As the Ming Dynasty's mission to Europe left Shanghai Port and headed south in the autumn of the third year of Hongxing's reign, the level of exchanges between the two worlds of the East and the West was obviously raised to the highest level. In this era, not only those who were communicating with the West were

Only the Ming Dynasty, which was located in the southeast and prospered, and the Qing Empire, which was located in the north, also opened the door to foreign exchanges.

Facing the Whale Sea, not far from the northeastern border of Hamgyong Province in the Kingdom of Korea, there is a fishing port called Vladivostok. It is a rainy, foggy and cold morning morning. At the entrance of the horn-shaped Niujiao Bay, a tower stretches into the sea.

On the top of the slender hill, there is a newly built sea-viewing platform. Several men dressed in Qing Dynasty military attache's clothes are waiting there anxiously, and from time to time they cast their eyes on the rainy and foggy sea.

Now is the time when the northwest wind blows, and the cold wind blowing from Siberia seems to never stop. From time to time, there will be autumn rain, and the temperature has dropped to near freezing point. The autumn wind and autumn rain are really freezing!

I don’t know how long it took, but the people waiting had their hands and feet cold from the cold. Only then did they vaguely see a piece of white sail flashing out of the sea, breaking through the rain and fog, using the northwest wind to barely sail toward the northeast. Among the people waiting, there was one with long hair.

The middle-aged uncle with a baby face and a full beard stamped his feet anxiously: "Old Jia, Old Fan, why did you choose such a day? You will freeze to death!"

The person he called Lao Jia was none other than Jiabus from Jia Le City. He was also too cold and shivering, "Vice Admiral Shang, the big sailing ship of the Spanish Empire leaves the port of Manila every May.

Go north to the commercial ports on the coast of Nanming to trade, and then leave Shanghai for North Korea in July. Wouldn’t it have to be late autumn when we get here?”

The baby-faced Vice Admiral Shang is Shang Kexi’s younger brother Shang Kexi. After the Battle of Qufu, he was transferred to General Shengjing’s Mansion and served under Duduo. He also participated in the campaign against Khalkha Mongolia.

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After his triumphant return from Khalkha Mongolia, he was appointed Vladivostok Melezhangin, which in Chinese is the Vice-General of Vladivostok.

In order to prevent the Southern Ming Dynasty from imposing a blockade on the Bohai Bay coast of the Qing Dynasty and to avoid seeking too much help from North Korea, Dorgon ordered Duduo to find a suitable location to establish a trade port on the coast of the Whale Sea in the northeast before Bruce left.

The final choice of Duduo was to build a port in Vladivostok, which was not too far away from Jilin and North Korea. He also established a Vladivostok Melezhangjing Yamen, and asked Shang Keai to serve as Melezhangjing to preside over the construction of the Vladivostok port and the opening of the port.

matters.

In fact, it’s not a big deal. Vladivostok is a natural harbor and a port can be built anywhere in the nearly twenty-mile-long Niujiao Bay.

As for opening a port, it is even simpler, because no one will come to Vladivostok to trade. Only one or two of the Spanish sailing ships from the Philippines will go north to the Whale Sea and visit Vladivostok on their way back to America.

——According to the agreement reached between the Italian envoy Caballero and Dorgon, the Italian galleons will bring muskets and bronze cannons produced by Italians in exchange for those produced in Northeast China.

Mao Pi and Dong Zhu!

It is said that these two things are worth a lot of money in Europe! Cossacks from the Rakshasa Kingdom traveled thousands of miles here just to find precious furs.

Dorgon thought, since the fur is so precious and Dongzhu seems to be more valuable, why are you so polite? Rather than letting the Rakshasa Kingdom make money, it would be better for the Qing Kingdom to make the money itself.

The various tribes outside the customs are very good at hunting and so on. Huang Ama has made a decree to get some more cotton cloth, grain, iron tools, etc. to send. Are you afraid that you won't be able to get furs in exchange?

It’s all money when it’s transferred to the Japanese!

Of course, the Qing Dynasty did not need money very much. The Qing Dynasty did not have developed industry and commerce, and it could not spend money. What the Qing Dynasty needed now was weapons that could arm itself against the Ming Dynasty and the Rakshasa Kingdom.

