In April 1653, just as the eastern coast was busy with the autumn harvest, it was common to see two or three warships on the east coast of Brazil, from São Vicente to General Pernambuco. Occasionally, there were merchant ships laden with goods, which were East Coast ships supplying Dutch Brazil, and they often returned with goods such as sugar, timber, and dried fruit. In this way, in the eyes of the Portuguese resentful and unwilling, the East Coasters openly intervened in this armed conflict on their doorstep.

It's so nice to bully the weak! Even Gao Mo, who is known for his "calcium deficiency symptoms", has a psychological advantage in the face of Portugal, the most backward country in Western Europe, in the face of Portugal, the most backward country in Western Europe, with the continuous improvement of the country's comprehensive strength. This sense of superiority has reached its peak after a temporary "understanding" was reached with the other side and trade between the two countries was reopened.

"Portugal, the last part of Western Europe to resist the Romans, the last country to be incorporated into the Visigothic Empire, the last country to adopt the Christian calendar, the last country to adopt titles of nobility in line with other regions, is doomed to be eliminated by history." Holding the memorandum of understanding in his hand, Gao Mo looked at Blanco, Vieira and the others who turned to leave, and thought with a lot of emotion in his heart.

At this moment, the Portuguese, who were quickly leaving the East Coast at the San Vicente trading station, were also discussing something in a solemn atmosphere.

"The development of events has taught us and told us that the most effective way now is for Joao to cater and adapt to this 'rogue state' and tolerate their fraud, duplicity and other bad behaviors, because it is clear that this will save us from ruin." Blanco said with a complicated expression. "You saw it too. The East Coasters had only briefly left San Vicente. Trade in this area has been greatly damaged, and many merchants have been impoverished by poor capital turnover. In addition, the customs tax has also been reduced a lot, in short, the impact of trade is quite significant, after all, the east coast is a market with a population of 400,000, and the inhabitants of this market generally have strong purchasing power. ”

"It's time for His Majesty to change the strategic focus." Vieira snorted heavily and complained: "Our country has a population of just over a million people, but from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan in the Far East, in this vast area that stretches for 5,000 leagues. We almost want to grab something, and we don't want to let anything go beyond our control. It's bad, really bad! We do not have the ability to calculate ourselves, we are blinded by huge profits, we are carried away by the constant stream of victories. In fact, with the national strength and population of our country, this conquest cannot last forever. Now our overseas colonies are being strongly challenged by the British and Dutch, and sometimes even some French pirates come to us for trouble, but we can do nothing about it, because we control far more territory than we can handle. ”

"Your Majesty should turn all your energy to Brazil!" Felipe, who had been silent beside him and did not speak. Kamalaud said suddenly. The Kamalao was the chief of a medium-sized Indian tribe. With Portuguese roots, his tribe was "successfully domesticated" by the Portuguese from top to bottom. All day long for the benefit of Portugal. In the war with the Dutch for the northeastern part of Brazil, they fought with Enrique. Dias's black forces were also one of the backbone of the Portuguese army, and after several battles, they managed to become part of the ruling class in Portuguese Brazil.

"That's right, His Majesty Joao should do everything in his power to build his 'Atlantic Empire', not some 'Indian Ocean Empire'!" Vieira was a rare echo of Camalau, who he considered of a man of inferior blood, only to hear him say: "In Asia, we should give up as much as we need, and then shrink all our forces to the coast of East Africa." If this is not possible, the coast of East Africa should also be abandoned, so as to free up manpower, material resources, financial resources, and military resources to fully protect our Atlantic Empire. Within this vast colonial empire, we should have Brazil as the centre of construction, with Luanda, Benguela and a number of other West African colonies as subordinates. This is not alarmism, in fact we are now neighbouring the two rogue states of the Netherlands, the East Bank, so that our peace is in jeopardy, both of which have strong expansion**, and we have to be wary of this. ”

"Without Brazil, we would have lost precious sources of sugar, cotton, tobacco, cocoa, wood for shipbuilding, lovely dyes, and we would be nothing. On top of that, our efforts in Asia have been difficult, costly, and costly from a distance perspective. Rather than this, it is better to abandon the damned Ceylon, the East Indies and the Malabar Coast, hand them over to the Dutch East India Company, which is attacking us, and we will evacuate! Just like when we evacuated Malacca City, we didn't want it, and we gave it to the Netherlands! You know, the Netherlands has a population of less than 1.8 million, and the bigger the territory they occupy and the more routes they control, the more scattered their energy will be, and the more they will not be able to compete with us in Brazil! ”

