Alfonso, the special envoy of the King of Spain who had been wandering in Los Angeles for a while, finally planned to return to China, but this gentleman dropped a bombshell before returning home, which caused discussion in the Tang cabinet. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

“…… Spain sincerely feels the advanced science and technology and cultural prosperity of the Tang Republic, so Spain hopes to send students to Datang for study and exchange, and at the same time Spain hopes to purchase various scientific and technological products including Datang's advanced weapons. ”

When meeting Zheng He, Alfonso expressed his sincerity.

This also made the Dons know that Spain was able to accept the opening of its colonial ports for the Tang to trade, but that Spain wanted to get enough benefits. Spain, which has touched the threshold of modern countries, fully recognizes the importance of science and technology and industry, and although Spain has always been at the bottom of the industrial revolution, it is still better than those countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America who do not recognize the seriousness of the problem at all. In particular, Carlos III, who is no longer in the world, is a very executive and energetic king of Spain for a century, and during his tenure, Spain has carried out a lot of reforms and made a lot of progress. So at this moment, it will not be surprising that Spain hopes to learn from Datang.

At the meeting where the Cabinet was discussed, most of the Cabinet members were unequivocal in their opposition to Alfonso's proposal. Among them, the speech of the Minister of Civil Affairs Liu Tian is the most typical, "We have a total of more than 100,000 people in Datang, and the speed of development is not fast, what we rely on to survive is an excellent geographical location and a level of science and technology beyond the times, the land of the Kingdom of Spain is dozens of times that of our Datang Republic, and the population is dozens of times that of ours, even if it takes a while to absorb our culture and technology, but after mastering these things, Spain will become our huge competitor, Maybe Spain is not enough to threaten our homeland, but in the world, our strategy of acquiring resources and other colonies will be greatly affected! ”

Yao Weichun also has a good understanding of Western history, and he also said: "We also need to pay attention to a problem, the Europeans in this era still lack the sense of nation-state, so the private exchange of talents between countries is a very common thing, Columbus is Italian, Magellan is Portuguese, but they are all employed in Spain, opening up a new world." This situation is very similar to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in our country, if a talent has some ideas that cannot be realized in their own country, they will go to other countries, and they are likely to be reused. So, if our culture and technology had spread to Spain, it wouldn't have been long before the whole of Europe had been spread by us. ”

At this time, Bai Nan expressed his opinion, he said: "Allowing Spanish students to study in Datang, as well as selling arms to Spain, we can actually restrict these things, so that we may be affected to the minimum." First of all, just like the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty sent public students abroad, how many of them were there? In fact, the number is not large, and we can subjectively limit the number of Spanish students to Tang, for example, we only open ten people a year. Moreover, among these ten people, we can let them spend most of their time learning our Chinese, learning our poetry and songs, or learning our traditional philosophy and so on, and as for the content of science and engineering, we only open a very small part to them. Including the technical products that we exported to Spain, we can also follow this principle, for example, at this time Watt has just improved the steam engine, we will directly sell this steam engine to the Spaniards, whether they want to open mines or want to drill wells, it doesn't matter, I think it doesn't matter even if the performance is better. But, for example, our internal combustion engines, I don't think we can sell them so easily. We can set a standard for what can be exported and what must be protected, so that there is a law to follow, and we can also gain access to the huge colonial market in Spain. ”

Zhao Daling nodded and said, "Then the arms export is similar?" We only sell things that are slightly more advanced than the weapons they use, and our standard equipment must not be touched by them. ”

Bai Nan smiled and nodded, "That's pretty much it, in fact, the people of North Industries have already considered this matter, and they have designed two weapons that are outdated by our standards, one is the SC-1 rifle, although it is a rifled gun, but it is a front-loading gun, and it uses Mini bullets; The other is a rear-firing pin gun with a fixed cartridge in a paper case, which is basically made in combination with the Prussian Dresser M1841 rifle, and is stereotyped as the SC-2. We will definitely not install such weapons, so they will have only one use, and that is to export them to Westerners. ”

Liu Tian calculated: "Mini bullet front gun, paper shell bullet back shot gun, hey, these two weapons are indeed antique, compared to our S1 rifle is a lot worse, no matter the range, accuracy, rate of fire is not dominant, not to mention we still have a bunch of machine guns." Compared with the flintlock pistols used by Europeans now, it is much easier to use. ”

