Chapter 235

"We are hostile to the Holy Roman Empire!"

Catherine thought that Cheng Shijie did not know about the relationship between the Holy Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice, so she spent a full quarter of an hour telling about the grievances between the Holy Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice.

In fact, the dispute between Venice and the Holy Roman Empire actually stemmed from religion. It is also the original origin of what is now the Thirty Years' War in Europe. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, new denominations emerged from the European Reformation that broke away from Catholicism: Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism, and later more denominations that diverged from these sects. Protestantism is also known as "Protestantism", "Anti-Luo Sect", and "Jesus Religion".

The state religion of the Republic of Venice was Protestant, so the Pope was upset, and the Pope gathered Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, and the Triple Alliance jointly attacked the Republic of Venice. The city-state of Venice was unfortunately defeated, and its territory was in decline.

Catherine smiled bitterly: "We have always been wary of the infiltration of the Holy Roman Empire into our Venice, and it is impossible to absorb their population......"

"I don't mean to point fingers at anyone, Protestant or Catholic, but it's not without chance!"

Cheng Shijie smiled: "You have lived in Liaodong for more than a year, right?" Do you think that the Ming court did not infiltrate Liaodong? In fact, the imperial court also sent a large number of backbone intelligence personnel to infiltrate Liaodong, but in fact, as long as there are enough interests, a person's left hand can sell his right hand, let alone the soul? ”

For this point, Cheng Shijie actually did a good job, and he also selectively screened, not all displaced people and refugees immediately obtained the status of Liaodong citizens when they arrived in Liaodong, and had the rights of Liaodong citizens, which is a problem that everyone knows.

In particular, the officers and men of the Ning Navy, which are both Dengzhou and Denglai New Army, and Dengzhou Weizuo Qianhu as the foundation of the Ning Navy, this is a lineage, in addition to the Shandong Army's Denglai New Army, the largest number of soldiers is actually from the Dongjiang Army, of course, now it also includes the Guanning Army officers and soldiers who were absorbed by Cheng Shijie, these Guanning Army officers and soldiers are quite numerous, more than 8,000 people.

Do these more than 8,000 officers and soldiers of the Guanning Army say that they are all innocent? They not only have Zu Dashou's family soldiers, but also Wu Xiang and Wu Sangui's family soldiers, to say that they did not infiltrate the Ning Navy, Cheng Shijie does not believe it.

But the problem is that the Ning Navy can give a fair treatment to the officers and men no matter what their background, they can serve the Ning Navy, they can enjoy military positions, they can make meritorious contributions to the Ning Navy, they can also enjoy the reward of meritorious service, they can be promoted in the Ning Navy, and they can also be promoted and make a fortune.

As long as they become soldiers of the Ning Navy, their children can go to school for free, their families can enjoy five years of tax exemption, ten and a half years of tax power, and if they are sick, they will be treated by doctors, even if they die in battle, their wives and children will be supported by the collective of Ning Haijun.

As long as it is the family of the fallen soldiers of the Ning Navy, they enjoy tax exemptions, tax refunds, legal protection and other rights in Liaodong, which is something that Zu Dashou and Wu Sangui cannot give to their family soldiers, these family soldiers know very well that once they die, their families will definitely be very sad, and they will not even be able to live.

And the officers and men of the Ning Navy do not need to worry about this.

"You can set up the Venetian Foreign Legion, let them participate directly in the military campaign against the Ottoman Empire, and if they have done a good job, you will give them a certain reward, and let them enjoy a certain amount of power as citizens of the Republic of Venice!"

Catherine shook her head: "Your Excellency Duke, you think too simply, we Venetians are different from you Ming people, you Ming people have no faith, and we, not all of us Europa people have faith!" ”

"It's good to have faith, are you sure that all of their Europa people have faith?"

"I'm sure!"

Cheng Shijie said to Cheng Shi: "How many Spaniards are there in Luzon now?" ”

"Returning to my father, there are 4,653 people in total, and there were originally 4,752 people, but it was just ......"

Cheng Shijie didn't care how many Spaniards were killed, he looked at Catherine and said, "Bishop Tim is the state religion of Spain, right?" ”

Catherine nodded, "Yes!" The Spaniards are all damned Bishop Tim"

"You have a Protestant pastor with you, right?"

"Get your pastor ready to baptize the Protestants!"

"Ahh

Catherine looked surprised.

Cheng Shijie is very clear about this. The so-called national integrity is not worth mentioning in the face of interests. Especially the people on the steppe, there is no national integrity. When the Huns were strong, the entire steppe was occupied by the Huns.

