This Is How You Do Diplomacy
Now this was how you did diplomacy.
Manuel I, along with his officials and nobles, had fled in haste to São Jorge Castle.
"What in the world is happening..."
The royal palace he had only just moved into that very year had collapsed into rubble. Not entirely — but it was obvious that clearing the wreckage and rebuilding would take longer than raising it from scratch.
"Send the fleet at once! And that woman especially — drag her here naked if you must! I'll fatten her up like a pig!"
Manuel I, catching his breath within the castle walls, finally exploded in fury. A fleet was dispatched, and cavalry were sent down to the coast to confirm the outcome of the battle — the fighting had been taking place so close to shore that climbing even a modest hill was enough to watch the whole thing unfold.
"What? Annihilated?"
The report the returning cavalry delivered was grisly. Countless merchant ships had already been sunk, they said, and all thirty-four ships of the fleet had gone to the bottom without so much as landing a blow.
"Send more of the fleet!"
The more ships he mobilized, the more Manuel's face crumbled.
"What? Wiped out again?"
"Your Majesty..."
In a single month, the ships they had lost were already approaching three hundred. A nation like Portugal, commanding a vast overseas fleet, could certainly scrape together more vessels — but so far, the results hadn't managed to punch so much as a single hole in the enemy's hull. Would gathering more ships truly change anything?
"What are we to do?"
"Perhaps it would be best to sue for peace, even now."
"Absurd!"
Manuel I roared. Because it was absurd. Did Portugal of this age, overseas colonies included, not possess territory and national power worthy of being called an empire outright?
And the enemy was a single ship.
"Find a way to defeat them!"
The problem was precisely that one ship. If they ever landed, the army could surely hold them off — but the enemy showed no intention of doing so, content simply to sit upon the water.
And Lisbon's logistics had begun to run dry.
"Your Majesty. We have a grave problem."
"Now what?"
"If the blockade of the seas continues like this, it may lead to the collapse of the empire itself..."
Lisbon, a city of fortresses and harbors, owed its very existence to the goods that flowed in from the colonies aboard merchant vessels.
"Why?!"
"The flow of money has been severed, food is growing scarce, and the people are in uproar."
Lisbon was where the merchants of every neighboring nation gathered. Those already present had witnessed the carnage with their own eyes — they would go home and never return, and rumors of that kind traveled fast.
"Surely you don't mean—?"
"And can you truly guarantee that ship came alone?"
"Gah..."
The moment Manuel I actually stopped to think, his breath caught in his throat.
It wasn't that only one had come — one was enough, so perhaps it truly had come alone? And that self-assured, unhurried bearing when they had visited the castle gnawed at him all the more.
Hadn't they said it was no mere kingdom, either? If a vassal state wielded power like that, what would happen when the emperor himself stirred back home? The dread began to creep over him.
"Is there nothing besides surrender?"
"I honestly don't know, Your Majesty..."
"Ugh..."
Manuel I spent that entire night lying awake in torment, and the next day dispatched Antonius as his envoy.
"Reach as amicable an agreement as you can. And if that proves impossible..."
"Yes, Your Majesty..."
The one who crossed over from the white-flag ship toward us was a man said to be the king's secretary, Antonius.
THUD.
"Please, put an end to this at once!"
"End what?"
"The naval blockade..."
Apparently they had plenty of overseas colonies too. Wouldn't it have been so much nicer to settle everything with money from the very beginning? I did graciously hand over expensive gifts, didn't I? Hmm? Oh, right — those all got smashed when the castle came down, didn't they?
"I like gold. How much are you offering?"
"Um... g-gold, you say?"
"Yep. It started out small, but now it's grown enormously! You get that, right?"
"Why?"
Why, you ask? Do you genuinely not know, or are you asking? You've heard of guilt by association, haven't you?
"You people were so uncooperative that we've been losing sleep working ourselves to the bone out here! Isn't that right?"
"Th-that is—!"
Um, no? Let's not get our wires crossed here. We weren't the ones who started this, were we?
"We're tired, so you'll be compensating us for that too. And we fired cannons, didn't we? All of that costs money, I'm telling you. Follow?"
"Our sunken fleet cost far more!"
Hmm. Is this fellow not actually here to surrender?
"Did we start it first?"
