The problem of the source of cotton has finally been preliminarily solved. The Pasquier family will stay in Port Oriente for a while, then leave for Colonia and Buenos Aires before returning to the island of Haiti. At that time, the Eastern Republic will also send several representatives of the Ministry of Trade to accompany them back to the island of Haiti for an expedition. After all, seeing is believing. Of course, if they had the chance, they were also going to take the Pasquier family's boat to Bordeaux for a survey and to explore the market. France, a large country with a population of more than 18 million at this time, and a large market, absolutely cannot be ignored.

Mathilde, of the Pasquier family, bought a plot of land in the north of the city to build a high-end home for her to live in. At the same time, she also had a trading firm registered with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to sell cotton from the island of Haiti and to buy products from the port of Orient to sell back to Haiti or even Bordeaux. According to the gossip circulating in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the shareholders of this comptoir are Mr. Julien de Ebrol, a lieutenant in the navy of the Republic of China on the east coast of China, in addition to Mademoiselle Mathilde herself.

With that done, Mathilde and her brother Julien traveled to Colonia and Buenos Aires on their family's ship, the Butterfly, to visit the markets.

The Executive Committee, which had recently had an encounter with an English cloth merchant in Colonia, was also known to the Executive Committee, which, after discussion, considered that the reaction of the British to the incident should not be overestimated, but it should not be ignored.

There is no way back from this life-and-death industrial competition between the two sides, the market of La Plata is relatively small, and the British may not care too much at the initial stage, but as the East Coast Republic gradually swallows up the markets of Brazil, Chile, Upper Peru, New Granada, etc., the British will sooner or later be unable to bear it, so they will resort to force and other fierce measures against the East Coast Republic of China. This was almost inevitable, as the textile industry was one of the two major financial pillars of Britain at this time (the other being entrepot trade).

For this reason, the Executive Committee decided to speed up the allocation of funds for the battleship "10 August," which is under construction at the Dayu Hekou Naval Shipyard, from the previous 2,500 yuan per month to 5,000 yuan, in an effort to complete the project as soon as possible. At the same time, the Admiralty also put forward plans for the construction of a second battleship of the "10 August" class, the "Common Market", but it was shelved because of the excessive financial pressure and the lack of sufficient skilled craftsmen.

Navy Minister Wang Qinian has been having a very hard time lately, and the matter of deceiving the Executive Committee on the cost of ships can finally not be concealed. The Executive Committee is not a fool, and a comparison of the amount of funds allocated with the progress of the ship's construction shows that the cost of the warship is likely to be close to 100,000 yuan, not the 50,000 yuan as Wang Qinian said. This made the Executive Committee very annoyed, because the finances were already very tight, and now they have to spend tens of thousands of yuan extra to make up for the shortfall.

For this reason, Wang Qinian not only lost the important post of chief of the general staff of the national armed forces, but his reputation in the eyes of the Ministry of Finance plummeted, and he became the main culprit who dragged the Ministry of Finance step by step into the abyss of bankruptcy. Peng Zhicheng of the War Department took the opportunity to fall into the trap; this year's military expenditure of the navy and army is only 30,000 yuan, and the navy will share one dollar less for every dollar. After the completion of the Navy's battleship "10 August," the personnel and equipment needed will consume a huge amount of funds, and this will inevitably divide the army's already small military expenditure. Therefore, under such a directly related competition of interests, Peng Zhicheng began to persuade the Executive Committee to prohibit the Navy from building any new warships within two years, and at the same time, he even created a momentum to ask the Admiralty to bear the overspent shipbuilding expenses and not to crowd out the precious industrial development funds.

In order to reverse the unfavorable situation, to improve the image of the Admiralty, and more importantly, to save the precarious finances, Wang Qinian and a group of staff officers in the ministry jointly concocted an operational plan under heavy pressure and submitted it to the Executive Committee. In this plan, the navy will dispatch its only two frigate gunboats, the East Coast Eagle and the Red Trout, to the affluent Caribbean, waiting for opportunities to raid passing ships or go ashore to attack weakly defended cities and towns, mainly Spanish, without revealing their identities. Half of the wealth will be handed over to the national treasury, and the other half, except for some bonuses, will be used for the construction of naval ships and the training of talents.

