"set sail!"

Following Wang Bing's order, countless huge sails that covered the sky were quickly raised by the officers of the Royal Navy. Then they drove warships, large and small, slowly towards the vast ocean outside Guri Port.

In early September of the twenty-sixth year of Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, after taking over Guli and other Tianzhu strongholds from the Portuguese and completing the first phase of the war to conquer the barbarians, the Royal Navy fleet of the Ming Dynasty officially embarked on the road to reorganize the army.

As for the Yulin Guards and Fujian Zhenbing, who are the main force of the Marine Corps, except for Wang Bing's personal guards and the two thousand Yulin Guards who are used by others, the rest are all left behind in the Chief Secretaries of Nanyang and various strongholds in Tianzhu, including

The same goes for Zhu Changluo's crown prince Wei Shu.

After all, the return this time is not a withdrawal of troops. There will be another expedition next year, so there is no need to follow them back and forth.

Another most important point is that the Royal Navy's warships also need to leave space to transport trophies and specialties from Southeast Asia back home!

"Uncle, why don't I just stay in the old port and wait this time. Firstly, when I come to Nanyang, I need someone to take charge, and secondly, I won't have the trouble of running back and forth, right? Hehe!"

On the Zhenhai, not long after leaving Guli, Zhu Changluo, the prince of the Ming Dynasty who was already used to being wild, found various reasons to stay. And his purpose was naturally to use this

Participate in the Spanish expedition next year.

"Have you forgotten what I told you? The purpose of letting you go on the expedition this time is just to allow you, the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty, to have a more intuitive understanding of the military, so that you will not be biased in the civil and military affairs when you govern the country in the future. As for

To personally lead troops to fight and fight on the battlefield, unless it is absolutely necessary, there will be military generals from the Manchu Dynasty and sergeants from the Ming Dynasty..."

Wang Bing naturally knew the real reason why Zhu Changluo wanted to stay. But it was obvious that he had no intention of letting him participate in the next phase of the expedition to the Spanish mainland.

Because, firstly, as he said, leading troops in battle is not the main responsibility of His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince. Secondly, it is naturally the reason why this expedition to the Spanish mainland is too far away.

Putting aside the safety of this transcontinental ocean voyage, the time required for this round trip would take a year and a half anyway. And the consequences of letting a prince of a country leave the center of the empire for too long, the First Emperor has already given to his descendants.

Someone demonstrated it again.

Therefore, even if it was just as a precaution, Wang Bing would not take this risk. So in the end, Zhu Changluo could only give up the idea with a look of reluctance.

…

"Hey, that's it?"

At the end of October, when the fleet arrived in Manila, Luzon, carrying a large amount of trophies and specialties such as peppercorns produced in the three provinces of Southeast Asia, and looking at the more than twenty Spanish galleons in the port, including His Royal Highness the Crown Prince Zhu Changluo,

All the generals couldn't help but be puzzled.

You know, when leaving Luzon, except for Francisco and a few other Spanish merchant ships, there were no other Spanish ships in Manila.

Moreover, these twenty-odd Spanish galleons are almost the size of a second-class battleship of the Royal Navy. It is obvious that they cannot be ordinary private merchant ships.

"How did these Spaniards break through our blockade and come to Manila?"

Although it could be seen at a glance that the remaining squadron had not suffered any losses, Chen Lin and Deng Zilong, the two admirals of the Royal Maritime Kingdom, could not help but feel a little embarrassed about the sudden appearance of the Spanish galleon.

"Haha, you two old generals have forgotten that Spain still has colonies in South Asia and Mexico. When they come from there, they don't need to pass through Malacca!"

Unlike others, although he was a bit confused about the number of Spanish galleons in front of him, Wang Bing had a clear guess as to how they arrived in Manila, otherwise he would not have left one behind in the first place.

The squadron is sitting back and waiting.

"South Asia, Mexico? Third child, are you saying that this...could this be the treasure ship you said the Spanish people used to transport gold and silver?"

Before the two veterans Chen Lin and Deng Zilong could speak, Li Chengming, who heard the words "South Asia Mexico", couldn't help but his eyes flashed with gold and silver.

You know, Li Chengming had heard from Wang Bing many times about the treasure ships that the Spanish used to transport gold and silver from Mexico in South Asia.

Therefore, when he learned that these twenty-odd Spanish galleons came from Mexico in South Asia, the first thing Li Chengming thought of was naturally these treasure ships transporting gold and silver.

"Maybe there are one or two of them, right? After all, the Spanish treasure ships mainly take the route from Seville to South Asia. The ones that go here are just used to buy my Ming's goods and then resell them...

"

Seeing Li Chengming's eyes shining with gold and silver, Wang Bing couldn't help but shook his head, breaking his fantasy of harvesting more than twenty treasure ships at once.

But what Wang Bing didn't know was that for some reason, he really guessed wrong this time. These twenty-odd Spanish galleons were all loaded with gold and silver, just as Li Chengming expected.

…

"Your Majesty, Your Highness the Crown Prince, this time we have sent a shipment! There are more than twenty Spanish galleons, all of which are treasure ships loaded with gold, silver and jewelry..."

As soon as he returned to the former Governor's Mansion in Manila, the squadron commander Ji Jin, who was left on guard by Wang Bing, reported the news to Wang Bing and Zhu Changluo with joy as if he had eaten bee shit.

