As the weather warmed up, the camp began to gather strength in full swing, but Xu Ping's men believed that they would not be able to recover and launch a new offensive until at least June. Li Zicheng's situation was slightly better, but he was temporarily unable to go north to fulfill his agreement with the Marquis of Zhendong, and he was now considering giving priority to going south to capture Huguang in order to seize the resources of the south.

Xu Ping was worried that the attack on Huguang would make Zhendonghou feel threatened and regarded it as a breach of the agreement, but now it is not up to him to decide how to develop next, and even anyone in the camp has the final say, and the northern part of Henan is no longer suitable for the operation of the army. After the flood, Kaifeng had become a ruin and Zeguo, and the possibility of attacking Zhili from here was basically gone.

Similarly, the camp lacked an advance base to attack Shanxi, and as for Shaanxi, Tongguan was in danger, and a frontal attack on Tongguan would never end well since ancient times.

At the same time, Huang Naiming and his entourage have passed through Lisbon and Morocco, and have rounded most of the world to Lima on a Spanish galleon from Africa to South America.

"Dear Excellency the Governor-General," said Huang Naiming, who had lived on the continent of Europa for two years, and had also learned some Westerner titles, and placed a wooden box containing a human head on the round table of the Spanish Governor of South America: "Your country's waters are too unsafe. ”

This head is the head of a Caribbean pirate leader, Huang Naiming's ship was attacked by them on the way to South America, Zhendong Hou Shizi and his two friends all drew their swords and escorted to meet them, and after a fierce fight, they defeated the pirates.

The Spanish Governor of South America opened the wooden box, saw the faces of the people inside, and said in surprise: "This is a famous villain. ”

"Our ship is flying the flag given by the king of your country, and no one dares to rob the royal family's boat?" Shi Tianyu said with some dissatisfaction, after the pirates jumped on the ship, the deck at that time was really like a rain of bullets, and there were maniacs shouting and wielding swords and firearms everywhere, Shi Tianyu also killed two pirates in this battle, Bao Yuanlang was wounded in the thigh, and it still hurts terribly.

"It must have been the banner of the royal family that attracted this villain," said the Governor, rejoicing, and thanked Huang Naiming again and again: "Fortunately, His Excellency the Viscount is safe and sound, otherwise this scoundrel would have demanded an astonishing ransom from the contemptible people." The Governor took a closer look at the cut on the Chief's neck, and said with some strange feeling, "Why is Your Excellency the Viscount so merciful?" Actually beheading instead of hanging this villain? ”

"Hanging? Isn't that too cheap for him? Huang Naiming said a little strangely: "For pirates, we have always kept no corpses. ”

"This is your captive, of course you have the final say." The governor didn't care when he heard this, he looked at Huang Naiming and Shi Tianyu, who were covered in dust and their clothes were already dirty like barbarians: "The contemptible people have already arranged a residence for His Excellency the Viscount, and His Excellency the Viscount can go and rest first." ”

"Great," Huang Naiming didn't have the opportunity to bathe or wash clothes in fresh water along the way, but just simply cleaned up the river water after landing, and now the smell on his body is unbearable even for himself: "I miss the warm bath water so much." ”

"Is Your Excellency the Viscount going to take a bath?" In such a short period of time, it was the second time that the Spanish Governor of South America was surprised, and he hurriedly persuaded: "I don't understand why His Excellency the Viscount took such a risk? This is Lima, and the contemptible has prepared a perfume for His Excellency the Viscount, a real Italian perfume. ”

Huang Naiming smiled slightly, he found that he had said that he had gone out of his mouth, and the current Western medicine believes that taking a bath will take away people's vitality and bring fatal danger to people. And even if he entered the civilized society in Lima, the Spanish governor of South America prepared the most expensive perfume and lavender for his distinguished guests, and Huang Naiming's words just now would make the other party mistakenly think that he suspected the Spanish side of neglecting the Chinese envoys, and allowed them to have to be cleaned with water like the black slaves: "This is the habit of the Ming Dynasty, we have always bathed with water." ”

"How dangerous." The Spanish governor was afraid that Huang Naiming would encounter something wrong, and his eyes followed suit, as if he was looking at a barbarian who didn't understand medicine, but he quickly realized his faux pas, and saw that Huang Naiming was unmoved, so he recommended his doctor to go to their residence with them: "This doctor is a famous doctor from Italy, and his ancestors have been doing this for generations, and it is said that it can be traced back to the great Roman era." ”

"Thank you." Huang Nai clearly needed a doctor to see his entourage.

