The three armies responsible for attacking Hubei this time were Zhao Wen's 13th Army transferred from Guangxi, the 14th Army reorganized from the auxiliary Zhangzhou Army, and Zhou Lang's Shuai Battalion.

Even the commander's battalion was dispatched, and there were indeed no soldiers available. Although there were many officers who invited them to fight, Zhou Lang strictly followed the previous plan and let them rest. After several months of continuous fighting, the general illness rate among the soldiers increased dramatically, and 30 percent of the soldiers were unable to fight due to illness. In this case, forcibly forcing them into the war would result in huge non-combat attrition.

The reason why these soldiers are sick is not because their physical fitness is too poor, and they are always unadaptable, but later generations rarely hear that they will die if they are not adapted. The real reason is that the logistical supply of this era cannot guarantee the nutritional supplement of the field troops, and everyone generally eats field food, mostly some dry food, dried meat, and the lack of new things causes a decline in physical fitness, which magnifies the harm caused by water and soil problems. The best way to do this is to take a break. After a period of time in the station, using fresh food, the nutrition is restored and the health is restored.

Zhao Wen's troops have been guarding Guangxi, there have been no major battles, and they have always maintained their combat effectiveness. The newly formed Fourteenth Army, formerly known as the auxiliaries, suffered heavy casualties in the battle, but it had only experienced one battle, and most of the time it was stationed in various cities, and it was in good nutritional condition, and its combat effectiveness did not weaken after replenishing the troops. Not to mention Zhou Lang's handsome camp, there were almost no opportunities to perform in this Northern Expedition. In addition to these three troops, that is, the artillery unit, the artillery basically did not participate in the difficult battles of the long journey, and the most time was during the siege of Nanjing, which shelled the outer city of Nanjing.

So this is the last field force that Zhou Lang can use, of course, there are tens of thousands of auxiliaries to cooperate in this battle to help defend the city and participate in some battles that are not too difficult.

At this point, the expansion has reached the limit, Zhou Lang ordered all to be transferred to rest, Zhou Lang personally sat in Nanjing, from Guangdong, Fujian to transfer capable personnel, to restore commerce, Wang Fuqian also came to Nanjing, his purpose is to restore civil affairs. Chen Huai, who had recently been promoted and performed well, remained in Wuchang Province to stabilize the situation in Hubei while continuing to contact Manchu officials in the vicinity to see if he could continue to expand his territory by political means. The focus will be on the Hunan area to see if a number of Hunan prefectures and counties can be recruited.

It was already June, and a fleet on the sea, which looked bad, staggered from the east like a wounded soldier.

This fleet numbered twenty ships, all of which were popular old lock ships in Guangdong, but each ship was equipped with about twenty cannons.

In this era, there is only one in the world that uses the old lock ship as an armed fleet, and that is the Zhou Lang Group.

The strange thing about this fleet is that it is coming from the east, and judging by the route, it will reach Manila instead of China.

They finally arrived in Manila and were warmly welcomed by local merchants, not only local Chinese businessmen, but also Spanish merchants, even the Spanish colonial authorities, who held a ball for the officers of the fleet with Spanish women.

Everyone was glad that the ship had brought goods from Spanish colonies such as Mexico and Peru, and no one cared whether they had been legally traded.

Most of the people on board were Chinese, a few were Spaniards, and people from other countries did not. They brag about their journey at the ball.

They are entitled to boast because their harvest is truly fruitful.

This fleet is undoubtedly the Chinese fleet, they set sail from Fujian and Guangdong in March last year, loaded slowly Chinese goods to Manila, waited for the southwest monsoon to blow in June, and then set sail north, after reaching 40 degrees north latitude, followed the west wind, along the Kuroshio, to the east, they sailed for more than five months, finally arrived at the coast of North America, with the help of the coastal wind, sailed south to the port of Acapulco in Mexico, where they sold some of their goods, continued south to Peru, and returned in March of the following year. It took only three months for them to return to Manila along the Taiping River and easterly winds, taking with them a large quantity of Chinese goods, and a large amount of Mexican silver dollars and Peruvian silver.

Each of them carried an average of 200,000 taels of silver on each ship, and on the return trip, it became 4 million taels of silver, and the profit was as high as 3 million taels and 300 percent of the profits, which made people crazy.

In fact, the route they took, the official galleon trade route developed by the Spaniards long ago, began in 1573 in the Ming Dynasty, and the profit margin of a trip to trade was as high as 600% in its heyday.

