Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 69 Presidential Palace

ps: Thanks to the elegant notes, I love Brother Jin, and Inception for their support.

In the Presidential Palace of Peru, Manuel stood trembling in front of the President of Peru, Pedro, and carefully raised his head to peek at Pedro's expression.

Pedro looked at the report on the loss of merchant ships for a few minutes, his brows furrowed, and he seemed very dissatisfied with the losses of the fleet.

Manuel looked panicked. After Pedro put away the report, he hurriedly explained, "This encounter with pirates was a premeditated ambush. Only the Spanish in Cuba knew about the fleet before it set out. It must be the Spanish who told the pirates about the fleet, which led to the loss of the fleet."

In order to shirk the responsibility for the loss of merchant ships, Manuel blamed the Spaniards and deliberately exaggerated the strength of the pirates.

The loss of two merchant ships and 800 Chinese workers was not great. Peru purchased nearly 10,000 Chinese workers from Cuba this time. Excluding the loss of 800 people and including some weaker Chinese workers, the number could reach 30,000.

Pedro motioned Manuel to sit down and said, "I can forgive your responsibility for this loss, but you must keep a close eye on the transactions with the rebels. If you find anything unusual, report it to me immediately."

Manuel originally thought that Pedro would punish him, but he only heard a warning from him, and his nervousness was relieved. He immediately said: "I will carefully observe the movements of the rebels and try to atone for my crime."

Manuel was just an insignificant little man. Pedro was concerned about Lustuart behind him.

After regaining his freedom, Rust Stuart used his previous connections to help the Chinese Independence Army organize a large amount of material transactions, and also took the lead in redeeming more than 2,000 Chinese workers.

In view of Lustuart's good performance, Li Mingyuan handed over the city of Moyendo and his two thousand men to him.

Now Rustuart is the only regular Peruvian army in southern Peru. Although there are Chinese independence troops stationed in Mollendo and the taxation rights are also in the hands of the Chinese troops, Rustuart still holds considerable power.

Before the Chinese Independence Army retreated, Lustuart had already used his own methods to secretly infiltrate the cities of Moquegua and Tacna.

As long as the Chinese independence army retreated, Rustuart could steadily control the three coastal cities and become an important warlord force in Peru.

Therefore, Pedro attached great importance to Rustuart's attitude and hoped to pull Rustuart to his side through this transaction between the two parties.

"Manuel, go back and tell General Lustuart that as long as he performs well in this transaction, I will promote him to general and recognize his sphere of influence."

The three cities of Moyendo were the sphere of influence promised to Rustuart by Li Mingyuan. Pedro knew this condition from the negotiation requirements, so today Pedro clearly acknowledged Rustuart's position of controlling the three coastal cities and used this to win over Rustuart to work for him.

Manuel naturally understood Pedro's intention to win him over, and said excitedly: "General Lustuart will be very happy to hear this news."

When entering the Peruvian capital, Rustuart specifically instructed that Pedro should acknowledge the fact that he controlled the three coastal cities.
To accomplish this, Lustuart took out his remaining jewels and gave them to Manuel, asking him to pass them on to Pedro.

However, before Manuel had the chance to meet Pedro, he was assigned to Cuba to transport Chinese workers. On the way back, he encountered pirates, which resulted in the failure of the mission assigned by Pedro.
At this time, Manuel was only afraid of being punished, and he was not sure about what Rustuart had told him. When he heard Pedro take the initiative to acknowledge Rustuart's status, Manuel was overjoyed and flattered him: "General Rustuart admires the President very much. Before coming here, the general told me to visit the President on his behalf."

Manuel kept saying nice things and winked at the attendant beside him, who then took out a small box.

Manuel took the box, held it respectfully in front of Pedro, and said, "The general heard that the president is quite knowledgeable about jewelry, so he specially searched for a batch of jewelry to give to the president. I hope the president will not despise it."

Manuel felt a little painful when he gave away the jewels. Although the jewels were not his own, it was a good thing that he could get things done without giving away the jewels.

Manuel was struggling with whether to give the jewels away. Just when he was about to give up, he suddenly remembered what Rustuart had told him before he left: a little jewels would not matter, after controlling the three coastal cities, he would have a lot of money in his pocket. But if Pedro was unhappy because the money was not delivered, it would be a big loss.

After realizing the importance of the matter, Manuel took out the jewelry he had prepared in advance.

As the president of a country, Pedro naturally has a lot of money, but collecting jewelry is one of his few hobbies.

Hearing that Manuel had jewelry to offer, Pedro instantly became interested. He took the wooden box from Manuel, opened it, took out a colorful gem, held it up and looked at it carefully, with a look of satisfaction in his eyes.

"Manuel, please convey my gratitude to General Rustuart. I like the gift he gave me very much." Pedro said happily, putting down the gem in his hand.

"As long as the President likes it, General Lustuart is worried that you may not like these jewels!"

Manuel smiled, secretly admiring Lustuart's methods. "The general is indeed a master who has been in the military and political circles for 20 years. The president's attitude changed immediately after the jewels were given. It seems that I still need to learn from the general."

"General Rustuart is thoughtful," Pedro praised Rustuart, smiling, "The materials and Chinese workers for trading with the rebels are ready. You should hurry back to coordinate the trading time with the rebels and strive to recover the lost territory as soon as possible."

"I understand." Manuel replied with his head down, said goodbye to Pedro, and left quickly.

After Manuel left, the smile on Pedro's face quickly disappeared. He stared at the glittering gems on the wooden box and said to himself, "You think you can bribe me with just a bunch of gems? That's really underestimating me."

Rustuart's power was just beginning to grow, and Pedro had no intention of dealing with him now. However, after sending away the Chinese Independence Army, this plague god, if Rustuart still couldn't put himself in the right position and work honestly for Pedro, Pedro would not let him go.

Every political master is an excellent actor and chess player. They are good at using the complex situation in the political arena to seek benefits for themselves.

However, when it comes to conspiracies and tricks, Li Mingyuan prefers to use absolute strength to crush the opponent and force him to bow his head.

Pedro, Lustuart and others are all political veterans. When it comes to playing politics, the two Li Mingyuans can't beat any of them.
But in the end, Li Mingyuan's simple deployment annihilated the main force of the Peruvian army in the south, making all their conspiracies and tricks useless, and they had no choice but to negotiate peace with Li Mingyuan.

(End of this chapter)