Dominate the Country

"No, no. You can't do this, you can't..."

A Spanish prisoner of war screamed at the top of his lungs, and another Spanish officer tied opposite him let out a miserable and extremely sad howl of pain.

His little brother and two testicles were cut off.

Navarro had a mental breakdown. He could still accept the torture, after all, they were prisoners of war. Before being captured, they burned down one Chinese immigrant village after another, killed some Chinese immigrants, and all the Chinese soldiers captured in the war were executed without exception. After being captured, Navarro was ready to die.

But the Chinese actually wanted to castrate them, which was not something Navarro could bear. Even death was better than such an insult.

"You are all a bunch of devils, devils."

"God will punish you, God will definitely punish you..."

The interrogator signaled to untie Navarro. He had been severely whipped twenty or thirty times before. Although it was not the kind of whip with barbs, the whip was woven with iron wire and dipped in salt water. It could kill people when it was used ruthlessly.

"We don't believe in God, the evil god." The interrogator said lightly.

After being untied, Navarro immediately fell to the ground. He heard the interrogator's words and subconsciously wanted to refute that the merciful Lord was not an evil god. But before he could finish his words, the whole person was like sitting on a red-hot iron plate, and he quickly rolled and crawled away, as if he had seen a flood of beasts.

In fact, what he saw was indeed the man's "flood of beasts". The lieutenant who had just been tortured with him, "a fried dough stick with two eggs", was thrown to the ground, a bloody mass, emitting a fishy smell, and appeared in front of him as he collapsed.

The huge stimulation at that moment made Navarro's whip wounds no longer hurt, and the 'merciful Lord' went to hell.

Of course, the captured Spanish officer had fainted, and then was dragged out, leaving a long trail of blood on the ground.

"Now tell the truth about what happened to our soldiers after they were captured. Tell all the information you know. If you dare to lie, the same thing will happen to you as happened to that person just now."

The interrogator threatened Navarro, causing Navarro's nerves to completely panic. The lump in front of him was too hurtful to a man. He watched it being cruelly cut off from the lower body of an officer. He was going crazy just thinking about such an experience happening to him.

"I'll tell you everything. It was General Desegré who wanted to execute them. It was the general's order."

"He said we couldn't move with the prisoners, we didn't have any extra horses, and if we released the prisoners, it would help you. So he ordered all the prisoners to be killed."

The dead Chinese are the best Chinese. ——Navarro still remembers the loud laughter of the captain of the company when he conveyed the order.

So after being captured, he almost didn't think that he could still return to Mexico alive. He subconsciously thought that the Chinese would definitely kill them. After all, these barbaric Orientals have a tradition of slaughtering prisoners of war since ancient times, right?

According to their historical records, more than two thousand years ago, someone buried 400,000 prisoners of war in one fell swoop. When Navarro first heard this "legend", he couldn't believe it was true.

——Two armies of one million people were annihilated in one fell swoop, and then buried alive. God, this is a tragedy that has never happened in the entire history of Europe. There may not be 400,000 people in the Iberian Peninsula two thousand years ago.

But, but, even if Navarro died, he didn't want to die as a eunuch.

That was too terrible.

"Was there an interrogation? Did any prisoners surrender?"

Navarro's brain was a little hypoxic after hearing the interrogator's next question. How could there be no interrogation? When the team set out at the mouth of the Colorado River, they brought a few merchants who could speak Chinese. They urgently needed to know more clear details about the Chinese.

"Of course there was an interrogation. We want to know your troop deployment and the more detailed distribution of your villages."

"But your soldiers are very strong, and we originally had fewer prisoners. Most of your soldiers would rather die in battle than be captured. De Segre ordered people to torture them severely, but few people surrendered." The most important thing is that the Spanish torture methods are far less cruel and professional than the Chinese, and they don't have as much time as these Chinese.

The Chinese torture not only tests people's bodies, but also tortures people's spirits, which is something the Spanish can't do. The latter are all soldiers, not special torture masters. The so-called torture is just using sticks and whips, and at most adding bayonets. Of course, Navarro would never say these words.

"Anyway, as far as I know, all of them are dead, all dead. De Segre ordered them to be killed."

Navarro didn't understand why the Chinese were so concerned about the fate of their captured soldiers, but later, as the interrogator's questioning deepened, he felt something was wrong. The Chinese seemed to be interrogating these people for the purpose of caring about the loyalty of the captured soldiers, rather than what kind of tragic fate they really suffered.

