While Wagner was still in the New World for a series of consultations with the East Coast government, far away in the port of Riga in the Old World, an East Coast official in his thirties was sorting through papers in his dark, damp office.

The original trading station is currently uninhabitable due to renovation and decoration, so the people of the East Coast temporarily rented a nearby villa and acted as a temporary window to the outside of the trading station to deal with some commercial affairs - of course, the secret intelligence gathering task has not been left behind, but this is not enough for outsiders.

The temporary person in charge of the merchant station is named Zhao Gui, who was born as an immigrant in the Ming Kingdom, and he is also a strange person. This person was originally an idle man in Panyu County, Guangzhou, perhaps because of his ancestors, and received a relatively strict education since he was a child, but unfortunately it is not the material for reading, and he can't get a reputation in the exam. Later, the family fell into the middle of the road, and this person had no choice but to find a job as a copyist to support his family, which was not difficult.

Later, the warships on the east coast sailed into the mouth of the Pearl River, and successively set up strongholds in Yaniang Shoe Fort, Haizhu Island and other places, and the momentum gradually rose, attracting the attention of many people, and this Zhao Gui was naturally one of them. When it was Shi Ye, after hearing that the people on the east coast claimed to be descendants of the former Song Dynasty and Miao and were orthodox in China, this Zhao Gui had a crooked mind, and even ran directly to the door, claiming that he was a descendant of the former Song royal family, and asked the people on the east coast to pay for it, which made people stunned for a while.

Of course, it was impossible for the people on the east coast to let this guy mess around like this, so he was directly arrested, first punished with hard labor on Haizhu Island for three months to build a fort, and then he was lucky to immigrate to the east coast with others and start a new life. And perhaps because Haizhu Island was cleaned up by the people on the east coast, Zhao Gui came to the east coast and realized that he studied hard and worked hard, starting from an ordinary clerk in a pioneer township, and was promoted to two levels in ten years, and became a section-level cadre.

Later, following his old superiors, he left his homeland and traveled thousands of miles across the ocean to the Riga trading station, where he became a commercial official, a job he held for four years. In four years, Zhao Gui has been promoted to another level with his excellent language talent and hard-working work style, and when several main leaders of the commercial station were either transferred or died of illness, he even temporarily acted as the main work of the commercial station, which is also amazing.

Today, after Zhao Gui handled some business matters in a familiar way, he flipped through some of the information that the people below had just sent over. The information was related to Livonia, from Germany, from Poland, and of course from Sweden and Russia.

What Zhao Gui is reading now is about Russia, the source is a merchant who traded with Poland, Sweden and Russia, the credibility is average, but it can be regarded as a confirmation, which can be compared with the news they have from other sources, and it still has some reference value.

For example, the news that Zhao Gui has now in hand was provided by a Swedish merchant who has been trading with Russia for many years. He himself bought woolen wool from the East Coast from the Riga merchant post and sold it to remote areas of Russia on the border with Sweden. At the same time, one of his uncles was a businessman who sold high-quality iron ore from Sweden to Russia, and the business was not small, and there were naturally many sources of information. Therefore, the businessman's intelligence is generally relatively reliable, and the standard of remuneration paid to him by the people on the East Coast is relatively high.

In the news, the Swedish businessman admitted frankly: The recent surge in the amount of Swedish iron ore imported by the Russians, and the hiring price of military personnel from Western countries have also increased rapidly, all of which indicate that the Russians seem to be starting a new round of strengthening the army, and I don't know for what purpose.

Zhao Gui read the businessman's self-report, and then checked the number of arms and military materials exported from the East Bank to the Russian Empire in the past year, and found that it had also increased by more than 40%. This is an unusual number, and at the same time a dangerous number, and when taken together, the Russians are probably really interested in the land on the front line of Sweden, Germany, and Poland, and have begun a certain degree of arms expansion. Although it hasn't been fought yet, it is likely that 200,000 troops will be killed directly next time, so I ask you if you are afraid!

