It stands to reason that there should be some enmity between the Spaniards and Gao Pragmatic. After all, they only fought in Luzon a few years ago.
It was not just a simple battle, but the ownership of 300,000 square kilometers and more than 7,000 islands was transferred from Spanish hands to Gao Pragmatic's hands because of this battle.
This is 300,000 square kilometers! You know, the mainland area of Spain [Note: If you only count Castile and Aragon. ] is only a little over 500,000 square kilometers, which is two-thirds the size of its mainland.
Of course, Spain does not lack colonies in this period. Its colonies in the Americas are huge, and there are many neighboring areas that can be conquered at will. It can't be said that it really attaches much importance to the Philippines.
However, the Philippines was a hub for transit trade with the Ming Dynasty. Losing the Philippines meant that the Spaniards could not obtain the goods exported by the Ming Dynasty. This was considered a "serious damage to major interests."
However, what surprised Spain was that after Gao Pragmatic took over Luzon, he did not prohibit the Spaniards from continuing to trade, and even the various trade systems were quite standardized and fair. At this time, although the Spaniard was unhappy at first, he later accepted it with his nose in his hands.
This trait of Europeans is quite good, that is, after fighting each other too much, they have developed a habit of recognizing reality - commonly known as bullying the weak and fearing the strong.
Although Spain is at its peak now, it does not have enough manpower, material resources, and financial resources to come to Southeast Asia to fight Gao Pragmatism, so it is no surprise that they chose to accept reality.
Not only did they accept it, but because they had been fighting so hard in Europe over the years, the Spanish government went bankrupt several times, and it even became more focused on trade with southern Xinjiang.
However, Gao Wuchen plans to help Spain now, not for the sake of trade partners, but to make Europeans fight each other more vigorously and later use their energy to colonize everywhere, especially "looking east." .
After so many years since the Age of Discovery, it is no longer possible for Ming Dynasty or China to play its own game behind closed doors. Others may not be aware of this, but he is too pragmatic to realize it, otherwise he would just find a rope to hang himself.
To a certain extent, the Great Voyage is the beginning of the era of globalization. In this era, it should be certain that not only every country can have an impact on other countries, but at least every move of the major powers in the world may have a chain reaction.
Then, Gao Pragmatic, who has changed the situation of the Ming Dynasty and even the entire East Asia and Southeast Asia a lot, has to think about one thing: if he never cares about world affairs, in what direction will the world develop, and whether it can develop on its own to what he once imagined. state?
If not, what else should I do to make the world I imagined at that time appear?
Broadly speaking, with Ming having himself as a time traveler, and perhaps with the addition of Southern Xinjiang, the future world structure should at least form a confrontation between east and west - or a situation where east and west stand side by side. Otherwise, what is the point of his time traveling?
At least in Gao Pragmatic's view, he has such a responsibility. Of course, if this question was raised to Liu Xin, she might not agree.
Is it enough to change the world just by changing yourself? Maybe, after all, Ming Dynasty is large enough, and with Southern Xinjiang, it should have such capabilities, but after all, this is not safe enough.
If you want to be more secure, after you have done all you can on your side, there are not many options left but to look for opportunities to cause some trouble to the other party.
It seems difficult to cause trouble to the West at this time. After all, the two sides are too far apart. In theory, high pragmatism should not be used even if it is powerful. In fact, this is not the case, there are still ways.
There is a reason why the great powers of later generations like to play proxy wars the most. The so-called "proxy war" refers to wars initiated by certain major powers or supported by proxies in order to avoid direct involvement in conflicts. Its essence is a strategic tool for big countries to seek hegemony, through which big countries can achieve "maximization of interests" and "minimization of risks."
According to the theories developed in later generations, the basic motivation for proxy wars is that geopolitical opponents or other actors in world politics (can be called sponsors) hope or can do so without resorting to direct military conflict between countries. Under such circumstances, they protect or realize their geopolitical interests through their agents, and the agents need to receive a steady stream of military, technical and political support from their sponsors to increase their chances of winning the war, or at least to ensure that their positions are not lost.