This made Navarro feel that it was not worth it for the Chinese soldiers. The soldiers paid their loyalty, but the emperor they were loyal to did not trust them. This was the greatest sorrow for the soldiers.

"Bring out No. 135. Let him look at that thing carefully, and I hope he can confess honestly." The interrogator does not need to spend any more time and energy.

The interrogator signed his name on the confession, then stamped it with No. 134 and put it in a file. Navarro was taken away.

"He is a coward, but not as strong as the previous two. Just the screams scared him like a mouse."

The deputy took out a box of peppermint oil and sniffed it under his nose. A cool breath rushed straight to his brain, and his dizzy brain was instantly sober. Then he tapped his finger in the middle and applied the essential oil cream on his temple.

After the interrogator sorted out the confession, he also took out a box of cigarettes. People in their line of work never do without this.

The thick stack of confessions was sandwiched in a file book. In fact, what use these would eventually be, the interrogator and others did not know. The only thing they were told clearly was to pry open the captives' mouths and get the "loyalty status" of the captured soldiers of the expeditionary army from them.

Facts have proved that in the 134 confessions that have been made so far, the loyalty of the captured soldiers has been clearly demonstrated, and many of them are good. Although some individuals have been cowards, the vast majority of them are good, especially the soldiers from the Guards, who can be called heroes.

Much better than these Spaniards.

There are also some who are steadfast among the latter, such as the noble officer who had a "lump" cut off, but such people are very rare.

Repetitive work began.

Not every time you encounter an "outlier" during the interrogation, after being dragged into the interrogation room and then eating the "killing stick", the Spanish prisoners of war on the ninth floor will surrender, even if these are pure Spaniards, not colonial troops.

Compared with the large number of mixed-race infantry, the cavalry is a relatively pure-blooded unit. Even if some of them are from Mexico, they are not mixed-race.

Such highly repetitive work makes people feel boring.

The interrogator even felt that this was a waste of his life. He had submitted fifty copies to his superiors before, but unfortunately his superiors did not say that the task was completed, so he had to continue wasting his life here.

…

The lowly interrogators did not know that the greatest role of these confessions in their hands had been played. A trap for the cavalry team led by Desegré had been set up.

The top leaders of the expeditionary force believed that the loyalty of the soldiers was credible. The fifty confessions made everyone want to kill Desegré, but it was also the death of these captured soldiers that proved their loyalty.

Now, the leaders of the expeditionary army will use human lives and dead spies, taking advantage of the fact that the Spanish cavalry has been fighting for a long time, and the soldiers are exhausted and the ammunition has been consumed. It is already at the end of its strength and it is about to turn back. The mentality of making a big fight and reporting back to the task will design a trap, hoping to put all the damn Spanish cavalry in it in one fell swoop.

And the loyalty of the soldiers will not happen, and it cannot happen like the siege of Mayi by Emperor Wu of Han in history.

The siege of Mayi in history failed because of the leak of a small Yanmen Wei Shi, and the 300,000 Han army was idle and in vain.

The current situation is very different from that time, but it is also similar.

The Spaniards have the advantage of cavalry, but they can't bite any larger town. The threat they can bring to Chinese immigrants is a blow to wealth. Wherever they go, if they encounter immigrant villages, they will burn them to the ground...

...

In Nanjing, the atmosphere in the imperial city is still a bit oppressive.

The newly organized North American reinforcements have been on the march for a month, and it is already winter. The emperor's unhappiness still makes the political center of the entire empire silent.

This winter is particularly cold.

Even the lights and wine on the Qinhuai River have dimmed a lot. Many dandies and rich children in Nanjing would rather go to Yangzhou on the other side of the river to have fun, or go to Suzhou and Shanghai, rather than stay in Nanjing, where the atmosphere is low.

The center of this low pressure is of course the emperor Chen Ming, but the force that forms such a low pressure group is not only Chen Ming, but also the civil and military officials and nobles in the court.

They are also worried about the war in North America.

Even if the Nanyang War is going smoothly and has entered the final stage, it cannot bring joy to Chen Ming.

Because two Danish merchant ships loaded with Batavia's vaults sailed to Ceylon. When the Nanyang Navy finally learned from the captives where the Dutch East India Company's vault in Batavia went, it was too late.