"What? These twenty-odd Spanish galleons are all transporting gold and silver?"

After hearing Ji Jin's report, Wang Bing looked in disbelief and was also puzzled by the Spaniard's route to transport the treasure this time.

You know, the distance from Seville to Mexico in South Asia is much closer than that from Mexico to Manila.

"Have you ever counted the amount of gold and silver on the ship?"

While Wang Bing was still puzzled about the Spanish treasure ship's route this time, Li Chengming, the 'big steward' of the army, directly asked about the most important thing, the quantity of this batch of gold and silver jewelry.

"Back to Dongshenghou, after counting, we intercepted a total of more than 1,110,000 taels of Spanish silver and more than 1,200,000 taels of gold. In addition, there were various gems..."

"More than 1.1 million taels of silver, more than 1.2 million taels of gold? If all of this was converted into silver, wouldn't it be almost more than 20 million taels of silver?"

Before Ji Jin finished reporting the number of gems, all the generals immediately became excited when they heard the amount of gold and silver intercepted.

You must know that this is calculated based on the current official price of the Ming Dynasty, which is one tael of gold for eight taels of silver. If it were exchanged for ten taels, the amount would only be greater.

"Uncle, this is really a blast of cannon, and a thousand taels of gold, hahahaha!"

After also quickly calculating the total price of some gold and silver, Zhu Changluo, the Ming Dynasty prince who had experienced great battles, couldn't help but grin wildly.

There was no way. Although the army that conquered Japan brought back more gold and silver when they returned to the court, how could it be the same as the seizures that I had participated in?

And more importantly, the more than 20 million taels of silver were only intercepted this time. If we add in the previous seizures of the army in various places in Nanyang and Tianzhu, the total of 30 million taels of silver is definitely there.

In other words, this war in Nanyang, which lasted for almost a year, directly provided the Ming Dynasty with a year's worth of agricultural and commercial taxes. The harvest had already far exceeded the military expenditure invested countless times.

"Haha, do I need to say this? Otherwise, why would Yingjiang always like to stir up trouble and fight everywhere?"

In happiness, Wang Bing even brought out the example of 'Eagle Sauce' in later generations. Fortunately, everyone's attention was only on the huge amount of gold and silver, but no one cared about this 'Eagle Sauce'

'Who is it?

"Third brother, we stole so much gold and silver from the Spaniards this time, it must have broken their muscles and bones, right? Hehe!"

After getting excited, Li Chengming looked at Wang Bing with a smirk on his face.

"Hey, I don't know if it's broken or not. But it's true that we helped the Spanish royal family avoid another bankruptcy..."

Hearing Li Chengming's question, Wang Bing couldn't help but laugh evilly.

It turns out that since the Spanish sluts transported a large amount of gold and silver back to Europe from America, prices across Europe have started to skyrocket. In just a dozen years, prices across Europe have increased six to seven times. And among them, food

, more than doubled by a full ten times.

As a result, the Republic of Genoa, which relied on finance and bankers, went bankrupt. The Spanish royal family, which had large savings in Genoa, was naturally implicated and had to go bankrupt.

Then, in order to make up for the losses caused by bankruptcy, the Spaniards went all out and continued to transport gold and silver back from America.

However, what they didn't expect was that the more gold and silver they shipped back, the higher the price would rise. As a result, the higher the price, the easier it would be for the Spanish royal family to go bankrupt.

In the original history, by the mid-17th century, the Spanish royal family had gone bankrupt four times, leaving successive Spanish kings scratching their heads and unable to figure out the reason.

In fact, from the perspective of Wang Bing, a later generation, it is nothing more than a sudden influx of large amounts of foreign precious metals, triggering hyperinflation.

You know, Europe in this era is no better than the Ming Dynasty or later generations. Not only did they have limited production capacity, but they also didn't sell many products for export.

And more importantly, the European population in this era has not yet recovered from the Black Death craze in the fourteenth century.

Therefore, in Europe, where wealth was originally concentrated in the hands of a few people, a group of Spanish prodigals brought in so much gold and silver that they had no place to digest it, and this led to the disaster of inflation.

As for this inexplicable 'disaster', the equally inexplicable Xiyi Fangui people directly dubbed it a 'price revolution'.

In the end, these Western ghosts who really didn't know who to vent their anger on could only point their finger at the so-called 'greedy ones', that is, their Catholic Church.

In the end, Lutheranism took advantage of this trend and launched a religious reform, which resulted in the creation of a new religion.

In other words, the Spanish royal family, which believes in Catholicism, just created a gravedigger for itself through crazy imports of gold and silver!

"What kind of inflation, Mr. Hou, you have to wait and see, this is the blessing that does not match the wealth! If we were the Ming Dynasty, let alone this little gold and silver, even if it were tens or hundreds of times more, it would not happen

This is the situation, hahahaha..."

Regarding Wang Bing's "inflation" explanation, the generals could not care so much, and they all ridiculed the Spaniards' "luck".

However, every country has its own troubles, and the same goes for the Ming Dynasty! As for Wang Bing's return to the army this time, in addition to preparing for the expedition to Spain in the coming year, another important reason is the trouble of "officials and gentry working together to pay food"

I'll get it done.

--Dividing line--

Sorry, it was 'yang' a few days ago and I stopped updating for two days. I will resume updating today!

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Chapter completed!