Of course, the war of arms expansion cannot be accomplished overnight. Just a few years after the dispute with the Turks in Ukraine ended, tens of thousands of elite Russian troops of Duke Romodanovsky were still stationed in eastern Ukraine. In this case, the Russians do not say that they can turn around, and their financial resources may not be enough to support a long-term battle on two fronts. Of course, Zhao Gui also knows that it is impossible for Russia to attack Sweden or Poland in the west immediately, but some of the meanings behind this news are worth pondering, and of course they are also worthy of pride: last year (1682), Gao Wengang, the plenipotentiary envoy to Europe on the east coast, ordered the use of important diplomatic resources to lobby Moscow to change its strategic focus and adjust the direction of its southern expansion to the west, that is, to abandon the Ottoman Turkish Empire as an enemy, and turn to attack Sweden and Poland, and obtain access to the Baltic Sea—— Of course, it will be mainly the Swedes who will face the Russians, as Poland has only one seaport city, Danzig.

The other piece of news is still about Russia. A local Livonian merchant claimed that in the middle of last year he had received a "tour group" from Austria of more than 20 people, but it was suspected to be a diplomatic mission of the Kingdom of Austria, which is evident from many details, and that the Duchy of Courland had also sent people to protect them.

"Damn it! The Austrian mission appeared in Mitau and the Duchy of Courland didn't inform us, damn it! Zhao Gui was a little scolded as soon as he saw the news, and at the same time felt that he was emotionally "hurt", the Gayin Riga Merchant Station usually takes care of this country very much, and gives them a lot of benefits within the scope of their authority, but in exchange for this return, it is really unreasonable!

However, considering that in the middle of last year, it was the time when Jacob, the eldest Duke of the Duchy of Courland, died and the new Grand Duke Frederick succeeded to the throne, and the whole country was in chaos, so they can be forgiven to a certain extent, but they must give a reasonable explanation, otherwise they will consider adjusting the policy in the future and cutting a part of the share of goods wholesaled to them, anyway, they have not been particularly active in promoting East Coast goods in recent years, although this situation has changed to a certain extent since the second half of last year.

But curse to curse, the Austrians sent a mission to Moscow, and the implications of this are undoubtedly very intriguing. Zhao Gui has studied in the Dayuhe Cadre Training School system for several years, and has also experienced a lot of positions in his work, and he still has some relevant experience, so it will suddenly come to mind that maybe the Austrians want to form a long-term strategic alliance with Moscow and jointly flank the great enemy of Ottoman Turkey.

There is no doubt that this Austrian proposal must have had a great deal of appeal to Moscow, because it was in the common interests of both countries, but not in the interests of the Ottomans and the east coast. Zhao Gui specially pulled out this document and wrote the words "immediate verification" with a pen in the upper right corner, intending to let the merchant station mobilize resources and send people to verify this news. At the same time, of course, this document and Zhao Gui's disposition will also be copied to Ambassador Cai at the Iron Mansion in London, and his superiors will determine whether to take further action to interfere with the alliance tendencies of Austria and Russia.

"It's a pity that our influence on these continental countries is still too weak. Fleet blocking the door is like a boot tickle for these rough-skinned and unresponsive countries, but it is different for maritime countries such as Portugal, Venice, and Gena, which are extremely dependent on foreign trade, and a fleet can simply make them kneel down and kiss your boots. Zhao Gui slapped the table with his right hand and said with some unhappiness.

His words are actually to the point, and the annoyance of mainland countries is here. The blockade of the coastline is not without an impact on them, but this kind of loss is acceptable to them, even if the Kingdom of France, where the maritime trade is more developed, if you really ignore it, the blockade will still have no effect. Although Zhao Gui used to mix very poorly in Guangzhou Mansion, to the point of pretending to be a descendant of the former Song royal family, his brain is still relatively flexible, and after studying and practicing for so many years, he has made progress in rebirth, and he sees these problems very accurately.