Bai Nan added: "We can also cast some artillery weapons similar to Napoleon's smoothbore guns for the Europeans, these things are basically not a threat to us, because the Europeans themselves have similar weapons, but they are better than the Europeans." In fact, I can understand the thinking of the Spaniards, the defeat of the Seven Years' War, Spain's national strength was seriously damaged, and it will not be long before the Spaniards will fight Portugal again, if they can get better weapons, Spain has the hope of re-establishing its prestige in Europe, at least let the French face it squarely, and make the British jealous. ”

Wang Jinghong said worriedly: "Then can the Spaniards imitate these weapons of our country?" ”

Liu Tian himself is a soldier, and he also understands some problems in the history of military equipment, he said: "It should not be a big problem, in fact, things like Mini bullets and rear-loading firing pistols, to put it bluntly, are actually a breakthrough in design, a layer of window paper." Of course, there are still technical difficulties, such as the strength of the material of the barrel, the processing technology of the rifling, and the chemical level of the propellant and primer. But I believe that these two weapons, including the Napoleonic smoothbore cannon mentioned by Bai Nan, do not have insurmountable technical difficulties for today's Europeans. Of course, if we had used the S1 rifle with metal fixed ammunition and more demanding processing technology, I don't think it would have been possible to manufacture it in mass production in a decade or two without a major industrial breakthrough in Europe. ”

Wang Jinghong said: "In other words, this kind of arms trade is likely to be a matter of a hammer, we sold it once, they learned this technology, and they will not buy it again after that." ”

Bai Nan said: "This is not necessarily, even if the Spaniards can imitate it, they can't imitate it in large quantities in the short term, and these weapons don't have a lot of equipment, so the Spaniards who are not bad for money will inevitably buy a lot from us on the one hand, and on the other hand step up their own imitation." Of course, we don't necessarily have to do this kind of business with only one Spanish, the French come to buy and we sell, and the Dutch buy and we sell. ”

Industry Minister Liang Zhenhai asked: "What about the British coming to buy it?" ”

"It can't be sold. Compared with these European countries, Britain is our most direct enemy, we Datang and the United Kingdom basically do not have a point of convergence of interests, and Britain is the most in full swing of the Industrial Revolution, our products to other European countries, may not have any effect in the short term, but the British will undoubtedly grasp it as quickly as possible, so as to challenge our position. Bai Nan's expression was serious, and the United Kingdom, which was rapidly expanding into a new generation of empires on which the sun never sets, was undoubtedly Datang's biggest competitor.

Zhao Daling pondered for a moment and said: "Sell it, the Spaniards want it, the Europeans want it, we will sell it." Arms are a profiteering business, and the cost of each gun is at most one dollar, but we can sell them for dozens of dollars, and we also sell the propellant and primer that they can't make, no matter how expensive they are. We are geographically located here, and the possibility of Europeans launching aggression against us is very small, but the Europeans who have obtained our advanced weapons are more likely to fight each other. We not only have to use arms sales to stimulate their ambitions, and our influence will expand in the future, but we also have to artificially provoke contradictions in European countries and colonies, and we must make Europeans exhausted and constantly consume themselves in conflicts, so as to provide a better environment for the development of our Tang Republic. ”

Thus, after careful and careful discussion, the Cabinet finally agreed to Alfonso's proposal. The detailed treaty still needs to be finalized after the officials of the Tang Ministry of Foreign Affairs arrive in Spain. Chu Bai, who was promoted to vice minister of foreign affairs, became the official who went to Madrid this time. On behalf of the Tang Republic, he will formally establish diplomatic relations with Spain, exchange credentials between the two sides, and formally sign a treaty of commerce, as well as a contract for the sale of arms and other technical products.

The cabinet has already determined a fixed range for Chu Bai, even if the Spaniards want to bargain, it is impossible to get more, at most one or two more places for international students, and the price of goods is a few cents cheaper.

Chu Bai and Alfonso boarded two Datang cargo ships of more than 3,000 tons, and the navy will also send a Qi Jiguang-class frigate to escort the ship, this fleet will arrive in Spain for a trade, of course, there is no arms in the cargo this time, but basically leather products, daily chemicals and other fist products produced by Datang.