Zheng Xi is now a foreign servant, and of course he knows a lot about things between foreigners, including the Franco-Dutch War - this is a big deal, and the Dutch almost became French!

Now that he heard Spearman scolding Louis XIV with his feet on his feet, he assumed that it must have been King Louis XIV of France who had torn up the Treaty of Nijmegen and given a surprise attack to the Dutch consul William III. How big is the Netherlands? Give Louis XIV a raid and maybe it's gone!

There are too many such things in Chinese history, didn't Emperor Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty give Xiang Yu such a hand? First give the surname a "chasm covenant", with the chasm canal built by Wei during the Warring States period as the boundary, to divide the world. As a result, the ink of the chasm covenant was not dry, and Liu Bang, who was known for his benevolence and righteousness, came to a sneak attack on the alliance, and when Xiang Yu withdrew his troops and returned to the east, he launched the Fifth Route Army to encircle and suppress it, and finally succeeded in killing Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu.

And this trick is not only Chinese, Westerners actually play quite slippery.

There is a Spanish scum named Pizarro who is more clever than Liu Bang in this hand, first come to a Hongmen covenant, and negotiate with the emperor of the Inca Empire in the New World, and then come to capture the thief and capture the king first, and then come to coerce the princes of the Son of Heaven after the capture. After looting a large amount of gold in the name of the Inca emperor, he slaughtered the Inca emperor and gave the Inca a group of dragons without a leader. When Li Yat-sen was cleaning up Portugal in Macau, he also specially reported this matter to Kangxi.

For this reason, Kangxi also sent Shang Kexi, the king of Pingnan, and Geng Jingzhong, the king of Jingnan, who had the opportunity to contact foreign devils, to send them to the court, so that they must be careful when they meet foreigners, and don't let people be arrested and taken prisoners, which can damage the dignity of the Celestial Empire.

Later, when Empress Yang presided over the founding of the country and agreed to the Dutch East India Company to enter Beijing to open a trading house, some ministers used this matter as an excuse to object. Yang Xiaomi issued a special decree prohibiting foreigners from carrying weapons into Beijing, and asked Daniel Zhang, the governor of Jiumen, and Cao Yin, the minister in charge of the sticky pole, to strictly monitor the foreigners' merchants

And Zheng Xi, the foreign servant, also made small reports to the Dutch, and wrote down all the things they did in the East Indies and Malacca, and handed them over to Queen Yang for review.

So, how bad this foreigner is, Lao Zheng is like a mirror in his heart.

But the bad guy's family suffered, and he was the bad guy's friend. Good people, you have to comfort people.

Thinking of this, Zheng Xi stepped into the house, and then asked with a concerned face: "Second Master Si (Spearman Xinger), what's wrong with you?" Could it be that the Fourteenth Lord of the Sun King of France betrayed his alliance and attacked the mainland of your Netherlands? ”

Spearman was still smashing things in a rage just now, and when he heard Zheng Xi shouting in Dutch mixed with Fujian dialect, the whole person was like he had been immobilized, standing there and not moving, holding a white porcelain wine glass in his hand, holding it high, but he couldn't smash it, and the expression on his face froze, only the corners of his mouth were still trembling.

He had just received an urgent letter from the South Seas from a clipper sent by the Batavian Council.

The letter told Spearman that the most prized possession of the East India Company, the spice-rich islands of Ternate and Tidore and the Banda Islands, had been attacked by the despicable and shameless French Navy between December 8 and 15 last year!

And the French also used murderous Japanese mercenaries in these three attacks! Due to the destructiveness of the Japanese mercenaries, almost all the administrators and mercenaries of the East India Company on the islands of Ternat, Tidore, and Banda were killed or captured, and the sultans of the two sultanates of Ternate and Tidore were also plundered. Only a handful of clever administrators or mercenaries escaped by hiding in the mountains, and it was they who carried the news of the island's surprise attack by the French navy and Japanese mercenaries on a small indigenous boat.

But the small indigenous boats were too slow, and by the time they reached Java, the French fleet had already sailed through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. There was no force but almighty nature that could stop a fleet full of looted spices and bought porcelain, sugar, tea, and silk from sailing to distant Europe.

