Grabbing money, Chen Zhouquan was very interested, because he was too poor.

The three-year period has long passed, Zhou Lang has long stopped providing him with assistance, and he is now supported by the output of his own camp.

The economic foundation of the colony was very weak, and the Laodi Valley (Willamette Valley) was a famous grain producing area in later generations, and it was also rich in wine, with a pleasant climate and abundant rainfall, and it was impossible to die of hunger even if it depended on the weather for food.

But starving and not dying does not mean that they are alive well, they have too much food to eat, but other materials are extremely scarce. Cloth, ironware, salt and other daily necessities are almost all purchased from Shuanghe Camp. And what they can exchange, grain is not valuable, only timber, the banks of the river valley are also famous timber production areas in later generations, as long as there is good wood, the Chinese emperor wants, his sailors for good timber demand is endless.

Every year, they had to send people into the mountains to see a large number of trees, but they could only exchange them for the basic things to sustain themselves, and even their women began to learn from women, making clothes from animal skins. This made Chen Zhouquan very dissatisfied with Zhu Li, thinking that Zhu Li was squeezing him. But Zhu Li thinks that this is the price for shipping these items from China. The relationship between the two people involved in the trade dispute is very bad, to put it bluntly, it is not a lack of money.

The Spaniards are rich, Chen Zhouquan knows this, he knows that Zhu Li can earn two million taels of silver from the Spaniards every year, Chen Zhouquan also knows that the Spaniards are in the south, and once he had the idea of going to do trade, but he has no ships and no goods in his hands, what kind of business can he do?

Now that Zhu Quan has shown him a clear way, it seems that he can only do business without capital!

Chen Zhouquan has no shortage of people, he can now almost all the people are soldiers, except for women, every brother has fought. There is no shortage of weapons, I got tens of thousands of rifles and more than a dozen cannons from Zhou Lang before, and I transferred 10,000 brothers over to rob the Spanish son of a bitch.

The two hit it off, Zhu Li was very generous, and promised to grab the things in half.

Zhu Li's fleet was responsible for pinning down the Spanish batteries head-on, and Chen Zhouquan was responsible for leading people to take advantage of the opportunity to land and outflank the batteries from the flanks and rear.

After the negotiation, the team of the two set off immediately.

On the Laoge River, Zhu Lian has established three strongholds along the river, all of which have come to trade, which is quite lively. Let Chen Zhouquan wonder if he killed his brother He's Shengfan too cleanly, otherwise he could trade some things with Shengfan, such as furs and the like, these furs are still quite valuable when sent back to China, I heard that the Russians can sell millions of furs every year, and now Zhu Li can also sell millions of taels of leather goods every year, but if it is grain, it is not worth a few dollars when it is shipped back.

Heading south out of the Laoge River (Columbia River), two days later, they approached the coast and saw a bay, which Zhu told Chen Zhouquan was guarded by a group of Spaniards.

Their fleet broke into the bay, which looked like an mouth from the outside, but into the bay it was a sea, and it was a wonderful haven, and this was the San Francisco Bay, where the Spanish had built a castle at the southern entrance to the bay, the Fort of San Francisco.

There is no economic value here, only military value, not because there is no potential to exploit it, but because the Spaniards are unable to develop it.

The Spaniards had visited the harbor hundreds of years ago, but it had not been occupied and effectively managed. It wasn't until 1769 that the Spanish general Caspar de Petra led his men to explore the terrain in the San Francisco Bay Area and began to pay attention to it. In 1776, the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista di Anza chose two buildable sites, one for military use and the other for missionary purposes, so the Spaniards founded the fortress and church of San Francisco here, and all the administrative affairs of the district were managed by the church.

This is the standard way they pioneered in North America, always with religion as the core, and the lack of manpower in Spain could not occupy the land through immigration, so they assimilated the natives through religion, and through this military and religious integration stronghold, they established several strongholds on the North American continent, such as Texas, which was occupied.

Compared to the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific side is too far away from the Spanish mainland, and the Spanish have not looked at it for more than two hundred years after discovering it, but in recent decades they have exercised control here, because they found that Russian rough merchants had set out from Siberia and continued south along the west coast of America, so they established the fortress of San Francisco, claiming that the south of 42° north latitude belonged to Spanish territory, mainly to prevent the Russians from penetrating south.

Not only the Russians, but also the Americans have begun to be interested here, the Russians have protested to Zhu Li, the governor of the Americas, and the Americans have also protested, the Russians have gone all the way south to inspect a large area, they think they are the discoverers of the west coast of North America, and ask Zhu Mian to withdraw from North America, the Americans also use this reason, the Columbia River is named by the Americans, and when they visited here, they also signed a land purchase agreement with the local natives. The Americans believe they have sovereignty over the Columbia River basin that Zhu Huang currently occupies.

Russia and the United States are just talking about it, neither country has any actual control, Russian influence is limited to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, and few colonies are established to the south, but Zhu Li has sent tens of thousands of immigrants to the Columbia River Valley, of course, mainly referring to Chen Zhouquan's people, as for Zhu Li's own people who stayed in North America, there are only more than 2,000 people. A thousand people were ordinary peasants, recruited from within the country to reclaim the land and supply the port personnel with vegetables and grain. Now you can sell food to the surrounding raw pan in exchange for furs.

Zhu Li led the fleet to force its way into San Francisco Bay from the front, and at the same time, he had already secretly carried Chen Zhouquan's men and horses, detoured further south to let them land, and they would appear behind the enemy's fortress by land.