Vieira's casual complaint speaks to the essence of Portugal's thinking for the future development of the country, which is to give up some territory beyond its reach, establish where its core interests are, and then focus on management. Of course, from the 60s of the 17th century, the nobility of the Kingdom of Portugal did more thoroughly: they fell on the thigh of the British, not only married the sister of King Alfonso VI to King Charles II of England, but also gave all kinds of privileges to British merchants in Portugal, attracting a large number of British Protestant investment (later the newly formed Brazilian head office had a large amount of Protestant capital), this thigh-hugging behavior was honestly extremely successful. Because it was one of the most important factors in Portugal's ability to retain a large number of colonies into the later 20th century.

To be honest, the Portuguese aristocracy is not without strategic talent, in fact they have been making some changes over the years. For example, after the liberation of Portugal, the trade network through Manila was suddenly broken, and the Portuguese had to undertake the reconstruction of the eastern trade network independently. After a few years of restorative development, a large number of Portuguese merchant ships from Asia have begun to anchor in the Bay of El Salvador, bringing textiles, silk, porcelain, spices, precious stones and other goods from Asia.

In the past, there was no market for these goods in Brazil, but in recent years, with the development of the Brazilian economy and the increase of the population, many luxury goods have also become marketable. In addition, the large quantities of Indian cotton textiles smuggled by the sailors of these merchant ships themselves also formed a certain competition with the textiles of the East Coast, because many black and Indian slaves in Brazil wore such crude and cheap Indian textiles.

In addition, the Portuguese government had temporarily waived the requirement for ships from the colonies to sail directly to Lisbon - they had previously required ships destined for the colonies to sail directly to Lisbon on their return voyages, and not to stop at any port on the way, in order not to lose the country's customs revenues, but now this law was dead in name - ships from the colonies of Macao, Goa, Sofala, Mozambique, Luanda, Benguela, Brazil, and other colonies were allowed to temporarily dock in the Gulf of El Salvador in Brazil.

This decree has not been in place for long, but it has actually contributed to the prosperity of the Brazilian economy, and many people with insight can already see signs of this in some small details. Vieira was one of them, and ships from Africa loaded with ivory, leather, wood, jewelry, and black slaves that were considered important possessions in Portuguese Brazil, ships from Asia loaded with luxury goods and Indian textiles, and ships from other parts of Brazil loaded with Brazilian produce, undoubtedly contributed to the overall prosperity of the Brazilian economy, which was undoubtedly a joy for Vieira, a family of sugar tycoons with local roots.

In addition, the supra-national treatment granted to Britain also attracted quite a number of British businessmen, which undoubtedly opened up another channel for the sale of Brazilian sugar. All in all, Brazil is on the fast track to development with the Portuguese government's policy shifts, consciously or unconsciously, which may be a little slow at this stage (because changing a country's national policy is not such a simple thing, and with Portugal's backward system, it has taken them 20-30 years to change historically), but Brazil is undoubtedly seeing the light of hope.

"Brazil is still very weak and the East Coast people are so strong, which makes it all the more necessary for us to be careful in dealing with such incidents. Behold, the people of the East Coast are so arrogant that they want to fill this sea with warships, cut off our trade routes, and deplete us. Vieira turned his head to look out the window at the gunboats on the east coast that were still cruising slowly on the sea, and said: "We can't let them get what they want, we have to work hard to develop the Brazilian economy, move more people to Brazil, build our fortresses and fortresses, and build a fleet that will bring us security, which is very important!" ”

"Go back, go to Governor Silva in El Salvador, it's time for us to talk about the future of Brazil." This rich land must be valued and invested by His Majesty the King, otherwise the same disgrace as today will be repeated in the days to come, I am sure. Vieira concluded, "Your Excellency the Doge has been forced to reopen trade under the gunboats of the people on the east coast, and it is better not to have such a subservience to the infidels in the future. (To be continued......)

PS: Continue to recommend the same "Looking West: From China to the East Coast" written by the book friend Lao Liang, http://www./Book/3485354.aspx