Chapter 171 Japan's Trade Route

The value of the existence of the Spaniards in the Philippines is their trade with Daming. If this trade is cut off, the existence of Spaniards in the Philippines will not have much significance. However, unlike the Dutch, the Spaniards have rarely personally sailed to Daming over the past few years. Trade, instead, wait for Daming merchants to send the goods to Manila, and then make acquisitions and re-export them to Europe or the Americas, so they have stronger requirements for the stability of trade routes.

This is also the reason why they are willing to pay some money this time to let the sea wolf give up continuing to block the merchant ships to trade in Manila. 15,000 pesos seem to be a lot, but as long as they can still buy Daming goods, they can soon earn this money.

Next, the two sides made some negotiations on the issue of prisoners. In fact, only some of the Spanish sailors and soldiers captured by the sea wolf this time are Spanish, and the sailors of this era are from all over the world, including Europeans, some Southeast Asians, and some are Chinese, even if Many Europeans are not Spanish, but Italians, Germans and even Danish.

Now Europe is at war. There is a Thirty Years' War between you and me. There are quite a lot of displaced Europeans. They are also looking for a meal, so many people go to sea to make a living and risk acting as sailors for anyone.

So among the Spanish sailors and soldiers captured by the sea wolf, only some of them are Spanish, and the rest are scum from everywhere. After all, sailors in this era are almost synonymous with scum, and Blanco doesn't bother to spend money to redeem these non-Spanish scum.

It happens that the sea wolves still have a need for these scum. They have signed a five-year service agreement with the sea wolves. Blanco doesn't want them, and Yu Xiaotian will naturally not generously put them back.

In the end, Blanco only redeemed more than 100 Spanish prisoners, but on the condition that he had to pay 50 pesos for each sailor, while ordinary infantry would pay 30 pesos, and the rest of the officers or important personnel such as the captain and captain on the ship would need to pay 200 to 500 pesos. According to the statistics, he will eventually pay 7,000 pesos to the sea wolf.

Of course, before seeing these white peso, these people have to stay under the jurisdiction of the sea wolf and continue to serve Yu Xiaotian. During this period, Yu Xiaotian can almost squeeze their use.

As for those non-Spanish hired sailors or soldiers, Blanco is too lazy to spend money to redeem them, so these people can only continue to stay in the sea wolf and serve Yu Xiaotian according to the agreement.

As for the two captured ships, Blanco also tried to redeem them, but this was definitely rejected by Yu Xiaotian, because now he can't buy such a big splint ship even if he has money. He finally caught two of them. How can he let the Spaniards redeem them? What's more, he has made great efforts to repair these two ships. Next, he will soon join his fleet to become his ship. Naturally, it is impossible to return it to the Spaniards. If possible, he also wants to get a few more to support the scene, at least until he can build a better ship.

And Blanco did not continue to pester anything about this matter, because he knew very well that as a ship captured by the defeated, generally no one would return it to the defeated. Since Yu Xiaotian did not return it, he had nothing to complain about.

In addition to these, the two sides also talked about cooperation. First, after the Spanish paid the ransom and compensation, the sea wolf lifted the blockade of the Manila route.

Then the sea wolf will send people to Manila to set up a business hall. In a sense, it is the sea wolf's consulate in Manila, which enjoys a certain degree of immunity. When the sea wolf's merchant ship enters and exits Manila, it will receive tax-free preferential treatment and will no longer pay taxes to Manila officials. The main reason for this is that the Spaniards also want to Continue to do business with sea wolves. After all, sea wolves will buy many goods from them that Chinese merchants did not want. If sea wolves do not trade with them, they will not be able to sell their cloth, canvas, cotton and other materials.

So the Spaniards are willing to use tax-free methods to express their willingness to continue trading with sea wolves in the future, which is also a gesture.

Of course, their ships can enter and exit the freshwater port and Chicken Cage Bay in the future, and also get tax-free benefits. However, Yu Xiaotian added one to this condition, that is, if the Spanish ships want to trade in the port of the sea wolf, half of the goods on the ship must be the goods designated by them. These commodities are mainly raw materials, such as hardwood, grain, metal, cloth, saltpetre and other materials for shipbuilding.