After the rise of the Xianbei people, the whole steppe was the Xianbei people, and later, the Turks rose, and most of the entire steppe called themselves Turks, and after the Tang Dynasty defeated the Turks, they claimed to be the Tang people, the Tang Dynasty was weak, and the Uighurs rose, and they were also called the Uighurs. Of course, there is also the rise of the Jurchens, once the steppe called itself the Jurchens, and after the rise of the Mongols, the steppes became Mongols.

Cheng Shijie is now using the 4,653 Spaniards who were captured to teach Catherine on the spot.

Officers and men of the Ning Navy do not mistreat prisoners, but there is absolutely no such thing as managing prisoners like uncles.

Children are the future, children are hope, this is the consensus of Cheng Shijie and the entire Ninghai Group. Because Cheng Shijie wanted to establish a public education system in Luzon.

Therefore, the establishment of Luzon College cannot be delayed.

The shortage of manpower in Luzon is very serious, and of course this does not include the indigenous population of Luzon, in fact, neither the Spaniards nor Cheng Shijie regard the indigenous people as adults.

First of all, the Ning Navy will pick out the prisoners of war who are low-status and bullied from these prisoner of war groups, give them power, and let them serve as foremen and be responsible for managing the prisoners of war, so that these prisoners of war who have obtained power will not wait for revenge.

At the construction site of the future Luzon Academy, one hundred and ninety-three Spanish foremen were selected, and other prisoners of war, including the Governor of Luzon and Colonel O'Moore, were in labor.

There was no way not to work, and there was no food to eat as a captive, and after a day of hunger by the governor of Juan, he bowed his noble head.

Even if they worked twelve hours a day, they could only get food that barely starved to death, and the food was not oily or watery.

In order to encourage the prisoners of war to work voluntarily, for example, if they work overtime for two hours, they can get an extra meal, which is the best white rice, and the prisoners of war have no chance to eat, if they work for four more hours, they can get a sea fish and a bowl of egg soup on the basis of the white rice, and you can achieve a meal of white rice.

As the Spanish army colonel in Luzon, O'Moore, in fact, he did not come to Luzon voluntarily, initially he was under the command of Lieutenant General Francisco, the Spanish commander in the Netherlands, during a Francisco inspection of O'Moore's musketeer exercises, one of O'Moore's soldiers, when shooting, sneezed.

The soldier's musket shook when he sneezed, and it was very outrageously fired at Francisco, of course, Francisco was very lucky and was not hit, but the bullet hit Francisco about two meters away.

As a result, O'Moore, the unlucky bastard, kicked Luzon from the sequence of Spanish troops in the Netherlands. O'Moore actually loves his wife Maria very much, after becoming a prisoner of Ning's navy, Maria's former offended people, and now he began to take revenge back, and in desperation, O'Moore began to compromise with Ning's navy.

He worked sixteen hours a day to earn Maria some white rice to eat.

If you want to eat well, there is only one way to work more than others in the prisoner of war camp of the Ning Navy.

One afternoon, a Protestant priest, with a large amount of food, led by Ning naval soldiers, entered the Spanish prisoner of war camp.

Of course, these foods are not necessarily good, from boiled potatoes to sweet potatoes roasted directly over the fire, to local fruits from Luzon, and the best food is a piece of pure Western baked bread.

"Join Protestantism to get more food!"

The news spread ten, ten, hundred, and thousand, and soon spread rapidly in the Spanish prisoner of war camps.

In later generations, because of the principle of the policy, Shaomin can have two children, can be tax-free, can add points in the college entrance examination, and take advantage of the loopholes in the policy, in fact, many Han people have also changed the nationality on the ID card to Shaomin. There are such examples around the author.

Therefore, many people see that it is profitable, they have changed their nationality and changed their ancestors, at first they just wanted to make immediate interests, and they did not have the consciousness that they were a few people, but after two or three generations, after a long period of falsehood, the national concept was naturally formed.

Contrary to the ridiculous "turning Han into Hu" in later generations, the Ming Dynasty has been turning Hu into Han, if there is no Ming Dynasty's land reform and return to the stream, I am afraid that now Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi, or a plate of scattered sand.

Cheng Shijie naturally did not have the intention of turning the Spaniards into Han, but he could use the benefits to drive them to change their beliefs.

Of course, at the beginning, the pastor was reprimanded and scolded by a group of Spaniards.

