This request frightened the British consul, Australia is clear how vast the British are, exchanging Zhoushan for Australia, although the economic value of Zhoushan will be developed soon, but Australia's potential is greater than Zhoushan in any case, and the British are not fools, and it is only relative if they do not attach importance to land territory.

So the consul took it for granted that this was a fantasy of the Chinese, it was simply a fantasy, how dare they think about it?

However, the Chinese Imperial Court said that it would not be exchanged in vain, and China could still buy it at a price, and the price could be agreed upon by both parties.

Zhou Lang squeezed in to propose an exchange agreement, of course he could not put forward a condition that the British would never agree to, so he decided to make up the difference to the British.

The British consul knew that Britain was in financial difficulties today, that Napoleon's blockade had made their economy worse, and that the huge armament had made their finances worse, and that these years were the most difficult time for Britain. While trying to smuggle and expand trade with other regions, India is not yet able to replace the European continent, but India and China combined have this possibility, so Britain has taken a restrained attitude towards China on the issue of Australia, otherwise they would have protested a long time ago.

In the consul's view, Australia does have great potential, but it is very difficult for the British to develop it, and they have established a colonial base for more than ten years, but they have not been able to break through the mountains near Sydney and find a way to develop the interior. There are more than 5,000 Aboriginal people living in Sydney, much more than the British. There are five times as many men as women in Britain, and there is no solution in the short term. In short, the opening of the Australian colonies was as chaotic as the early days of North America.

It is not unacceptable for Chinese to want to buy here, after all, this is just land that Britain can easily get, and the easier it is to get, the less people habitually pay attention to it. So the consul felt that as long as the Chinese offered a high enough price, the government and parliament in London could consider it, so he did not refuse, but he was not authorized, so he had to contact the country first.

Zhou Lang was also not in a hurry on this issue, because the colony in Australia continued to expand, and Zhou Guan desperately recruited people in the country for the title of governor. Zhou Lang told him that if you want people to stay, you can't just recruit a group of bachelors, you have to recruit family immigrants, a family of three or four. It is believed that with the strength of Zhou Guan in Guangdong, he will soon be able to expand the colony to the size of 10,000 people, far exceeding the British immigrants, and when the time comes, with the strength of China's national strength, keep this colony, and then slowly encroach, and it is only a matter of time before the whole of Australia becomes China's territory.

The most important thing at the moment is the war with Spain.

The Spanish consul did not have time to arrive in Manila before the Chinese army occupied the place, the occupation process was not easy, more than 1,000 Spanish defenders put up stubborn resistance, and also temporarily recruited Spaniards in Manila, with a total of 3,000 soldiers, to defend the fortresses they had built over the centuries.

But the defeat is doomed, this is not Mexico, this is close to China, China excluded 30,000 troops to attack, the capital ships gathered in Manila Bay, and the batteries in Manila were confronted head-on, the infantry landing was approaching, and they were also equipped with artillery, the local Chinese did not dare to launch an uprising, but after the landing of their own army, they still chose to support strongly, help transport supplies, and help lead the way as a guide, which brought great convenience to the military operation.

Under the bombardment of infantry and heavy artillery, the fortresses behind the port fell one after another, and after three days of fighting, the port and the city of Manila lost contact, but not yet, only became two isolated islands.

Manila City is a small city, and there are few Chinese in it, Chinese live outside the city in the Balian area, as early as the Ming Dynasty here formed a Chinese settlement, can be said to be the earliest Chinatown. Therefore, the artillery bravely bombarded the city of Manila, and the buildings in the city were seriously damaged, the losses were also very large, and most importantly, the Spaniards were very panicked.

In this case, they held out for another week, not waiting for the city to run out of supplies, they knew that they could not hold at all, and that there could be no reinforcements from Spain, so they chose to negotiate, and the Chinese demanded that they lay down their arms and surrender, and on the condition that their personal safety and property were protected, they agreed to the terms of surrender.

Two days after the fall of Manila, the Spanish consul arrived, but he landed on a land administered by the Chinese.

This is only the first step, Zhu Lian has already launched a military operation in the Americas, and his troops this time are stronger than the last time he invaded the port of Acapulco, Mexico, not only because he has 3,000 Chinese elite soldiers in his hands, but also because he is supported by ten battleships, although it is only a third-class battleship, but the naval force that sweeps through the Spanish colony is enough.