Blanco immediately nodded and agreed. After all, they have lost the opportunity to continue to capture Taiwan Island. Now they can also see that although the Dutch have the idea of helping the Ming government clean up the sea wolves, the next step, the sea wolves and the Dutch will become hostile relations, but Yu Xiaotian does not intend to take the sea wolves. The idea of Lan people to be expelled from Taiwan now.

And this is nothing more than retaining the Dutch to compete with their Spaniards, so that their Spaniards will not take the trade initiative in the future in order to make greater profits from it. Therefore, the next conflict between the sea wolf and the Dutch will be limited to a certain range. Sooner or later, they will still have to recover and Dutch trade.

Dutch people are on Taiwan and have unique conveniences. If they don't offer enough conditions, the sea wolf can only trade with the Dutch. There is no need to go to Manila to trade with their Spaniards, so in order to attract sea wolves to maintain trade relations with them. , they must offer good enough conditions.

In addition, the Spaniards did not often go to the coast of China for a long time to take the initiative to trade, but waited for Chinese businessmen to trade in Manila. Now it seems that they have to change. In the future, they must send several ships to the port of the sea wolf for trade. Otherwise, they It will also lose a lot of opportunities.

The reason why Yu Xiaotian can get such a condition in the negotiations with Blanco is that he has enough cards to play. At present, he is not worried about the government's campaign, and he is confident that after the end of this war, Control the entire coast of Fujian.

Fujian itself is the most important transit base for Daming merchants to trade with Japan, * and the Philippines. Every year, most of Daming sea merchants who go to these places must depart from the coastal area of Fujian, while Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Nanzhili and Huguang and other places Important export products such as tea, raw silk, satin and porcelain are also gathered nearby to Fujian and shipped from the coast of Fujian.

Although China's maritime history is very early and was far ahead of the rest of the world. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Chinese sea ships even sailed to Africa and could use their own technology to travel directly to Japan for trade. However, after the Ming Dynasty, China's navigation technology not only did not continue to flourish, but appeared. Serious regression.

Although China invented the compass very early and applied it to navigation, and invented the leading technique as an important technology in navigation, after this era, Chinese navigation technology has been stale and has never created longitude and latitude. Therefore, after the Ming Dynasty, Chinese sea ships not only did not It retains the previous technology of sailing across the ocean, but has retreated to the point that it can only sail along the coastline and marked by coastal landmarks. Even if it is better, it must have islands as a reference along the way to sail.

So much so that after this era, when the Ming sea merchants go to Japan for trade, they must strictly follow the needle road, start from Fujian, and take a circle in the Ryukyu Islands to sail to Japan. There is no way to take a direct flight from other places and sail directly to Japan. In the season, they must also wait. Waiting for the credit wind, it will set sail in October and return before May of the following year. One ship can only travel to Japan once a year.

So at this time, whoever controls the coast of Fujian controls the trade with Japan, and many ships must also depart from Fujian to Manila for trade.

This is also the reason why Zheng Yiguan just gained power, did not hesitate to turn against Yan Siqi, and did not hesitate to fight against the sea wolf and Chu Cai, and also wanted to seize the coast of Zhangquan and other places. As the reason for his territory, because Zheng Yiguan's roots are in Japan, he also took over Li Dan's legacy. Li Dan's business is mainly Sino-Japanese trade. Without controlling the land of Zhangquan, he could not continue to maintain trade with Japan. Unfortunately, he met Yu Xiaotian in this time and space, so that he finally failed. Instead of controlling the land of Zhangquan, he was driven out of the Taiwan Strait by Yu Xiaotian and ran to Guangdong.

So although Zheng Yiguan is still immortal, after losing his foothold in Fujian, he will lose the conditions to continue to trade with Japan and lose important financial resources. Even if Yu Xiaotian no longer pursues him next, he will gradually lose blood until he is finished because of his lack of financial resources. Unless he arrives in Guangdong and resolutely give up Japan's trade and reopen a trade route to the South China Sea to obtain financial resources, his destruction will be sooner or later.

Now Yu Xiaotian has begun to send people to take over the trade route to Japan, and send personnel and ships to go to sea first to open up the trade route to Japan, and gradually squeeze Zheng Yiguan's power out of this route. In less than two years, Yu Xiaotian can replace him and completely control Sino-Japanese trade.

So in this era, whoever controls the coast of Fujian is equivalent to owning a golden mountain and controlling most of China's maritime trade. Of course, Blanco can also see this. This is also these conditions that he dared to make the decision and promised to Yu Xiaotian.