After this plan was reported to the Executive Committee, all members of the Executive Committee were silenced for a while, and a heated debate ensued.

In fact, the members of the Executive Committee did not have any moral or psychological obstacles to being pirates, but were mainly concerned that the battleship "August 10th" had not yet been completed, and that the two small battleships would not be able to bargain for anything; Moreover, there is a fear of retaliation from other countries (mainly the Spaniards), especially since the two sides have just signed the peace treaty less than half a year ago, and if the Spaniards are provoked and the war resumes between the two sides, then everything that the Executive Committee has now planned, such as Mercosur, will be in vain.

But on the other hand, being a pirate is also very profitable, which is an inseparable temptation for the traversers at this stage. If a huge amount of money can be looted, then the current financial situation full of holes will be injected with a shot of strength, many projects can be carried out in large quantities, and the development of the public undertaking will also be greatly accelerated.

According to the five-year development plan being made by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce: this year, an iron-making blast furnace, a steel-making open hearth, a new arsenal, a machinery manufacturing factory, a brick kiln factory, and a honeycomb coal plant will be built near Ping'an Fort; Zhenhai Fort will build two forts and a new shipyard; In addition, industrial technology such as the research and development of steam engines, the start of the chemical industry, the introduction of various technical talents, etc., also cost a lot of money; At the same time, the dredging of the Duck Lake channel will also begin, the San Gonzalos waterway connecting Lake Milin and Duck Lake will also be widened and dredged, and the long-term plan will also start to excavate the canal project connecting Lake Mirin Lake to the south to the port of Orient and southwest to the planned iron ore mine; And it seems that the 250,000 yuan immigration fee made at the beginning of the year is too conservative. In short, there are many places to spend money, and the funds needed are very large, and the budget report made by the Ministry of Finance a year ago can be used to wipe the ass.

In short, this is a very tangled plan, on the one hand, I am afraid that my strength is not enough or will be discovered, and on the other hand, I salivate over those wealth, which is really tangled.

The number of pirates now gathering in and around the Bahamas in the Caribbean is estimated at 10,000 or 20,000. The members were from all countries, including the British, the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Norsemen, and even the Negroes, and these pirate scum gathered together and often attacked merchant ships, smuggling ships, and sometimes even gathered ashore to attack Spanish towns. The famous pirate Drake and later Morgan attacked and burned down the Spanish towns and cities, including some of the fortified cities, and their actions cost the Kingdom millions of pounds in wealth. If you send two boats and hundreds of people over, it will not be conspicuous at all to do a few cases in it, provided that you don't leave a living mouth or be abused if you don't succeed in robbery.

The large number of pirates that gather here is also a resource in a sense. These pirate members were wanted in various countries at this time, because they even robbed their own ships. These people could not return to their homeland, so they either spent money in some pirate den, drunk and dreamed of death, and spent all the money they had earned in exchange for their lives, and then died in obscurity in poverty and illness one day; Either they are waiting for the faint opportunity of the king's amnesty, hoping to take this opportunity to return home with their wealth.

These people you just need to give them an official status, and some of them who have earned enough money are likely to rush to settle on the East Coast, on the one hand, these people are rare naval talents, and on the other hand, they can also bring a lot of wealth to the East Coast Republic, and there is no reason to give up.

The advantages and disadvantages were obvious, and the members of the Executive Committee had no choice but to vote by show of hands. The final vote showed that among the 11 members of the Executive Committee, the desire for funds urgently needed for national construction prevailed, and 6 of the 11 members voted in favor, 3 against, and 2 abstained, and the proposal was formally adopted.

Immediately after the adoption of the proposal, the Admiralty began intensive preparations, and they first carried out the transformation of the battleship "Red Trout". The ship had been captured by the Spaniards with 16 brass guns, and its firepower was mediocre. From the end of August last year to the present, the navy has not added any other guns, except for two 12-pounder steel guns in the bow and stern, and the brass guns have not had time to be replaced. This time, the Admiralty was ready to seize the time to replace all these brass guns, which were lagging behind in performance, with steel guns. It is expected that four 24-pounder guns, four 18-pounder guns and four 12-pounder guns can be installed on each side of the ship, and when all of them are replaced, the 400-ton battleship will have a powerful firepower of 28 guns, which is enough to show off its might in front of ordinary warships.

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