Lisbon, in the royal palace of Portugal, King Manuel I of Portugal is holding an emergency meeting. Not only the Portuguese princes and ministers are attending the meeting, but also the famous Portuguese navigators Vasco da Gama, Pedro, and Cabra.
Er et al.
"Everyone~"
"Everyone must have heard the news. The Ming Empire, the ally of the Spanish, has sent a powerful fleet to the port of Cadiz. The Spanish are excited about it, but this is extremely bad news for us.
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Manuel I, who was just in his early forties, was a powerful and experienced monarch. He clearly understood what the arrival of the Ming fleet meant, so he convened a meeting as soon as possible to discuss countermeasures.
"I wonder what everyone thinks about this matter?"
King Manuel I seemed worried. Compared to Britain and France, Portugal faced the powerful Spain more directly, and now it has joined the always powerful Ming Dynasty fleet. This news is really bad.
"Your Majesty, the Ming fleet has already arrived in the Atlantic Ocean, but it has been delaying support to Spain under the pretext of destroying pirates. It can be seen that the Ming people are not as powerful as they imagined. They even feel guilty and dare not fight with our European armies.
Fight."
"There are just dozens of warships. We don't need to be afraid of them. We are actively preparing for war now and will annihilate them all when the time comes."
Diogo, Duke of Viseu, stood up and expressed his opinion.
Well, this is an extremely confident and proud Portuguese. He is very proud of being a Portuguese, and at the same time he has always been arrogant. In his eyes, Portugal is the most powerful kingdom.
"Well said~"
Although Manuel I did not agree with what Diogo, Duke of Viseu said, at this time, when the enemy was at hand, he should have the momentum of Diogo, Duke of Viseu, and he could not lose the momentum before the war started.
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Then Manuel I turned his attention to Vasco da Gama, the governor of India, who had been working hard to return to India and recapture the navigators who belonged to the Portuguese colony.
But now, not only has India basically become a colony of the Ming Dynasty, but even the coast of East Africa has been dotted with Ming Dynasty colonies. The Cape of Good Hope in South Africa leading to the Indian Ocean has been controlled by the Ming Dynasty, and his idea can only come to nothing.
"Your Majesty the King, my suggestion is that we must teach the Ming Dynasty a lesson and let them know how powerful we Portuguese are, otherwise they will take advantage of it, and we will never be able to return to the Indian Ocean. The huge profits from the spice trade will always be abhorrent.
The Spaniards control it, and our True Cross can never be taken back."
Da Gama said very seriously.
He had always advocated going to war against the Ming Dynasty and sending a large number of fleets to re-open the route to the East. However, his disastrous defeat in India made the nobles and big businessmen in the country unwilling to support him anymore.
The Indian colony that was finally seized was directly snatched away by a big nobleman of the Ming Dynasty, which caused many people to suffer heavy losses.
Many people even cursed Vasco da Gama, saying that he should have died in India instead of returning to Portugal alive.
"You have fought against the Ming people, what do you think of their strength?"
Manuel I pondered for a moment, then thought about it and asked.
We must fight. Even if Portugal does not attack Spain, the Spanish and Ming fleets will soon attack us. How to win is the key.
"Your Majesty, the warships of the Ming Dynasty are very advanced, large in size, and very flexible. At the same time, the warships are loaded with artillery. Their artillery is extremely terrifying, with a very long range, a very fast rate of fire, and extremely high accuracy.
It’s very powerful.”
Mentioning the people of Ming Dynasty, Vasco da Gama began to recall the scene of his tragic defeat. In his mind, there were battleships emitting billowing white smoke. Amidst the rumbling sound of artillery fire, the shells poured towards him like an overwhelming force.
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Vasco da Gama swore that he was definitely not a coward and had resisted bravely.
It's just that the Ming Dynasty's artillery and warships are far superior to our own, so we can't defeat them no matter what.
After hearing what Vasco da Gama said, everyone's faces turned ugly.
Although in fact everyone already knows something about the Ming Dynasty's artillery and knows how powerful and terrifying the Ming Dynasty's artillery is, but when it comes from Da Gama's mouth, and at such a point in time, everyone can clearly feel that Da Gama's artillery
Ma's despair at that time.
"Your Majesty, I think we should negotiate peace with the Ming people and the Spanish~"
At this time someone stood up and said.
This man was Castre, Duke of Coimbra, an elderly minister and a wise man who had always had the deepest trust of Manuel I.
