In Smyrna Harbour, a large number of ships from all over the world converge in the largest port in the Muslim world. Most of these ships were galleys or dhows of small tonnage, backward technology, and old styles, and the rare large ships were generally brigs or three-masted Galen transports from Holland or France, and occasionally some woolen cargo ships from England, but they were generally not very many.

But in the port of Smyrna today, 20 February, the main attraction is neither the Dutch merchant ships that arrive laden with cargo, nor the French merchant ships that have taken over the Ottoman Empire's offshore shipping, but a fleet that seems to have just returned from naval warfare. The size of this fleet was enormous, perhaps as many as 30 ships, all large ships, and the smallest of tonnage was more than 400 tons—which was quite a small ship in the Mediterranean.

In addition to these "small" ships, the most striking are the four tall double-deck battleships. The number of gun windows of these warships is so dense that people are immediately frightened to see it. How many such powerful warships can Europe have? Even the Netherlands, the largest maritime power at this time, rarely had more than 300 tons of naval ships during the Battle of the Downs, let alone some other countries. France may not have one, England may or may not have one, and perhaps only the Dutch East India Company and Spain have a handful of such powerful ships. After all, the naval warfare theory that is popular in Europe today is not the theory of artillery warfare on the battle line, and the admirals of many countries still firmly believe in Spain's set of gang-jumping combat theories, which leads to the fact that those powerful battleships cannot be taken seriously enough.

Almost every ship in this fleet bears some scars. One of the strictest transport ships seems to have barely managed to make it here, and the broken mast and hull are in dire need of replacement. Under the command of several Ottoman pilots, the fleet ships slowly docked in a dedicated berth area. There is a large ship repair yard there. After the ship docked, they began to unload the cargo, and after unloading, they went to the shipyard for emergency repairs.

In particular, the battleships were repaired, and many Ottoman ship repair technicians climbed onto the deck with tools, and then used the ship's pulley crane to lift many heavy planks up so that they could be replaced during repairs. Naval soldiers on the east coast supervised the Ottoman technicians. To make sure they don't wander around, they also visit some of the key parts of the ship where they can't see people.

Priority was given to the four battleships, and they were to be scheduled for repair in the first batch. Because the officers of the East Coast Navy proposed. These four powerful warships were about to set sail again for Bordeaux in France and the Baltic Sea, so they needed to complete all the preparations before the voyage, such as repairing and maintaining the ship, replenishing water, coal, ammunition, and so on. As for those transports and frigates. That's not a hurry. Because according to the plan. They would deliver goods from the east coast to the treaty ports in the Ottoman Empire, and then bring back the supplies they needed to procure before leaving for home.

All in all, they had to wait for the Flota fleet and the Gaia Anes fleet of the Kingdom of Spain to sail from Seville and Cádiz respectively before returning home, because by this time the main force of the Spanish navy had already gone to the Americas, and no one could intercept them again. As for the timing of the Spanish Navy's voyage, this is the number one secret of the Kingdom of Spain. But it is usually in the spring and summer of each year. One departing from Seville in the spring and another from Cadiz in the summer. After trading in the Americas and collecting taxes (silver), the two fleets sailed to Havana to rendezvous, where they returned to Spain at the beginning of the following year after completing maintenance.

Therefore, in this era when the navy of the Kingdom of Spain had been devastated and had not yet recovered its strength, by the time the Spanish galleon fleet set sail, it was inevitable that there would be a shortage of naval ships on its own soil. At this time, even if the East Coast convoy blatantly passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, it is believed that the Spaniards would not be able to intercept it.

However, the merchant fleet could wait, but the four battleships with high speed and strong firepower could not. Lu Ming, commander of the convoy convoy, will use the limited holds of these four ships to load a batch of cargo (mostly dyed cloth, calico and metal farm tools) to Bordeaux, unload the cargo and settle the previous year's payment before leaving for Riga and Danzig in the Baltic Sea. At these two ports, they would unload the few remaining shipments of cotton cloth or metalwork, load them with a large number of migrants (Livonians) and mercenaries (Poles) who had been waiting for a long time in the trading post on the east coast, and then return to the western Mediterranean, where they anchored in the Ottoman port of Tunis.

Prior to this, the East Coast convoy escorted by the remaining seven frigates (the Salmon had been abandoned and sunk off the coast off the island of Malta) had been arriving for some time with a full load of procured supplies and migrants (mainly Slavic slave girls). Once the two fleets have converged, they have undergone a final maintenance and replenishment of supplies, and then set sail through the Strait of Gibraltar with the start-up southerly winds and nearshore currents, and then use the North Atlantic gyre to return to the port of Vostochny on their home coast through the North Atlantic, the eastern Caribbean, and northeastern Brazil.

