My Daming New Empire

But in the east, there is no better place to serve as a center of trade than the alienated island of Crete.

It can radiate the entire Arabs, Ottomans, West Asia, Eastern Europe, and most of North Africa, but the distance to trade with them is within [-] kilometers.

It was also for this reason that Wang Jinghong, the deputy commander of the fleet, was responsible for leading the mission to contact Venice.

Wang Jinghong arrived in Venice, the commercial center of Europe, in mid-September. He brought a large number of samples and trade wishes, and was warmly welcomed by the Venetians.

Although in the Mediterranean, the Venetians are well-deserved maritime overlords, but their land power is not strong. Not to mention other dukedoms, the land power of the Lombardy Principality far exceeds that of Venice.

In the north, they faced the aggressive Holy Roman Empire.Although there is only a loose alliance left in this huge empire, the Holy Roman Emperor does not have any restraint on the Principality and the Marquis, but they are always an alliance.

But Venice's wealth is the original sin. Although they can gain an advantage against any principal country, they cannot face the entire alliance.

When Daming just arrived in Ceuta, he was discovered by the Venetian merchant fleet. This huge fleet terrified the Venetians.

They were afraid that the arrival of the Ming Fleet would change the situation in the entire Mediterranean Sea and wipe out their maritime advantages.

However, after their merchant ships tentatively contacted the Marin people, they also contacted the Deming Fleet, only to realize that Deming came from the far east, and the purpose of coming here was not for war, but for trade.

This attitude is also in the best interests of the Venetians, so they immediately wanted to monopolize the goods of the Ming Fleet.

But when their people saw the boatloads of spices, the boatloads of exquisite porcelain, and silk, they realized that relying on their own strength, they could not eat these goods at all.

Although Daming's offer is far lower than that of the Ottomans, they can't afford it.

But establishing a closer relationship with Daming is definitely in the interests of the Venetians.

For this reason, when Wang Jinghong led the fleet to Venice, he was warmly welcomed by the Venetians.

At the beginning, the Venetians were not willing for Da Ming to contact too many trading partners, but since Da Ming had too many goods, they couldn't eat them, so they had to settle for the next best thing, hoping to get the most favorable treatment.

That is to say, on the basis of other people's trade, we should give them more preferential treatment.On this point, Zhu Zhanji directly agreed to them. After all, they are the countries that can produce more gold and silver in Europe now.

However, how much discount they can give depends on their trade volume. In short, the more transactions they have with Daming, the greater the discount.

They can even be given a [-]% discount at most, and they can be allowed to use the eastern region of Crete to offset the payment.

Wang Jinghong stayed in Venice for nearly ten days before he found out that this small country had no emperor or king. Although there were governors and consuls, they were not higher than other co-consuls.

This surprised Wang Jinghong. In his opinion, a country without a leader is completely unrealistic.

However, the consuls here use meetings, consultations, and elections to jointly lead this small country, and they have developed quite well. For 500 years, it has always been the wealthiest area here.

Originally, Wang Jinghong was very interested in this political system, but when he set his sights on a higher level, he found that this system was restrictive and dangerous.

The wealth of Venice is based on its mastery of trade routes and possession of the most powerful fleet, as well as its commercial exploitation of surrounding countries.

The alliance formed by this group of businessmen thought that the infighting among neighboring countries gave them a chance to develop, and they were still very small.

If Daming wanted to do this, tens of millions of mouths would be enough to eat.

Moreover, he also met various businessmen in Venice. In order to cooperate with Daming, on the surface he went forward and retreated with other people, but secretly wanted to establish various deals with him to benefit himself at the expense of others.

After all, they are still a group of ignorant businessmen!

After a rough understanding of Venice's economic strength, Wang Jinghong didn't have much interest in this small commercial country and decided to go to Lombardy.

It is an important country designated by His Royal Highness Taisun. Although they do not rely on the sea, they have fertile land and a large population. They are also one of the main targets of this trade.

When Wang Jinghong promised that no matter who the Ming traded with, the price would definitely be [-]% higher than the price in Venice, but the Venetians were still unwilling to let Wang Jinghong go to Lombardy through Venice.

However, when the Venetians on Crete sent a fleet of [-] ships from the Ming Dynasty, defeated the fleet of more than [-] ships from the Ottomans, and sank more than [-] ships, the Venetians backed down.

