In October of the ninth year of the Great Zhou Dynasty (1808), after nearly a year of sailing, the first batch of ten British naval officers returned to China, and also brought back the news of Lindy's negotiations with Spain.

As expected, the negotiations broke down, and this negotiation was to talk about the rupture, but Zhou Lang didn't dare to guarantee that it would break down, because the Spaniards chose humiliation because they were attacked by Britain on the one hand and suppressed by France on the other, it is really hard to say.

Therefore, Zhou Lang must wait for the definite news before starting the war, otherwise if there is a war on this side, and the news comes back that the Spaniards are willing to release ships for compensation after Zhu Lian bombarded the Mexican port, it will make Zhou Lang's war behavior become passive, giving people a feeling that he has already planned for a long time, and then this diplomatic action will lose its meaning.

Anyway, Zhou Lang was not in a hurry, so he waited patiently for a year.

When the naval officers returned, they were given a short rest before they were allowed to organize and build a new fleet.

Military operations do not have to wait for them, and after the naval battle with France, they do not need to gain combat experience by attacking the Philippines.

Almost the next day, Zhou Lang informed the ministers and consuls of the Western countries in Nanjing that China and Spain were at war, and this sudden declaration of war made all Europeans a little stunned.

This reason can be accepted by all countries, but I feel that the Chinese have overreacted, the Spanish have not implemented monopoly trade in the colony for a year or two, the Netherlands, Britain have tried to challenge the Spanish monopoly, but all failed, can only expand trade through smuggling, colonial officials often turn a blind eye, the Spanish government also turned a blind eye.

Now that the Chinese are smuggling, the ship is detained, and they have chosen war, and from this point of view, the Chinese seem to be more active in protecting trade than Western governments, which is simply two extremes from the Manchu Qing government ten years ago.

The Spanish consul was outraged by Zhou's declaration of war, and he was then deported and returned to Manila by boat, hoping that he could get the news to Manila before the Chinese launched a military operation.

Diplomats from other countries reacted mixedly, and the French consul expressed regret, which he really regretted. After the First War of the French Alliance, Spain ceased to be an enemy of France and soon became an ally with France. Rather than an ally and a vassal state of France, Spain paid France a monthly tribute of 6 million francs from October 1803. Moreover, the French consul had received the news that His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon had exiled the Spanish royal family to Maple Bauro, France, and appointed a new king to Spain, that is, Napoleon's brother Joseph, and now Spain was almost equal to French territory.

But now that the Chinese emperor has declared war on Spain, he really doesn't know how Napoleon will respond. As a consul on the other side of the continent, he received very little authority and was largely confined to dealing with commercial disputes. Since the sea route was blocked by the British, the French government instructed them not to take a position on key political issues. So he could only express regret, and did not dare to protest or take other actions, he could only report what happened truthfully, and everything had to be decided by the Napoleonic emperor.

The British and Portuguese consuls expressed limited support for this.

Now the British have begun to take action against the colonies of the French allies, they have occupied the Dutch colony of Sumatra, and destroyed the forts of Malacca, under the pretext of preventing the French from annexing it, and they have been at war with the Dutch. The Dutch Republic of Batavia, founded under French control, declared war on Britain after Britain tore up the Treaty of Amiens and resumed war with France. Of the European countries at present, only Britain and the French bloc are still at war, so all British actions against the Dutch colonies are legal.

In addition, these British actions were also agreed by some Dutch, after the French occupation forces in the Dutch city of Batavia, the officials of the former Dutch Republic fled to London in large numbers for refuge, and they agreed to the British occupation of some Dutch colonies, such as the Cape Colony in South Africa, Palembang in Sumatra, and so on.

The British themselves did it, they couldn't interfere with China at all, and they were also afraid of China and France, Napoleon sent a huge scientific team to China, and the British learned that these scientists were very respected by the Chinese emperor, which made the British very worried that China would fall to the side of France.

This concern is not strong, because China's actions will have little impact on the situation in Europe, at least for the time being.

But the British made a non-cent demand, they wanted the British navy to occupy Macao, citing fear of French occupation. Historically, the British made such a request to the Manchu government, and also sent troops to occupy Macao. First of all, in the seventh year of Jiaqing (1802), the British sent warships to anchor near Macao, and the Portuguese in Macao asked the Guangdong government for help, and the British and French quickly signed the Treaty of Amiens, the only time during the Napoleonic Wars that the state of war ended, and the British warships did not take action against Macao. However, in the thirteenth year of Jiaqing (1808), the British directly sent troops to occupy Macao, and explained to the Qing government that it was to prevent the French from occupying it. But the Qing government did not accept their explanation and put pressure on the British, who were eventually forced to retreat.

