I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 473 Gold and Silver in America

In fact, this was not all the gold they obtained in New Gold Mountain. They only took away the gold accumulated from several surrounding indigenous tribes and the gold they had mined for a month. There was still a lot of gold left.

Although gold was one of the main purposes of their trip, Chen Lang thought that taking so much gold was enough. After all, they still had to go on a voyage that would last for half a year. The fate of this voyage was uncertain, and whether the gold could be brought back was still unknown. It was meaningless if they could not bring back the gold of the Ming Dynasty, and taking too much gold would affect the voyage, so they did not take up too much gold to occupy space.
Now all the crew members have become numb to gold, and they regard it as dirt. Although gold is good, if it cannot be brought back to Ming Dynasty, it is just some cold metal and can do nothing.

However, Chen Lang still made an agreement with the natives, asking them to pan for gold in their spare time. The Ming fleet would arrive when the weather became hot for the second time, and would bring more goodies.
They evenly distributed more than 120 boxes of gold among six ships, so that if a disaster occurred and a ship sank, the gold would not be completely lost.
Then they set sail south, and Zhu Houxuan also planned the route back home for them.

Along the North American continent, follow the California Current southward to find the South Equatorial Current, and then follow the South Equatorial Current to reach New Guinea Island in Southeast Asia.

The reason why they chose to return home along the South Equatorial Current instead of the North Equatorial Current was that there were more islands in the South Pacific, which was conducive to supply; and secondly, because they had a mission.
Not long after they moved south, they encountered a large indigenous country with a huge population and a vast territory.

The so-called indigenous great country, that is, the Aztec Empire, was probably located in later Mexico.

In the 14th year of the Zhengde reign, the Spanish arrived in the Aztec Empire and were warmly received by the indigenous emperor. Because they were tall and fair, very similar to the legendary Quetzalcoatl, the indigenous people regarded the Spanish as descendants of God.

In order to strengthen his rule, the Aztec emperor claimed that he was favored by Quetzalcoatl and that the god sent his descendants to help him rule the country.

The Spaniards thus became a privileged race, they raped women, robbed property, and gradually became hated by the indigenous people. But the emperor was in a difficult position and could not slap himself in the face, so he chose to protect the Spaniards and suppress his own subjects instead.

The Spaniards went so far as to kidnap the emperor and torture him to force him to hand over all his treasures.

There was a riot in the city, and the Spaniards took the emperor as a hostage, hoping to escape the city first. In the chaos, the emperor died, and the Spaniards, who had brought too much treasure, completely lost their organization. Some of them drowned in the lake at night, and some were killed by the pursuers.

The remnants of the Spanish army who fled back to the colonies, with the support of the Governor of Cuba, gathered troops to carry out revenge.

They brought war horses, artillery and muskets, and gathered some tribes that were dissatisfied with the emperor's rule to form a Spanish and indigenous coalition to counterattack. The Aztec Empire was destroyed!
It was already the spring of the 16th year of Zhengde when the Ming Dynasty's expedition fleet arrived at the Aztec Empire. The Aztec Empire was on the verge of collapse, and most of its territory had already fallen.

The expedition fleet did not have any contact with the Aztec Empire, but only went ashore to replenish fresh water. This was a special request by Zhu Houxuan before sailing, because the demise of the Aztec Empire was also caused by the smallpox virus brought by the Spaniards. The spread of the smallpox virus accelerated the collapse of the Aztec Empire, so the expedition fleet was so cautious. After all, the sea ship is a closed environment. If one person is infected with smallpox, the entire crew of the ship will be infected.
The expedition fleet went directly across Central America and arrived at their planned last stop - the Inca Empire in South America.

The real name of the Inca Empire is transliterated as "Tawantinsuron". "Inca" is just a title, similar to "emperor", "king" or "dictator".

Compared with the other two civilizations in America, the Inca Empire was relatively advanced, and could smelt metals (but not iron). Its construction technology was also very advanced. It not only built canals and terraces, but also built roads connecting the entire country in the mountains. The longest road was 3200 kilometers long.

The center of the Inca Empire was located in the Andes Mountains in South America. The territory of the Inca Empire was roughly Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina in South America. In its heyday, the area was nearly 200 million square kilometers and the population exceeded 1000 million.

This was the heyday of the Inca Empire.

The reason why the Inca Empire was destroyed by Spain in history was that after the old emperor died, two princes fought for the throne, and the two sides fought each other and suffered serious internal friction. In addition, the Spanish brought plague, and the Inca Empire fell into complete chaos and was defeated one by one by Pizarro and 168 Spaniards.

But no matter how you put it, a country with a population of tens of millions and 8 soldiers being destroyed by a hundred or so people is not worth praising.

The main reason is that the Westerners in the Middle Ages were too dirty. They regarded not bathing as pious. Each of them was a large virus culture dish. The Incas in America were simply unable to resist the plague virus they brought.
However, it was still eleven years before Pizarro and his 168 Spaniards destroyed the Inca Empire. That was why Zhu Houxuan sent an expedition fleet to try to see if he could change history.
The reason why he did this was simple: for the gold and silver of America.
He increasingly found that playing with credit currency in this era was still too advanced. Although he used policies to create many scenarios for the use of silver dollars, the silver dollars still had to be guaranteed to be redeemed in the end. After all, the US dollar was not decoupled from gold until the Bretton Woods system in 1971. Before that, the US dollar could be freely exchanged for gold.

If this is the case with the America, the world hegemon in later generations, then Zhu Houxuan must be even more cautious in creating a relatively low-level financial system in the Ming Dynasty. It is foreseeable that the silver dollar notes will not be able to be decoupled from the physical precious metal currency for a long time.

In this case, the issuance of silver dollar certificates would be restricted by the amount of precious metals held by the Royal Bank. If the Royal Bank was conservative, it would issue as many silver dollar certificates as it had gold and silver. If the Royal Bank was aggressive, it would issue silver dollar certificates with a face value three times that of the gold and silver it held.

If the bank over-issues the silver dollar notes by five or ten times, anyone who is not a fool can see that the Royal Bank is over-issuing the silver dollar notes crazily, and the silver dollar notes will soon be devalued and run on, and eventually go bankrupt.
Since we have little gold and silver, we should go find more gold and silver. The gold and silver flowing into America through trade with Westerners is too slow, so we should take the initiative to go to America to get it.
(End of this chapter)