On April 15, 1653, off the coast of Recife, the sky was high and the clouds were light.

The northeastern part of Brazil, which has entered the middle of autumn, is still extremely hot, Li Renjun picked up a towel to wipe his sweat, and sighed depressedly. It is said that he is a retired officer in his forties (he was added one level when he retired and retired with the rank of major), and he is also a little famous in the army, and his net worth is not cheap (there are no poor officers who have worked in the Far East for a few years), but he still has to be exploited by the executive committee, and he sails to a strange city like Recife to have a relationship with a strange Dutch red hair, is there anything more nonsense than this?

However, Li Renjun has always been a little clever, he made his home in South Africa a while ago from Yancheng Port to auction two captive ships, and after a little rectification, he loaded goods from the mainland and shipped them to South Africa to sell, making a small profit; However, this was not the end, and soon the gang purchased a large number of peanuts, sorghum, sesame, soybeans, cured meat and other agricultural products from the Black Eight Banners tribe in Hezhong Port, and then followed the Benguela cold current north to the new Courland colony established by the Latvians.

Two truckloads full of agricultural and sideline products were sold at a good price in Jacobs Harbor! The economic system of this colony of the Principality of Courland, whose main industries were tobacco and logging, was very deformed, because almost all of their good land was planted with tobacco, but they could not even feed themselves in food, and could only import from the South African counties of Hezhong from the east coast. In addition to importing food, they also imported knives, farm tools, medicines, cloth, liquor, weapons and other goods from the East Coast to keep their colony running, which sounds almost like an economic colony of the East Coasters.

The governor of the colony seemed to be very self-aware, and he knew exactly who the survival of the colony of New Courland depended on, so he did his best to meet the demands of the people on the east coast. For example, South Africa sent a message to them to collect tropical trees. Without saying a word, they took their logging tools and weapons and ammunition into the forest. While dealing with the black aborigines of the Congo. While selecting stout logs and transporting them to the seashore and then exporting them to the east coast - of course, the people on the east coast gave a reasonable price to ensure that they would not suffer a loss.

Some time ago, the South African side sent a representative to Jacobs to ask these Latvians if they could try to grow sugar cane or cotton, and after careful consideration, these people decided to try to open up some sugar cane plantations, and for this reason they planned to go south to the mouth of the Congo River (near Moanda) to build the second city of the New Courland colony, the "Knights of the Order", in honor of the Knights of the Sword, who had been active in the Livonian region, and to carry out armed colonization.

When the Knights Fortress is established, the population of the entire New Courland region will reach more than 4,000 people, of which about 40% will be whites (including Latvian immigrants and German mercenaries). The rest were black vassals, and the speed of their development was astonishing, thanks to their abundant funds, which amounted to nearly 300,000 yuan a year in goods exported to the east coast (large wood, tobacco, black slaves), which strongly supported the construction of the colony.

After repurchasing 400 small black Congolese slaves from Jacobs, Li Renjun went with the ship to Recife, the capital city of Dutch Brazil, a city that made a living from the sugar industry. Of course, at this time, what city in Dutch Brazil (in fact, only the coastal towns of Recife and Olinda, and the inland areas were under the control of the Portuguese) did not make a living from sugar? The Dutch were defeated by the Portuguese because the West India Company's forces were too dispersed, but they abandoned the grain plantations, the cotton plantations, the tobacco plantations, and retreated from the interior to the coastal line. The sugar plantations have never been abandoned, and the sugar mills in the coastal cities have been in operation. Large quantities of cane sugar were produced and shipped to refineries in the Netherlands for reprocessing, which was very profitable.

Since the main economic activity is the cultivation of sugar cane and sugar extraction, the demand for slaves is naturally great. Especially in the midst of the three-day war with the Portuguese, the original slaves fled in large numbers due to the relaxation of regulations, so the Dutch urgently needed to replenish new slaves - this is why Li Renjun came here with hundreds of black Congolese.

"Mr. Bicker, it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Li Renjun, the special envoy of the East Coast Republic of China." Li Renjun took off the top hat on his head and bent down to look at Cornelis. Beekle salutes.

Cornelis, who was still wearing a thick formal suit on a hot day, took off his hat and saluted at the same time, and then grabbed Li Renjun's arm without seeing it, and said in a familiar tone: "I have been in Recife for more than a month, and God, I swear that this is the farthest sailing adventure I have ever experienced, and I have only been to New Amsterdam before." It's a thriving place, with high-quality furs and solid logs, and an abundance of fisheries. Oh yes, I loved it there, and for this I persuaded my brothers to invest in West India shares together......"

