"Where is Mr. Hamel's envoy?" After reading the contents of the letter, Gao Mo sat down and asked with a stern face.

"Mr. Hamel's envoy is on my ship. Before departing, Lord Hamel told me that if you had read the letter and did not ask William about anything, he would return to Recife by the same route; If, on the other hand, you decide to have a proper discussion with Liaison Officer William, then I will refer him to you. Captain Kuayt looked Golmo in the eye and said very bluntly.

"You're wrong, my friend." Gommo stood up and paced around the room for a few steps before he said, "Actually, it is not my envoy who wants to see Mr. Hamel, and I am not going to meet him, because I am not an official diplomatic staff of our country at this moment. Mr. Hamel can privately share with me views on some international situations, but if such exchanges are to be elevated to the level of concrete cooperation, this will need to be handled by government professionals. In this case, I will introduce Liaison Officer William to my students, who is currently the Deputy Director of the Americas Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I will not be reconciled if there is anything that would be better discussed by them. ”

Captain Kuaite nodded, Gaumore was definitely a senior figure in the diplomatic circles on the East Coast, proficient in English, French, and later taught himself Portuguese and Spanish, and his students were all over the diplomatic community, trade circles, and even intelligence circles. Now that he has withdrawn from the political front desk due to the rules and regulations, how can he, who has just turned 50 years old, sit at home and waste time reading, fishing, and playing cards?

Not to mention anything else, when many people traveled to Brazil to buy cotton plantations, they relied on Gamma to thread the needle from it, otherwise Brazilians would not necessarily sell their plantations to people on the East Coast; Later, people from the east coast opened merchant houses and bank branches in Danzig and Livonia. It also entrusts Gaumo's old connections in the Hanseatic League to help. Otherwise, it won't be so easy at this time. So. Although Gao Mo, a senior diplomat, is retired at home, his energy and influence are still very great because of his extensive contacts and many connections.

Therefore, it would not be wise for Hamel, the governor of the Dutch West India Company, to first contact Gaumo privately through the channel of Captain Guò Cuat, and then test the thoughts of the people on the east coast. If they rashly go directly to the diplomatic department on the east coast for negotiations, then there will be no room for maneuver if there are any twists and turns, and this will certainly greatly damage the relations between the two sides. This was especially true of the shareholders of the West India Company, who were intent on competing for dominance. At the moment, they are holding a magnifying glass and looking for the mistakes of Governor Hamel and others, who represent the interests of the board of directors, so that they can attack at any time.

But now it's not so much trouble to communicate through guò private channels. For if the people on the east coast had refused the request of the Dutch West India Company or if they had shown little interest in stabilizing the situation in Brazil, then Liaison Officer William would have been able to return to Recife again, and there would have been no formal contact between the two sides, and of course there would be no damage to bilateral relations. And if the people on the east bank are willing to negotiate with Liaison Officer William, then there is obviously a way to go, because it means that they are not very happy with the current one-sided situation in Brazil, so that the two sides have a basis for negotiation.

"What is the situation in Brazil now? I mean the situation of your West India Company? Is it bad? Gaumore asked casually at this point, obviously he had heard of some of the heavy changes that had taken place on the battlefield in Brazil today, but he obviously wanted to hear first-hand information from Captain Cuat.

"It's bad." Captain Couay sighed. Then he said helplessly: "The Portuguese have just achieved two great victories over the Spaniards, and the Spaniards have suffered heavy losses. A large number of elite land forces were annihilated in the western region. Now in the Iberian Peninsula, the Portuguese army has even invaded Spanish territory, and the Spaniards are about to hold out. In such a situation, the king of the Portuguese felt that he could already turn some of his energies to Brazil in the New World. His colonial army had lost a large part of his territory due to successive defeats by the West India Company, but now he wanted to change the situation, so he mobilized a considerable number of reinforcements from his mainland to Brazil this year, and he also recruited a large number of mercenaries in Germany and Scotland to serve him. As a result, the pressure on the West India Company was suddenly unprecedented, and it had already suffered some losses in the last few battles. ”

In fact, Captain Kuayt really took great care of the face of the Dutch West India Company when he said this. Because of the fact that the Dutch were overwhelmed by the newly reinforced Portuguese army, they suffered heavy defeats in several large-scale battles, and lost a large number of men and weapons. At present, the Dutch army has largely retreated to some large and medium-sized cities such as Recife, and a large amount of territory in the field has been lost, especially those economically valuable cotton, tobacco or sugar cane plantations, which have now been lost to the Portuguese. In addition, Patrick Vieira, a sugar giant in northeastern Brazil, has publicly accused the Dutch of impropriety in some colonial policies, giving some people with a keen sense of smell an unusual smell of politics.