And those Japanese mercenaries who participated in the attack should be the 3,000 mercenaries hired by the French from the Satsuma Domain, Choshu Domain, and Tosa Domain, and Spearman watched them board and leave Nagasaki with his own eyes!

At that time, he didn't expect that there would be royal pirates on the side of the dignified French Sun King. That's the tall, big, and high Sun King of France! Isn't this despicable and filthy thing like "royal pirates" only done by the English?

Therefore, Spearman did not pay attention at all, and did not even inform the Batavia Council to strengthen its vigilance, so he boarded the East India Company merchant ship bound for Tianjin Wei with Carlos, the governor of the Spanish Philippines.

It turned out to be a big mistake!

Because of his negligence and the meanness of the French, he has caused irreparable damage to the company and caused a disaster to his career, so Spearman is almost dizzy, except for throwing things to vent, he didn't think of anything else at all. It wasn't until Zheng Zheng, who suddenly arrived, reminded him that an even more terrible thought popped up in his mind - Louis XIV had probably torn up the Treaty of Nijmegen and launched a surprise attack on the Dutch mainland!

It's just horrible!

He was still cursing King Louis of France and France. And at this very moment, the Dutch homeland he loved was probably gone! And he, Spearman, is theoretically a damn Frenchman! And His Majesty Louis XIV, the great Sun King, is the monarch to whom he must be loyal!

Seeing Spearman standing there, Zheng Xi had no choice but to say something to comfort him: "Second Master Si, don't worry, there is no hurdle that cannot be passed, even if Louis XIV has invaded Amsterdam, you can still vote for Louis as a second minister."

Besides, we are tens of thousands of miles away from the European continent, and the news is coming and going, and it is inevitable that things will go wrong, maybe the situation is not so bad? Maybe in a few days there will be good news?

By the way, the queen's decree has arrived, the emperor has already returned to the court, and he will be able to return to Beijing in a few days, and then he will summon you in the Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City, and the emperor and the queen know that you are a talent! ”

Zheng Xi didn't forget to work for the country, no, it should be to recruit talents for the queen!

Spearman was persuaded by him to do so, and his mind had regained his composure.

If the French attack on Holland hadn't happened in Europe, the East India Company, which had suffered heavy losses, would have made him a scapegoat, so he had to find a home as soon as possible!

If he had become French, Louis XIV would certainly not have reused him. He still has to find a home, and the Great Qing Kingdom looks like a good home!

Thinking of this, he handed the cup in his hand that had not yet been smashed out to a servant of Javanese origin, and then said to Zheng Xi: "Vice Minister Zheng, please tell the emperor and empress that the Ming and France are the common enemies of our two countries, and the East India Company is willing to do everything to help the Qing Dynasty defeat the dangerous enemy of the Ming Dynasty!" ”

"That's great!" Zheng Xi was overjoyed when he heard this!

He had been discussing with Spearman for a long time about the possibility of fighting against Ming together, but the Dutch profiteer kept asking for conditions. Now it's even more straightforward!

It doesn't matter what the reason is, anyway, he, the western-style waiter of the Imperial Court, must be a great achievement!

Great Zhou, Chang'an City.

Just when Kangxi and Empress Yang were coming to Beijing together, Wu Guogui had already arrived in Chang'an City, the capital of the Great Zhou Kingdom.

Compared with Nanjing's "vigorous vitality, all things competing", and Beijing's vitality has obviously recovered, Chang'an, the imperial capital of the old Wu family, is still as depressed as ever.

The "Western Regions" apparently did not bring many merchants to Chang'an, and compared with the trade route from Chang'an all the way to the west, merchants obviously preferred to go out of Beijing to take the route of naturalization, and then to the west to the north.

This is not because the route of Beijing's naturalization is shorter and better, but because this route can cover southern Mongolia, northern Mongolia, western Mongolia and the Kipchak steppe, and can also radiate Siberia and northeast China.

The so-called reopening of the Western Regions trade route is simply a blind toss, the Western Regions and the Hezhong region have given Genghis Khan's descendants "Huohuo" for hundreds of years, and there is no commercial soil for a long time, and there is nothing to exchange with the Ming Dynasty - Li Zhongshan, a good horse in the river, wants it, but Kangxi and Wu Shicong are not much to sell, and the rest is probably gone.

