Chapter 1021: The World Is a Kaleidoscope (3)

In the Central Plains, the only maritime trade officially licensed was trade with the Portuguese—called Bulanggi in one tongue, Portugal in the Western Regions’ way of speaking.

In the past, when the Portugal East India Company came drifting around in search of eastern trade, it discovered an island called Dongfan and completely lost its mind.

Well, of course it did. It was close to the Central Plains, while to the south it connected to Ryukyu, and to the east it connected to Japan, so it was the very embodiment of a heaven-sent trade-port location!

For reference, that island called Dongfan would, in the future of another world, be called Great Yuan for a time, and then eventually end up with the name Taiwan.

Anyway.

How could those Portuguese barbarians, having discovered such a fantastical location, possibly endure it?

They moved to build a trading post at once, but the problem was that the Dongfan natives were so fierce and rude that even when one tried to deal with them like gentlemen, they simply would not understand a damned word.

So what was there to do.

There was no choice but to proceed according to the “standard trade procedure.”

And in this era, the standard trade procedure of Westerners went like this:

First, try talking.

Second, if they do not listen, fire cannonballs.

Third. If they still do not listen, fire more cannonballs.

Fourth. If they still do not listen? Converse with guns.

Unfortunately, the Dongfan natives left them no choice but to proceed all the way to the fourth measure.

So, with no choice, they bombarded Dongfan into a wreck and landed, intending to butcher everyone outright with a hail of bullets, and then?

Dear God, the monkeys were flying around!

They kept calling them monkeys, and then these lunatics really did seem to think they were monkeys, the way they leaped and flew and dangled and came slashing with blades.

It was the moment they verified the so-called mysteries of the East in the absolute worst possible form.

And so they could not take the island. They could only keep using cannons from afar, please just die already, while the occupation of the island dragged on in a miserable stalemate.

And then the Central Plains naval admiral noticed it and immediately sent word to Beijing.

Your Majesty, those Portuguese barbarians, though no one even requested it of them, are voluntarily subjugating the traitors on that island of Taiwan!

This must surely be because even those lawless barbarians of the Western Regions have been moved by Your Majesty’s Great Way!

Your Majesty’s virtue overflows through the world!

Long live, long live, ten thousand times long live!

The truth was, Dongfan had in fact been a pirate den where the descendants of traitors gathered and lived by piracy!

Thus, the slaughter the Portugal East India Company had committed purely for its own profit suddenly became a voluntary anti-pirate campaign.

And because the Son of Heaven found this admirable, he opened Aomen Island to the Portugal East India Company and granted it unrestricted permission to trade.

What? The Central Plains people gave us a port?

And unrestricted trade permission at that?

Oh my, you really shouldn’t have. Ha ha.

Then, while we’re at it, if you would also hand over Dongfan Island—ah, no, you mean you’ll fortify the whole place yourselves?

Well, then nothing to be done.

It was not as though we swept out the pirates because we wanted anything like that. It is simply what any human being ought to do, is it not. Hah hah hah!

And so, like that, the Portugal East India Company meekly returned Dongfan Island.

The port and trade rights granted by the state were simply too delicious-looking.

It was a pity about Dongfan’s location, but if the entire island were fortified, then it meant the other bastards—Spain and the Dutch, for instance—would not be able to take it either.

If nobody could have it anyway, then that was better. At least we’d broken into a port.

And thus, in a slapdash sort of way, the golden age of the Portugal East India Company began.

The Portugal East India Company’s policy was this:

We buy everything!

Porcelain! Silk! Ornaments! And tea!

We buy all of it! We pay absurdly high prices!

Shut up and take this money! Hand it all over!

It was, in the truest sense, an unlimited purchasing campaign with no questions asked.

And on top of that, they were paying over half again the market price, so it was only natural that the trading houses of the Central Plains came rushing in, each one eager to sell.

But why?