Geopolitical opponents use proxies to fight each other on the territory of a third country, generally with multiple purposes: not only to weaken the geopolitical enemy's military strength militarily, but also to consume its national power economically, and also seek to create internal problems for it , and even shake the foundation of its governance and damage its international reputation.
Obviously, what Gao Wuchen wants to do now is to support the Spanish Empire in its endless wars in Europe, thereby bringing down the entire Europe, or at least most of the major European countries.
Can this be done? Most likely.
The previous article has specifically mentioned the ambition of King Philip II of Spain. "The world is not enough for me" is clearly written on the Spanish commemorative silver coin. There is no doubt about this.
But there is a little problem here... Philip II should have died just last year. Barring any unexpected events, his only surviving son, Philip III, should be succeeding now.
The good news is that this small problem is not a big deal in Gao Pragmatic's view, because Philip III's governing ideas are basically the same as those of his father - because he has huge ambitions in all aspects and directions, even to the point of resorting to militarism.
All in all, since Philip III's grandfather, Charles V, came to power, Spain has been at war or supporting wars for about 80 years. The term "militancy" is simply too appropriate to describe them.
I have cited some data in the previous article to prove that although Spain made rapid progress in the early colonial era, the country's foundation was not actually very strong.
This led to negative consequences, with continuous setbacks in several directions, especially after completely losing the seven provinces in the northern Netherlands. Spain became weaker and weaker as the war progressed. After the Thirty Years' War, this former European hegemonic player basically went offline. The empire was almost only glowing, and the Spanish sun never rose again.
However, Gao Pragmatic feels that Spain's militarism is too good! In particular, it is keen on competing for European hegemony, which perfectly fits its own vision of Europe!
After the Second World War, the primary reason why proxy wars have continued to flourish is of course that the emergence of nuclear weapons made the consequences of a direct conflict between major powers too terrifying, and a certain kind of peace under nuclear weapons was achieved, but the reason is, after all, There is more than one reason, and there are several main reasons, and these points are almost all in line with Gao Pragmatic's thoughts at this time.
First, proxy wars are relatively cheap and low-cost, while at the same time highly effective.
According to later theories, proxy war seems to be a cheap, virtually costless way of waging war. "Agency" makes it possible to intervene with minimal cost.
For example, Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, once praised proxy war in a speech as "the cheapest way to achieve national goals" and "the cheapest insurance." This means that compared with direct military intervention, this method can not only reduce financial expenditures, but also manage political risks.
As a war strategy that can obtain higher returns with lower investment, proxy war has become the preferred tool for major powers to engage in strategic games and intervene in regional affairs.
It would be a bit difficult to convince the Ming Dynasty to intervene in Spain or Europe thousands of miles away, but if it only intervened with the power of southern Xinjiang, it would be no problem. In fact, the so-called "power of southern Xinjiang" actually contains a lot of the power of the Ming Dynasty - after all, the trade between the Ming Dynasty and Spain is basically under Gao Pragmatic's control.
Secondly, by engaging in proxy wars, military expenditures and personnel losses will be small. The cost of direct military confrontation between countries, or direct military intervention in conflicts between other countries or within countries, is often very high, so adopting a proxy war strategy naturally becomes a wise choice.
Philip Bobbitt, a famous American political scientist and legal scholar, once said: "In the future, local armed forces will increasingly become agents of global and regional powers in instigating armed conflicts. This method will become the basis for these countries to use An efficient alternative to the regular army and large military expenditures. For the United States, launching a proxy war can not only save money, but also avoid sacrificing American soldiers, including Army service personnel."
Similarly, to support Spain with high pragmatism, you don't need to lose a single soldier of your own. All you need to do is further strengthen trade with the Spanish, commonly known as blood transfusion.
The reason why Spain, which was extremely militaristic, could not win the war was ultimately due to too many financial bankruptcies, and in the end it was really unable to spend military funds to continue the war.
There is another very critical point in this, that is, the money Spain originally used to support the war was really just currency, not productivity. To be precise, its military expenditures come almost entirely from the huge amounts of gold and silver in the Americas.