It's the prairie horses on the prairie that can be sold casually!

In addition, Siberia and the Northeast, as well as the northwest of Khalkha Mongolia, all produce fur, and the Northeast also produces traditional Chinese medicine and Dongzhu, which have a market in Daming and can be exchanged with Daming.

Therefore, the area around Beijing has developed well in the past three or four years, and it has slowed down a bit.

And the Guanzhong Plain did not get better because of Emperor Wu.

Especially after losing the rich areas of Hunan and Hubei, the population of the whole country in the Great Zhou is less than 9 million, and nearly 3 million of them are under the management of various folding governments, not taxpayers, but soldiers!

The burden on the entire country is on the remaining less than 6 million people, or a million households.

And the vast majority of the taxes paid by less than one million taxpayers were used for military expenses and the cost of relocating military households to the Western Regions, and the Great Zhou court was naturally so poor that even officials were often in arrears. Fortunately, there was no shortage of land in the Great Zhou, and Wu Yingqi, who was in power, vigorously engaged in the job field system, giving the officials a piece of job land and letting them solve their own livelihoods.

But the problem is that the Great Zhou has fewer people and more land, and the land rent is very low, and it is difficult for the officials who are allocated land to maintain their expenses by collecting rent unless they plant it themselves. Of course, the magistrates always have a way to solve the difficulties, and the ones who really suffer are the Beijing officials who serve in Chang'an, and Shang Shuying, who has no real job except for an empty princess title.

When Wu Sangui, Wu Yingxiong, and Sun Yanling were still there, Shang Shuying, the empty princess, was quite nourishing, not only could she live well, but she could also take care of some of her younger siblings who ran to Wu Zhoulai - Shang Kexi had too many children, and it was still a little difficult to catch them all. Besides, those Shang family members who want to call Shang Shuying "sister" are all ranked in the "dozens", and they don't have much sin to do bad things, so they have to queue up? The older brothers and sisters above have not yet taken the turn, and the younger brothers and sisters below can only wait.

A large number of these younger brothers and sisters died when they were attacked by Li Zhongshan and Li Fuchen in Guangzhou, but some still escaped, and now most of them have joined Shang Shuying's disciples, and there are always more than a dozen.

But with the deaths of Wu Sangui, Wu Yingxiong, and Sun Yanling one after another, Shang Shuying's court was completely cold. And she is a woman who is not very good at saving money, she was born in the illustrious Pingnan Palace, and married into the Xushun Mansion of the town guard side as the housewife. Even if the Pingnan Mansion and the Xushun Mansion collapsed one after another, she was not short of money, so she never thought about saving a large sum. I wasn't too greedy when it was easy to make money before, but then I was a little tight and quite righteous, taking care of my younger siblings as much as possible, and as a result, I just sat down and ate nothing.

By the fifth year of Honghua in the Great Zhou Dynasty, Shang Shuying's princess's mansion was already about to collapse, if it weren't for the mansion in the inner city of Chang'an, which couldn't be sold casually, it would have been sold to her a long time ago.

As for her Tang Mutian, she was also pawned to the landlord outside the city, so it was not enough to repay the debt

However, no matter how down-and-out Shang Shuying is, she is still the princess of Da Zhou, and she always has a friend who can take care of her, and this friend is Kong Sizhen.

Kong Sizhen is actually poor. She had a problem with Shang Shuying, she was too angry and didn't know how to hide the money.

When I followed Li Fuchen back then, I didn't think about how much money I wanted to get from Li Fuchen - Li Fuchen had a lot of concubines, but the one who really didn't want money was probably Kong Sizhen.

As a result, as soon as Kong Sizhen left Li Fuchen, he didn't have much time to sit and eat empty. However, her situation is better than Shang Shuying, her burden is not so heavy, and the Kong family is the only one. Moreover, her son Sun Jiqing has a bit of an army in his hands, and he is now stationed in Guizhou, and he is also a warlord. Her old subordinate Fu Honglie is also in Wu Shifan's court, and he can also take care of one or two.

Of course, Wu Shifan's military department has no soldiers to manage, and it is completely a false position. Prime Minister Wu Cheng of the Great Zhou Dynasty has already opened a "hegemony", that is, he has hollowed out the imperial court and turned the courtiers into decorations.