Were the Portuguese just stupid, buying Central Plains goods at absurdly high prices out of respect for the Son of Heaven’s grace and then departing?

As if.

Merchants, whether they were from the Central Plains or barbarians, did not do losing business.

At that moment, Central Plains goods were all the rage in the Western Regions, and they were selling for three times, four times, five times the price; the especially high-end luxury items carried even fatter margins, selling for ten times, even twenty times the price, to the point there still was not enough to meet demand.

So all they had done was crack open a single port, and yet money was practically photocopying itself.

As a result, the stock of the Portugal East India Company—East India companies being the first primitive stock corporations at the very dawn of such things—shot up wildly, enough to pierce the sky.

Well, in any case, it was a situation where everybody was happy.

The people of the Central Plains were happy because they could sell their goods dearly.

The Portuguese were happy because they could haul them away and sell them for even more.

And the people of the Western Regions were happy because they could get high-quality luxury goods from the Central Plains.

There were, however, some people who were not happy.

Namely, the people called Hwaran—in Western speech, the Netherlands East India Company.

Those Portuguese bastards are making a killing, so why can’t we? We’ve got ships too.

No, our ships are the strongest in the world right now, aren’t they?

As a competing company, were they really supposed to just stand there watching, sucking their fingers and going wow, I’m so, so jealous?

Of course not. So the Netherlands East India Company also declared, We’re going to haul Central Plains goods away and sell them too! and immediately assembled a fleet and set sail.

The Netherlands East India Company also lost its mind when it discovered Dongfan Island, but there were just far too many of those swarming monkeys, and if they picked a fight recklessly only for those mortal-enemy Spaniards to stab them in the back, it would be utterly unmanageable.

So what was there to do. Following the coastline inward, they fumbled and scraped along until, somehow or other, they succeeded in establishing a base in Shanghai.

But then the Central Plains people would not sell them goods!

To be precise, they sold them less.

Because when one said “Central Plains people,” did that not mean fidelity itself, and when one said “fidelity,” did that not mean Central Plains people? (It did not.) The Central Plains had decided to keep faith with the Portuguese.

That did not mean a flat refusal, of course. Since they had come all this way, and their effort was touching, the Central Plains would at least let them have a little taste.

You want a port too?

Then why don’t you show some sincerity on your own?

And the result was the current situation.

They were allowed to sell goods to the Dutch, yes, but the quantity per individual was strictly limited, and on top of that enormous taxes were levied on the payment.

As a result, Shanghai’s taxes became the greatest under heaven, the city of the greatest tax in all the Central Plains, with the highest tax rate in the world—but still.

This was the very reason there had been checkpoints spread out on both sides when Qing entered Shanghai, and why the line at the city gate had still not shrunk, and why it had all taken so long.

The sale of anything above the fixed quantity had been forbidden, so they were searching everything with utter thoroughness, and that was why inspections dragged on.

And was that all?

The two most basic facts of economics:

First, when quantity is limited, the price rises.

Second, when taxes rise in any form, the one selling pushes that tax onto the one buying.

So would the Central Plains merchants, who dealt the Portuguese a moderate profit margin, not call out absolutely outrageous prices to the Dutch?

Naturally, the Dutch felt wronged twice over.

Those Portuguese bastards only have to dock their ships and they fill their warehouses to bursting and sail right back off, but us?

To fill our fleet’s cargo holds, we have to wait more than a month, and on top of that the purchase prices are much higher.

Then how was that to be solved?

Well, was there not a method made exactly for moments like this?

The standard trade procedure.

Step one. First, try talking.

Of course, everyone had their own knack when it came to the method of opening a dialogue.

Like this, for instance.

“[Captain! The governor is asking us to dispatch a physician. Looks like it worked properly this time, doesn’t it? So then, shall we make preparations?]”

At that, the female captain of the flagship Golden Lion, Lady Joanna, spilled out venomous words with that innocent face of hers.