The governor's doctor, with his own medical kit, followed him to the Chinese mission's quarters, where in the city of Lima there was a large number of black slaves, in addition to the Spaniards in beautiful clothes. On the route from Africa to South America, slave ships packed with blacks were packed all year round, which were used to carry tens of thousands of slaves a year, and then returned to Spain laden with South American gold.

On the streets of Lima, horse-drawn carts filled with mercury passed from time to time, and after seeing the goods on these carriages, Huang Naiming asked the Spanish translator beside him: "Is this from my motherland?" ”

"Yes, Your Excellency the Viscount." The interpreter replied respectfully.

South America was dotted with gold and silver mines, but there were no mercury mines, and the Spanish Viceroyalty of South America, which used the substitution method to mine gold mountains, initially transported mercury from Europe, but these cargo ships were excellent targets for pirates and British privateers. The loss of a drinking ship was a loss of a shipload of gold for the Spanish king, and the Spanish navy was mainly used to protect the ships transporting gold, and it would be too costly and inadequate for Spain to invest a large fleet to protect the mercury transport. As a result, Spanish cargo ships on the Atlantic route now transported black slaves at a very low cost to them, and mercury began to be imported from China during the Wanli period.

Because the trade with China required silver, the trade with China stimulated the Spanish mining of silver in South America, and one out of every two ships of mercury shipped to Lima was used to replace silver. Silver and gold will also go their separate ways in this city, with gold, the currency of the Spaniards, returning to Europe from the Atlantic route, and silver, a priceless cargo in China, boarding ships from here to Asia.

During the Wanli period, when Chinese officials saw the Spaniards exchanging silver for large quantities of mercury, they always thought that the Spaniards had mastered the technology of refining mercury into silver, and Matteo Ricci did not dispel the suspicions of the Chinese. And the large amount of silver from the South Seas has led the Chinese to rumor that there is a gold and silver tree in the Malay Peninsula - the tree can grow silver leaves.

This misunderstanding was dispelled more than a decade earlier by the Hou of Zhendong, who repeatedly insisted that the competition for the South Seas should be limited to a show of strength, forcing the Dutch and Spaniards to agree to China's participation in the maritime trade and to try to secure some ports. Under the repeated intervention of Zhendonghou, the council also used force in Nanyang with great restraint, and everyone understood that if Zhendonghou was right: if the Spaniards were completely deadlocked, then the silver of South America would not be available again.

The doctor carefully checked the condition of Bao Yuanlang and the wounded guards, and his suggestion was to immediately bleed the patients, but when Huang Naiming resolutely refused, the doctor had no choice but to settle for the next best thing, and unwillingly put the sharp knife back into the box, and took out a set of glasses to cupping the wounded.

Except that the utensils are glass instead of ceramic, there is no difference between cupping in Western medicine and Chinese medicine, so it was agreed by Huang Naiming and his party.

"Before going to sea, Jiayan confessed that if the Europa people wanted to bleed us, they must not agree, and Jiayan said that it was likely to kill people." Huang Naiming didn't take it too seriously at the time, and felt that his father didn't have any possibility to know about the exotic customs thousands of miles away, but after arriving in Europe, it was really a group of imperial doctors who were sent to bleed the Chinese VIPs, and Huang Naiming was puzzled: "How did Jia Yan know?" ”

"Those who can do anything." Shi Tianyu's opinion is very simple, that is what his father said: There is nothing in this world that Zhendonghou does not know, as long as you listen attentively.

"Jia Yan said not to believe in Western medicine, drink more water and eat more fruits when you are sick," Huang Naiming knew that his father did not believe in any medicine, and his family never asked a doctor when he was sick, and he didn't eat a single bite of the ginseng given by the imperial court: saying that there were any heavy metals in it, and leaving nosebleeds was not proof of effectiveness but poisonous. On this trip, Zhendonghou wrote a bunch of health precautions for his son, but he also did not prepare any doctors for them, and the accompanying Chinese doctors were still Shi Ce and Bao Bowen who were worried about what their son found in Fujian: "It is useless to say that Western medicine is mixed with superstition and magic and witchcraft." ”

It was also in England that Huang Naiming heard some radical statements similar to his father's, and several professors who studied blood circulation, respiration, and embryos made fiery statements against Western medicine, saying that all medicine handed down from the Roman period should be abolished, and if some of its theories were different from medicine under scientific guidance, they should be abandoned; If it happens to match, it is also a stroke of luck, and since there is a scientific explanation, there is no need to continue to exist. However, there is little response to this kind of rhetoric, and British society still trusts their traditional Western medicine.

