Zhou Lang's efforts to promote the industrial production has just emerged in the textile industry, and he tries his best to avoid any external force to destroy this good start, so even if it is external expansion, he is careful to avoid the European powers, and quietly expand outside their eyes when they don't care or out of sight.

But as soon as you go out, it will have an impact on other countries, because you occupy something called space, and China's size occupies any space, it will be too conspicuous, and conflict will inevitably happen.

Zhou Lang thought that the first to clash with China would be the British colonial empire, but he didn't expect it to be Spain and Russia.

Zhou Lang had been directly concerned about the expansion of the colony. Whether it is Zhu Li or Xie Qinggao, every time he comes back, he has to report to Zhou Lang in person.

Among these two people, Zhou Lang is more worried about Xie Qinggao, he is too soft-hearted, Zhu Lian once vaguely reminded him, saying that Xie Qinggao is too generous in the Americas, and he is not a business at all. Therefore, Zhou Lang felt that if Xie Qinggao went to open up the colony, he was afraid that he would lose his life.

However, Xie Qinggao quickly reversed the state of continuous losses, and the main credit should be credited to the head of Zhou Guan, a giant businessman in Guangdong.

Now Zhou Guan is the second-in-command of the African company, and he is responsible for all port management and duty collection. With the support of his connections, a large number of Chinese maritime trade in ports controlled by African companies, Singapore quickly became a transit point for China's South Seas trade, China's Western trade, and some Western merchant ships now do not even need to come to China, and a large number of Chinese goods can be obtained in Singapore.

Zhou Guan also went to open up African routes.

In the colony of South Africa, there is now a river port established by an African company, called Sanyang Port. Chinese names are allusional, generally not random, this is different from the West, Westerners are very direct, the name is also very arbitrary, such as using their grandfather's name, using their father's name, using the name of their own monarch, and even using the name of their pet dog. Behind the names of places in China, there is often a story and legend.

The reason why it is called Sanyang Port is because the banner people named their first stronghold Sanyang Fort, and the river was called Sanyang River by them, so Xie Qinggao marked the name of Sanyang Port on the chart for the first port he built.

Theoretically, it is impossible for a newly built port to make a profit, and the cultivation of shipping routes and the formation of trade routes will take a long time to brew, and Cape Town has been in the hands of the Dutch for more than 200 years, but it has only a population of just over 10,000. But Sanyang Port has only been open for two years, and there are already 3,000 people settled. This is the difference between the national strength of China and the Netherlands, the Dutch need to do things for two hundred years, and the Chinese may do it in one year, because the Chinese population base is two hundred times that of the Netherlands.

Among the 3,000 residents, most of the others are banner men, except for a few dozen port managers who are company employees. The Banner people have established many earthen forts on both sides of the Sanyang River, and more than 40,000 people have immigrated to this land, and it is inevitable that they will begin to live with the locals. They can trade with the local Zulu people for some cattle and sheep, if it is one or two people, this trade can go on for a long time, but when there are more people, the order will be chaotic, because not everyone feels that the exchange is necessary. Some people think that stealing and robbing is easier to get rich than trade.

So some of the banner people began to steal the cattle and sheep of the local blacks, and the conflict broke out, a black village came to reason with the flag people, and there was a conflict, and as a result, both sides were killed and wounded. But they were related, and there were all kinds of in-laws from one village to another, and the relatives communicated with each other, and soon thousands of people came together to seek justice. A larger conflict broke out, and a stronghold of the bannermen was taken out by the blacks, as a result of which the bannermen became angry and war broke out.

After the outbreak of the war, of course, the situation was one-sided, and the blacks could not fight against these Eight Banners at all. The banner people can now rob the cattle in the open, but these animals can not be used at all except for their own use and as a breed, so they are all sent to Sanyang Port to sell to African companies, and the company pulls these cattle to Cape Town to sell, the war has made the livestock trade in Sanyang Port expand rapidly, and it is enough to maintain its own operation, at least to pay salaries to dozens of managers.

Before the war, he had been inspecting various black villages, full of curiosity about the local customs, and after the outbreak of the war, he could not bear to see a large number of black people killed or expelled, and then called a research ship and left.

Zhou Guan usually does not go to Sanyang Port, where he arranged for his eldest son to take care of it, Zhou Guan has been sitting in Temasek, his purpose is very pure, is to open up new colonies, to meet Zhou Lang's requirements. He had established a stronghold in northwestern Australia at Zhou Lang's request, but it was very arid, the rivers were intermittently cut off, and it was impossible to open up farmland, and the Chinese would not take root without land. So Zhou Guan had a headache, he knew that the governor was not so easy to be, and he couldn't be able to become a governor by sending 10,000 people to Australia.

