At the beginning of November 1868, more than 50 merchant ships of all sizes gathered in the harbor in Joinvia, and an ironclad ship led a team of 12 sail warships and 15 gunboats to form a battle fleet and set sail ready to set sail.

The peace treaty was signed, and the army units of the Chinese Independence Army withdrew from the land to which they belonged in accordance with the provisions of the treaty, and the sailors dispatched half of the ships to take up the task of transporting Chinese laborers.

In order to complete the task of transporting Chinese laborers as soon as possible, Li Mingyuan ordered the Chinese Independence Army fleet to participate in the transportation work together with the Brazilian fleet.

On October 10, 1868, Céspedes staged an uprising in the village of Yarra, and on October 16, he issued the Declaration of the Cuban Revolutionary Council to the Nation's Compatriots and Peoples, which called on the Cuban people to immediately launch an armed uprising for Cuban independence and the equality and freedom of the people, and demanded the emancipation of slaves.

After the proclamation, black Cubans, slaves, mestizos, and plantation owners responded to the call to join the uprising.

The rebel army quickly increased to 12,000 men, conquering the towns of Yala, Bairay, Chiguani, and Bayamo, and marching directly at Santiago, an important town in the eastern part of the island of Cuba.

Affected by the successive victories of the rebel army, armed uprisings also broke out in the provinces of Camagüey and Las Velias.

In just over 20 days, the Cuban uprising intensified, and as a large group of Cuban workers, some Chinese laborers began to join the riots.

The Spanish colonizers' initial response to the Cuban uprising worsened, but by the time Spanish reinforcements arrived in Cuba, the seemingly formidable rebels would be wiped out.

The chaotic situation in Cuba has nothing to do with the Chinese Independence Army, but after the Spanish colonizers put out the rebellion, they will definitely intensify the crackdown on the slaves and Chinese laborers who participated in the rebellion, so that the introduction of Cuban Chinese laborers will be affected.

Therefore, until the Chinese workers were not massively involved in the rebellion, bringing them back to Rio Grande do Sul became the most urgent matter at hand.

From the late 16th century to the mid-17th century, about 10,000 Chinese came to South America from Manila, most of the more than 10,000 remained in Peru and Cuba, and a small number went elsewhere.

More than 300 years have passed, the early Chinese who came to South America all died in the mines and plantations, and the gradually increasing number of laborers slowly adapted to the local environment and survived, but they were still not free and continued to work in various forms of selling.

So far, the number of Chinese workers in Cuba is about 100,000, after the outbreak of the Cuban uprising in 1868, a large number of oppressed Chinese workers joined the rebel armed forces and fought against the Spanish army, after the failure of the uprising, the blacks, Indians and Chinese workers who participated in the uprising were executed in large numbers, and after Cuba gained independence with the support of the United States, the political status of the independent workers did not improve in the slightest, and some of the free Chinese workers whose land and wealth were confiscated by the newly established Cuban government, and the Chinese workers who lost their freedom still had no choice.

In 1911, 16 years after the establishment of the new Cuban government, there were only a few hundred Chinese laborers left, and Cuba went from being the country with the largest number of Chinese to the country with the least number of Chinese in the Americas.

As for the vanishing Chinese laborers, some fled to other areas, and some slowly disappeared into the thick rubber plantations of Cuba.

Compared with the Cuban Chinese, the fate of the Peruvian Chinese laborers is much luckier, Li Mingyuan led them to obtain their own land, some Chinese soldiers have found their daughters-in-law to settle down, facing the Cuban Chinese laborers on the other side of the South American continent, Li Mingyuan extended a helping hand to them, more than 50 merchant ships that can go to the sea and more than 10 warships to form the first batch of transport fleets, and a month later the hired British and Dutch merchant ships will form a larger fleet to participate in the transportation.

After the negotiations were reached, Liu Pu, in accordance with Li Mingyuan's instructions, proposed the purchase of two ironclad ships with a displacement of 3,500 tons from Britain and the employment of British merchant ships, in addition to purchasing a large number of material orders.

When Li Mingyuan instructed Liu Pu to put forward the above conditions, he only had the attitude of giving it a try, but he did not expect that as soon as Liu Pu put it forward, the British representative readily agreed.

After Liu Pu came back, he relayed the words of the British representative to Li Mingyuan, and Li Mingyuan suddenly realized that the British Empire was now in a stage of rapid development, and there was still a way to go before it became the absolute hegemon in the early 20 th century.

In the final analysis, several countries in South America fought for territory, but several South American countries that fought with the weapons of the Europeans were just like playing at home, and they could sweep the South American powers by sending a few regular regiments at will, and even the United States on the other side of the ocean was not the opponent of the British regular army.

The British agreed to sell warships and were willing to hire merchant ships for themselves, which Li Mingyuan readily accepted.

Ten large British merchant ships, thirty medium-sized merchant ships, fifteen medium-sized merchant ships provided by the Netherlands, forty-five ships could transport 17,000 men one way, plus the second batch of ships left behind by the Chinese Independence Army, it was not a big problem to quickly 23,000 men at a time.

Liu Pu returned to Rio Grande do Sul with British commercial representatives from Brazil and handed over ten tons of gold in Rio Grande as a deposit for hiring a fleet and purchasing warships and supplies.

