Before adjourning the meeting, Manuel I repeatedly stressed the need for the contents of the meeting to be kept secret. In particular, the North Sea State used the Spanish attack on Lisbon, lest Marin really adopt this method.

However, everyone present did not expect that the content of this internal meeting would be sent to Marin's case two days later......

Where can people in this era think how perverted the intelligence network of the Beihai Kingdom is. Perhaps, in some unrelated countries and regions, the intelligence network of the Beihai State is not developed and perfect enough. But in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, which Marin attaches great importance to, the North Sea State has long woven an extremely powerful intelligence network.

Perhaps, the big nobles who attended the meeting that day could indeed be tight-lipped. However, it was not only the king and the nobles who were present at that time, but also the palace maids and court guards.

And the royal palace in Lisbon has long been infiltrated by the spies of the North Sea State. The spies of the North Sea Kingdom, using various methods such as coercion and inducement, have long co-opted and controlled many palace maids and guards in the Lisbon Royal Palace.

It should be pointed out that the royal palaces in Europe were generally very small, so they were often more open than the courts of ancient China. Because, the royal palace is too small to form a society of its own.

Therefore, the palace maids and guards in the European royal palace often have their own residence outside the palace.

In addition, there are two types of European court ladies. One is the maid, that is, the high-ranking palace maid who accompanies the queen and princess. Strictly speaking, they were not slaves, but descendants of the nobility, who served the royal family before marriage.

Before the time of Louis XIV, the waitresses who served in the European courts were often unmarried noble women, whose status was equivalent to that of female officials in the ancient Chinese court. They were relatively free in the palace and could come and go as they pleased. In addition to the shift time, they can go home.

The other kind of palace maid is a commoner or even a slave-born maid. These maids do the dirtiest and most tiring hard work, and they have no status, and it is impossible for them to leave the court at will, unless the poor holiday comes. But in ancient times, holidays were very few, and only major festivals existed.

For these two palace maids with different statuses, the spies of the Beihai Kingdom have been wooed. Those noble ladies and maids who can freely enter and leave the court are naturally the focus of wooing. Because, they can bring the information out of the palace in time.

However, in comparison, those maids who can't leave the palace at will are the easiest to have access to confidential information. Because, when the nobles talk about confidential matters, they tend to clear the field. Many waitresses are unable to observe secrets. But maids can, because, they tend to serve in the palace for a long time and will not leave the palace easily, so they are naturally more trustworthy.

Therefore, after the spies of the North Sea Kingdom won over the maids and maids who were willing to serve them through various means, they created an intelligence transmission channel - the maids trusted by the royal family eavesdropped on confidential information. Then, the eavesdropping maid passed the information to the maid who could freely enter and leave the court, and brought it to the Beihai spies behind them.

Of course, they didn't know that their employer was a spy for the North Sea Kingdom, and they thought it was some local Portuguese nobleman who wanted to spy on the privacy of the court. The spies of the Beihai Kingdom were very generous, and every time they passed on useful information, they would grab a large handful of gold coins, even those court maids from noble families could not resist this kind of money offensive, let alone those lowly maids from poor families. Several maids who serve the spies of the Beihai Kingdom secretly save thousands of gold coins every year, which is equivalent to more than three million in later generations. Even those low-status maids can get a few hundred gold coins every year, and the life of the family is completely changed.

European aristocratic girls were married, but they needed a rich dowry. But the aristocratic families who send their daughters to the palace as maids, except for the big families that send their daughters to inquire about the news in the palace, many of them are aristocratic families whose family economic conditions are not very good. Otherwise, how good it would be for your daughter to be a carefree lady at home, why should she serve others and suffer? And the richness of the noble girl's dowry will directly determine the girl's future status in her husband's family. In this regard, the ancient East and the West were similar. However, in ancient Europe, because of the backwardness of agriculture, many landed nobles were poor. Some poor aristocratic families, in order to save their daughters' dowries, would even send their daughters to convents as nuns to avoid the huge cost of marrying their daughters. Therefore, many aristocratic girls, in order to marry a good husband, will secretly embezzle and accumulate dowries for themselves when they serve as noble maids.