There were no people here, so Zhou Guan had to think about opening up colonies elsewhere, and he sent people south along the coast to find places with navigable rivers, and if there were rivers to navigate, they could open up along the rivers. It took half a year to circle most of Australia, from the northwest corner to the British colony of Melbourne, during which time I did not encounter any British colonies.

The British established a colony in Melbourne in 1835 and Adelaide in 1834, when the only British colony in Australia was the Sydney Cove in Port Jackson in 1788.

What really made the British start to immigrate to Australia on a large scale, mainly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, 300,000 British seafarers were discharged, and the British specially allocated funds to immigrate to the colonies in order to settle these people, mainly Canada, Australia, and even thousands of immigrants to South Africa, and later stopped because of the civil opposition to the conquest appropriation.

Zhou Guan sent people to explore most of Australia's coastline, and even after arriving in Sydney, he was welcomed by the locals, and the governor of the penal colony welcomed the Chinese to trade, and their supplies were too scarce.

But Zhou Guan's purpose was not this, he brought the nautical chart materials and asked to see Zhou Lang, because Zhou Lang said when he asked him to open up a colonial stronghold, hoping that he would not conflict with the British, but Zhou Guan found that the best place in Australia was the east coast where the British were entrenched, and other places were generally arid.

Zhou Guan hoped that Zhou Lang would agree to him to establish a new colony close to the British, saying that it was close, but in fact it was quite far away.

"You're going to build a new stronghold along this river?"

Zhou Lang looked at Zhou Guan's chart and said that part of this chart was bought by Zhou Guan from the Dutch, who were the first European country to discover Australia.

Zhou Guan said: "This is exactly what Weichen meant. According to the land where Yingyi is entrenched, it is 3,000 miles. ”

Zhou Lang nodded, the location of the nautical chart pointed by Zhou Guan was probably at the mouth of the Murray River in later generations, at this time the British only had two strongholds in Australia, one was Sydney built in 1788, and the other was Hobart established in Tasmania in 1803, either of these two places is more than 1,500 kilometers away from the mouth of the Murray River.

But the crux of the matter is: "More than 30 years ago, Britain officially declared sovereignty over Australia, and they said the whole island was theirs. ”

Zhou Guan was indignant, Australia Xiben could not gain a foothold at all, after investigation that the river (Murray River) was a large river, which could be passed for hundreds of miles upstream, if it was here, let him emigrate 10,000 people, it would only be a matter of a year or two. There is obviously no one, why should they say that they are British!

Zhou Guan said: "This Yingyi is too domineering. ”

Zhou Lang smiled bitterly: "Who said it wasn't." ”

Zhou Guan was not convinced: "Then what they say is theirs is theirs?" Can't we say it's ours? ”

Zhou Lang sighed: "It's not a question of whether to say or not, it's a question of who has a hard fist." In the past, the Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, and French all visited here in search of spices, and the Dutch investigated it most carefully. But it's useless, the British sailors are powerful, they say it's theirs, that's theirs. ”

Zhou Guan said unwillingly: "Our Great Zhou is also afraid of Yingyi? ”

Zhou Lang smiled: "I'm not afraid, I can't really beat it." But you can try to build a few more strongholds at the mouth of the river you mentioned, and when the time comes, it's easy to talk about, and maybe you can leave one or two left. ”

Zhou Guan hesitated, saying lightly, it costs to sail once. But he didn't dare to refute, this was a gamble. It is done, he will be a governor, and if he loses, he will be ruined and spared.

Zhou Lang actually wanted to test the British attitude towards Australia, where is it still just a penal colony for the British, and gold has not yet been discovered, maybe the British will not care, even if they care, causing the established facts, if the British protest, take the opportunity to talk to them, spend money to buy, give some preferential conditions, maybe they can leave one or two strongholds, as long as there is a stronghold, Australia is China.

This was all at the beginning of this year, Zhou Lang had been waiting for the reaction of the British, but he did not expect that the British, who were busy fighting the Battle of Trafalgar with Napoleon, had not yet spoken out, and Spain and Russia were in trouble.

In fact, what happened in Spain was also at the beginning of this year, but it was not until the summer that the news came back.

The fleet sent by Zhu Li to trade in Mexico was seized by the Spaniards, who claimed that they would seize all the goods, and Zhu Li sent the news back to ask Zhou Lang for help.

In the case of Russia, the Russian government sent emissaries to protest to China, claiming that the entire western coast of America north of San Francisco Bay (San Francisco Bay) was their territory, and that the Chinese colonies had been built on their territory, and demanded that China conquer and revoke the colonies.

Zhou Lang didn't care at all when these two deflated people were looking for trouble, and he was even a little eager to fight a war with them for the colony, because now China's naval power has exceeded the sum of these two countries!