After simple preparations, the peace talks between Sweden, Denmark and Emden, hosted by the Chinese and American Ministries, kicked off in Angra Sangrajma, the capital of the Azores Governorate of the United States, and have been going on for more than two months.

In fact, half a year earlier, the three countries had already made many contacts with each other in Europe, but because Sweden was deeply dissatisfied with Emden's behavior of "stealing peaches" and had been obstructing the peace talks between Emden and Denmark on the grounds that its own demands could not be met.

The Swedish-Danish War, which made Sweden rich in World War I, was picked up by Emden, who was riding on butterfly wings, and had to make Sweden angry. At the moment, it was not only Emden's army that was eyeing the territory of Schleswig, but even a Swedish army was close to the battle line, threatening the flank of Emden's army.

Denmark, Norway, and the United Kingdom are now like a stripped girl, trembling under the obscenity of two powerful neighbours, not knowing what they will be ravaged into. The powerful Nordic countries founded by the Danes in the 14th century have been at their lowest point after a few hundred years.

Historically, the Kingdom of Sweden became the largest power in Northern Europe with a war reparations sent by the Danes, but now it has an additional competitor to "share".

Both the Swedish side and the Emden side proposed war reparations are chilling, and the total amount of reparations demanded far exceeds the same period in history, reaching a huge amount of 25 million US dollars according to the calculations of the mediator side!

The Danish royal family, which is a small body, has been repeatedly defeated in the Thirty Years' War and has huge debts, which is basically equivalent to selling the entire country and not being able to get so much money, and the peace talks have reached a stalemate.

To be sure, Frederick V did take advantage of the fire and quickly defeat Denmark. And Sweden, having paid a huge price for fighting on two fronts, will definitely be sabre-rattling if it wants to be robbed of fat. Shi Wenbo, the head of Sino-American diplomacy who presided over the mediation. This time, I also expressed a very difficult position.

Obviously, the amount of bleeding in Denmark this time, except for the Dutch bankers, probably no country in the whole of Europe has the ability to take over the payment. The only point to be negotiated was to persuade Denmark to agree to the terms of the two victorious countries to convert the amount of reparations at the highest possible "land price", so as to reduce the national debt.

Based on its own strategic considerations, Sweden naturally placed all its territorial claims on the Scandinavian peninsula, and the historical Norwegian territory was repeatedly cut between Denmark and Sweden, and this time Sweden directly and aggressively proposed several Norwegian territories bordering Sweden. Prince Rupert representing Emden. insisted on his father's position and demanded the occupation of all of Schleswig.

The three parties compared the map for several months, and even Shi Wenbo couldn't stand it anymore, so he could only drag his son-in-law to a small black room and talk all night. Then he asked his deputy to take the Swedish diplomatic representative to the Atlantis resort for a week of corruption, and finally Sweden showed Denmark the final concessions.

After a difficult persuasion, on March 15, 1644, the Kingdom of Sweden, the United Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, and the Kingdom of Emden finally signed the Treaty of Peace at Angra Sangrajvo, the Viceroyalty of the Azores.

Sweden will give the biggest return, Denmark will cede more than 3,000 square kilometers of Norwegian territory, including Halden, Sarpsburg, and Asim, to Sweden. An additional $2 million in damages. These lands, which have been the disputed land that Sweden has been fixing on for the past 100 years, have finally come true.

Emden's sky-high asking price was greatly discounted, and Denmark finally kept Schleswig under the mediation of a beautiful man. The land ceded to Emden was only a symbolic scrap of about 200 square kilometres. But in return, Denmark will cede Trankuiba, the trading base of its East India Company on the southeast coast of India, to Emden, and pay a little more than Sweden, at $3 million.

The Danish East India Company's brief boom in the Far East was drenched in cold water. Emden, on the other hand, had no trouble gaining a full-fledged trading base in the Far East.

In this way, Denmark only needs to pay a total of $5 million in cash to end this nightmare once and for all. But Denmark has already brought a butt of debt. Even a third of this figure could not be obtained, and the loan sharks in the Netherlands did not dare to touch it, so naturally they could only borrow money from Huamei who was present.

The Danish delegate's gloomy attitude was greeted by the gracious affection of the United States, but a week later, on March 25, 1644, the Danish delegate signed the "Medan-Iceland Perpetual Lend-Lease Agreement" with the Chinese and American Deputy Foreign Minister Swenbo.

Under the terms of the agreement, Denmark will lease the "Celtiana Peninsula" and "Rykzhen Peninsula" in Iceland, an overseas territory in the North Atlantic, to Huamei in perpetuity at a "rent" of $50,000 per year. The East American Atlantic Bank then offered Denmark a low-interest loan of $5 million, to be repaid over a period of twenty years, to pay war reparations for Sweden and Emden.

From the moment China and the United States have the Banco Nacional Ultramarino to lend to Denmark, it means that Denmark will have to keep its voice down and tighten its belts for at least the next two decades. Including the original outstanding loans, Denmark has more than $16 million to repay the East American debt, including principal and interest.

Although the land leased to the ornate Iceland in perpetuity was ten times larger than the land ceded to Emden, it was far less important than Schleswig. The price of borrowing heavily to keep the money on the side was the loss of a fishing area that had long been the exclusive use of the fishing area. However, in the 17th century, Iceland's fishing industry was far from flourishing as it was in later years, so for Denmark, the remote and inhospitable North Atlantic island was not enough to cover at the expense of the whole of Schleswig.

The ability of the United States to demand debts was demonstrated to the whole of Europe during the Irish War nine years ago, and with Denmark's current body, it would not have the courage to pay for it for another few decades.