So Dorgon reached an agreement with Caballero to exchange muskets and artillery for furs and dongzhu.

It was for this deal of "guns for hair, guns for pearls" that Dodo sent Jabs to the frozen Vladivostok!

Another person called Lao Fan is an old man wearing a mink cloak outside his official uniform. He has a bold and unrestrained attitude. This man's name is Fan Yongdou! The leader of the nine Shanxi merchants, he was originally affiliated with the Zhenghuang Banner Han Army. Now he has changed his name to Fan Yongdou.

In order to set up a green flag, he was also awarded the worldly title of Adahahafan (a bit like a title). He was sent by Dorgon to do business with Jiabus and Shang Keai.

Hearing the discussion between the two, Fan Yongdou laughed a few times: "Yihu (Jabs' nickname is Yihu) is really a formidable young man. He even knows the ship schedule of the Spanish people!"

"What you are saying, old man, is what I am doing. Can you please make it clear?" Jabs smiled, "You are so powerful, old man. When the Qing Dynasty was still outside the country, you were a hero of the Qing Dynasty.

We are all your juniors!"

Fan Yongdou laughed a few times and said nothing.

The three of them were silent like this. After an unknown period of time, a Spanish Galen ship with a load of four to five hundred tons finally sailed into the entrance of Niujiao Bay.

Shang Keai let out a breath and said to Jabs and Fan Yongdou: "We're finally here... Let's go down to the dock and see what good things the Japanese have brought us?"

Jabs and Fan Yongdou nodded, so the three of them put on their raincoats and walked out of the observation deck together towards the pier at the foot of the mountain.

The visitor was the Manila, commanded by de Velasco, which was the Galen ship that sent Caballero to Shanghai last time. The ship left Manila in May, but it did not go as Jabs suspected.

Instead of Shanghai, I went to Naha Port in the Ryukyu Kingdom.

This port and the entire Ryukyu Kingdom are currently under the actual control of the Japanese Satsuma Domain. However, the Ryukyu King Shangzhi was canonized by Zhu Cixi two years ago. However, Zhu Cihong had no excuse to confer the title and sent troops to expel the Ryukyu Satsuma Army -

—There are too many places where he needs to send troops, and he has no time to deal with Ryukyu for the time being.

Moreover, since the opening of Shanghai and the Zheng family obtained the trading rights to enter Uraga Port (5 large ships of 50,000 stone per year), Naha Port has declined sharply and has now become a useless thing in the hands of Satsuma Domain. In order to make up for the Naha trade income

Due to the losses caused by the decline, the lord of Satsuma Domain, Shimazu Mitsuhisa, had to use Naha to engage in arms smuggling business!

The matchlock gun was introduced to Japan from Kagoshima in Satsuma, and the Shimadzu family was famous for its use of "iron cannons" during Japan's Warring States Period. After Osaka's winter and summer wars, Japan's troubled times were completely over, but in the troubled times

The iron cannon production capacity established in the process is not so easy to remove.

It's a handicraft industry! As long as the craftsmen are still there, it is easy to restore production capacity. The Osaka Summer Battle has only been more than 30 years ago, and for a period of time Shimazu Tadahashi (the first lord of the Satsuma Domain) was still evil and maintained the production capacity of iron cannons for a period of time.

, so a large number of finished iron cannons are stored.

In addition to maintaining the production capacity of iron cannons and storing finished iron cannons, the Shimadzu family also used the special status of Naha Port to maintain secret exchanges with the colonial powers of Catholic countries such as Spain and Portugal in the East.

Therefore, we received a large order from Manila a few months ago—3,000 six-cylinder cylinders!

The Manila went to Naha to ship these six-barreled North Shanghai Sanwei in exchange for furs and dongzhu. Because the Qing Dynasty needed a large number of muskets, and the demand was urgent (the war with the Rakshasa Kingdom was tight!), so Spain There was no time to transport it from America, and no time to order it from Guangdong and Fujian.

Although many new iron workshops have been opened in Foshan and Anping, the output of the handicraft industry is still increasing slowly. All the iron workshops in the two places combined cannot produce 3,000 Hongxing three-year matchlock guns in a month. Moreover, It’s impossible to sell them all to the Spaniards. The Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty is still waiting to purchase them!
Chapter completed!