Obviously, this is not worried about Napoleon at all, it is that Britain itself has ambitions, and they forced France to not even be able to appear in Guangzhou, but they came up with the excuse of worrying about the French occupation of Macao, which is really a bit of a bully for Jiaqing to not understand the international situation.

Of course, this kind of request is unacceptable to Zhou Lang. He immediately refused, telling the British consul that Macao was Chinese territory and that France would never be allowed to covet it, and Britain could rest assured about this.

In Macau, the Portuguese have gained more power than before, and even to put it mildly, they already have the characteristics of most of the colonies. Because Portugal had just reached an agreement with China, although the Portuguese did not agree to China's request to establish a colony in Brazil, they did agree to the emigration and other demands.

According to the agreement with the Portuguese, Chinese immigrants are still subject to many restrictions, and they are not considered free immigration. Under the terms of the treaty, China granted permission to the Portuguese to recruit laborers in China, who would receive a piece of land equivalent to 100 acres of Chinese land after three years of working for Portuguese plantation owners.

This was equivalent to Portugal giving Chinese immigrants the right to acquire land, for which Zhou Lang promised Portugal extraterritorial rights in Macau, where they could apply their own laws. In the case of a dispute between a Portuguese and a Chinese, jurisdiction is divided according to the place where the case occurred, and if it occurs in Macao, it will be tried by the Portuguese, and if it occurs outside Macao, it will be tried by Chinese officials.

Now the Portuguese have the power to try the Chinese in Macao, and with the right of armed self-defense that they have maintained in the past, Macao is basically a Portuguese colony.

The only difference is that Zhou Lang insisted on retaining sovereignty, and Macau was still leased to Portugal. This leaves a trail back for repossession at any time. At the same time, the claim of sovereignty over Macau also imposes a duty of defense on Macau, and told the Portuguese that it would not allow other European forces to invade Macau.

Selling Macau's interests, Zhou Lang got a permit for a Chinese immigrant to own land, which seems to be a traitor, but he Zhou Lang needs to let the Portuguese open an opening in Brazil, as long as the Chinese go in, then things will be easier to handle in the future.

Portugal did not dare to open this opening before, but now it is open mainly because Napoleon conquered Portugal proper, and the Portuguese royal family went into exile in Brazil. This exile was not for a single king, but for all the royal family and some great nobles, who fled to Brazil with fifteen ships and escorted by the British navy.

When these royal families and great nobles arrived in Brazil, they could not adapt to the harsh environment of the colony, compared with the Portuguese court, there was almost nothing here, and there was a large influx of British goods, but they also wanted Chinese silk and Nanjing cloth, they were nobles, and it was too bad to wear British woven plain weave.

Therefore, the Portuguese government decided to change its previous attitude of excluding other countries from trading in its colonies, hoping to establish direct trade with China and attract Chinese merchants to come to trade, which on the one hand could bring more high-end Chinese consumer goods, and on the other hand, it could also increase the income of the colonies.

The Brazilian government's revenues were too small to support the royal family and the aristocracy, because in the past, Brazil only had to support a simple colonial government, so the fiscal revenue was very small. A plantation economy, based on slavery, was also unlikely to provide much in taxes.

In the past, Portugal obtained income from Brazil, relying on monopoly trade, but now the loss of Portugal itself makes it basically impossible to continue to do monopoly trade, because of the loss of a large number of merchant ships, Brazil has lost the channel to export products directly to Europe, but a British can not fully digest these products, in addition, the French fleet and armed merchant ships are broken around the sea, making the shipping route very unsafe, and the cost of trade has become unprofitable.

Having lost its monopoly trade and the European market, Brazil had to find a way to increase its income in order to feed thousands of royals and aristocrats.

So China became a possible alternative, China was not involved in the Napoleonic Wars, and if Chinese merchants came to trade, they would not be affected by the war, they would not only bring a lot of goods, but also pay a lot of customs duties. At the same time, expanding Brazil's exports to China is also a good way to develop the economy.

Commodities can only be plantation products, so expanding plantations has become the first choice for economic development. What's more, a large number of plantations in Brazil are actually controlled by the big nobles, although they are no longer Brazilian, but it is their stewards who manage the plantations, and it is their slaves who work in the plantations.

But the slave trade was also affected by the war, and now that people had no money, some of them thought that China had previously wanted to gain the right to emigrate to Brazil, and they decided to do so. Their desire to expand trade with China, China's desire to emigrate to Brazil, their need to develop plantations just as they needed labor, and their desire to expand their rights and interests in Macau, all these factors quickly convinced the already declining king in exile to open up immigration power to the Chinese.

As for the French annexation of Macao, even the Portuguese were not worried, and the British were even more worried.

However, the British consul raised the issue of the Australian colony, which forced Zhou Lang to start thinking about the British demands.