Chapter 1507: The Tang Dynasty, who is not good at diplomacy: if you can fight, you can't force it
In the first half hour, the imperial diplomats read out the imperial peace talks conditions to the Portuguese mission, and left after reading them. The Portuguese thought about it for two days, and then fully agreed.
The remaining half hour is the time for both parties to confirm the contract and then sign the contract.
In the three days before and after, the total actual contact time between the two sides was one hour, and then the armistice treaty was signed.
According to the armistice treaty, the Portuguese recognized the special rights of the Tang Empire in the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean and promised not to colonize the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean across the Cape of Good Hope.
At the same time, the empire and Portugal opened designated colonial ports to each other for the berthing, supply and trade of each other's ships, and the two sides conducted friendly trade!
The armistice negotiations between the Tang Empire and Portugal lasted for three days in total. The actual contact between the two parties was only one hour, and the contract was quickly finalized and signed.
This high efficiency was due to the unique diplomatic strategy of the Tang Empire.
The diplomatic strategy of the Tang Empire was: if you can fight, don't force!
Even if he is forced, he will directly draw the line, either agree or go to war.
As for bargaining, there is no such thing. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Tang Empire has been established for many years, and it has never engaged in see-saw negotiations with that country. If you really ask them to negotiate with the Portuguese one clause after another, I'm sorry, they still
Really bad at this.
What they are best at is issuing war ultimatums!
Either agree or fight, your choice is yours!
But then again, in fact, there are only a few countries that have formal diplomatic relations with the Tang Empire, well, specifically those that have signed various agreements between the two sides, regardless of whether it is an armistice agreement or a trade agreement, including Spain.
One, Portugal counts as one, and then we have to count the Tang Dynasty and the Golden Kingdom, well, the Tatars.
As for the previous indigenous countries such as Fusang, Annan, Burma and Nanyang, the monarchs and ministers of the Tang Empire did not regard them as official countries, so naturally there was no diplomatic relations.
As for other countries in Europe, let’s not talk about whether they are countries. The problem is that they are too far away and have not had actual contact with the Tang Empire. They have never had any contact with each other, so naturally there is no diplomatic contact.
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As for the indigenous kingdoms in India, the Safavid dynasty in West Asia, the Ottoman Empire and northeastern Africa, etc., although the empire has some connections with them, they all have the theme of the Tang Dynasty Western Trading Company, but at the national level
There is no formal official contact.
Of course, what's more important is that the Tang Empire is very pragmatic and adheres to the principle of fighting without forcing!
Why did the Tang Empire sign an armistice agreement with the Portuguese? It was because they had already fought and occupied the entire Indian Ocean coast. If they continued to fight, they would only be able to enter the Atlantic Ocean. And the current overseas expansion of the Tang Empire
In the strategy, there is no plan to march into the Atlantic yet. This premise is an important reason why the empire and the Portuguese signed an armistice agreement.
The Spanish side is even simpler. The Tang Empire is too far away from Spain and will be out of reach for a while. In addition, Spain is also a global colonial country. It is inevitable that the two sides will have trade intersections, so they signed a friendly trade agreement.
The Tatar Kingdom of Tang Dynasty is an old friend who has been fighting with the Tang Empire for many years. Anyway, we will fight when we can. If we can't fight for a while, we will sign an armistice agreement first and continue when we can fight.
beat.
In addition to these three parties, other countries, tribes or forces, such as the indigenous kingdoms in Southeast Asia, India, Africa and other regions, the Tang Empire pursued the principle of never speaking when it could do something.
Directly destroy the country, and the other party's country will be destroyed, and they will establish crappy diplomatic relations!
It can also be seen from this that if you want to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Tang Empire these days, no matter whether it is good or bad, you must have a certain degree of strength. Without some strength, it is impossible to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Datang Empire.
to establish diplomatic relations.
The Portuguese and the Spanish, these two countries may seem small in size, but they are also global colonial empires, with many colonies, such as the Tatars' Tang Dynasty and the Golden Kingdom. Even though they were conquered by the Great Tang Dynasty in East Asia and even the Western Regions,
The Tang Army fought everywhere, but they were capable of sweeping across Central Asia. The Safavid Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire had been facing major enemies in recent years, fearing that the Tatars would kill them and destroy their countries.
Now the Tatars have crossed the Volga River, their troops have reached the Black Sea, and they all have actual contact with the Kingdom of Lithuania. Russia further north is facing a formidable enemy.
To put it bluntly, the Tatars are already present in Eastern Europe. If they continue to be killed by the Tatars, it will probably not take a few years to reach Western Europe.
