Obviously, the Red Mansion attaches great importance to this memorandum of cooperation in the development of mineral resources on the island of Timor, after all, the island has both resources and labor, which makes it a tangible reality for the family to obtain a bulk supply of various minerals. To this end, Cao Limei proposed at the plenary session that day that she intends to formally set up a mining company to operate the mining development of the island of Timor.

Although there are various minerals on the nearby Australian continent, they cannot be exploited because they cannot find qualified labor and immigration is a distant thing.

Cao Limei also stressed that in addition to minerals, Timor Island is also rich in forests, which are resources that we need very much.

This is also the reason why, a few days later, Sun Lao signed a series of secret development agreements with Pimont on behalf of the Australian Federation.

Of course, this so-called secret agreement is impossible to keep secret from the traversers, and if anyone dares to sign a secret agreement to keep it secret from their own family, it is no different from treason.

Sun Lao also asked for the agreement to be signed publicly, and showed great incomprehension of this, saying that these contents are not illegal and unseemly, the development of mineral resources is a good thing, and cooperative development is also justified, why keep it secret?

Pimont was very open and honest with Sun Lao, saying that because the description of gold, silver, copper and iron placers on the island of Timor in the agreement was easy to covet or ask for exorbitant prices - for example, the Portuguese in Oecussi, if they knew that there was a huge copper mine buried under their feet, it would be difficult to easily get the cooperation of the locals.

Moreover, Pimont had a great interest in this secret agreement with Degus and Duchess Margaret, not only in their own private interests, but also in the Doge's Palace.

Obviously, the object of his secrecy is the people under his rule, and considering that there are indeed major interests in this, Sun Lao and the others have no choice but to compromise on this point.

Therefore, in the beginning, the contents of this agreement were known only to the signatories, the Duchess of Margaret and Degus, and later, the re-established Dili City Council and the mayor also knew about the content of the agreement, but by that time, the rice had already been cooked and cooked.

When Pimont signed his name on the text of this agreement, he couldn't help but be excited, he knew the weight of this agreement, the Australians promised to invest more than 100,000 taels of silver to carry out mining and forestry development on Timor Island within the year, this is still the initial amount, and does not include the funds invested in the construction of the bonded zone, which is an unprecedented huge investment since the opening of the port of Dili City, because only the initial investment of 100,000 taels of silver is equivalent to the budget of the Viceroyalty of Timor for two years.

The secret agreement stipulates that Timor and the Australian Commonwealth will set up a mineral development company, which will be called "Aotuo Mining", and the Australian investor is an organization called "Australian Mining Development Co., Ltd.", referred to as "Aotuo Mining", which is the main investor of the Australian side, according to Sun Lao, this "Aotuo Mining" company is a professional mineral development company composed of 93 Australian shareholders, and the chairman and president of the company is a young lady. Because this young mother named Cao Limei is an expert in prospecting.

She will also serve as the chairman and president of Diao Mining, of course, she is not yet in charge, so this role will be temporarily filled by Sun Lao.

When Duchess Margaret learned that this lady was many years younger than herself, she couldn't help but be amazed, and sighed again in her heart: she is really a magical Australian......

The total registered share capital of Timor Mining is 100,000 taels of silver, of which 40% of the total investment is invested by Austral Mining, while the Commonwealth of Australia** and the Viceroyalty of Timor each invest 15% of the share capital on the principle of reciprocity, and the remaining 30% of the shares are divided equally by the Hon. Pimont, Degus and the Duchess of Margaret in the form of private investment, each accounting for 10%.

The agreement also provided that the private shares of the Governor of Pimont, Degus and Duchess Margaret could be converted into shares by means of physical settlement.

Pimont was delighted and grateful for such an arrangement.

The Australians knew that he was actually very poor now, because of the expenses of maintaining the Governor's House and the army, as well as sporadic counterinsurgency battles, his financial chain was actually quite tight, so he was grateful to the Australians for their accommodation.

However, this accommodation was premised: it was necessary to exercise the powers of the Governor himself to enable the "Diao Mining" to obtain land and labor.

Sun Lao, as the interim chairman of the board of directors of Diao Mining, had hinted to him that the Governor, although he was currently short of cash, could obtain land through some ingenious means—well, actually by forcible grabbing, which were now worthless, but if there were mines underneath, it would be different.

As a result, Dio Mining will agree that Pimont, Dergus and Duchess Margaret can use such land as a stake.

Therefore, the tribes of Timor must be submitted! Oecussi must return to the Timorese Governor! The Dutch don't even want to touch that place!

The same applies to the Chagan Basin on the east coast of Timor Island, where there are iron placers and coal mines of great interest to Australians, and of course, to the mountainous south-east, where Pimont is interested in gold and silver mines.

However, at present, Australians are more concerned about copper, iron, coal, gypsum, marble and other minerals in the west and east of Timor Island, and the development of gold and silver mines in the southeast mountainous area is relatively backward.

Obviously, sooner or later, Dio Mining will develop it, but only if the land there is in its hands, and the cheaper the land for the benefit of the company and the individual, the better – which is why Pimont, Degusse, and Her Excellency Duchess Margaret insisted on a secret agreement.

Subsequently, the Australians demanded that they be able to obtain the iron placer ore in the Chagan Basin and the coal in Moro Bay in the near future, when Sun Lao reminded Pimont that they should pay attention to ways and means and not mess up this matter because of the resistance of the natives, Pimont smiled and told Sun Lao that they did not have to worry about this at all, because the aborigines originally knew that there were iron placers in the Chagan Basin, and they also knew that there were black stones in Morro Bay, but there was no large-scale mining. The reason is that the natives believe that these so-called minerals are of no great use at all.

Rest assured, we will get the ore specimens soon, and I am arranging for a naturalist to leave there in the near future, and he will dig up some ore specimens for us.

In addition to Diao Mining, another major issue of cooperation between Portugal and Macao during this period was the "free trade zone" that had been negotiated in Macao.

Not more than five kilometers from the western wall of Dili City, there is a small river that originates in the southern mountains and flows into the sea in the north.

On both sides of the estuary, there is a large beach flat, and although the coastline there is gentle, after going deep into the sea for 30 or 50 meters, the water depth reaches more than 10 meters, so Hou Xianglin and his colleagues believe that if a few wharves are built there, the entire coastline area of one or two kilometers will become a good deep-water port area.

Moreover, the land there is saline-alkali land, which is not suitable for cultivation, and there is no jungle to collect, so there are no indigenous people there, but the saline-alkali soil is very suitable for construction.

As a result, according to the agreement reached between the Australian Federation and Pimont, the east and west banks of the Comoka River will extend one kilometer each, that is, a four-square-kilometer square kilometer of square land will become a "bonded area" for Australians.

Australians were granted a "freehold leasehold" of the land and had independent administrative and judicial powers in the area.

However, the land still nominally belonged to the Portuguese authorities in Dili, so the Australians had to pay a rent, the same price that Macau had given to the Qing court, five hundred taels of silver a year.