"Why?"
Manuel I asked after thinking for a while.
"Because we can't fight at all~"
"Look at this map of the world. The territory of the Ming people is so vast. It is thousands, even tens of thousands, times that of Portugal. You have also read the translation of the newspaper that was sent back from the Ming Dynasty not long ago. The Ming Dynasty
The empire has a population of over 150 million!"
"As for Portugal, our total population has just exceeded one million, and their population is more than a hundred times ours."
"In addition, the fiscal revenue of the Ming Empire exceeded 90 million taels of silver last year, and we don't even have one million taels."
"The Ming Dynasty's shipyards build more ships in one month than we do in a year. The output of one of their steel plants is greater than the output of our entire European steel plants. They have an army of more than one million strong.
The furthest point is the Ottoman Empire."
"Faced with such a powerful empire, our wisest choice is actually to be like the Spanish and become friends and allies instead of enemies."
Castre, Duke of Coimbra, said very forcefully.
Regarding the situation of the Ming Dynasty, European countries now know a lot about it, mainly through the Ming Dynasty Morning Post published by the Ming Dynasty. Everyone knows clearly the territory of the Ming Dynasty, population, steel production, shipbuilding quantity, fiscal revenue, etc.
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The more they know about these things, everyone has to sigh for the power of the Ming Dynasty. There is such a powerful empire in this world.
They used to think that the Ottoman Empire was already very powerful, but compared with the Ming Empire, it pales into insignificance.
No powerful empire in history can compare with the current Ming Empire. It was too powerful and its territory was so large that the vast Atlantic Ocean became its inland sea.
"We naturally want to become friends and allies with the Ming Empire, but they have always been targeting us."
"In our colony in India, we initially conducted very friendly trade with the Ming people, and there was no harm done to each other. However, the great aristocrat of their Ming Empire, Prince Ning, attacked our Portuguese colony first and took it away."
"Also, they formed an alliance with the Spaniards and robbed our Portugal of the True Cross (Brazil). They made things difficult for us at every turn and bullied us again and again. Are we just going to tolerate it like this?"
When Da Gama heard this, he couldn't help but said loudly.
"Yes, I can't bear it~"
"We are great Portugal and we absolutely cannot accept such humiliation."
"Concession will only lead to the enemy's advancement. We must give the Ming people a hard lesson and let them understand how powerful and terrifying we are. They must return the True Cross and the Indian colonies to us."
When other people heard this, they also started shouting.
The proud Portuguese were already polite enough to the Ming people, but the Ming people were rude to Portugal again and again, which made them very angry.
"Gentlemen, please calm down first~"
Castre, Duke of Coimbra, signaled for everyone to calm down.
"The reason why I told everyone that I want to negotiate peace with the Ming Dynasty is because I have seen that the Ming Empire does not actually want to get involved in the war between us Europeans."
"Their fleet has arrived long ago, but they keep destroying the pirates and stalling for time. This shows that they have no intention of participating in our European war."
"Their alliance with the Spanish was actually just to stabilize the Americas at the beginning and buy time to immigrate to the Americas so that they could monopolize the Americas."
"Now that America has been monopolized by them and they have established a foothold, Spain has lost its due value to them. They have no reason to participate in the European war. The only reason is that they are still allies with the Spanish."
"We go to war with the powerful Ming Empire, and if Spain joins the war, what are our chances of winning?"
"If anyone can stand up and say that they can win, I will support it with all my hands."
Castre's words left everyone speechless for a moment.
"We have to fight if we can't fight. Even if we make peace with the Ming Dynasty, we should let the Ming Dynasty have a taste of our strength first, otherwise we will never get enough chips at the negotiation table."
"What's more, we are allies with Britain and France. Even if we make peace, it doesn't count as our family having the final say."
"Now they have all arrived at our doorstep, but we are still dreaming about making peace with each other. We don't know how we will die by then."
"This is the time. We should actively prepare for war. We must first defeat the Ming fleet. Only by winning can we have the bargaining chips to make peace. Otherwise, if we change positions, if you are from the Ming Dynasty, you will fight with Portugal.
Do people make peace?"
Duke Diogo of Viseu stood up and said very loudly.
"Yes~"
"That's right, the knife is already on the neck now, we have no choice."
"A war begins. A war must begin. Kill Ming's fleet first."
When the others heard this, they immediately nodded their heads.