"Did you not smash down the palace wall and march out first?"
True enough. But hold on? That's not how the accounting works.
"That only happened because you wouldn't let us leave. And strictly speaking, the animals broke it, didn't they? We just followed after them?"
"Ugh..."
That's hardly something you can pin on us, is it?
"Hm? By the way — weren't you here to surrender?"
"Surrender! It's... it's a negotiation!"
"Huh? Seriously?"
The sheer nerve on this guy? We'd have been deciding whether to even accept a surrender, and he's calling it a negotiation?
"Yes!"
"Ahh~ then go on back."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Go back! Come again if you change your mind."
Did he come just to buy time, maybe? Even if a fleet were on its way from overseas, at their current level of weaponry it wouldn't be worth a thing anyway.
"I'll tell you in advance — even if fleets come from overseas, they'll be useless. If about a thousand ships showed up, out of courtesy we might agree to run away."
"Gasp..."
Truthfully, if somewhere around one to two hundred ships surrounded us and started walling us in with their hulls, we would have to run, wouldn't we?
Wow. Saying it out loud, that's actually kind of scary.
There was that one time they closed in from all four sides, and I only made it out because I punched straight through one side of the encirclement. That was a close call.
"Look, I'll be honest with you — if you traded with us, you'd make an absolute fortune, so why on earth did you pull this stunt?"
"No! You started it!?"
He still can't take a hint?
If your merchants and explorers botch their jobs and go shipping pirates off to someone else's country, you're supposed to take responsibility, you know?
"No, I said? You started first, so every consequence of this is on your heads. Do you still not understand?"
Why is this man so dense?
"No, sir... We will compensate you for everything, so please, I beg you, end this..."
"Fine. How much are we talking?"
How far did they authorize you to go?
"How much is required?"
"What do you mean, 'how much'? You're supposed to work that out? It's going to be a lot."
"So how much, exactly?"
"Well then, how much can you give?"
Honestly. They said this was a rich country with colonies all over the world, and now I'm a little disappointed?
Jingle.
"These are our gold coins. Would something like this be acceptable?"
"Yep. Gold in any shape is welcome."
We can just melt it all down and refine it into pure bullion later once the technology catches up, anyway.
"What if we offered one hundred thousand of these?"
"Huh?"
What the...? One hundred thousand of these little crumbs?
"Hey? A hundred thousand is less than we make in a single month of trade."
"Gasp..."
"Are you kidding me?"
Hmm... why is every single thing about them broke? I haven't seen one scrap of a wealthy nation here!
This wouldn't even cover our travel expenses at this rate!
"Haha... unbelievable, honestly... How are you people this poor?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You were pitiful little children, weren't you?"
I suppose I'll have to do my part for the less fortunate.
"You certainly look like you're short on money, so those gold coins? Give me about a million of them."
"WHAT!? One million!?"
Is it really that shocking? Is that a lot? I already slashed the figure considerably, you know, good grief...
"That difficult? Then could you pay it in installments over ten years?"
"..."
Good grief? Even that's not workable?
"Then twenty years?"
"Hmm..."
Unbelievable.
"Fine — just pay it over forty years, and in exchange, build a port in that corner over there and hand it to us."
"What?"
"Land. Give me land."
"Absolutely not! How can you ask for our land!"
What? Why is you the one throwing a fit? I'm the one getting robbed here?
"Are you kidding me? I'm discounting the money, you're paying it back in installments, you won't pay interest, and you won't give land either?"
"Gasp..."
"I'm saying all this very quietly and politely. Does it sound like a joke to you?"
Ah... so sad... To think my very first customer would turn out to be a penniless wretch like this...
"Hm? Is it because we've only got one ship? Do you actually want a war?"
"A... a war, you say?"
This is just a show of force with one ship sailing around. If this were a real war, there wouldn't be a single blade of grass left standing.
"Yep. This whole fight started because you people came to our land and kicked up trouble, didn't it? You came to settle it nicely with words, and then you're the ones who escalated it like this?"
"..."
Gulp...
Is he finally starting to grasp the situation?
"Do you truly want to end up as a pile of ash? Then just wait — I still have to pay visits to Spain and Britain, so I'll set all three of you alight."
"WHAT!?"