"You're at a loss." Li Renjun complained in his heart, but said: "The West India Company is a very potential enterprise and a responsible enterprise. The business community in China is also very optimistic about the prospects of your company, and even many people have the urge to invest. ”

"The West India Company is an open business, and investment is not a problem at all for our recognized friends. Your New World Friendship and Mutual Aid Bank has just invested Rp 110,000 (37,000 yuan in military funds) in the form of loans, and our East India Company has just injected Rp 1.5 million in capital before, and the West India Company is in a very healthy financial position. Conelis and Li Renjun got into an elaborate carriage—what seemed to be the production of the Southern Vehicle Factory in Merlin County—and headed straight for the city.

"The financial condition of the West India Company is crucial to stabilizing the situation in northeastern Brazil, and it is a symbol of peace and tranquility. My Government appreciates the efforts of your company for many years to bring peace and peace to the region in the north-east of Brazil, and if possible, we can also provide a second interest-free loan from our New World Friendship Bank. Li Renjun sat across from Cornelis and said in Spanish, which he was not very proficient in.

"Your country's enthusiasm is truly - amazing." After thinking about it for a long time, Cornelius didn't know what words to use to describe the East Coast people who were in a hurry to deliver the money to the door, and finally he could only use the word amazement to describe it. However, as one of the important shareholders of the West India Company, Cornelius was not unaware of the small calculations made by the people on the east coast, nothing more than he did not want to see the Portuguese take the northeast, which is the longest-developed, most populous, richest and most elite part of Brazil. However, this was not a bad thing for the Dutch West India Company, and the basis for cooperation between the two sides had existed until the fall of the Portuguese, a common enemy.

What Cornelius didn't know, however, was that the people on the east coast did not want to see Portugal unify Brazil, nor did they want to see the Dutch expand their territory here, and they did not want Portugal to be weakened so much that Britain, France, Spain and other countries flocked to South America and turned Brazil into a public colony of the great powers. Therefore, it is really not easy to grasp the degree of this, which requires keen insight, superb diplomatic skills, and strong military deterrence strength, all three of which are indispensable.

It was on this basis that the East Coasters sold large sums of arms to the West India Company on credit, and now that the Portuguese were so powerful in Brazil that it would be difficult for the West India Company to resist the pressing Portuguese if it did not invest more (in fact, there was considerable disagreement among the shareholders of the company on whether to increase the investment in Brazil).

The $37,000 loan in kind from the East Coasters came at an opportune time, as it gave strong encouragement to those who strongly advocated the preservation of Dutch Brazil Deconelis and others, making it easier for them to persuade the wavering centrists to co-finance the fight with the Portuguese. In fact, the Dutch were reluctant to give up Dutch Brazil, and after the military defeat and the forced surrender of Recife and other places, the Dutch fleet that had just ended the war with England in 1654 immediately sailed off the coast of Lisbon, and at the same time organized a large number of mercenaries to cross the sea and land in Brazil to start a full-scale war with the Portuguese. Portugal, which had not yet ended the war with Spain, could not hold on and returned the captured Dutch Brazilian lands, and the two sides were reconciled.

It can be seen that the West India Company is actually quite contradictory within itself, on the one hand, the country is now beaten badly by the British, and there is no spare strength to support the Brazilian colonies; On the other hand, they don't want to spend real money to fill the huge hole of Brazil, have they spent less money here all these years? But military setbacks again and again made them no longer dare to invest lightly, after all, no one's money is blown by the wind.

But if the people of the East Coast were willing to intervene to help, the nature of the matter would be different! After all, their strength is obvious to all, and it is definitely not an ordinary person who can easily defeat the Kingdom of Spain in two wars, they can easily mobilize a large number of supplies, mobilize a considerable number of troops, and dispatch a fleet that is enough to break the Portuguese blockade, which is too much psychological pressure on the Portuguese. The aid provided by their New World Friendly Bank was less important than that, and what frightened the Portuguese more than a formidable fleet with home field advantage?

"Can your country provide additional help beyond the material aspects?" Cornelis was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "I mean, can you help with personnel?" You know, we have been blockaded by the Portuguese repeatedly, the transfer of supplies and personnel is not very smooth, and the board of directors is hesitant to invest more, so the number of soldiers who can fight in Recife and other places is seriously insufficient. Can you help in this regard? (To be continued......)