The three parties that can establish diplomatic relations with the Tang Empire are not weak countries. On the contrary, they are still worthy of the name of powerful countries in the contemporary era. It is not generally difficult for other countries to establish diplomatic relations with the Datang Empire.
However, there are few countries that have diplomatic relations, which means that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Tang Empire has been Qingshui Yamen since its establishment. Its power is among the more than a dozen ministries in the empire. It is not to say the last one, but at least it is among the top three.
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There is no way around this. The Tang Empire does not only believe in the principle of "I am the boss if I have a big fist". The Tang Empire is also a traditional Chinese feudal monarchy.
The emperor is the Son of Heaven. According to the traditional theory, "the whole world is not the king's land."
All the land and seas in the world belong to our Great Emperor of the Tang Empire. You natives have stolen a piece of land and survived, but you actually want to establish diplomatic relations with our Datang Empire and let us recognize your country and rule.
, get out!
Even the Spanish and Portuguese could only call themselves kingdoms and kings, and when envoys came to the Tang Dynasty, they had to kneel down and bow. All these etiquettes were actually the etiquette of a vassal state's ministers meeting the emperor of the suzerain state.
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The Qingshui Yamen of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs usually had nothing to do. This time when the Portuguese came to sue for peace, the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs finally had a chance to perform. It took three days to make the Portuguese
The envoy signed the armistice agreement.
Then it was time to take the train back to Jinling City with the agreement.
As for the Portuguese missions, they probably felt aggrieved and ran away by boat after hearing the agreement.
When Li Xuan saw the armistice agreement, Li Xuan was too lazy to pay attention to some useless things, such as titles, he only paid attention to the actual things.
This armistice agreement had only two actual clauses, namely that the two sides ceased fighting and that the Portuguese recognized the empire's special rights and interests in the coastal areas of the Indian Ocean.
Secondly, both sides opened a number of ports for ship supply and trade.
As for Datang, it mainly opened some ports along the Indian Ocean, mainly several ports in Africa, and some ports in India.
Mainly South Africa City, Xiyin City and Gohe Prefecture. In other words, in the future, Portuguese merchant ships can only trade with Datang merchants at several trading ports designated by the Tang Dynasty such as South Africa City or Xiyin City.
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Of course, Portuguese ships could also continue to go deep into the Indian Ocean to other places, but they could not sail into ports under the control of the Tang Dynasty for repairs and supplies.
As for the Nanyang Sea east of Malacca, it is now regarded as an inland sea by the Tang Empire. The empire has completely blocked the Strait of Malacca and the Sunda Strait, prohibiting any non-imperial ships from passing through.
The only exception is the Spanish Global Fleet, but they are just passing by.
All the trading ports established by the Tang Empire in the empire's mainland have been completely cancelled, and foreign merchants are not allowed to live, live or do business there.
The empire's cancellation of domestic trading ports does not mean a maritime ban. In fact, this kind of control is to protect the empire's own maritime trade interests, because the empire only bans foreign merchant ships, but it does not ban its own merchant ships.
In this maritime trade, the market capacity is limited. If there are Portuguese, Spanish, Indian Ocean, Ottomans, and Persians on the same route, then the profits will be diluted.
However, if only imperial merchants can run this route, and merchants from other countries will be driven out, then the imperial merchants will naturally be able to monopolize the profits.
This is called monopoly!
Monopoly trade is the most profitable.
The reason why the empire went to war with the Portuguese was not because they almost monopolized the Indian Ocean and the entire European routes and made a lot of profits.
Now that the empire had defeated the Portuguese, it naturally followed suit and wanted to completely control the entire maritime trade in the Indian Ocean.
Therefore, although the empire and the Portuguese ceased war and trade, the trade was limited to a few ports in Africa. As for the vast Indian Ocean, especially the Indian region, the Portuguese could not expect to be able to return in this life.
Now that the empire has opened up several colonial port cities in Africa such as South Africa City, Xiyin City, and Mada City, they are used for trade.
Then the Portuguese naturally needed to open a few relatively equal colonial cities, not many, just a few colonial ports they controlled on the west coast of Africa.
But this was enough. Through these ports, the empire's products were enough to cover Europe again.
What's more, the relationship between the empire and the Spanish is not bad, and it can also travel to Europe through Spanish ports.
In other words, now, it is actually not a big problem for the empire's merchant ships to enter Europe.
The trade agreement between the empire and the Portuguese simply meant that each other allowed each other's ships to go to designated ports under their control for supply and trade.