This time, there were also a large number of engineers and technicians who came with the ship. There are more than 100 of them in total, all of whom are selected by the East Coast and have certain technical experience and are also qualified in politics, and even a considerable proportion of them are engineering and technical graduates of the 35th class of the Corps. They will be dispersed to the ports of Smyrna and Suez (to participate in port expansion), Istanbul and Edirne (to guide the construction of roads), and Kaffa (to build the mining railway). These were part of a commercial contract with the Ottoman Empire, whereby the east coast provided some building materials and technical service personnel that the Ottomans could not produce, and the Ottomans provided ordinary labor and raw materials that could be produced on their own, and the two sides worked together to carry out large-scale infrastructure construction within the Ottoman Empire.

In addition to the implementation of these infrastructure contracts, the Ottoman Empire's transportation equipment procurement plan, which had been negotiated with Mo San, was also confirmed by both parties, and then the fleet will bring the contract and deposit back to the east coast, and then organize major domestic manufacturers to produce. The contract included an additional order from the Ottoman Empire for 50 heavy road freight wagons (100 in two batches), 20 horse-drawn rail wagons, 16 flute-type transport ships (450 tons of cargo, including 10 for the government and 6 for the private sector), and a large number of spare parts.

The total profit of these contracts is amazing, and it can drive the rapid development of a large number of enterprises in the entire domestic industrial chain, not to mention a large number of spare parts procurement and maintenance services in the future. It is foreseeable that with the deepening of economic cooperation between the East Coast and the Ottoman Empire, the domestic steel, machining and manufacturing, building materials production, wood processing, shipbuilding and other industries on the East Coast will usher in a period of rapid expansion. After all, the business that Mo San had brought together from the Ottoman Empire was too high in line with the domestic industries on the East Coast, and it was simply tailor-made for the East Coast. Perhaps the only thing that can limit the boom of industry on the East Coast today is population. Therefore, the operation of the battleship formation to the Baltic Sea was imperative, since a significant number of Livonian immigrants awaited there.

After the four battleships were hastily repaired, on March 5, after informing the accompanying Ottoman Navy, the commander of the fleet, Lu Ming, ordered to set sail for the French port of Bordeaux. This time they did not sail from the waters of Messina, but followed a slight crosswind from the Maltese sea south of Sicily to the west, and on the way they reached the port of Algiers in the western Mediterranean on the evening of the 10th.

After a replenishment of the port, which was effectively controlled by local warlords and was only nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, the East Coast Naval battleship formation quietly set sail on the night of the 11th, leaving the port of Algiers and heading for the Strait of Gibraltar. With the excellent maneuverability and high speed of the steamer, the Spanish ships cruising on both sides of the strait did not detect or intercept the four powerful warships on the east coast in time. Instead, two galleys carrying wheat to Cadiz were captured and burned on the east coast, which should have made the famine worse for the Spanish kingdom.

On 18 March, after overcoming the unfavorable factors of wind direction, currents, and evasion of possible Spanish battleships, the battleship formation on the east coast arrived outside the port of Bordeaux. The French in the harbor refused to allow these four powerful warships to enter the harbor as if they were facing a great enemy, and as a last resort, the east coast trading post in the city had to hire some inshore barges to transport cotton cloth and goods to and fro, and it took two full days to get it done.

On 25 March, four battleships made their way to the waters near Guò Netherlands and sank again a Spanish-flagged battleship. After the war, the prisoners were interrogated and learned that this was a brig "Santa Anna" of the Spanish South Netherlands Fleet stationed in Dunkirk. The East Coast Fleet sank the Spanish warship without stopping for long, but proceeded at full speed, arriving at the port of Riga on the Daugava on 2 April, with only a resupply near Stettin, Sweden.

Four powerful warships caused a stir in the harbor. The Swedish officials stationed here were at a loss and didn't know how to deal with it, but fortunately, Lu Ming quickly sent someone to communicate with the Swedes and paid a lot of entry fees, and the Swedes were shocked and reissued the entry permits for the East Coast.

The port is home to a Dutch-owned shipyard and ship repair yard to take advantage of the area's abundant oak resources. Four battleships on the east coast underwent some maintenance at the Dutch shipyard before they began to load the immigrants and the goods. There were more immigrants than expected, and it seems that life in Livonia under Swedish rule was not very good. The 3,000 immigrants, both men and women, were loaded and sailed again on 10 April for Tunisia. (To be continued......)