At this time, the British currency pound was already pegged to gold, and the Chinese Independence Army directly took out the gold to trade, and the British were very happy, and did not ask the question of the origin of the gold for the mentally handicapped.

After calculating all the costs of purchasing machinery, purchasing warships, and hiring merchant ships, more than half of the gold reserves of the Chinese Independence Army were spent, and a large amount of money was spent to resettle Chinese workers in Cuba.

Seeing the first batch of ships leave the port, Li Mingyuan temporarily put aside the issue of opening up new sources of wealth, and entered the Ruoinvia port under construction with Liu Pu and others.

There are five large and small ports off the coast of Santa Catarina, among which Florianópolis on the island of Joinvia and Santa Catarina has a better hydrological environment and is suitable for the construction of a naval base for the Chinese Independence Army.

After experiencing the Battle of Ruoinvia and nearly half a year of intensive training, the Chinese Independent Army's naval division was ready to officially become an army.

Prior to this, the three ports of Porto Alegre, Joinvia and Florianópolis were built as naval bases, and the main force of the Navy docked at Porto Alegre to guard the maritime security of the headquarters of the Chinese Independence Army.

In addition to the defenses destroyed by artillery fire, the area under construction in the port of Zoinvia is left with a Marine camp.

There are many people in the Chinese Independent Army who are familiar with the nature of the water, but there are not many people who can serve as senior naval commanders, and Chen Sen is barely qualified in the naval division, but his military merits and qualifications are not high, so Li Mingyuan sent him to be stationed in the Caribbean Sea to try to control a fleet on his own, and if he performs well, he will have a place in the official navy top bringing.

Chen Sen could not return to the Caribbean for a short time, and naval affairs were temporarily handed over to Liu Pu, while the soon-to-be-formed Marine Corps was handed over to Feng Guoan, whose original name was Feng Erhu, who served as a regiment commander in the Chinese Independence Army.

Feng Erhu fought steadily and decisively, which was quite different from his name, so he was renamed Feng Guoan by Li Mingyuan.

Li Mingyuan inspected the progress of the construction of Ruoinvia Port, and Feng Guoan also followed him, and after inspecting the port fort, he came to a coastal camp near the sea, where hundreds of Chinese soldiers were training against the current in the sea.

"Shizi, more than 100 people in front of the waves are veterans of the frogman army, and the 300 people in the back are recruits who have been trained for three months, and the total number of soldiers in the Marine Corps is here, and there is still a gap of 200 people from the 600 people you requested."

Feng Guoan saw that Li Mingyuan was concentrating on the soldiers training in the seawater, and complained when he saw the stitches.

"If the number of soldiers is not enough, go and recruit soldiers, and I will teach you this problem."

Li Mingyuan didn't reply.

"Shizi, to tell you the truth, in order to recruit troops, a lowly army went to run, but no matter how close the lowly good words were, I didn't recruit the number of people who met the requirements of the Shizi.

If it weren't for the Shizi inspecting the base today, I would have to report to you in person tonight. ”

"Oh, aren't the other troops allowing you to recruit their soldiers?"

Li Mingyuan turned his head and smiled.

Before Feng Guoan could speak, Liu Pu replied with a smile: "I know a little bit about the recruitment of marines.

Commander Feng went to four divisions and three mixed brigades to recruit troops according to the order of the prince, and at first the commanders of each department were more cooperative, but later Commander Feng did not know where to take out a training plan, and selected soldiers according to the standards on the training book, so that the commanders of each unit were unwilling, not only did not let Commander Feng recruit troops in the troops, but also sent the report to me. ”

"What kind of training book are you holding?" Li Mingyuan noticed a hint of cattiness.

"It is the training book given by the prince to the lowly position, and the lowly position is done according to the requirements of the prince."

Li Mingyuan looked at Feng Guoan, saw an unnatural look in his eyes, and understood the truth of the matter.

"Commander Feng, you use the training plan I arranged for the frogman troops as a recruitment standard, right?"

Feng Guoan nodded and did not deny it.

"You kid asked me for a frogman troop training plan, but I didn't expect it to be used in recruitment." Li Mingyuan felt a little funny, Feng Guoan used the standard recruitment of frogman troops, no wonder the commanders of other troops were unwilling, the elite soldiers of each unit were very precious, and they were dug up by Feng Guoan alone, how did they manage the troops.

"In this way, the recruited soldiers will return 100 to the original unit, and I will transfer 100 soldiers from the guard regiment, the 1st Mixed Brigade, and the 2nd Mixed Brigade to you, and first recruit 600 people."

"Shizi!" Feng Guoan opened his mouth to object, but was blocked back by Li Mingyuan's words, "Okay, this matter is over, if you oppose it again, I will return all the soldiers you recruited and let you recruit again!" ”

Feng Guoan hurriedly stopped talking without finishing his words, his own recruitment caused the dissatisfaction of the commanders of the various departments, if they recruited again, where would they let themselves choose at will.

Feng Guoan's case was just a small episode, and after inspecting Ruoinvia, Li Mingyuan returned to his residence and continued to be busy with the resettlement of the newly occupied areas.