At that time, the reason why it was able to rise was because during the Longqing period of the Ming Dynasty, because the government lacked financial resources, the Yuegang trade was opened, known as the Longqing Switch, because the Spaniards began to get a steady stream of Chinese goods from Manila, so they developed a fixed trade route from the Philippines to the Spanish American colonies.

As a result, Mexico was born with a developed silk weaving industry, with more than 1,400 silk weavers appearing in Mexico, and the raw materials for their spinning officially came from raw silk in China. There is also local silkworm farming in Mexico, which was undoubtedly introduced from China, and China also introduced large quantities of crops from the Americas through galleon routes, such as corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes, which are thought to have caused the explosion of the Chinese population later during this period.

Unfortunately, the Spanish rulers managed the colony too poorly, and in order to protect the Spanish silk weaving industry, they made the colony dependent on the mother country, cracked down on the sericulture industry in Mexico, banned silkworm breeding here, and finally developed to combat the galleon trade.

Because the Spaniards did not want to see Chinese goods seize the American market, nor did they want a large amount of silver to flow into China, and constantly restricted the amount of trade, in 1593, the total value of goods shipped from Manila to Mexico should not exceed 250,000 pesos per year, and they were not allowed to resell Peru and other Spanish territories; The total value of goods shipped back from Mexico may not exceed 500,000 pesos. Direct trade between Mexico and Peru was also banned, as a large number of Peruvian merchants traveled to Mexico to purchase Chinese goods whenever galleons arrived.

The Spaniards forbade trade between other nations and their colonies, which was understandable, as it was done in all Western countries in this era. However, if trade between their own colonies was banned, the blow to the colony's economy would be too great. This also led to the Spanish colonies generally lagging behind the British and French colonies.

However, this restriction of the Spanish government was not seriously enforced by the colonies, such as the Philippine colonial authorities, who continued to expand their trade volume by various means. The Spanish crown had to relax trade restrictions several times, and by 1776 the total value of goods allowed to be shipped from Manila to Mexico had increased to 750,000 pesos, and the total value of goods shipped back had increased to 1.5 million pesos.

This was so because the long colonial monopoly of trade had formed a monopoly merchant group in Mexico, who cared only about whether they could make money, regardless of the interests of the Spanish mother country. The same must have happened in colonies such as Mexico and Peru.

In Mexico, the development of colonies with Britain and France was almost fully participated, and the Spanish colonies had a strong feudal color, and the colonies were regarded as a kind of praise for the elite, so the colonies were ruled by the elites. The Spaniards in Mexico, almost all of whom had the right to participate in the galleon trade, formed a fixed system of tickets, which represented a certain amount of goods, and could be hereditary, and the division could inherit the qualifications of the husband; In addition, whenever a merchant ship departed from the port of Acapulco in Mexico, a galleon valued at 2 million silver dollars was always followed by private merchant ships of all sizes, and the governor of Mexico turned a blind eye to this, pretending not to see it, and at the same time, because it could not be recorded, these private merchant ships did not even have to pay customs duties.

In Peru, spurred on huge profits, wealthy merchants, officials, soldiers, small Indian traders, transport workers, ordinary residents and even missionaries were involved in the galleon trade, and in 1697, an identity named Caleri saw someone bring a huge sum of 2 million pesos to buy goods.

The Spanish crown was simply not in a position to prohibit the enrichment of the privileged classes in the colonies, so it was unable to prohibit the lucrative trade in galleons.

It's just that this Chinese fleet returned from the Americas, why was it welcomed by local merchants in Manila? You must know that the Spanish monopoly merchants in Manila have always been very afraid of their competitors, whether they are British or Dutch, they all try their best to exclude them, and even the Spanish merchants in other colonies, they regard them as competitors. Because they found that when the Philippines could fully control the trade, the profit margin of the galleon trade could be as high as 1000%, but when the merchants of Mexico and Peru participated, the profit was greatly reduced to 200%, and now the Chinese are squeezing into the galleon trade, they welcome it, which is common sense!

The reason is simple, this Chinese fleet is working with them, the two sides signed a cooperation agreement, the Spanish provided a complete set of galleon trade navigation routes, and sent sailors and merchant banks skilled in this route, the Chinese fleet is responsible for providing Chinese goods and transportation services, the operating costs are shared between the two sides, and then the profits are equally shared, so they will welcome.

In fact, this Chinese fleet is the fleet of the China America Company that Zhou Lang formed last year, and they cooperate not only with the Spanish monopoly merchant group in Manila, but also with the Spanish monopoly group in Mexico and Peru.

The result was a break through the restrictions of the Spanish crown, which had become increasingly weak, and direct trade with the colonies.

What does Zhou Lang get out of trade?

He doesn't care about money, his purpose is to develop overseas colonies!