PS: Brothers, for the sake of my recent hard work and two shifts a day, all kinds of tickets will be smashed for me. Recommended tickets and monthly passes are required, so please take care of them.

On May 11, 1633, just as Mo Ming had grown impatient and decided to return to Bordeaux, Castelli, who had just finished his service, arrived at their lodgings with two young men.

Mo Ming, who was chatting happily with the Armenian merchant Hornician, about Turkish customs, was stunned, and then went out to receive Castelli. This person is a student of Galileo, and he also has a high status in the Italian academic world at this time, and he has a wide range of connections, so Mo Ming still has to give him enough respect.

"Mo, I'm sorry I came late." "I have written a letter to my secretary, Evangelista, who admires your work and has made it clear to me that he wants to go to the East Coast for academic research. To do this, he ended a study in Padua and only returned today. Come, Evangelista, this is Mo, get acquainted. ”

With that, Castelli pulled a young man behind him in front of him.

"Hello, I'm Evangelista. Torricelli, a student of Mr. Castelli. He is 28 years old and is currently engaged in research on atmospheric pressure and mathematics. I listened to my teachers talk about your outstanding scientific achievements in all areas, and I thought that maybe going to the East Coast for a while would be very helpful in my scientific career. The "young man" behind Castelli stood up and said to Mo Ming in a friendly voice.

"On behalf of the Academy of Natural Sciences of the Republic of China, I welcome you." Mo Ming stretched out his hand and shook it with Torricari, then looked at the other teenager behind him and asked, "This is ......?"

"Ah, I almost forgot to introduce it." Castelli smiled a little annoyed. Then he introduced: "He is Vicenzzo. Viviani. My friend's child. He is only 14 years old this year, but he has shown an unparalleled talent in mathematics. I had thought I'd introduce him to Mr. Galilei in a few years, but now I find that maybe it would be more beneficial for him to study on the East Coast, and he himself would love to go there. ”

"Viviani?" Mo Ming recalled for a long time, and he didn't remember who this person was, maybe he was an unknown person, but he still stretched out his hand and shook the young man, and said with a smile: "Future mathematician." Hello. ”

The boy probably didn't understand French, but he smiled shyly.

"Finally, thank you for your help, Mo." "Teacher Galilei's physical condition does not allow him to travel long distances, and I have to help him organize his writings, so neither of us will go," said Castelli. It's a pity, and to be honest, I'd love to go to the East Coast and see this legendary place where you can freely study academics and all the academic output. Ha Lu Ha. We'll talk about that later. Well, there will be a period later. Help me take care of Evangelista and Vicenzzo. Thank you very much for your help, see you soon. ”

After saying goodbye to Castelli, Mo Ming took some of Galileo's manuscripts, as well as Frank, Holnician, Torricelli, Viviani and others, to Pisa in a horse-drawn carriage, and then rented a small sailboat to Montpellier and embarked on the journey back to Bordeaux.

South France was still calm in May. Lu Xirong's Spanish army seems to have suffered some small losses recently, and all of them have shrunk back, which has also made the journey of Mo Ming and the others much easier.

On May 30, while the First Fleet was engaged in a fierce battle with the British in the fog off the Chesapeake Bay, the dusty Mo Ming and his party finally arrived in Bordeaux via Toulouse.

The trading station of the Republic of the East Coast in Bordeaux is now more and more imposing. In the past six months, after Xu Xin's continuous construction, a medium-sized warehouse, a temporary residence square for immigrants and a sturdy castle-like building have been built on the original site. The number of children and hired men helping in the trading station has also increased to more than twenty, and in addition to them, there are several trade department employees and seven or eight intelligence bureau agents sent from the country.

As soon as Mo Ming arrived at the door of the commercial station, Sun Heiqi greeted him doggedly, took the reins of the horse, and said, "Station master, you can count it back, I am about to report to you." ”

Mo Ming threw the horsewhip into Sun Heiqi's arms, turned over and dismounted, and said, "Go and report to Minister Xu that there is something important to discuss." In addition, arrange a good accommodation for these gentlemen. ”

Soon, Xu Xin rushed out, and after hearing Mo Ming's simple description, Xu Xin was surprised and delighted. He was a little frightened of the risks of doing business with the Ottomans, and he was glad that the big market of more than 30 million people beckoned to him. But it's not a big deal, as long as Hornisian and his family can open a market in the Ottoman Empire, we can just collect money and ship the goods, and nothing else will interfere, so as to minimize the risk.

