Two hundred and thirteenth section within the stream
"No, Chinese people are very timid," Weiss sipped slowly from the wine glass. This party made him feel extremely awkward. Fortunately, there was still delicious and refreshing sherry that had been brewed in well water. "And I only need to give
The innkeeper is half a Piast, and he will send his two sons with spears to guard the door of my room for a whole day."
"The lord of Kelantan hired a Chinese honor guard with half a Piast—" The speaker sat at the far end of the table. He looked about fifty years old, with a hooked nose and a pair of vicious eyes above his high cheekbones.
His eyes, and the few locks of hair on his convex head were neatly shiny because of the oil, so his head exuded a stench of spoiled butter. The mayor glared at him with some annoyance, but found that the count was still
Sipping sherry calmly, as if he didn't hear the rude words at all.
"Your Excellency, you may be too generous to the Chinese," the person who spoke this time was Sebastian Andrade, the colonial finance officer. "Half a Piast is enough for a Tagalog with a family."
Days of expenses.”
He began to recount how the Chinese in the Philippines were rich, but when the governor wanted to charge them a special residence fee in exchange for the right to live outside Parian, they kept delaying and complaining about poverty. The sins of the Chinese also included gambling.
Bad habits came to confuse the devout indigenous people. The Governor of Salamanca actually agreed to the Chinese building cockfighting casinos in Tondo and Binondo. Although these two casinos paid an annual gambling tax of 80,000 pesos to the colonial government, God knows how much money.
It has already flowed into the hands of the Chinese.
Andrade rattled off a lot of figures, pointing out that more and more Chinese merchant ships sailed into Manila Port every year. But with the joint efforts of Chinese brokers and port tax collectors, the Royal Colony's treasury could not increase much.
Revenue - because the number on the report was still the same. The rest of the ships - although they were all anchored in the port, disappeared from the report.
Everyone is talking about how much benefit the governor and his cronies got from this blatant fraud to turn a blind eye to such a disparity. Of course, this kind of discussion can only be whispered behind the scenes and among close acquaintances.
Obviously, the Governor has his own worries. He lives in fear of the imaginary threat of the Dutch army and pirates from all over the East India invading Manila. He has spent money on expanding fortifications and recruiting troops.
Three hundred thousand pesos, and more was prepared to be spent. The reports to His Majesty and the Privy Council were always full of desperate appeals, as if he were struggling to survive in a besieged fortress.
Now the Australians were added to his fearful fantasies. The Spaniards learned from Macau that the Australians had concluded a trade agreement with the abominable lowland bandits. Not only that, they also launched abominable piracy operations. Last year (1632) two ships
The Galen ship carrying the royal grant from New Spain was robbed by the nasty Australian pirates not far from Manila.
This news immediately caused a small earthquake in Manila. The hijacking of San Luis and San Raimundo was not just as simple as the governor losing the royal subsidy of 230,000 pesos.
It also carried a large amount of cargo and cash from New Spain: some legal and some illegal. It involved almost all the dignitaries in Manila. So after the two ships were taken away, it has been a mystery how much damage was caused.
Shortly after the exact news of the hijacking of the two ships came out, several big businessmen in Manila declared bankruptcy, followed by a large number of small and medium-sized businessmen. Money in Manila and even the entire Philippines was a lot tighter, interest rates rose accordingly, and the discount rate for bills of exchange
It is even more unbearable. As a result, the Chinese loan sharks in the stream have made a small fortune.
"The Australians used to be very peaceful. They were doing profitable business with the Portuguese and selling many wonderful goods -" Andrade seemed to be regretful. "It is said that there are many followers of the Lord among them, including Jesus."
They will be very powerful there. It’s a pity that they got together with the lowland bandits and became nasty! Fortunately, they are still buying abaca!”
Andrade runs a large abaca export business in Manila, earning tens of thousands of pesos a year from this business. Australians are the largest buyers.
"They are all a group of atheists who deserve to be burned on the stake!" Someone's religious fanaticism began to show up after drinking a lot of alcohol.
…
Weiss drank sherry slowly without interrupting. He wrote down these valuable information and figures, and was thinking about how to write the first report sent back to Lingao. The servant brought desserts and cigars.
.
"Here, Your Excellency, Count." Andrade approached the candlestick and lit a cigar. He continued: "What is before you is the most worthy investment enterprise in the entire Philippine colony. The tobacco here is by no means second to Cuba and Mexico.
