Vol 7 Chapter 2: Wine Country

A dangling barrel cabin boat wandered out of the bay covered by trees on both sides of the Dudello River, and a sailor standing on the bow leaned lazily against the raised bulkhead of the hull behind him. Not far behind him, several other sailors were pushing the oars forward.
Due to the terrain, the Dudiero River ’s water flow is very gentle in this section, and because of the high terrain around it, it is difficult to drive on the river surface where the wind blows in. It is much more difficult to drive up. At that time, the sailors had to paddle through the river channel. Fortunately, not too far ahead, the water will gradually become turbulent with the terrain, and then these big ships can drift all the way to the estuary.
Heavy barrel cabin boat slowly moved forward on the river surface, and a scent of rumbling wine also drifted with the river.
This kind of barrel cabin ship is a unique local ship used to transport wine. The middle of the whole ship is composed of a closed cabin like a huge wine barrel. The hull is built directly on this 'large wine barrel' After filling the entire ship with wine, the wine barrel will be sealed with wax paint, and then the ship will flow down the river. After reaching the downstream destination, it will open the door and let the wine pass through the river bank. The long wooden trough has been filled with wine barrels waiting on the carriage on the other side.
Although many of the people here make a living by making wine, regardless of this camp, everyone is doing very well. Almost every vineyard has an endless business, and even the local church simply uses wine as a substitute. One-tax property tax, because the local wine is so famous, so the church often only needs a little change of hands to make much more profit than the tithe.
This is Porto, the most important city in the north of Portugal, and also an important northern port after the capital Lisbon.
Centuries ago, when the Moors came, the Gothic rulers at that time were unable to resist the pagan invasions, most of them were slaughtered, and a few survivors fled to the north, when Porto became In addition to the important stronghold against the Moorish invaders in the south, and even after the long victory to regain the lost ground, Porto still enjoyed the glory and privileges that were not allowed by the Portuguese king.
One of these privileges is that Porto has a completely independent right to sell wine.
This right has made Porto rapidly rise from the already prominent status of the local wine industry, and even once the nobles in the Lisbon court tried to reclaim this power because they coveted the wine business of Porto.
This was strongly opposed by the Porto people. After struggling to fight, the Porto people retained the right to sell wine, which was very important to them.
Barrel-cabin boats float slowly on the river, transporting wine in such weather is a very troublesome task. In addition to being very tightly closed, you must always be careful not to let the ship carrying the wine in the sun for a long time, otherwise the wine may be Fermentation, that's bad.
Therefore, the barrel tanker always tries to avoid the hottest days of the day, but only departs in the morning and afternoon.
This is the time when the weather is cool in the morning, and there are not many boats on the river. It is just suitable for passing these bulky and slow barrel cabins.
There was a horizontal shadow on the river in front of it. It was a stone bridge across the Dudello River. The figure of people on the bridge separated the sunlight from day to day, flashing alternating light and dark light.
A man wearing a semi-short jacket with some exotic style stood behind the ship and protruded the hull over a tall wooden prince hanging outside. The view here is very wide, not only can you see the whole boat, but also Observe the situation on the river.
The wooden board used as an observation deck is usually the location of the shipowner or the bosses. Now it is the owner of the barrel cabin ship who is standing on this observation deck. He is also a local grape plantation owner. You can see that this person is rich in the local area by having his own barrel tank for delivering wine.
The owner was looking at the bridge with his toes at this time. He noticed that there seemed to be a few people standing on the bridge looking down at his boat. This made him a little proud. After all, the wine in this boat was enough for him After making a fortune, especially after hearing that some overseas businesses seem to be particularly easy to do recently, the vineyard owners are even more prepared to make a fortune.
The barrel cabin ship slipped into the bridge hole, and the person standing on it couldn't see it at once, and the owner did not intend to turn his head to see what the people who had nothing to do with him looked like. He only vaguely remembered it One seems to be a young man.
"These are the barrels of wine?" Alexander stood on the bridge and watched the weird riverboats passing under his feet. He looked to the side with a local cylinder cap, and he also had The middle-aged man in a typical Moorish short jacket asked.
"Yes, how do you plan to do this business, but not locals are not so easy to accept."
The man said with a smile, while quietly looking at this nobleman who is said to be from the interior of Europe.
Speaking of it, he had never heard of this Roman named Gior Modillo, but according to his boss Thiego ’s instructions, he must not only do his utmost to meet all the demands of this Roman, but also must be completely Obeying his orders unreservedly, this made the local man named Catresa wonder what the young man really came from, so that even the big businessman Tiego, who is very appetizing even in Lisbon, could be so careful.
Alexandria arrived in Porto the day before, and after the Clark ship called the former ship circulated a large circle on the Mediterranean Sea, the old ship passed the Strait of Gibraltar, which is the most important in the world at this time, and entered the Atlantic Ocean.
At the moment when he entered the Atlantic, Alexander looked at the vast expanse of water in the distance, and then looked at the busy strait behind him. At this moment, he suddenly felt that the Strait of Gibraltar seemed to have become a gate from the old world to the new world. Up to now, there are still countless people trying to squeeze into this gate, in order to obtain the wealth pursued in their dreams, but Alexander knows that the real hope in the future has been quietly changed, and the Mediterranean, which represents the old world, will gradually lose its glory for thousands of years. The dawn of the future belongs to a new world far away on the other side of this ocean, an unknown field whose status and value have not yet been truly discovered.
