On February 1, 1687, with a shrill whistle, two small 150-ton offshore/inland steamers swaggered into the port of Valdivia.

When the Spanish official at the port saw the East Coast flag flying high on the mast of the ship, his legs first weakened by three points, and when he saw a group of armed soldiers with loaded guns on the ship, he lost even the courage to face it, and directly asked his subordinates to negotiate with the East Coast side, and went directly back to the dock office to "rest".

The people of Valdivia knew that these East Coast soldiers were not the ones in their own city who couldn't even dress uniformly. They came from a regular unit called the Twelfth Mixed Battalion, which was far from being able to compete with them in terms of advanced equipment, frequent training, and high morale.

These small steamers from the east coast were not the first day of violation of the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Spain. When they sailed to the port for the first time, the Spaniards were stunned and thought they were here to do business, but when they saw that they ignored them and drove straight upstream, they didn't know where they were going, and they were in a hurry.

But what's the use of being in a hurry? Valdivia does not have a decent coastal defense battery now, and the Royal Government's investment in the Pacific side is really outrageously low, almost all the money is thrown into the Caribbean, did they really entrust the defense of the Pacific side to the Third Fleet of the people on the east coast? What does that look like!

In this way, the little steamer of the people on the east coast was on its way all the way, and no one dared to stop them, so they drove far upstream, and then docked at the port to unload the goods, and the goods were taken away by a team of mules and horses coming from the land. The Spaniards closely monitored the whole process, and their cavalry even approached only a few dozen meters from the river bank, but because of the drive of the army soldiers on the east bank, they did not dare to come forward to question, but it was enough for them to understand the whole story.

It turned out that the evil people on the east coast actually took a fancy to the good navigation conditions of the Valdivia and Caye Kaye rivers, and wanted to take advantage of them, and transported a large amount of goods inland by boats, and then the local people who crossed the border to collect them. In this way, a large number of urgently needed materials for reclamation - especially some clumsy materials - can be delivered to the people in need at the fastest speed and lowest cost, supporting their reclamation efforts on this land.

It was only then that the Spaniards came to their senses, but they were powerless to stop it. With a deep understanding of the strong power of the East Coast, they are trying their best to avoid anything that has a direct conflict all the time, so that they are forced to "cut sausages" by the East Coast people step by step, and they are embarrassed. You see, when the first time the small steamer on the east bank sailed into the Valdivia River, what was the reaction of the port of Corral, which served as the outer harbor and barrier of the city? Sorry, no response!

The city was occupied by the East Coasters during the war between the East and the West, and the forts were destroyed, and the Spaniards rebuilt it after the peace. But the rebuilt fort was controlled by a group of cowardly soldiers, who did not dare to fire at the ships of the people on the east coast, and let them swagger into the Valdivian River, although they were brave in the face of pirates.

And the people of the east coast, after tasting the sweetness of using the Valdivia and Cajekaye rivers to transport goods, immediately became out of control. It is a great irony that their ships now come almost once a week, most of the time to carry goods and sometimes people, so that more and more people from the east coast farm, log and fish in the central valley of the interior, surpassing the achievements of the Spanish kingdom in more than 100 years of colonization in just a few years.

Valdivia, of course, reported this violation of their sovereignty on the east coast to Lima, but they never expected any solidarity from Peruvian Governor Arango, who presumably acted as if nothing had happened. Pretending not to be seen has been the consistent policy of colonial officials at all levels in the Viceroyalty of Peru over the years.

But who would have thought that the people of the East Coast would not even give them a chance to pretend to be ostriches! No, just yesterday, several envoys came from the south, and it is said that Zhao Ke, the commissioner of the South Chile Regional Administration of the Republic of the East Bank, was sent to discuss with the Valdivian side the dredging and dredging of the Valdivia and Cajecaje rivers.

What the fuck is this! Is there anything more ridiculous than the rivers in the territory of the Kingdom of Spain, and you people on the east coast come to you to say that they want to be dredged and dredged, or to make it easier for their own ships to sail? Has the Government of the Kingdom of Spain invited you here? Have you been awarded any dredging contracts? Undoubtedly, none!

So it's quite speechless for the people on the east bank to do this, especially the officials in Valdivia, who don't know how sensitive these rivers are to the inland rivers. There was no way to be forced into by the small steamer on the east coast before, but now it will help you dredge and desilt so that your larger ships can drive in? We're not that stupid. You know, the Cayetaye River stretches upstream to the foothills of the Andes, and there are many large and small silver mines in the middle. Most of them have been mined for decades, some even hundreds of years, and although the amount of silver produced in a single month is not much, it is not a small amount of money cumulatively.

I believe that if it weren't for the infamous East Coast people who broke into this river of silver, these guys would dare to join forces to kill you! Historically, the envoys who came to inspect the actual production of the silver mines in Valdivia, either by order of the monarch of Madrid or by the viceroy of Peru, were either bought by local authorities or died unexplained, and these lawless fellows could have done absolutely anything to defend their property!

But the problem is that it's the East Coasters who threaten their property, and that's not a problem! At the forefront of trade with the East Coast, every Spanish with a modicum of common sense in Chile knew that the East Coast Army, especially their Army, was a vicious group of people who were ruthless in dealing with what they considered enemies. In the case of this eradication of the Araucan Indians in southern Chile (this was an agreement between the two governments), the only way to deal with any disobedient and recalcitrant tribe was to exterminate all of them, leaving no one behind! Those who went to the scene were terrified, and after the victory of the battle, the soldiers of the East Bank Army, armed with the rifles of the last bayonet, pursued the Araukans everywhere unhurriedly, and then stabbed them to the ground one by one, and the earth and rivers were stained red with blood. The only people who were pardoned were the Araukan tribes, who had surrendered before the battle began, and they would be taken to the coast by the east coasters, and then loaded onto ships to South Africa to compete with the blacks for land under the sun and become part of the yellow-black dividing line.