The 3,000 Chinese elite soldiers are not Chen Zhouquan's rabble, the key is that they dare to fight and are more disciplined. When the fleet pinned down the fire of the Spanish battery, they had already detoured to the rear of the battery and began to attack, the infantry artillery plus the bombardment of naval guns, three hours later destroyed the old Spanish battery, and then the matter was simple, the attack on the city of Acapulco, also after breaking through the city wall, the other side chose to give up resistance, in terms of the will to resist, in fact, they were similar to the Qing army, in the case of absolute weakness, in fact, the Western army was more unwilling to defend to the death, which was regarded as irrational behavior.

After the capture of Acapulco, they did not continue to penetrate inland, but limited themselves to seizing a foothold, and the silver mines that Zhu Lian longed for had to wait for the arrival of a large army.

But Zhu continued to move south, and the next target of the attack was Lima, Peru. For a long time, Lima was the center of Spain's South American colony. This center was not developed on its own terms, but was achieved through the political monopoly of the Spaniards, who stipulated that goods from the colonies of La Plata (Argentina), Chile and other colonies were to be sent to Lima for trade, and it was strictly forbidden for the colonies to trade privately. In fact, this greatly restricted the development of the colonial economy.

Because Lima is the center of the colony, important ruling institutions are located here, the number of troops is large, the 3,000 army did not defeat it, and after the loss of more than 100, Zhu Li decided to abandon Lima and wait for the arrival of the army before acting. But he was not willing to wait for reinforcements from within the country, and after the capture of Acapulco, he made a fortune, confiscating more than three million silver dollars from the local treasury, as well as a large number of future and minted silver nuggets. He shared all the money privately with the officers, and when domestic reinforcements arrived, he couldn't share such a gain.

He decided to continue his march south to encompass the valuable Spanish colonies, first capturing the towns of Santiago, Concecición, and Valdivia, which would later form the Chilean state, but were now under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of Peru. It's a pity that there is no silver in these towns, he learned from the local population that there is a silver colony in the south, in fact, this is a beautiful misunderstanding, at this time the Spanish colony in Argentina is called the colony of La Plata, the original meaning of La Plata is "the river of silver", when the Spaniards opened up here, they mistakenly thought that there was silver output here, so they took this name. The translation of the two knives under Zhu Lian was also directly translated into the silver colony.

This aroused Zhu Li's desire, and he decided to continue south to grab this silver colony.

After Zhou Lang's side ended the military operation against the Philippines, the time had just arrived in the ninth year of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and Zhou Lang had already formed an American Expeditionary Force, with 30,000 troops. This was true for China, but it was also true for the Spaniards, and Zhou Lang believed that Spain would not be able to sustain too many troops.

According to the plan, the expeditionary force will wait for about three months, and then set sail with the help of the monsoon in February of the next year.

At this time, a captain who had returned from England asked for war, and he proposed a plan to send a detachment from China to Malacca, cross the Indian Ocean, and cross the Atlantic around Africa to attack the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

The route was about the same time as a transpacific one, but it provided direct access to Spanish colonies such as La Plata without having to go further south from Mexico.

Zhou Lang's eyes had been on Mexico, not because he was not interested in other Spanish colonies, but because he was not familiar with the shipping route, and China had already mastered this section of the route to Africa, and African companies were already familiar with this route. But from Africa to the Americas, it's less familiar.

But Europeans are familiar with the fact that Africa to America is their most important route, because on this route there are the most profitable goods, not opium, not silk, but slaves!

The Portuguese, in particular, were familiar with the route, and Maputo in East Africa was used as a slave base.

The captain proposed that after the Portuguese royal family went into exile in Brazil, a route from Brazil to Macao had now been opened, and China could hire the Portuguese as an idea to lead the Chinese fleet there.

Zhou Lang began to think about this plan, he had also thought that Zhu Lian should have occupied the ports of Mexico, which could provide landing points for the expeditionary force, and then sweep through Mexico, followed by other Spanish colonies, until the end of the war.

But now the proposal of the new navy suddenly extended the war to the other Spanish colonies, opening a gap from the south, and then Zhu Li attacked from the north.

The direction of attack immediately covered the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic directions, and Zhou Lang was shocked to find that this was actually pushing the war into a global war.

This seems to be the first time in China's history that a full-scale war of this magnitude has been waged, and it has even far surpassed Zheng He's military campaign in the West, and this significance even exceeds the war itself.

So Zhou Lang agreed, and the naval officer who proposed the plan was in charge, and this direction would be a war operation by the fleet composed of those officers who had returned from England.