Hearing Captain Kuayt say this, Gaumo only felt in a trance. Once upon a time, when the East Coast Republic was at odds with the Dutch East India Company, the members of the Executive Committee used to use it as a bargaining chip to support the Portuguese colonists in Brazil against the Dutch invaders. At that time, the War Office had even seriously considered the possibility of sending some of the army to fight in Brazil, and the Brazilians did make similar demands at the time, but due to various concerns, the East Coasters eventually abandoned their direct involvement in the situation in Brazil, and indirectly participated in the colonial war for the richness of Brazil by selling war materials to the Portuguese, which were much cheaper than in Europe.

But now the situation has clearly reversed. Ten years ago, perhaps the Portuguese were the weaker side, but the East Coasters gave them blood transfusions in various ways, and the Portuguese also gave back to the East Coast people by exporting various goods and providing low-interest or even interest-free loans, and the cooperation between the two sides was very smooth for a while. But by the end of 1647, the Portuguese had gradually regained the initiative on the battlefield, and the choice was a great test of the courage of the rulers on the east coast.

According to the geopolitical theory espoused by the rulers of the East Coast, the people of the East Coast certainly do not want a strong unified state to appear in the north of their country, even if this country does not exist at present, and is only a colony of another country, but the people of the East Coast still do not want to see the vast land of Brazil accused of being in the hands of one country. Although the country now seems to have good relations with the East Coast and seems to be a rare Catholic State that has shown goodwill towards the East Coast, it is still intolerable to allow Portugal to monopolize Brazil in the long-term interests of the country and the nation.

Therefore, after careful consideration, Gaumo decided to introduce the envoy sent by the Dutch West India Company to the government's diplomatic department. The military strength of the northern neighbor has been greatly strengthened, which warrants increased vigilance on the part of the government, and the Dutch West India Company is now showing a clear decline, and Brazil's balance has been broken, and a rebalancing is urgently needed.

"I'll immediately arrange for William's liaison officer to go to the capital." Gaumore didn't keep Captain Kuayt waiting long, and soon he made his decision in the captain's expectant eyes.

On 1 December, William, the special envoy of the Dutch West India Company, arrived at the port of Vostochny and formally held a secret consultation with officials of the Americas Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the East Coast Republic of China in the capacity of diplomatic envoy. In order to save the situation in Brazil, the Dutch decided to open the markets of West Africa, North America, and the Caribbean, which had been previously controlled by them, to allow the East Coasters to sell goods to these regions that were not agents of the Dutch West India Company; secondly, they allowed the East Coasters to significantly increase the quotas for some of the goods exported to the Americas, Africa, and Europe, such as steel bars, by the Dutch West India Company - which was in effect saving the West India Company's own finances; Eventually, they would follow the example of the Dutch East India Company and fully open their ports and cities in their colonies in West Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, North America, and other countries, allowing ships on the East Coast to berth and replenish freely – and of course the East Coast would also open their overseas colonial ports to Dutch West India Company ships.

Although what the Dutch came up with was not very satisfactory, in order to balance the situation in Brazil, the officials of the diplomatic service on the east coast showed great goodwill at the behest of their superiors. First, they agreed to increase the quota for the supply of more than a dozen commodities that the Dutch West India Company monopolized and represented - in fact they wished they could, which had not been done until now because of the opposition of some West India Company shareholders, and there were strict limits on the quantities of cotton, steel bars, leather, and so on each year.

Secondly, the government of the East Bank Republic decided to sell the ordnance that had been massively produced and stored as a result of the war to the West India Company at a favorable price, and the Dutch could even delay payment. These included 2,500 flintlock rifles of the 32-C type, 16 field infantry guns of various types under 8 pounds, 3,000 sabers, 200 pairs of armor, and a large number of spare ammunition, spare parts, and bits and pieces such as hemostatic bandages, which could almost arm two or three Spanish infantry regiments.

In the end, the Coasters rejected the Dutch's request to hire troops to fight in Recife and other places. It's one thing to hide behind the scenes and use a series of means to balance the situation, but it's another thing to fight in person. That would be a complete tear with the Portuguese, and it would be extremely unwise to do so at a time when the long war with the Spaniards was not over. (To be continued......)