The best product from the plantations. But now there is no hope of private profit from it."
He talked about the governor's order to implement a monopoly on tobacco throughout the colony and to establish a specialized cigarette factory. "This will increase the governor's income by at least forty thousand pesos a year," he said: "The governor will give a huge sum of money to that person
The amazing Japanese, let him make cannons with a range of one league, and cannonballs that can blow up a ship with just one hit. Each of these amazing cannonballs costs five hundred pesos."
The treasurer's remarks triggered a burst of noisy discussion at the banquet. "It's pure nonsense!" a judge of the Royal Prosecution Court of the Philippines shouted: "Even if you grow a little tobacco in the yard for your own enjoyment, you have to pay the monopoly.
Taxes, doesn’t Salamanca know that he has no right to add new taxes? Hasn’t this fool read the royal decree?”
"That's nonsense." After a full meal, the commander of the Santiago Fortress was pouring glass after glass of wine into his mouth, and his words were slurred: "Everyone, have any of you heard of or seen with your own eyes a gun with a range of one league?
Cannons? What a load of nonsense.”
"You are too ignorant, dear Echasu," said a shrewd-looking officer, the governor of Cavite Fortress. "In the time of Louis XI, the French fired a cannon at the Bastille where the madman imprisoned the saint. The shells kept coming.
We flew to Xia Langdong, the place where the sage locked up the lunatic. You should be familiar with that place, dear Echasu."
"Hey, Alfonso -" the angry old colonel snorted, full of alcohol, and stretched out a threatening finger to his colleague sitting across the table.
"Don't mention cannons and bombs," the mayor stood up to smooth things over. "Without cannons, the king's brave knights can still defeat pagans and Calvinists. God's grace and glory will always belong to the great Catholic king.
!”
There was a crashing sound of porcelain and silver cups, accompanied by wild shouts of "Long live the king" and "Long live Manila". Fireworks began to be set off on the lawn, and the atmosphere of the party reached its climax.
Parian, this Chinese district outside Manila is dark and silent at night. The former mercenary jumped off the horse and asked Shlick to lead the horse back to the stables of the hotel. The hotel is a two-story building
He walked up the creaking stairs of the tile-roofed wooden building. The two young sons of the shop owner put sharpened bamboo spears across their legs and slept soundly against the stairs until they were awakened by the footsteps and stood hurriedly.
Get up. Weiss waved his hand and sent them both away.
Weiss Lando booked the entire second floor of the hotel, although he only occupied the largest guest room. He patted the door knocker: "Open the door, Mimi, it's His Excellency Count Vananova."
The bolt behind the door panel clicked several times, and he opened the door and walked in. There was no light in the room, and the moonlight coming from the window on the side of the porch could clearly illuminate the appearance of the person entering the door. Weiss knew that,
If it were not him but a stranger standing at the door, he would probably be greeted by a 9mm bullet immediately.
The half-dark coconut oil lamp was lit, and Mimi ran around the room to get him towels and face wash. Lucia, or the maid as Weiss called Mimi, was thin and thin.
Her skin was dark and she looked no different from an ordinary agent from the "Fifth Bureau" - this was Weiss' private name for the Political Security Bureau. Weiss knew very well that the "Centre" had transferred this woman here to keep her close.
The identity of a maid was assigned to her as an assistant, with an unspoken mission to monitor him. The weapon assigned to her was a Zastavac cz99 automatic pistol, not Lingao's homemade black powder revolver. Thinking that one day it might be possible
Being hit through the head by the weapon he brought into this world, Weiss could only shrug his shoulders.
"What's the news on the dock?" The fake earl pulled off his fancy clothes piece by piece. These clothes were soaked with sweat and emitted an unpleasant smell. Now he just wanted to take a quick bath. It's a pity.
There are no bathroom facilities here. To take a bath, you can only go to the courtyard of the inn and use a wooden bucket to fetch water from the well.
"Including those that entered the port today, there are a total of 21 Chinese ships and 1 Portuguese ship." Thanks to Salina and Ms. Mendoza, Mimi's English is excellent and her Spanish is also good. "There are two Chinese ships in the Chinese ship."
One ship will go to Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and the others will go to Fujian."
"Going to Hong Kong? That's great. Let's see if we can let it carry some goods back tomorrow. I really can't stand this will-o'-the-wisp, Mimi, go and light the candle. I have to finish the report to Jiang tonight. We have to
To establish an intelligence station here, you cannot even have a radio station. (To be continued...)