Although the war against Batavia did not result in a huge war deficit, the profits from the war were much smaller than expected.

The two Danish merchant ships carried away gold and silver worth at least 50 million Dutch guilders, or 160 million Chinese yuan. This huge wealth not only belonged to the Dutch East India Company, but also to the church in Batavia and many high-ranking officials and wealthy businessmen.

The financial tension once made Chen Ming think of "ransom". Many of the Dutch captured in the war were of noble status, such as the governor captured in the governor's mansion in Batavia and the bishop captured in the church. The value of these people would not be low. Fortunately, he was not blinded by money. The existence of Ceylon made Chen Ming's brain regain rationality in time.

So, Chen Ming needs money now.

The North American reinforcements and fleet he organized not long ago cost a considerable amount of money. He must find a way to make up for this money, otherwise it will cause a series of follow-up reactions, and the year-end financial report will not look good.

Chen Ming is now 10,000 envious of the Americans in the 21st century, spending paper as money, how cool!

Global borrowing, one country consumption, how great!

But what about China now? It is impossible to do it.

Chen Ming plans to lend a sum of money to the country through the Jiuzhou Chamber of Commerce. Although the interest rate is very low, he has already filled up his small treasury with a mountain of gold and silver, and he really doesn't want to invest silver in the finance for free.

Perhaps this is his thinking about the ultimate direction of the country in his brain, and the positioning is becoming clearer and clearer, so clear that he can no longer do "I am the country" and "everything in the world belongs to me".

This different feeling made him choose "borrowing" instead of the initial unhesitating investment.

The current fiscal budget needs 100 million yuan to fill the gap. Chen Ming did not take the shares of Jiuzhou Chamber of Commerce to cash out in the stock market. This amount is too large. If it depends entirely on the stock market, it may not be collected in a short time. Chen Ming directly trades, and the object of his trade is his obvious royal property.

For example, several gardens outside Beijing, such as Xiaotangshan.

The latter has been a holy place for recuperation near Beijing for hundreds of years, with endless hot springs and high water temperatures. It was opened as a royal forbidden garden during the Ming Dynasty. In the 54th year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, a Tangquan Palace was built here, and a lotus pond was dug next to the spring for the emperor and dignitaries to bathe. It was expanded during the Qianlong period, and a quiet garden was built to the north of the original palace. The palace is full of buildings and pavilions, which are magnificent.

Countless princes and nobles of the Qing Dynasty bought land and built gardens here. When the Fu Han Army recovered Beijing, all of these became Chen Ming’s royal private property.

Although Xiaotangshan has declined now, after all, it is no longer the imperial capital, and the emperor has not been there in recent years. But the place is beautiful, and the scenery and styles of the gardens are well preserved, and they can still be sold for a certain price.

This is just one example. A loan of 100 million yuan cannot be raised by just buying the gardens in Xiaotangshan. In that case, the price of Xiaotangshan would be as low as cabbage.

Chen Zhongsheng took six days to get everything done. Facts have proved that he is still a qualified steward of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

He "introduced" several former powerful and influential families of Korea who were trying to integrate into Chinese society but kept a certain distance from the society and humanities of Jiangnan to Beijing, as well as the Sulu Marquis and the Ryukyu King. The representatives of those families in Nanjing almost did not hesitate to bid for the several gardens listed in Xiaotangshan.

The Qing Dynasty has long been a rag in China, but the identity of the former royal family makes the gardens they left behind seem to be stained with a touch of nobility.

Then there was the share trading of some companies under the Jiuzhou Chamber of Commerce, which took a total of six days.

After completing all this, Chen Zhongsheng happily ran to the Qianqing Palace to report, and he also brought a new proposal to Chen Ming.

"Your Majesty, I think if Your Majesty can visit Xiaotangshan in person, its value and influence will definitely rise sharply." The high land price in Xiaotangshan is because it was a place that Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong often visited. Now that the land price there is to be raised, Chen Ming's personal visit to Xiaotangshan is undoubtedly a huge stimulus.

Who asked the emperor to put Xiaotangshan on the "handling" list?

So many gardens, it's a pity to buy them at a low price.

"Where do I have the time to go to Beijing."

"Just deal with it at a low price. Raise another 100 million for me before the New Year."