However, Alexandria did not rush into Castile, nor did he land in Aragon. The place where he had met with Thiego was in Portugal, and he deliberately avoided Lisbon and chose Porto as the two. Location.
Alexandria chose Porto, in addition to being cautious, there is another reason that is related to Porto wine.
According to the news sent back by the Thiegos, Alexander found a rather interesting thing. It seems that there are many British people doing business with locals in Porto. Their main business is to buy a large amount of Porto wine and ship it back to the country. The Portos made a lot of money by exporting local wines to the British.
It didn't pay much attention to Tiego until he accidentally discovered that some of these businesses were related to some of the Lisbon officials.
Tiego immediately paid attention to the grape plantations in Porto, and then he was surprised to find that some of the nobles in Lisbon seemed to have a close relationship with Porto. Many of these nobles made a fortune from the wine industry in Porto, but this is not the most Importantly, the key point is that he notices that these people seem to have a common feature, that is, they are all queens, enemies of Mary of Aragon.
Mary of Aragon replaced her dead sister. Queen Isabella and Isabella of Aragon, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand II, became Queen of Portugal. The young queen who married her brother-in-law inherited her With her mother's piety and her father's ambitions, the queen could spare no effort in making Portugal a future little Spanish brother.
This caused a lot of dissatisfaction from the Portuguese nobility, who were already wary of the Aragon-Castilla Kingdom, which was very powerful after the merger, not to mention that there are more and more signs that the two kingdoms are moving towards complete The trend of unification has caused many Portuguese to worry that once there is a strong and fully agreed power of the Trastamara dynasty on the Iberian Peninsula, then Portugal's life may not be easy.
Perhaps it was because of this that when the daughter of King Enrique Juana competed with Queen Isabella for the Castile throne, the then King of Portugal, John II, completely ignored Isabel. Queen La's mother is a Portuguese princess, but she firmly supports Juana.
It ’s just that they did n’t finally win the reinforcements of Castile and Aragon. After losing, Juana had to enter the monastery, and John II had to accept the couple ’s offer to let the next king of Portugal. Proposal to marry their daughter as queen.
If Isabella of Aragon as the eldest daughter is still a qualified queen, then after she died, she took over the sister of her position, Maria of Aragon is not so good to talk, this queen began soon after marriage Interfering with her husband's affairs, from the initial construction of a church, to the frequent intervention in the political affairs of the DPRK, many Portuguese have begun to discuss in secret that the queen is going to turn Portugal into a vassal of her own hometown.
Manuel I, the king, was quite unsatisfactory. He was very weak in front of his wife. He followed the queen ’s advice in many things, which made many people worry that Portugal might really one day. Become a vassal, and may even be annexed by powerful neighbors.
It was at this time that Tiego discovered the actions of the nobles. He found that the nobles frequently communicated with the British through the Porto wine business, and some of them bought from the British or directly exchanged wine for a large number. The weapons are also artillery.
These transactions were supposed to be very secretive things, but most people in this era obviously did not have the habit of keeping secrets. Although the queen ’s men were so dull that they did n’t even notice such an important thing, but Tiego still spent a lot of money. After much setbacks, I gradually inquired clearly about these relationships.
Thiego was n’t sure what the Portuguese wanted to do, and even they themselves did n’t know what they planned, but he immediately reported this important intelligence to Alexander, but that was almost half a year ago. Then he went to Castile.
Until he received an order from Alexandria two months ago to prepare him for his arrival, and at the same time asked him to pay close attention to the movements of the Portuguese.
Opted to meet in Porto. Apparently Alexander was influenced by the news sent by Tiego, and on the second day after landing, he saw those who used local barrels to ship wine to the harbor.
"How much can the wine of these ships sell?" Alexander asked the man named Catresa, who hoped that by understanding these wine transactions, he could guess how much help the Portuguese nobles could get.
"That's all, they earn a lot, how can a wine be worth 30 silver egypts," Cartresa looked at the ships that passed under the bridge with some envy. "Many people are rich, and I said once I suggest that my boss also sells wine, but he seems to have other businesses, and he always runs around and is not so obsessed with these. "
"Maybe you can do this business, I can suggest to Tiego that you are responsible for selling wine."
Alexander smiled at Catresa. He could see that this man was very clever. This made him wonder if this person could learn more about the relationship between the Portuguese nobility and the British. It was purely that they wanted to accumulate strength and prepare to do it. What ~ EbookFREE.me ~ or the British also blended in.
If the former is enough, if the latter, then it makes a little sense.
Alexander always felt that the British were a different kind of continent, just like the later Russia, this two east and west are always strange countries that are outside of Europe. They both want to integrate into Europe, but they are always anywhere. It is a rare miracle to provoke a disturbing personality, although it is so inexplicable that they are on both ends of Europe.
"Let all of us be patient, we have to wait for Thiago to meet us."
As Alexander walked back to the place where he lived, he told Schell to stay with him. He always went out with the Balkans, not Uliu or others. This was not because he thought that Schell was better than They used it more smoothly, but purely because he was worried about placing the Balkans beside any woman, and it might become an unlucky tool soon.
"Master, where are we going next?" Schell looked at the street curiously. Everything here was different from what he had seen before, except for the obvious mark left by the Gothic era, because it was centuries old. The Moorish-style buildings that are occupied and everywhere, the clothes, and even the locals with typical mixed-blood characteristics, make Shelle curious and surprised.
"Tiego will arrange it, I think we will see a lot of people soon."
Https: //
Please remember the first domain name of this book :. Mobile version reading URL: