After listening to Chigi's words, Philip IV's long face straightened even longer.
The Sunbanian World Empire is an empire on which the sun never sets! How is it possible that there are only 100 years of hegemony left? Is this the will of God, or are you, the usurer cardinal, cursing the great world empire of Spain?
When Chigi saw Philip IV's long face, he thought it was the "loan king" of the Habsburg family who was worried about having no money to fight the war - he didn't expect Philip IV to feel so good about himself. , not to mention the several hundred million usury loans, what to do?
Even Spain's military strength seems to be unreliable. The navy is beaten by the British and the Dutch, and the army cannot defeat France. The Flanders Army, known as the most powerful, lost its battle in the Battle of Rocroix in 1643. He was defeated by the fledgling Prince Kongdai.
Moreover, the Spanish mainland is not stable either, and there is still a Catalan Republic that has not yet been settled.
The European powers of this era have no awareness that they must settle their domestic affairs in order to resist foreign aggression. Each one of them is busy waging war with other countries if their homeland is not settled. If Europe is not settled, it is busy grabbing colonies all over the world!
Of course, Gisbania is no exception. The Kingdom of Gisbania has not been unified internally. King Philip is not the king of the unified Gisbania, but Portugal, Aragon, Castile, The king of Valencia, and a bunch of dukes, marquises, and lords of earls. The various territories are also not united. They fight with each other to get more benefits, and conflicts occur from time to time.
The Catalan independence incident has caused a huge conflict between states! Because the Catalans did not want to bear the huge taxes brought by the Thirty Years' War, nor did they want to join the Spanish expeditionary force to attack France, they launched an uprising in 1640 and established Catalonia. Sub-Republic, and also colluded with the French next door, and even gave the title of Count of Barcelona (the name of the lord of Catalonia) to Louis XIII in exchange for French reinforcements.
This internal turmoil in Zizbania has been going on for more than ten years, and it has not subsided yet!
Chigi thought to himself: The internal troubles have not subsided, and the wars with the Portuguese (the troubles in Portugal can also be seen as the civil strife in Spain) and the French are still going on. This Philip IV must be extremely lacking. Money, right?
Thinking of this, he said to Philip IV: "Your Majesty, the Qing Mongolia in the East (the Qing Dynasty has another country name) and the Mughal Empire in India both have amazing wealth, especially the Mughal wealth. It has reached the point where the whole of Europe is coveted. If the Kingdom of Spain can form an alliance with these two countries, it will definitely give great confidence to lenders across Europe... By then the Kingdom of Spain You can borrow a lot of money at a lower interest rate!”
"Can you really borrow a large amount of money?" Philip IV was immediately interested. In fact, he didn't care about the interest - he only cared about the interest if he planned to repay it, and he had no intention of repaying it. The problem that Zizbania faces now is not to repay debts, but that it is difficult to borrow new debts.
"Of course!" Chigi nodded heavily, "No lender in Italy wants to see the Kingdom of Gisbania go bankrupt again... As long as the Kingdom has hope of making large profits from the East, they will definitely Willing to provide more loans.”
"How can we make huge profits from the East?" asked Philip IV.
"Of course the Indian Trading Company and the Pacific Trading Company will be established," Chigi said. "If Italian lenders can be allowed to take shares, then it will not be a problem to borrow ten million escudos!"
One gold escudo coin is equivalent to approximately 1.4 taels of silver, and 10 million escudo gold coins is equivalent to 14 million taels of silver.
It would be difficult for even the Ming Dynasty's maritime and salt merchants to come up with such a large sum of money, but Italian financiers could easily come up with such a huge sum of money. This shows how rich the Italian businessmen are!
It is not unreasonable for Italian businessmen to be willing to lend money to the debt-ridden Kingdom of Spain. In fact, the world empire of Zizbania has neither a strong manufacturing industry nor a developed financial industry. It only has vast colonies and powerful military power.
The handicrafts, financial services and international trade needed by the Spanish world empire were all controlled by the Germans and Italians.
From a certain perspective, Zizbania is an economic colony of the Germans and Italians! The dirty work and backbreaking work were done by the Spanish, and the oil and water belonged to the Italians and Germans.
Precisely because of this symbiotic and co-prosperous situation, Italian financiers (most of the German financiers were Protestants) knew that it would be difficult to get back the debt they lent to Spain, but they were still willing to lend it.
The biggest dissatisfaction of Italian profiteers with the Kingdom of Spain is not the difficulty in collecting debts, but the inability of the Kingdom of Spain to develop overseas trade routes and strongholds.
Not only was he incompetent, but he also did not learn from the British and Dutch to open a chartered trading company, leaving the businessmen to work on their own.
As the spokesperson of Italian merchants, Archbishop Chigi certainly wanted to fight for the opportunity for his fellow countrymen to monopolize trade in the Pacific and India.
Philip IV thought for a while and said, "If there are 10 million, then fine, I can agree to establish joint-stock Indian Trading Company and Pacific Trading Company.
However, the Pacific Trading Company was not allowed to engage in the import of raw silk and other silk products, and its ships were not allowed to enter Daming ports. "
Raw silk was an important commodity in the galleons trade. Zizbania imported raw silk from the Ming Dynasty, and then part of it was processed in the American colonies and part of it was transferred to Italian merchants. The chain of interests has been formed and cannot be changed casually.
“As you wish,” Bishop Chigi laughed, “your decision will definitely be very beneficial to the spread of the Lord’s gospel to the east.
Your Majesty, I have another request. I hope that I can go to Seville on behalf of the Universal Church to negotiate with the representatives of the Qing Dynasty and Mongolia on missionary issues. "
"Of course," said Philip IV, "that is your right! Just go with Fernando Alvarez, Duke of Navarre, and you can live in the royal palace in Seville."
"Thank you very much, Your Majesty."
...
At the royal palace in Seville, the first thing that Duke Fernando Alvarez of Navarre and Archbishop Chigi saw was not the "Mongolian ministers", but Caballero, who single-handedly facilitated the "establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Mongolia" .
Foreign Secretary Fernando Alvarez first announced to Caballero the good news that the king would ennoble him as Viscount of Manila, and then asked about the situation of the "Mongols".
"Judge, why do you want to package the Qing Dynasty into the Great Mongolia?"
Because of the reports of the Dominicans and the Jesuits, the Holy See and the Spanish court could still distinguish the difference between the Qing Dynasty and the Mongolia.
"Legalistically speaking," Caballero said, "the Qing Dynasty is the successor of the Great Mongolia... The current emperor of the Qing Dynasty ascended the throne twice, in the grassland and in Beijing. The former inherited the legal system of the Great Mongolia. , became the Great Khan of Mongolia. The latter regarded himself as the successor of the Chinese legal system and was the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
But China's orthodox dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, still exists, and it still rules most of China's land and a population of 130 million... 10 times more than the population under the Qing Dynasty! Under these circumstances, the Qing's ownership of China was untenable. But on the Mongolian side, both Eastern Mongolia, Mongolia, and Mongolia proper now surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and recognized the Qing Emperor as the Great Khan of Mongolia. Moreover, the Timurid Empire in India now also recognized the status of the Qing Emperor's Great Mongol Khan.
There are only one or two small countries with the Golden Horde Khan system left that have not recognized the Qing Emperor's throne, but they have no intention of challenging the throne. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty is the legal successor to the legal system of the Great Mongolia! "
After all, he is a judge, and he is really very clear on legal issues!
"Okay," Fernando Alvarez nodded, "then do you have any suggestions for negotiations?"
"Yes, Duke. I have been negotiating with the envoys of the Qing Dynasty for several months and have prepared a draft of the Japan-Mongolia Agreement. I now bring it to you for your review."