The Spaniards were unprepared against an attack from the sea, they could not have imagined that anyone would attack them, and in the Americas they were accustomed to being the most powerful power, especially on the west coast, where they did not think of any danger except the Russians, and even pirates did not want to visit here. As for the Chinese, they have always given them a friendly impression, and they have no idea about the Chinese colonies, knowing how they can attack them thousands of kilometers away.

As a result, the Spaniards rushed to the battle, and as soon as they organized themselves to resist the artillery fire of the opposing fleet, a group of outlaws rushed behind them, numbering thousands of them, while the Spaniards were less than two hundred, and seeing that they could not resist, the army consulted with the church, and a priest came out to negotiate with a white flag, hoping that there was some misunderstanding.

There is no misunderstanding, it is you who fights, surrender quickly!

This is Zhu Li's attitude, he is too interested in San Francisco, the conditions here are better than the Gogo River, and it is close to Mexico, and with the occupation here, his business can be bigger.

The Spaniards wisely chose to surrender, they were no longer the brave Christian warriors who swept through the Americas, the courage inspired by the Restoration Movement had been exhausted in the centuries of colonial dividends, the whole nation lacked the spirit of adventure, and it was not realistic to expect these soldiers stationed in the wilderness fortresses to fight to the death.

The Spaniards were disarmed and imprisoned, but no unfriendly measures were taken against the priests, allowing them to continue their free activities.

Leaving a small number of troops to guard the prisoners, most of them continued south the next day.

Spain's defense of Mexico was not comparable to that of San Francisco, where thousands of Spanish soldiers were stationed, and great importance was attached to this place, a large number of Spanish nobles pioneered here, and Mexico was the richest part of the Spanish American territory.

Zhu Jue blocked the port of Acapulco with more than a dozen ships.

The port arose entirely because of the trade with China, when the Spaniards started from Mexico City to build a road through countless desolate valleys, and the road from Mexico to the port of Acapulco was named the Chinese Avenue, because it existed entirely because of the trade with China.

However, Zhu Qi's trade here has always been in an illegal gray area, the Spanish king and the domestic government restricted trade in order to monopolize the benefits of trade, but the merchants, soldiers and officials of the colonies formed a special interest group, they opened the door to smuggling trade, because it was illegal, and they did not even need to pay taxes.

But there were always some more serious officials, and a new governor of Mexico, after discovering these circumstances, ordered the seizure of Zhu Hui's three merchant ships here, and demanded that Zhu Mian pay a huge fine, otherwise all the goods would be confiscated.

Hence the conflict.

In fact, the Spanish official was just a decent official who wanted to do something for the country, he witnessed the withering of Spain, and thought that the interests of the Spanish colonies were being embezzled by too many countries, so he strongly called for the strengthening of the management of colonial trade, and his ideas were in line with the interests of the Spanish king, so he was sent here.

For some young people of insight in Spain, the rise of Britain and the decline of Spain in recent decades are very clear in their hearts, because the British have promoted mercantilism and developed their own industry and commerce, but Spain has plundered too much silver from the Americas, resulting in higher prices in Spain than all countries, and Spain's own products are completely uncompetitive, so they must control the trade of the colonies so that Spanish goods can be sold smoothly in the colonies.

But this is not easy, and the phenomenon of the flood of goods from other countries in the Spanish colonies is no longer a year or two. Just a few years earlier, in 1804, the Philippine consul had written to the king of Spain to report that the merchant ships "ReyCarlos", "Montanes" and "Casualidad", sent to Mexico by the Royal Philippine Company (a company that had a special monopoly on Philippine trade), had docked at the port of Acapulco, Mexico, for one to three years.

These local goods from Spain and the Philippines could not find a market in Mexico at all, the main reason is that Chinese goods are overflowing, not only Zhu Li is smuggling, the British and Americans came earlier, they have already found many channels to smuggle to Mexico, but the items they smuggle are mainly Chinese goods.

In fact, the quality of the Spaniards' goods is not bad, Spain has high-quality wool, and the wool they produce can be comparable to British goods, Mexico is rich in cotton, and there is a textile industry in the local area, and the quality is not much worse than that of Chinese cotton cloth, but the problem is the price.

Whether it is Spanish goods or Mexican goods, the price is high because of the problem of silver pricing. This question was designed to the level of economics, and the King of Spain was not clear. He did not know that it was because Spain plundered a large amount of silver from the Americas that led to an inflationary explosion called the "price revolution" throughout Europe in the 16th century, and Spain more than quadrupled the amount of gold and silver plundered. Other countries, such as Great Britain, France, and the German Confederation, generally doubled. In Europe, prices remained stable for the next 600 years.

As a result, Spain plundered a large amount of silver from the Americas, which led to inflation in all countries, and Spain itself suffered greatly, domestic prices soared, wages soared, and domestic goods could not be compared with those produced in England, let alone with the exquisite goods shipped by the Dutch from all over the world, and as a result, the money continued to flow into the hands of the Netherlands and Britain, and the Dutch achieved a commercial empire and became the first modern capitalist country in human history, and Britain promoted industrial development through this silver. Pioneered the Industrial Revolution.

With the price of woolen being twice as high as that of England, the price of cotton being more than three times that of China, and the quality not dominant, it is hell that Spanish commodity keys can be sold.

To put it bluntly, there is still too much money to make a fuss, and now Zhu Lian and Chen Zhouquan are here for this money!