelona and Marseille, Zhu Zhanji's extravagance showed the French what the real power momentum is, and let them see an unimaginable style.

Not to mention their king, even the pope, compared to Zhu Zhanji's faction, is just a rich man in the countryside.

This kind of impact is even far greater than the impact brought by the Ming Invincible Armada, which makes them know that in their eyes, the spokesman of God is far inferior to the imperial grandson of the Ming Dynasty.

And although the storm of ideas brought about by this shock can promote their renaissance, as long as they do not have the material supply base of the Americas, they will never be able to develop.

And now they don't even have a ship that can enter the Atlantic, and Zhu Zhanji on the American continent will definitely not let them get involved, so even if he brings them some enlightenment, Zhu Zhanji is not afraid.

By the time they were able to build a ship across the Atlantic, the Ming Dynasty had already taken root in the Americas.

Subsequently, the Ming fleet came to Genoa, and in addition to trading with Genoa, it also traded with many nobles of the Holy Roman Empire in Genoa and Lombardy.

Zhu Zhanji's influence is getting bigger and bigger, and many vassal states, city-states, and ordinary people are cheering.

In Rome, the archbishops of the Holy See were waiting for Zhu Zhanji's arrival in fear as if they were looking at a flood beast.

After the failure of many Crusades, the strength of the Holy See is not as strong as it used to be.

Although they still hold the divine power, both Orthodox and Protestant, including some branches of the church, such as the Hussites, are challenging the authority of the Catholic Church.

At such a time of internal and external troubles, the Ming fleet suddenly appeared in front of them, and this panic was far more severe than the deterrence brought by its own force.

But the countries are not in harmony with them, and their fleets can't defeat the Ming Dynasty at all, so they can only watch the Ming fleet show off its might in the Mediterranean.

Today's Holy See is in chaos, and there are many fanatical believers clamoring to kill the imperial grandson of the Ming Dynasty even if they lose their lives.

The closer the Ming fleet became, the more fanatics gathered, and they didn't even want him to set foot on Roman soil.