March 22, 1641

The Australian Embassy in Batavia completed the renovation of its office area a week ago, and the personnel who remained in Batavia have moved in from their temporary premises. Today for the Australian Embassy, he will welcome the first staff member to come to the office after he built it.

After a short round of secret war, the first competition between the Australian intelligence department and its overseas counterparts in the history of the Australian intelligence department finally came to an end, although on the surface, the Australian intelligence department won the victory, but as the head of the intelligence department, Liu Yun, he knew that this victory could only be regarded as a barely pass.

He had always been inattentive to his peers in the 17th century, and it wasn't until he was watchful that he slowly became impressed with them, and if it weren't for a few very coincidental events, even he and his men didn't notice each other's actions.

When he was followed and monitored, he began to suspect who these people were, the brocade guard of the Ming Dynasty was still a pirate, or a member of the Zheng family, until a showdown with the other party, he was able to determine that the identity of the other party was the Zheng family.

This family that left a strong mark in the history of the late Ming Dynasty is not only the famous national hero Zheng Chenggong, but also his son Nicholas Pirate I, without his early accumulation, there would be no Zheng Chenggong to recover Taiwan.

At this time, the Nikolai family was strong and strong, and it had been 13 years since the old Nikolai accepted the recruitment in 1628, and in these thirteen years, the old Nikolai used his official status to recruit troops and horses, build ships to train soldiers, and led the ship to sea to defeat the former righteous brothers.

It was not until 1633 that Nicholas defeated the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the Battle of Kinmen off the coast of Fujian, and since then he has controlled the sea routes and collected fees for merchant ships from various countries.

Such a big family transformed from pirates, and a well-deserved overlord of the East Asian seas, even the Dutch, who are in the limelight, have not been able to take advantage of him, how can Liu Yun not be a little worried.

If Australia's goods want to enter the Ming market in the future, it will inevitably be inseparable from the Zheng family, the Zheng family for the merchant ships of various countries sailing in East Asian waters to issue the flag to collect protection fees, basically each big ship according to the standard of three thousand taels, this income alone Zheng family's annual income reached millions of silver, even higher than the tax income of the late Ming court.

It was precisely because of this income, coupled with the monopoly of maritime trade with Japan, that the Zheng family was able to build and maintain hundreds of warships and a private army of 100,000 people.

Although the imperial court was also afraid of this, but due to the peasant uprisings in various places and the party strife, it gave the Zheng family the opportunity to continue to grow and develop, and later the old Nikolai seemed to be in order to completely wash away his family's pirate identity, and sent his eldest son, Zheng Sen, to Nanjing Guozijian to study, but now there are still three years before Zheng Sen goes to Nanjing.

If something happens in the southeast coast, that is, in the entire coastal territory of Guangdong, there is nothing that the Zheng family does not know, the Zheng family can say that what they eat is the sea meal, and they need to know anytime and anywhere whether the new forces will seriously threaten themselves, and if they threaten themselves, he will not hesitate to strangle them in the cradle.

Zhao De's sale of mirrors in Guangzhou is known all over the city, and it must not escape the eyes of the Zheng family, and Zhao De is secretly recruiting homeless people, so it is strange that the Zheng family does not pay attention to it.

During this period, the identity of the Zheng family can be said to be multiple, not only the official official of the Eight Classics, but also the identity of the pirate and maritime merchant in the Ming Dynasty, human traffickers, etc., the Zheng family will also do some human trafficking in secret, but not much, with more and more money earned, plus the Zheng family opened Taiwan for immigration, so it will give generous conditions to attract displaced people.

Now that they have found a competitor similar to their peers, the other party also has a very valuable Western silver mirror, the Zheng family has to investigate the forces behind him, if it is just the Dutch, it will not make them so afraid, after all, the Dutch have never been cheap in the hands of the Zheng family, if the other party is a force that does not know where to come, it will be unacceptable.

The Zheng family is responsible for the intelligence is Nicolai's brother Zheng Hongkui, in addition to his identity is the commander of the Jinyi Weidu, the official spy leader of the Ming Dynasty, after receiving the letter, Zheng Hongkui and his brother Nicholas analyzed, the force behind Zhao De must be not small, it is very likely to be the Dutch, so he immediately issued an order and sent someone to Guangzhou to investigate the situation.

It was under this circumstance that Yang Jian was sent into Zhao De's team to take in refugees, but later, he was not at ease and directly sent Yang Jian's superior, the stone treasurer, that is, Cyberwin, to Batavia.

Shopkeeper Shi is an experienced intelligence worker, and he is also a confidant who followed Nikolai when he started, so he sent him out of the Zheng family brothers absolutely rest assured, but Shopkeeper Shi didn't expect that the other party was also a powerful person, and after meeting Yang Jian in Batavia through a code, he learned that he judged that the Australians already knew Yang Jian's identity, but they didn't debunk it.

After learning the lesson of Yang Jian, the shopkeeper Shi adopted a more conservative method of secret tracking, but he was cautious that he missed the flaws and appeared in the old man who sold chaos, which directly made Liu Yun find out that something was wrong, and found Yang Jing for a showdown.

Now that the showdown was discovered, the shopkeeper Shi simply raised the identity of the Zheng family with a high eye and a low nose, hoping that the other party would give in and finally achieve his goal.

What surprised him was that the Australians were completely ignorant of his threat, and even had some more arrogant momentum than him, and directly said that it was impossible for the Zheng family to have mirror agency in the entire Ming Dynasty.

Although the shopkeeper has repeatedly emphasized that the Zheng family's fleet is powerful, if you don't agree, it will be difficult for Australian mirrors to enter the Ming market.

But Liu Yun didn't listen to his threats at all, just smiled and said, if the Zheng family wants to try the greeting of the Australian ship, just come.

The Australian defeated the Dutch This is the shopkeeper has heard of it, in his eyes, the old opponent Holland is simply vulnerable, it is not unusual to be defeated by the Australians, as long as the Zheng family's fleet is willing, the same can defeat the Australian old.

When it was confirmed from Yang Jian's mouth and some ordinary people in Batavia that the Australians had an iron ship the size of a hill and a powerful artillery force, he began to believe that Australia was not afraid of the Zheng family, but that it was definitely not pretended, but had a certain strength.

"Ambassador Liu, my family has agreed to this agreement, and signed it, and in the future, all Australian ships entering the Daming coast do not need to pay the flag fee." But the Zheng family will give out some flags to Australian merchant ships for free, after all, they still have to collect them for others, otherwise the Zheng family can bankrupt him with such a powerful water force.

The name of the agreement is the Australia-Zheng Friendship and Trade Treaty, as the name suggests, it is a treaty of commerce between Australia and the Zheng family, the two sides listed their respective conditions, and the Zheng family did not get a little benefit after signing, and the Zheng family had the right of first refusal to purchase Australian goods and weapons in the future, and gave him a quota of the number of goods per year, the mirror alone can make the Zheng family earn more than 100,000 taels of silver a year, counting other expenses such as helping Australia recruit foreign workers to transport to Christmas Island, these are a lot of income.

In addition to not paying protection fees, all coastal areas in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, including those controlled by the Zheng family, will be protected by the Zheng family.

Therefore, this is relatively fair, and there is no one on both sides who takes advantage of it.

"Here, Shopkeeper Shi, to celebrate the success of our cooperation, cheers."