"Mr. Xu, let me make it clear that I want goods from the East Coast. Whether it's a saber, a cannon or a cotton cloth, I need it, so don't worry about it and my family selling it, and I'll give you a reasonable price. Holnichean continued his usual straightforward personality and spoke.

"In principle, the goods of our East Coast are open to all countries." Xu Xin promised, "Let's not talk about anything else, how can this delivery method be calculated?" As far as I know, those ships in your Tunisian ports in North Africa do not have the capacity to sail the oceans. At present, China's ocean shipping capacity is extremely tight, from the port of the East to Izmir, the sea route is extremely long, the whole voyage will last more than four months, and the shipping cost will be unbearable. ”

"This ...... Your country is also requested to undertake maritime transport tasks. Hornisian said with some embarrassment, "It's true that our merchant ships can only sail near the coast of the Mediterranean, and they can't tolerate ocean storms and waves, and they don't know anything about the ocean routes." Therefore, please also ask your country to take on the task of shipping, and we will compensate for this by making a slight concession in terms of price. Mr. Xu, what do you think? ”

"Hmm......" Xu Xin pretended to be silent for a while, and then nodded, sighed and said: "The market of the Ottoman Empire is extremely vast, and to tell you the truth, my country's commercial sector is still very interested in this. In this way, I will communicate and coordinate with the domestic transportation task again, and strive to squeeze out some more capacity. It's just that the price ......."

It is true that the East Coast Republic of China is now short of capacity, and the professional ocean-going shipping vessels include two Dutch flutes currently under construction on the slipway of Zhenhai Shipyard. But the problem is that the current capacity is not very tight, many customers are door-to-door pick-up, which not only saves a lot of capacity for the crossing, but also reduces all the shipping risks.

Trade with the Ottomans must have been delivered to the East Coast Republic itself, but it is not necessarily without profits. As we all know, the Ottoman Empire transited through the Ottoman Empire was several times more than Western Europe through the African route, and the ships on the return trip were loaded with Chinese silk, porcelain, tea, Indian gems, dyes, spices, Turkish handicrafts, raisins, dates, camels and other goods, and returned to La Plata and Brazil to make a fortune.

The gains and losses in this are very clear, and he just said this because of the nature of a businessman.

The next two of them were boring arguments about the prices of various commodities, Mo Ming frowned when he heard it, but he quickly thought of a key question, so he asked: "I have a question, which route does our transport ship take?" Do I mean to take the Atlantic route from Vostcheo Port to Recife to Canary Islands to Izmir, or some other route? ”

"Other routes?" Xu Xin and Hornisian asked suspiciously, almost at the same time.

Mo Ming spread his hands and said, "I'm just proposing an idea." The Atlantic route passes through the waters controlled by Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Venice and other countries, and the situation is extremely complicated. If any country shows hostility towards us, there is a high probability that our shipping routes will be cut off. Moreover, piracy is extremely rampant on this route, and it is not a small risk if there is no warship to escort it. ”

"So what do you say? What other routes? Xu Xin also had a little drum in his heart when he heard Mo Ming say this. Nowadays, there are many people who are interested in the East Coast, not to mention Spain, which has fought with the East Coast Republic. The Dutch were also not very friendly to the East Coast, both because of their support for Brazil's position and because they were both commercial competitors. In addition, not to mention the attitude of the British, as a life-and-death competitor in the textile industry, Xu Xin almost does not see any hope of reconciliation between the two sides, which is a fundamental contradiction and irreconcilable.

In this way, this so-called Atlantic route is really dangerous and fragile. The importance of overseas markets to the East Coast goes without saying, but at what cost does the Republic of the East Coast have to pay to maintain this fragile shipping lane?

"Let's think differently." Mo Ming said, "Isn't it okay to take the African route? From the port of Vostochny, sail eastward, round the Cape of Good Hope, then head north along the coast of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique, etc.), cross the Horn of Africa and enter the Red Sea, where it will finally dock at the port of Suez in the Ottoman Empire to unload cargo. This route, which I call the African route, is not much farther than the Atlantic route, and there are no miscellaneous countries and forces on the way, and there are almost no pirates, so it suits us very well. ”

"Mr. Hornisian, if our merchant ships are unloaded at the port of Suez in your country, will you and your family be able to accept it?" After hearing this, Xu Xin also felt that this route was very good, so he hurriedly asked him.

"Absolutely." Hornisian nodded and said affirmatively: "It's just that I still need to organize a caravan in Suez to transport goods to ports in the Mediterranean, which adds a lot of money, and I hope you can face this up." ”

"No problem, it's all about the details." Xu Xin said with a smile on his face. (To be continued......)