But the problem is that in the evening, O'Moore came to the priest's tent with a sigh of embarrassment, and said to him, "I am a Protestant, can I get a piece of bread, Maria is sick, she especially wants to eat bread!" ”

In all fairness, O'Moore is a good man through and through, he works sixteen hours a day so that Maria can be fed, and he does whatever it takes to make money in order for Maria to have a good life. Now even for the sake of Maria, it is possible to renounce one's own faith.

However, the problem is that Maria has been cuckolding O'Moore, even though Juan has become a prisoner of war, and Maria uses O'Moor's exhaustion to give her the food she earns to share with Juan, the big fat man.

In fact, there are too many poor and pathetic men like O'Moore.

"Of course, yes, child, God is merciful, lost Lamb......"

At first, only O'Moore, a depraved favorite wife, compromised with Protestantism, but as the construction of the Luzon Academy accelerated, the prisoners of war fed worse and moved more slowly, and were whipped by the Spanish overseers.

Moreover, these Spanish prisoners of war also found that as long as they converted to Protestantism and were baptized by the priest, not only could they get more food, but more importantly, those overseers would no longer beat them, and even became a celebrity around the priest like O'Moore, and his daily work was only to distribute supplies to the Spanish prisoners of war who came to convert.

In fact, these people from the Spanish colonial authorities are not high-end talents, as long as they can mix in the country, who wants to go abroad and go to a place where birds don't?

Most of the pioneers in these colonies were criminals, thieves, perverts, and undetermined people, and in the face of the temptation of the interests of Protestant priests, more than 1,000 prisoners of war became Protestants in just a few days.

This suddenly subverted Catherine's three views.

"How so?"

Cheng Shijie did not hide his secrets, and he was counting on Venice to hold out longer in Europa and have a more violent conflict with the Netherlands and Spain.

"Catherine, didn't you find out when you lived in Liaodong?"

"Found what?"

"The displaced people I attracted in Liaodong have never been nobles, nor are they high-end talents, but the most ordinary and impoverished people, who have despaired in their original living environment, and I give them hope!"

Cheng Shijie actually didn't intend to attract the gentry class, because the gentry class already had enough, and he couldn't give the gentry stage more things.

It's like buying a poor person, a few hundred thousand yuan is enough, it's a lot of millions, if you take a few million to buy a certain horse, this is an insult to others, and it is impossible to do it at all.

"First of all, you Venice must be principled and planned in recruiting people from the Holy Roman Empire, and there are three unprinciples, the first is not to attract famous celebrities, and the second is not to attract nobles, unless this nobility has no place in the Holy Roman Empire. Finally, insist on not having those so-called talents! ”

As soon as Cheng Shijie's words fell, Catherine asked puzzledly: "Then our Venice city-state republic is also short of talents!" ”

"Without talent, you can train, especially the second generation of immigrants!"

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "When I was in Liaodong, I opened a lot of primary schools, and education should start from the baby. ”

"It's still a little bit wrong!"

"What's wrong?"

"If they leave after they have completed their studies, we will not be in vain!"

Catherine said: "To raise a child, it costs at least twenty ducats a year in Venice, and possibly even more, if it is ten thousand people, the annual expenditure is two hundred thousand ducats, which is not a small amount of money!" ”

Catherine's thoughts are very normal, she spends money, of course she wants to be rewarded, and those children who may leave after completing their studies will naturally become the object of their worries, in case you run away, where can I recover my investment?

"Walk away after you finish your studies? How could it be! ”

Cheng Shijie casually pointed to a Ning Navy soldier and said, "If you are a poor bastard who has nothing and learned a skill in a school in Liaodong, will you pat your ass and walk away?" ”

"Pat your ass and walk away? Brains in water, right? ”

Cheng Shijie pointed to another soldier and said, "Now I give you a sum of money to move to Beijing or Nanjing, will you agree?" ”

"I'll say yes! The taxes in Beijing and Nanjing are so heavy that they are either forced to pay taxes by tax officials or collected by landlords all year round, and they can't breathe! ”

The soldier smiled bitterly and said: "Beijing and Nanjing are very good, but there is a place for rich people to stay, where is Liaodong good?" After a year of eating and drinking, there are still seventeen or eighteen taels of silver left to be comfortable, my family has two children studying in Liaodong, if he dares to move to other places after completing his studies, see that I don't break their legs! ”

"Do you understand?"

Cheng Shijie said with a smile: "Your Venice city-state republic, also called the most noble Venice republic, I'm right, you actually have a strong attraction in the countries of Europa, as long as you give those talents the corresponding status and benefits, do you still need to be afraid of talents running away?" ”

(End of chapter)