And just as Oleg Naryshkin was taking the Star of La Plata train to the port of Yancheng, the governor of the Principality of Courland in the port of Jacob, Leon Wolfgang Wagner, also arrived at the port of Nancun by boat from the northern metropolis of Ping'an County.

This time he came to the East Coast with more than twenty followers, originally to procure some machinery and equipment to increase the level of productivity in the colony of New Courland. Because of the influx of a large number of French Huguenots in previous years, New Courland has many craftsmen, scholars, accountants, merchants, and navigators overnight, and the overall level has been raised by more than one level, so that it has been able to carry out further development, that is, to introduce a large number of machinery and equipment from the east coast to improve the efficiency of industrial and agricultural production.

In the first half of last year, due to the turmoil in the Ottoman Empire, a large number of Jews also traveled to the Southern New World through various channels. The vast majority of them were rejected from the East Coast and, like the Huguenots, moved to New Courland, where they settled and lived.

These people, like the French Protestants, were relatively high-quality immigrants, and they brought much-needed capital, technology, and business knowledge to New Courland, which further strengthened Governor Wagner's self-confidence, and he began to plan to introduce steam engines and various traditional equipment from the east coast in large quantities, and to realize the mechanization of the production of many mills, lumber mills, building materials factories, seafood processing plants, tanneries, and plantations in New Courland.

And before that, Governor Wagner did not dare to do such delusions. Due to the low level of technology in their country and the limited number of places to study and train on the east coast, they have only built a small-scale Jacob arsenal in recent years to produce some supporting parts and ammunition for local and foreign ships (in fact, it mainly supplies the navy on the east coast, which is a small logistics base for people on the east coast in the Congo River valley), and it can barely be regarded as mechanized production. In addition, other workshops and factories are relatively backward, and they are very reluctant to be semi-mechanized, and most of them are still in the human mode, that is, they mainly produce through the enslavement of cheap Congolese black slaves.

Governor Wagner knew, of course, that the use of advanced mechanized production by large enterprises on the east coast across the Atlantic was far more efficient than the "small village workshops" of New Courland, which enslaved black slaves, and even cheaper production costs. However, due to the lack of talents in New Courland, once the imported East Coast machine is damaged for various reasons, it cannot be repaired, and it often becomes a pile of broken copper and iron, and the huge investment cannot see the benefits, so the enthusiasm for the introduction of advanced equipment is not very high.

But things seem to be a little different now. The proportion of new Huguenots and Jews among craftsmen, high-level craftsmen, and even researchers in related trades was relatively high, and after the initial integration, the New Courland colony had a certain confidence to introduce advanced equipment in large quantities. At the very least, these advanced craftsmen can use imported East Coast machines to machine many parts and repair some broken equipment after a simple training. And in mathematics, geometry, mechanical scholars can also try to reverse deconstruct the East Coast machine, although it may be difficult to imitate, but can cultivate a large group of reserve talents, daily maintenance, maintenance of the machine is in place.

You know, these talents are skilled craftsmen that even the British covet. If the stupid French have driven them out of the country, and the people on the East coast have picked and picked on them and even rejected them, then New Courland is not welcome. Governor Wagner has been reading newspapers and books on the East Coast for many years, and knows that gold, silver, copper, iron, and coal are resources, and the experience and intelligence of this high-level talent are also resources, and they are even more in demand, so they have taken action to introduce them in a big way despite French trade sanctions. Now it seems that it is indeed a good deal!

Therefore, in view of this consideration, Governor Wagner, after taking stock of the financial statements for the year 1688 and finding that there was a large surplus in the accounts, immediately moved to the east coast to purchase a large quantity of machinery and equipment (of course, the part allowed for export) to bring back to Jacobs and improve the level of local industrial production.

Governor Wagner arrived on the east coast at the beginning of this year (1689). However, when he was buying machinery in Ping'an County, he suddenly got appendicitis and abdominal pain, so he had to be urgently admitted to the famous Ping'an Memorial Hospital, where he was operated on by Dong'an doctors, which turned the corner.

It was also the first time Governor Wagner knew of his illness, and it was also the first time he saw modern East Coast hospitals and advanced medical equipment. When he was anesthetized with ether gas and fell unconscious, surgeons at Heian Memorial Hospital quickly and neatly removed the lesion, and the operation was very successful.

Of course, Governor Wagner's luck seems to be very good. He has been exercising all year round and often practicing fencing with the guards, and his physical fitness is also very good, even though he is not young, he still managed to survive the risk period after the operation, and the wound was not infected, which is very lucky.

After this incident, Governor Wagner became more superstitious and admired everything on the East Coast, and he not only wrote his experience to many friends in the form of letters, boasting about everything on the East Coast, but also became more determined to buy advanced machinery and equipment on the East Coast, and spent more money for this, of course, the first thing allowed to be exported by the East Coast.