So Kong Sizhen doesn't have much money to help her good sister, but she can use her identity as a warlord mother to block creditors for her

Today, she blocked the debt for Shang Shuying, a Shaanxi businessman who befriended Wu Yingqi, this old boy has a lot of ideas, and he actually looked at Shang Shuying's body and wanted her to sleep with her to pay off the debt.

And when Kong Sizhen heard the news, this Shang Shuying was actually bargaining with that Si Swenwen, who was quite good at bargaining there with the angry businessman Kong Sizhen was furious at that time, and almost cut people with a knife.

Shang Shuying also stopped her and let go of the businessman who asked for the debt.

Kong Sizhen's mood was not very good, and she took this opportunity to let Shang Shuying go: "Shuying, the surname Bai is not good, everyone looks very Sven, the name is Sven, why do you do this kind of thing to take advantage of people's danger?" You're not like words! How can you promise him? Who are you? Princess of Da Zhou, how can you do something like that for a few dollars? ”

"Sister Sizhen, is that a lot of money? That's a few hundred taels of silver" Shang Shuying looked at the lobby where she and Kong Sizhen were—there were no furnishings left, just a few broken chairs and coffee tables, and the tea bowls on the coffee table were all notched.

This debt. Not yet!

"If you don't pay it back, we won't pay it back!" Kong Sizhen raised her eyebrows, "What's there?"

"If you don't pay it back, you don't have to pay it back," Shang Shuying smiled bitterly, "When I asked someone to borrow money, I also said all the good things." ”

"He didn't have a good heart to lend it to you" Kong Sizhen bit his silver teeth, "You too, you can't take care of yourself, your sister-in-law is married, what dowry do you give her?" You have seven or eight more brothers and sisters! Can you take care of it? ”

Shang Shuying sighed and said with a wry smile: "I can't give birth, just these younger brothers and sisters, my father's sins shouldn't be returned, right?" I looked at them pitifully, and the good days didn't last long, and they all suffered. I'm a princess when I'm a sister, so I can take care of one! ”

"Can you take care of it? Where do you still have the money? ”

Shang Shuying smiled and straightened her chest, "Sister Sizhen, don't worry. I am born to be useful, and my daughter will come back when she is gone! ”

Kong Sizhen took a look at her, she does still have "material", although she is in her thirties, she has never given birth to a child, she has practiced martial arts a little, and she exercises regularly, plus the congenital conditions are good, and the acquired maintenance is also good, so it looks quite eye-catching. However, it is still wrong to go the wrong way with this "material".

Just when Kong Sizhen wanted to persuade Shang Shuying, a voice came from outside: "Is this Princess Pingnan's Mansion?" Is Princess Pingnan at home? Why is there no one? ”

"Who?" Kong Sizhen stood up suddenly, strode out with a meteor, and as soon as he arrived in the courtyard, he saw a large group of people surrounded by a strong man wearing the regular clothes of the Prince of Great Zhou, who was Wu Guogui.

Kong Sizhen was stunned for a moment, opened his mouth and asked, "Chu, King Chu?" How did you get here? ”

"Princess Dingnan?" Wu Guogui was also stunned, "I made a mistake?" Here it is."

"King Chu, you're not mistaken, come into the house!" Shang Shuying also came out at this time, gave a blessing to Wu Guogui, and respectfully invited him into the lobby, "The humble house is simple, it makes you smile." ”

Wu Guogui walked into the lobby, looked around, and laughed: "Princess Pingnan, you are really humble and famous, right, I have a good errand for you to do, but it is an errand that comes quickly!" ”

Shang Shuying looked back at Kong Sizhen: "Sister Sizhen, I'm not wrong, right?" The daughter is gone, and she will come back! ”

"What's coming," Kong Sizhen glared, "His errand must have something to do with the general of the Ming Dynasty, that's your father-killing enemy!" ”

Wu Guogui nodded and asked Shang Shuying: "Princess Pingnan, will you still avenge your father's murder?" ”

Shang Shuying shook her head and said, "Why worry about the revenge of killing your father?" Besides, the death of his father is really self-inflicted, and it is his own retribution! ”

(End of chapter)