Strictly speaking, if you really want to deal with a mainland country, you have to be another mainland country. For example, the Austrians thought of using Russia to balance Turkey, and the French allied with the Turks to deal with the German coalition led by the Habsburgs a world ago.

Of course, as an out-and-out maritime country that focuses on overseas colonization and trade, the East Coast Republic of China is not capable of going so far for the time being. Although some chess pieces have been laid out in advance, they are all preventive, and their first strategy is to attack those maritime countries that have a more direct impact on the interests of the east coast, such as Portugal, England, Geno*a, Venice, Spain and other countries. As for the fact that during this period, the mainland countries have played dog brains and the situation has undergone major changes, but they can only do their best and see their luck!

"Although our country has been operating in the Baltic Sea for many years, in the final analysis, its strength is still too weak for the army to send here, and the warships have not come once. With such influence, it's no wonder that even the hardcore little brother Kurlan is eye-to-eye with the United Province, as soon as someone has an emergency, you can't save it, you can only scold and scold people in the air, that top fart! In the end, he was born in the wilderness, although he received a lot of education the day after tomorrow, Zhao Gui still didn't like what he said: "I hope to get a military base from the Portuguese as soon as possible, people themselves are willing to do it, and the local people are still there to ink and ink, are you tired!" Regardless of the army for the time being (one or two battalions of men and horses can't change the overall situation), this naval strength is really strengthened. The Cape Verde detachment of the First Fleet should have at least 20 or more professional warships, well, Cape Verde is still far away, and a Portuguese detachment should be formed, which may be more deterrent, although it is also easier to be attacked by others. ”

Many of the documents that followed were trivial, some about Livonia, some about the Kingdom of Poland, some about the Kingdom of Sweden, and some about Germany, and on the whole they were rather nonsense, and some of them even contradictory. However, Zhao Gui didn't think it was strange, no valuable intelligence funds were shamefully wasted, because the information collected from the businessmen was so chaotic, and those people themselves were not professional intelligence officers, and they didn't have to be responsible for anyone, and they just relayed hearsay to the people on the east coast to make a sum of money, and it was conceivable that the quality was uneven.

Zhao Gui quickly approved a batch of these pieces of information, wrote and drew a few times on each document, and lowered the level of some businessmen who provided inferior information several times in a row (which means that the money paid to this informant may be less next time), and then put down the pen and pondered quietly.

Now, the Ottoman Turkish troops that were originally gathered in Hungary have probably been drawn in batches, right? Mustafa, the adopted son of the Koprulu family, was not prestigious enough after all, unable to suppress the generals who did not take him very seriously, and was held hostage by these militants, and sent troops to the heart of Austria when the conditions were completely immature, to see if he could make a big deal.

To tell the truth, the most taboo thing to do when marching and fighting is this kind of thing of temporarily changing combat objectives and increasing the weight indiscriminately. Before sending troops, the Ottoman Empire had originally been prepared to solve the problem of Hungary's increasing tilt towards Austria, and the money, food, grass and materials prepared were also prepared for this purpose. As a result, when the gathered 200,000 horses defeated the scarce Austrian army and the Hungarian servant army, it was unbelievable that the French envoys were moved to temporarily attack Austria itself. You must know that the 200,000 Ottoman troops who attacked Hungary were already in the process of successively squadring divisions, and almost 50,000 men from all over the country had returned to their hometowns after being plundered, and only more than 100,000 people remained in Hungary, of which only half were soldiers.

And now that there is a variable of Russia in Northern Europe, things are even more complicated! You know, if Russia suddenly sends troops south, then the impact on the Ottoman Empire is simply catastrophic, and the line of the South Russian Plain may collapse at any time, after all, it is unrealistic to expect the Crimean Khanate to alone carry the Russian-Ukrainian coalition army, which may be as high as more than 150,000.

"If the Ottomans see a good thing in Hungary, they will receive it!" Zhao Gui finally lamented.