“[Tell them I can’t go. Say that an audit came down from the home country because there’s no profit in it, so right now I’m being detained and investigated. If you tell those monkeys that there was trouble because the purchased goods are too few compared to those Portuguese bastards’, they ought to understand, right? And also say that if there aren’t immediate results, I’ll be recalled to the home country at once—hmm, no, is that too blatant?]”

“[It does make your intentions rather transparent.]”

“[So what? What’s the point of acting genteel? They ought to be told clearly who’s holding the knife by the hilt, shouldn’t they?]”

The art of conversation!

Seize the upper hand first!

And so, through a process like this, that Dutch missionary she had seen before began spitting out something that was not quite a threat in fairly fluent Central Plains speech for a foreigner.

“Right now our ship’s doctor is under inveztigation by the home country’s auditor. Becauze the quantity of purchased goodz iz too small, it iz regrettable. That iz the zituation. She may have to return home. At prezhent, she is confined.”

At that, Qing tilted her head.

“No, what does the quantity of purchased goods have to do with a ship’s doctor being audited?”

“That iz, one moment.”

“[Didn’t you introduce that witch as a ship’s doctor last time? They’re asking what a ship’s doctor has to do with an audit. This is why I always tell you to be truthful.]”

“[Please tell them she is both captain and ship’s doctor. And it was because I thought these monkeys might ignore her if they heard she was a female captain, not because I was trying to hide it on purpose. Please tell them that as well.]”

“[I truly do not know what in the world you are thinking. No matter that it is for the wealth of the republic, how can you seat an unrighteous witch in public office? Lord, forgive us...]”

“[Before Lady Joanna is a witch, she is a citizen of the republic.]”

“[She ought to be a witch before she is a citizen! She’s a devil’s whore who should be burned at once! How dare you utter such blasphemy!]”

“[Lady Joanna holds citizenship in seven cities and pays an enormous amount in taxes. She is an exemplary citizen. A citizen is not tried without guilt, let alone burned at the stake.]”

Qing, who had been pretending not to understand Dutch while listening, suddenly had another thought.

She was Qing, who understood languages when she heard them.

As far as Qing heard and understood it, the Dutch word for witch was the highest-grade insult used toward a woman, so she had assumed the missionary must simply dislike women and let it pass, thinking maybe there was some story there.

But... what if a witch was actually a witch?

Hearing him say things like devil’s whore, ought to be burned, burning at the stake, she was suddenly reminded of witch trials.

But then, was this not a bizarre world where qi flowed through heaven and earth and people even flew around on swords?

Then couldn’t witches actually exist too?

But then what exactly did a real witch do?

Surely not fly around on a broom or something?

Hmm. Usually, curses and things like that...

Suddenly Qing’s gaze turned toward one side.

Toward Jo Ryung, the magistrate’s son, who had ended up stuck beside the Gold-Worshiping Divine Physician by force.

No way.

Surely not.

To begin with, it was not even certain that real witches existed.

The missionary might simply bear some private grudge.

And besides, had she not read somewhere that witch trials were often used to frame wealthy women as witches, burn them at the stake, and then gobble up the property left behind?

That was why she could not very well storm onto the Dutch sailing ship right now and honestly ask, So tell me straight, are you a witch?

And even if Jo Ryung’s symptoms really were not an illness but an actual witch’s curse, would she answer obediently if asked?

What, was it going to be, “Wow, how did you know? Are you a genius? Yes, I am the witch!” Like that?

As if.

She would deny it no matter what.

Then what was Qing supposed °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° to say? “Really? Then do better,” and pat her on the shoulder before leaving, or what?

Still, it did feel suspicious.

In the first place, did it make any sense for evil qi to suddenly fill every meridian in the body?

It was because that made no sense that the Divine Physician had kept pressing him, asking just where he had picked up some rotten spiritual medicine and telling him to speak honestly.

Hmm. Was there no way to find out...?