The two victorious countries, Sweden and Emden, in addition to their own land revenues, received cash indemnities in and out of the left hand, and a considerable part of them were handed over to Huamei as they were, because part of their Huamei loans were due, and the combined debts owed by these two countries to Huamei exceeded 10 million US dollars, which could not be repaid in ten or eight years.

Under Emden's-stirring stick, the war between Denmark and Sweden came to an end, and Huamei reaped the biggest piece of the pie to date.

……

Thursday, April 14, 1644.

Deep in the rough North Atlantic, 64 degrees north latitude. A medium-sized fleet of Chinese-American ocean shipping companies appeared in the southwestern bay of Iceland under the escort of the frigate Alfalfa. In front of you is a wide harbor flanked by the Celtiana Peninsula and the Lake Jane Peninsula.

The two connected peninsulas have a total land area of more than 2,500 square kilometers and have a natural ice-free port with excellent topography. Later Reykjavík was a small fishing village in the middle of nowhere, with geothermal springs everywhere that were too many to approach, and there were fewer than a thousand Viking descendants in the area.

In front of hundreds of Icelandic fishermen, two infantry companies of the Bison Brigade of the Chinese Foreign Legion landed in a menacing manner, quickly occupying important commanding heights, and then a Chinese American officer with a big belly entered the fishing village, accompanied by a Danish diplomat in China.

After a brief decree was read out by the Danish side, the Huamei team in charge of surveying the land landed with their instruments. Then there is the land transfer procedures between the two parties. As for whether or not to consult the local Icelanders in this process, it has long been forgotten. Viking descendants will have no meaning in front of the guns of the Chinese Foreign Legion.

The Viceroyalty of Iceland is the newest territory of the North Atlantic Ocean at 64 degrees north latitude. The first governor of Iceland will be Tan Ju, a fifty-year-old man who has long been fat beyond recognition, who was one of the first immigrants to Huamei and served as a clerk in the Department of Chinese Affairs of the Ministry of Immigration.

Overhead, the sky is incredibly blue, and the distant forests, rivers, glaciers and snow cover create an impressive landscape. In addition to the fact that the wind was a little strong, the gorgeous big-bellied official who landed on the island couldn't help but nod his head again and again, and then he couldn't stand the fishy smell of the fishing village and quickly retracted into the cabin.

However, unlike other governors, Tan Ju spends most of his official business on his home turf. Only in the summer months does they stay in Iceland for two months. But Tan Ju now seems that the climate and environment here are obviously much more comfortable than he imagined.

The state-owned fleet was accompanied by a small construction team of Huamei Oriental Construction Engineering Group and 500 veterans recruited from Haizhou, the mainland. They must hurry up the spring and summer for the next four months. The first phase of the port project and residential areas will be built.

A week later, another small fleet from Ireland brought more timber, grain, fruits, cement and coal, as well as more than 100 Irish indentured slaves, to the Reykjavík Harbour construction team led by Tan Ju. The Killarney Rose Chamber of Commerce in Ireland was awarded a significant portion of the construction contract for the Viceroyalty of Iceland in the United States. It can be regarded as opening up a promising trading route.

……

Unlike what many people think is cold and desolate, Iceland has a better climate than most of Norway. Although the dimension is high, it is surrounded by the warm North Atlantic current. Instead, it has a temperate oceanic climate. Temperatures rarely fall below freezing in winter, but in summer they can be at least 10 degrees Celsius or more, and on some days they can even be close to 20 degrees Celsius. In contrast, the climate in Quebec, North America, Canada, is even harsher. To put it mildly, this place is even more livable than Porter City in Huamei Song Prefecture, which often gets cold to minus 20 degrees Celsius in winter.

The waters off Iceland are one of the world's most famous fishing areas, and the North Atlantic Current's abundant cod and whale resources will bring Huamei huge profits for hundreds of years.

On the limited arable land, extremely hardy rye will be the main crop in Iceland. Rye and wheat are the most suitable grains for bread, and they are also very suitable for animal husbandry, and the breeds of cattle, sheep and horses bred by the ancient Vikings in Iceland are also famous in European history. But this still does not change Iceland's fate of importing food, vegetables and fruits from the outside.

In addition, there are abundant open-pit sulphur deposits in the valleys near Reykjavík, which is an extremely important strategic industrial resource for Huamei.

The only big problem to solve is that Huamei has to pay for the destruction of Iceland's primeval forest by the ancient Vikings. Iceland was once more than 25% forested, but in just 200 years since the arrival of the Vikings, it has dwindled to less than 2%. Fortunately, the Icelanders regretted it as early as the 11th century, and spontaneously banned deforestation and restricted grazing.

As for the native Viking descendants in Iceland, from the 9th century BC until the beginning of the 20th century, Iceland's population was half-dead with only a few tens of thousands, and it was extremely difficult to grow. In the 17th century, due to the Great Famine, Iceland's access to food was drastically reduced, and the population fell to only 10,000 people.

However, it is not the Vikings' bold North Atlantic migration that makes Iceland famous, but the appearance of the first democratic parliament in European history, which has become a historical portrayal of the unity and survival of the descendants of the Icelandic Vikings.

Huamei will build Reykjavik into a large port, build Huamei into a distant-water fishing base in the North Atlantic, accelerate the development of Huamei's distant-water fishing industry, and even become an overseas military base for the Huamei Navy in the future.

Whether it's economic ties or military deterrence, it's a short flight from England, Ireland and Scotland. Reykjavík, the U.S. Viceroyalty of Iceland, will form a maritime strategic encirclement of Europe together with Herosmartísmo of the Azores Viceroyalty. (To be continued......)