Governor Wagner stayed in Ping'an County, Xihu County, and Zhen'an County for almost half a month. After leaving a few of his right-hand men to sign the purchase agreement, he himself sailed south to La Plata on the clipper of the Nanhai Liner Company, arriving at the port of Nancun on February 4. He came here to buy a batch of canned food and conveyor belts. There are some small factories set up by people from the east coast in the vicinity to produce such war materials and industrial supplies, and the price is more affordable than that of large state-owned factories.

However, as soon as Governor Wagner arrived, he met an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the East Bank. He had just returned from Buenos Aires and sent to the Spanish magistrate a proposal for the "joint development" of the Pampa plain west of the Yanbu Railway. Since he did not receive any reply, he returned to his homeland first, intending to report the situation to his superiors. Unexpectedly, while waiting for the ship in Nancun Harbor, he met Governor Wagner, so he decided to stay for a while and talk to him.

The two of them are actually old acquaintances, and they have met many times in Jacobs Harbor, and they have worked together quite happily. This time, the diplomat named Director Zhao stopped Governor Wagner, in fact, for the purpose of opening up the area west of the Pampa Plain. He had made several diplomatic trips to Jacob's port, and was well aware of the financial resources of the New Courland colony, so he thought of pulling them on the chariot and helping to develop the Pampa Plains. After all, the East Coast government is now spreading too much, and although the revenue is very large, the speed at which it is spent is really intimidating, so they don't actually have much money in place to develop the area west of the Yanbu Railway. However, the local officials below are eager to make meritorious contributions, and they are going crazy to make political achievements, so they are eyeing the money of foreign investors and want to borrow chickens and lay eggs.

You must know that in the early days of the East Coast, a generation of local officials used private or foreign capital to engage in PPP projects, which was called a slip! Large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Steppe Railway (capital construction like *) and the Forest Railway (jointly built by the Northern Italian consortium) are all successful products of this operation. Now, in order to develop the west of the Yanbu Railway, in the case of insufficient state financial allocation, local officials who are already in the third generation have thought of the almighty PPP**, and want to use social capital or foreign capital for financing and do a good job in construction in advance.

Especially now that the situation on the European continent has reached a very tense time, the pursuit of safe and safe capital flight is becoming more and more intense, and the people on the east coast actually have considerable hope of attracting some safe-haven capital. In particular, the capitals from northern Italy and the United Provinces, which are under the threat of France and have cooperated with the east coast for many years, know very well that the possibility of restarting cooperation is considerable. Therefore, in recent days, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been very busy, frequently visiting the offices of various countries and foundations on the east coast to discuss cooperation.

Today, Director Wang had just met Governor Wagner in Nancun, and suddenly thought that New Courland had accumulated a lot of money by relying on the protection of the east coast over the years, and had accumulated a lot of money in the operation of tropical commodities, so he stopped him to see if there was any possibility of cooperation.

To be honest, Governor Wagner didn't have much interest in this Director Zhao's proposal. He is now thinking about how to buy machines and go back to develop production, especially the several enterprises opened by his nephews and nephews, and he is even more eager to expand the scale of production as soon as possible and improve production efficiency in order to earn huge profits. But what will the East Coasters do? Is it possible to convince him to come up with extra money to build roads, build bridges, and dig reservoirs on the Pampa Plain, where birds don't? Can this make money? Well, I don't want to mix it up or not, I just want to live my own life.

But these words are not easy for Governor Wagner to pronounce. After all, everything in New Courland is sheltered by the East Coasters, and without the East Coasters, they would not be able to get to this point, so it is quite difficult to refuse the request of the East Coast diplomats in person. Moreover, Governor Wagner considered that even if he succeeded in escaping the past this time, when he returned to Jacob Harbor, there would be an emissary from the east coast asking him to invest in the infrastructure of the Pampa Plain to maintain relations between the two countries. At this time, Governor Wagner actually has no room for maneuver, so he can only pinch his nose and agree to pay the money, and the east coast is now a lighthouse country, and the lighthouse country in the 21st century in the future is the Middle East royal kingdom continues to spend money and invest, and the international order in the 17th century is even more weak.

Governor Wagner chatted with Director Zhao for a long time, and finally had no choice but to vaguely agree that he would go to the Pampa Plain to have a look and invest in some projects, which made Zhao return satisfied. But Governor Wagner is a little depressed, there are more cougars than people on the western half of the Pampa Plain, and this investment in infrastructure projects will take back the capital in the year of the monkey? But there is not much to do about this, the people on the east coast ask for money, if they don't give it, won't the tiger eat people? This person, sometimes you can't be too careful, these investments are likely to be wasted, just treat it as a natural disaster, and if you lose it, you will lose it. As long as the thighs of the people on the east coast are thick enough, they will always be able to earn it back if they make a good living in the future, which Governor Wagner is extremely sure of.