Therefore, under such a powerful money offensive, it is not surprising that the daughters of poor nobles who need to accumulate dowries have fallen. As for those maids, the spies of the North Sea Kingdom took advantage of their few opportunities to go home to visit their relatives every year, and they could stun them with a flash of gold coins in front of their eyes......

As for those palace guards, it was more difficult to win over than those maids and maids. After all, when these guards enter the palace to serve, they often come for the future, and they generally value the future more than the money. In particular, it is difficult to win over the eldest sons of some nobles who have the right to inherit.

But there are also some noble children who are not heirs, who spend a lot of money, and some are also addicted to gambling and need a lot of money. Therefore, there are also some guards who have been co-opted to help Beihai Kingdom find out information.

In this secret meeting, there were maids + maids, as well as the "reliable" guards present, and at the same time, information was passed out and passed to Marin.

Looking at the information in his hand, Marin's face was cloudy. Unexpectedly, the Portuguese would be able to come up with the unethical idea of using the merchant ships of the North Sea State to attract the fire of the battery.

And this also reminded Marin that only placing artillery on both sides would indeed miss the enemy ship in the middle.

"No wonder later generations paid attention to 'crossfire', it turned out to prevent the occurrence of firepower blind spots!"

Obviously, the practice of arranging the batteries on the left and right has a dead angle of firepower, that is, the middle part. As Bebeto is. According to De Leo, the North Sea Country's setting of one artillery battery on the east and west could only hit the entry and exit of a small number of warships, as well as the ships on the left and right sides of a large fleet. For a warship that is blocked in the middle, the firepower cannot cover it.

Therefore, it is best to arrange the batteries in the shape of a "product" triangle, which can ensure that the enemy's fleet has no dead ends where they can avoid shelling.

But now it is too late to modify the layout of the battery, and moreover, the mouth of the Ames River is too wide, which is not conducive to the layout of the battery in the shape of "Pin". So, Marin planned to build one or two long bridge piers with stones that would go deep into the middle of the river. This stone built on the top of the pier of the long bridge, and then the fort was repaired. In this way, it can echo with the batteries on the left and right sides and strike at the dead spots of the enemy's fleet.

However, it is too late to do so now. If you want to scare Portugal, you can only do other things. Like what......

Marin decided to contact Spain to conduct a fleet visit to the port city of A Coruña on the northwestern coast of Spain, and to conduct a joint military exercise with the local Spanish army to land and attack the fortifications......

A Coruña is located on the northwest coast of Spain, a short distance from northern Portugal. Marin's choice of a visit and joint military exercise here is clearly a demonstration to Portugal.

In order to achieve the effect of the demonstration, Marin decided to send 5,000 infantry this time, under the name of the "Marine Corps", to participate in this military visit and joint military exercises in A Coruña......

This kind of routine, the old beauty of later generations is very skillful. If there is any movement in the north stick, the United States will conduct joint military exercises with the south stick to scare the north stick.

Marin is going to use this joint military exercise to tell Portugal - I know the routine of attacking Portugal through Spain, don't mess with me......

……

However, if he wants the Spanish side to agree to cooperate with him in this play, Marin estimates that the price to be paid is not small......

Although Spain has a good relationship with Marin, it will not let the army of the North Sea Kingdom enter and exit easily, and it will also engage in any joint military exercises with you. Unless, Marin is willing to trade a lot of benefits in exchange......

Ma Lin thought about it, and it seemed that Kong Tai had brought back a batch of porcelain and silk, worth three or four hundred thousand gold coins......

"Well, let's share the profits of this batch of porcelain and silk with the Spaniards this time......"

Marin intended to use the representation of the Iberian Peninsula and Italy for the porcelain and silk to allow Spain to cooperate with him in the play. If it is handed over to the Spaniards to sell exclusively, it is estimated that two or three percent of the profits will fall into the hands of the Spaniards, worth tens of thousands of gold coins.

But it was worth it compared to avoiding war with Portugal. After all, Marin's side is preparing to fight France right now, and he really can't provoke two strong enemies at the same time. Moreover, the silk and porcelain business is also hated, and it is also a good choice to pull an accomplice to share the firepower. Anyway, I still take the lion's head......

Moreover, if the Spaniards had agreed to this military visit and joint military exercises, it would in itself be a deterrent to Portugal – see, Spain was still on the side of the North Sea State......