To this day, it is said that there are still two infantry companies and one cavalry company of officers and soldiers on the east bank, operating in the mountains and river valleys of south-central Chile, clearing out the few remaining Araucan Indians. This was part of the cooperation between the East Bank Government and the Viceroy of Peru in exchange for their acquiescence to the establishment of prison settlements north of the Boundary River.

Therefore, the Spaniards in the south-central region of Chile really intuitively recognized the combat effectiveness of the East Coast Army. Therefore, these guys who dared to scare the sky and the air for the sake of the silver mines, and even dared to kill the investigators sent from above, did not dare to scare the people of the East Coast, because they knew that the people of the East Coast would really take action against them, including force measures - they did not want to sleep in the middle of the night when the soldiers of the East Coast with rifles came down from the sky, kicked open their doors a few times, and then put the bayonet on their necks, that would be too bad.

Therefore, although several people on the east bank were shameless and sent people to discuss the dredging of the Valdivia River and the Cajekaye River, they could not categorically refuse, so they could only pinch their noses and admit it, and at the same time scolded Governor Arango, who actually asked the East Bank Army to enter the country to help clear out the disobedient Indians, and now they are still not leaving, what should you do?

The two sides talked in Valdivia for more than half a month, but nothing was discussed. After learning that the Spaniards had not reported to Lima at all, the East Coast representative was furious and simply stopped talking to them, and returned directly to the South Chile Regional Administration to report to Commissioner Zhao Kezhao.

Zhao Ke's attitude towards these Spaniards was both angry and funny, and then he made a decision, regardless of what those poor Spaniards thought, to dredge the Valdivia River and the Caye Caye River himself, and forgive those people and dare not stop them. It just so happens that there is now a special fund for "wearing a hat" in the account of the regional administrative office, which was originally intended to be used to dredge the Jiehe River (Bueno River), but this river has a fatal weakness, that is, the strange rocks near the estuary, the shallow siltation, the amount of work is very large, and it is not suitable for a port. Zhao Ke really can't think of any place where the transportation money can be used, except for the dredging and dredging of the Maolin River in southern Chile, which now has a large irrigated agricultural area on both sides of the river, which produces huge amounts of wheat, soybeans and pasture every year, and gradually becomes the second largest barn in southern Chile after the island of Fenggu.

Now, the Valdivia River, the Cajekaye River, came into his eyes. He only made a slight comparison on the map of the locations of Valdivia, the Four Forts of the Corps, the Red Flag Prison, Villarica, and several small silver and mercury mines, and immediately abandoned the original immature idea of dredging the Jiehe River, intending to use the money allocated by the Transportation Lottery Fund to Valdivia. Anyway, in his opinion, those areas will be the territory of the East Coast Republic of China in the future, and there is basically no difference between developing one day earlier and one day later, so there is no need to think too much.

Based on this thinking, he made a decision almost in the shortest possible time, and then ordered the various departments to start operating, and the contract for the dredging work has been awarded to an engineering company under the Canal Bureau of the Ministry of Communications (formerly the Canal Affairs Office), they have a professional "Qingtang Army" series of dredging vessels, and the experience is also very rich, and the price is even lower, so the contract was awarded by the regional administration at the first time.

As for that this kind of behavior may cause protests from Spaniards and then affect the relations between the two countries, Zhao Ke is not worried at all. He was a mid-level official in the government, and of course he knew the situation in various parts of Europe today, and knew that the French army was still encroaching on the territory of the Southern Netherlands in the Kingdom of Spain, and the court of Madrid was panicked and was trying to contact allies everywhere. And the East Coast Republic of China, which had beaten them up and helped them "selflessly" in recent decades, was naturally the object of the Spanish kingdom's efforts to win over them, so it is conceivable that they did not want to conflict with the East Coast now.

In fact, there are many such moments in history, and it seems that the people on the east coast have always been able to seize various interests including territory and commerce through the crisis of the Kingdom of Spain in Europe. The Spaniards also tried to try to reverse this unfavorable situation, but failed each time, mainly because they were in too much trouble in Europe, and there were so many enemies eyeing them that they could be attacked if they did nothing, so what else is there to say? Let's keep our European homeland for now, and then find a way to do the rest, as long as the people on the East Coast don't touch their wallets.

This attitude of the Kingdom of Spain is now known even to the local officials on the east bank, so Zhao Ke openly ordered the violation of the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Spain and the dredging of the Valdivia and Cajecaje rivers. Once these two rivers are dredged, boats can drive directly from the sea to places very close to the Andes, then they can directly contact the more affluent counties such as Dingnan and Luyang on the other side of the mountain, which greatly facilitates the exchange of materials on both sides of the mountain.

And if you take into account that the central government may spend money to build a special railway for the transportation of wool in Patagonia, which has been hotly discussed for many years, then the value of this is even greater! The wool transportation line, said to be transporting wool, can't it transport other goods? There is no doubt that this railway can transport all kinds of supplies from the Atlantic coast to the area of Dingnan County at a very low cost, and then transfer them to the west of the mountain through mule and horse teams. Not to mention the canal's benefits in connecting the two sides of the mountain range and eliminating centrifugism, if any, in the Chilean region far from the core of the mainland. At this level of politics, does the opinion of the Spaniards matter?