Although they are the overlords of the Mediterranean, they are still at a disadvantage facing the Ottomans.

This is because Venice's national strength and population are not as good as Ottoman's.But such a huge opponent was vulnerable to the Ming fleet, which frightened the Venetians.

Compared with the problems encountered by the Ming Fleet in various European countries, the missions to North Africa and Jerusalem received a warm welcome.

Whether it is the Hafs dynasty in the east of Marin, or the Mamluk dynasty that now occupies North Africa and West Asia, they all gave the most enthusiastic welcome to the Ming mission.

This was not only because the Ming fleet brought the goods they wanted, but also because most of Ming's envoys were Hui people and they were cannibals.

The leader who went to the Mamluk dynasty was Ma Huan, the general manager of the fleet. He followed Zheng He on many voyages to the West and knew a lot about the countries in the Western Regions. He also wrote two books, which were published with Zhu Zhanji's support.

He is one of the few talents who see the world with his eyes open, and he can also control the trade with various countries very well.

Along the way eastward, no matter which tribe he was in, he could always mingle with the locals and establish a friendly relationship.

When they arrived in Alexandria, they got the news that the Mamluk King Faraji even sent a mission to Alexandria to welcome Ma Huan and his party.

From Alexandria to Cairo, Ma Huan was warmly received by the Mamluk dynasty.Traveling against the current along the ancient canal of the Nile, Faraj sent more than five thousand slaves to serve as trackers for the Ming Fleet and arrived in Cairo without delay.

This kind of treatment made Ma Huan even a little guilty, thinking that he, a fifth-rank teacher, could not afford such a courtesy.

He was originally just a ninth-rank generalist, but because of Zhu Zhanji's reuse, he was promoted several levels and became a regular seventh-rank experience.

This trip to the West, because he served as the general manager, in addition to being responsible for managing the general affairs, he also assumed the responsibility of managing the Confucian scholars and arranging for them to educate foreigners, so he was assigned the role of a fifth-grade teaching.

Being treated so highly by the king of the Mamluk dynasty now, of course I feel a little uneasy.

However, when he met Faraji in Cairo and asked him about the Battle of Horumos, Ma Huan realized why he attached so much importance to the Ming Fleet.

Faraji is also a hard-working king. The Mamluk dynasty in the [-]th century was able to firmly resist the Mongolian Yuan army and conquer the lost land.

But 100 years later, the Mamluk dynasty is already riddled with holes and crumbling.

From the end of the 14th century, most of the Mamluk kings in the later period were weak and incompetent, or arrogant and violent, and spent money recklessly.

As soon as Faraj took the throne, the Timurid kingdom came to fight.The power of the Mamluk dynasty was not as good as before. The whole of Syria, including Jerusalem, was looted by Timur, and Damascus was turned into ruins.

For Faraj, Timurid state is their biggest threat.Now I heard the news from the merchants going to the east that a large fleet of the Timurids was defeated by a country named Ming, and they burned the fleet before they could escape.

In his eyes, the unstoppable Timurid Kingdom has now taken over most of their fleet in the urban area, which makes Faraji unbelievable.

Since then, he has been looking forward to the appearance of the Ming Fleet. In his mind, this Ming should be a country in the east of the Timurid Kingdom, and they have the conditions for an alliance.

But the Ming Fleet seemed to disappear after that, and after more than half a year, it would come from the west.

The Mamluks are not interested in the ocean, and he doesn't want to know whether Daming has the sea charts. He just wants to form an alliance with Ming and help him deal with the aggressive Ottomans and Timurids in the north.

Knowing his new style, Ma Huan is full of confidence in this mission.

The Mamluk dynasty is not poor Europe. This country can be said to be one of the richest countries along the Mediterranean Sea. In terms of economy, it even surpasses the Ottoman Empire.

In addition to gold, silver, and wool, they also have advanced handicrafts, copper, glass, paper, and carpet manufacturing technologies, all of which are leading in other places.

Especially for paper, after Zhu Zhanji invented the pencil, the demand for hard paper in Daming rose sharply. However, except for expensive high-quality paper, most of the papermaking technology in Daming is for brushes, so the manufacturing technology of ordinary hard paper is not as good as that of horses. Muruk Dynasty.