I've been run ragged on this trip and now it looks like I won't even get paid, so my eyes are going dark too, you know.
"Phew..."
Calm down, calm down... This fellow isn't the final decision-maker, after all? No sense taking it out on him.
"Now. First, the one million gold coins. You have two options: pay over forty years with interest, or give us land."
"..."
"Understood?"
"Yes..."
Now then, what interest rate shall I charge?
"By the way? At even five percent interest, your annual payments sit at around twenty-six thousand coins and barely go down at all. Think you can manage that?"
"Why not!?"
Why not? Run the numbers yourself — even a rough calculation tells you there's no hope.
"Oh, never mind, work it out yourself. Year one of forty, you're paying back twenty-five thousand — at five percent interest, that comes out to somewhere around twenty-six thousand, every single year."
"Gasp..."
Goodness, the man's eyes are spinning from doing mental arithmetic?
"Though hmm, only five percent interest? Isn't that awfully cheap?"
"..."
"You people seem to make your living off trade — you really ought to be better with numbers?"
If anyone should know to fear interest, it's you, no?
"But still, that place is far too close to the capital, is it not?"
"That's exactly why I want it there."
"..."
Meaning: if anything goes wrong, we'll blow the whole thing sky-high?
"Fine! I'm feeling generous. I'll slash the gold coins for you."
"H-how much?"
So the million coins were the sticking point? Why is his face suddenly so relieved?
"Four hundred thousand!"
"Oh! Four hundred thousand!"
"And forty years."
"Wonderful! Thank you so much!"
"Then you'll give us the land?"
"Ah... I shall return with an answer, sir."
Ah, right? It doesn't end just because this fellow says yes, does it?
And honestly, I don't even need the gold. The port is what matters. Can you imagine how much money we could rake in selling goods into Europe from there?
As for what we've spent coming out here... maybe a hundred of those gold coins, at most? Ahem, ahem.
"Your Majesty, I have returned..."
"Well? What did they say!"
"They demand one million gold coins."
"WHAT did you say!?"
For a moment, Manuel I thought he had misheard. A million coins would mean gutting the entire royal treasury — what kind of impossible demand was this?
"There is, however, one other option..."
"Yes, out with it."
Manuel I had already resolved himself to war — let one side die or the other.
"They ask for four hundred thousand coins paid in installments over forty years, and land upon which to build a port."
"What?"
"Nothing large, Your Majesty — merely a small parcel sufficient for a harbor."
"Hmm?"
Still, this was hardly a trivial matter, was it? Asking for another nation's land? However small the parcel, Manuel I felt a flicker of unease.
"Truly a small piece of land?"
"Yes. They say they will build a small fortress to house a thousand men, and a port for their ships to anchor."
"Hmm..."
A thousand men — roughly the size of a small village? Manuel I's resolve was beginning to waver.
One million gold coins was genuinely unthinkable, but four hundred thousand spread across forty years?
With the colonies worked hard enough, that much seemed survivable. And with a full forty years ahead, surely some other stratagem would present itself in time — was that not obvious?
"Very well. So be it."
Besides, above all else, goods had stopped moving entirely, and even the royal castle was running short of food. Whatever life the citizens out there were living, he could picture it perfectly without going to look.
"Yes, Your Majesty. I shall convey your answer..."
Perhaps the matter was urgent, because the envoy came scurrying back in no time at all.
"Hm? You've left out something important?"
"I'm sorry? What would that be?"
"There's nothing in here about you never crossing onto our land again?"
Trying to sneak past the single most important clause, are we?
"Ah..."
"Rewrite it to say you will not come up past thirteen degrees north latitude. Everything else is fine as written."
"Yes, sir..."
What exactly was so wonderful about it, trotting back and forth clutching nothing but that? Making me do extra rounds of work.
So the treaty was signed and the port secured — but the ship had nothing left aboard it, that was the problem!
"Captain?"
"Yes?"
"Just to be safe, we ought to head back and resupply first, don't you think?"
Spain and Britain weren't going to be pushovers either, after all.
"That would work, but might I suggest we build the port first and use it to shuttle supplies back and forth?"
"Oh? Captain, you're a genius!"
"Hahahaha! Much obliged."
By the time that was done, a few more ships would be rolling off the line anyway, wouldn't they?
Alright — port first, then.