The Spanish Empire used these precious metals to purchase almost all the materials needed for war in the entire European market, but it failed to cultivate other advantageous industries except shipbuilding. Therefore, once the supply in the Americas was insufficient, Spain would immediately go bankrupt.
But is there not enough gold and silver in America? In fact, no. Not only is there no shortage of gold and silver in America now, but it will still be able to be supplied smoothly for many years to come. So, why does Spain have no money? Because of inflation.
Spain imported too much gold and silver to Europe! In the absence of explosive development of European productivity, the result of the rapid increase in gold and silver was that the purchasing power of equivalent gold and silver was continuously diluted and eventually depreciated significantly.
This is the so-called "price revolution" in Europe in history.
Similarly, this is another important reason why Gao Pragmatic is targeting Spain - it doesn't matter if there is too much gold and silver in Europe, your trouble is inflation, and my Ming Dynasty's trouble has always been deflation! You think there is too much gold and silver on the market, and I, Ming, think there is too little gold and silver on the market. Isn't this a coincidence? This is a match made in heaven!
Moreover, there are deeper industrial development issues here.
Let’s start with Spain. In the early part of this century, although Spain’s domestic social economy once showed prosperity and capitalist relations in industry and commerce also grew, the feudal structure was still quite tenacious. Faced with the soaring prices of agricultural products, the feudal aristocrats only blindly strengthened feudal exploitation, and the guilds in the cities continued to control handicraft production.
This makes it difficult to develop domestic industrial and agricultural production in Spain. The food produced is not enough to feed its residents. A large amount of wool is still exported to the Netherlands and Italy. The price of industrial and agricultural products is even higher than that of similar products in the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands. The product has lost its competitiveness in the market.
In addition, the Spanish Habsburg dynasty pursued a policy of dominating Europe and spent huge amounts of wealth on military and political activities; the Spanish nobles squandered money in pursuit of a luxurious life, which caused the gold and silver shipped back from the American colonies to be quickly transferred to other countries. situation in the hands of the country's suppliers and creditors.
Therefore, the colonial activities carried out by Spain were, to a large extent, just making wedding clothes for others. The colonial market it opened up was quickly occupied by goods from Britain, France and other countries; the wealth it plundered from the colonies was not absorbed by its own domestic industry, agriculture and commerce, but was transferred to Britain, France and other countries before being converted into capital.
According to statistics from later generations of scholars, during the past 100 years or so, Spain brought back gold and silver from the Americas worth approximately 4 billion pesetas, of which only 200 million pesetas, or only 5%, were left in the country at most.
In other words, by launching so many wars, Spain has actually lost weight on itself and gained weight on other countries that provide industrial products.
In this case, instead of enriching them, why not enrich the Ming Dynasty and Southern Xinjiang?
The current industrial level of European countries is not very good. What they can produce can't be produced by our country, Ming Dynasty or Southern Xinjiang? Even excluding the shipping costs, I can make a steady profit by producing these things in the seaport city.
Although it is definitely cheaper to sell and earn less than in Europe, considering that one side is inflation and the other is deflation, as long as Spanish gold and silver can be used to cultivate stronger productivity and at the same time activate the economic vitality within the East Asian circle of influence, It doesn’t matter if you make less money right now!
Under the grand goal of coexistence of things and things, it is not so important to make more or less. The last thing is the decline of one thing and the other.
"Zhiting, after you return to southern Xinjiang this time, help me deliver a personal letter to the Governor of Goa, saying that I wrote it to Francisco de Sandoval-Roja, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain and the Duke of Palma. Please ask the Governor of Goa to see to it that this letter reaches the Duke for his signature."
Huang Zhiting was stunned for a moment: "Is this person important?"
"Of course." Gao Pragmatic smiled: "His position in Philip III's government... is as important as mine in the Ming Dynasty. At the same time, Philip III will not doubt him."
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "First Login", "Yan Yunhe", "Cao Mianzi", "Yun Fuyue Yu", "Old West in Altay", "Shadow with Cheap Feet", "Ride Alone to Shine Bixin", thank you !
ps: I didn’t update yesterday. I was so pissed off by the Argentinian team that I went to bed directly after watching it.