"Young Marquis," the accompanying physician was already in a situation where heroes were useless after using up the herbs brought from China, and after his observation of Western medicine, he felt that it was quite in line with Chinese medicine, paying the same attention to the right time and place, and using a large number of herbs and animal bones. Although the accompanying physician asked himself that he could not compare with Zhendong Hou in the treatment of the plague, he still couldn't help but retort with a sense of professional pride: "This Western medicine has also been handed down from their ancient times, and their ancestors in the Roman era have been thousands of years now, and they can be called tempered thousands of times, how can it be useless?" ”

"yes." Huang Naiming also felt that his father's remarks on this issue were too arbitrary, Europe is full of cities, so many Europa, if there is no Western medicine, how can they reproduce so much that they colonize the four seas? For example, this bloodletting therapy also has a deep precipitation of thousands of years, and it is a bit unconvincing for my father to insist that it is harmful and ineffective.

But Shi Tianyu didn't see it that way: "If Master Hou says it's harmful, it must be harmful, and we can't risk our brother's life." ”

"That's right." The controversy over Western medicine was put to rest.

When he visited the governor of Spain and South America again the next day, the latter was particularly enthusiastic, and as soon as he saw Huang Naiming, he greeted him warmly: "Your Excellency, Your Excellency the Viscount, I lost my respect yesterday, and I didn't expect that the villain to be subdued by you personally." ”

Yesterday the Governor had already asked several people on the sea boat about the battle, and they all confirmed in unison Huang Naiming's bravery and good fighting. In this regard, Huang Naiming was not modest but smiled: "Your Excellency, honorable governor, shouldn't the nobles take the lead?" ”

"If it was a Spanish nobleman, the contemptible would definitely be able to think of it, but the viscount was a nobleman of the Ming Kingdom, and the contemptible must admit that this was very unexpected." As he spoke, the governor bowed to Huang Naiming.

"Your Excellency the Governor, what are you doing?"

"The contemptible must apologize to His Excellency the Viscount, the contemptible people have too deep a misunderstanding of the Ming Kingdom before," the Governor said unabashedly: "A good friend of the contemptible grandfather, who was the Governor of the Philippines a few decades ago, when His Majesty the King asked him about his impression of the Ming Kingdom, the contemptible grandfather was also present at that time. ”

"What did he say?" Huang Naiming vaguely guessed why the other party apologized.

"He explained that the nobles of your country were cowards and had no courage or skill in fighting, and he thought that your people were very bad at fighting, and that a dozen Japanese could break through from the thousands of soldiers in your country."

"Perhaps His Excellency the Governor already knows that Japan is a vassal of our country."

"Yes, everyone makes mistakes, and apparently my contemptible grandfather's friend made a terrible mistake." In the dispute over the South Seas, Shousui Nobuyoshi was resolutely on the side of the Marquis of Zhendong, and the Spanish Governor of South America had also heard of this: "His Excellency the Viscount is deeply admired for his bravery. ”

"Thank you," Huang Naiming hoped to get down to business as soon as possible, that is, the Pacific trade route issue, the war in the South Seas only allowed the Council to gain some control of ports and sea areas, and Spain's power is still strong, not only strong but can no longer be pressed. After all, there had been some unpleasantness before, and Huang Naiming hoped to obtain the understanding of the Spanish and South American governors, and this kind of friendship between the feudal officials was extremely important to trade: "Your Excellency, what do you think of the unpleasantness that happened in Nanyang before? ”

"Your Excellency," now the Governor's impression of Huang Naiming has completely changed, he feels that the two sides are the same kind of people, so they can speak in the same language: "Before the contemptible person answers, I hope that Your Excellency the Viscount will talk about your father and your opinion of the British pirates," the Governor pointed to the wooden box used to hold the head yesterday: "Your Excellency the Viscount must know that this villain is also British, right?" ”

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