As early as the beginning of the 16th century, after the navigators Verrazzano and Cartier opened up the North American routes, French fishermen began to make a living in small fishing boats of only a dozen to ten tons, catching whales and cod, which are "swimming gold". In the second half of the 16th century, more than 150 French fishing boats were active in the northeastern waters of North America for many years, which also opened the prelude to French colonization of North America.

With the failure of several forcible insertions in Central and South America, France, which had been pushed away by Spain and Portugal, had to turn its attention to northern North America, where the climate was even harsher. In 1605, France established the first European colony in North America, Port Royal, and in 1608, Quebec City was established at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.

France, which is bent on becoming the leader in Europe, has always been extremely wary of Spain, England, Sweden, and even the Netherlands. The 17th century saw a strong demand for the European fishing and fur trade, leading France to make one of the worst decisions in history. France chose "New France" (Quebec), the harshest and most inhospitable climate in North America, on the grounds that it would be able to enclose the best fishing grounds and cut off the skins of England and the Netherlands in North America. But it turned out that in addition to losing France's colonial lead in North America, the monopoly of the fur trade was ultimately just an empty word, and it was quickly crushed by the more adept English-stirring sticks.

The poor natural environment made France's North American colonization process full of various tragedies, the death rate of French immigrants who were mainly merchants, soldiers, prisoners, and indentured slaves was staggering, coupled with the strict prohibition of non-Catholic egg pain restrictions, the colonial development of the entire New France was bumpy until the 20s of the 17th century. The population of the French colonies in North America was only about 3,000. Most of them are located in Quebec City.

The opposite is true. It was England that chose the southern region, which had a milder climate, and although it started a little later, it later occupied the largest profit cake in North America.

……

From mid-November, temperatures in North America plummeted. The snow situation was much higher than in previous years, and the northernmost city of Porter even experienced a strong snowstorm with heavy snowfall for a week, and the thick snow once interrupted the traffic from the river terminal to the city. If you don't prepare in advance. It is estimated that livestock farms will suffer the largest losses since the founding of the People's Republic of China, but even so, thousands of poultry and livestock are still frozen to death on farms across the country.

Of course, it is far more unfortunate than the American Republic of China, in the north and south, Quebec in France and Virginia in England, the sudden severe cold and winter famine made the sparsely populated French and English colonies like hell, and hundreds of immigrants starved to death and froze to death within a month.

The famine in North America, which spread for most of the 17th century, was the main culprit in the death of the early colonial population in North America. In contrast, the disease is pediatric. As history describes: "God knows if the buried bodies will be secretly exhumed the next day, so that those who have lost their minds will continue to survive......"

Fortunately, in 1625, the two agricultural harvests in China and the United States were good. In addition to the increased grain imports from Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa, the strategic grain reserves of the United States of America have now reached one year's capacity, which is worthy of completing the first phase of the strategic goal. The agricultural expansion of Porter City in 1626 will be in full swing, and as long as God is not too evil, the agricultural profits will be very considerable in the coming years.

Due to the harsh weather conditions of the North Atlantic route during the winter, most of the transatlantic ocean trade was temporarily suspended, while the route to and from Bermuda and Guadeloupe was much more lively. The first batch of natural asphalt primary products produced in the Twin Portes of Guadeloupe Industrial Park and South American walnut imported from Brazil entered the local industrial circle, marking the beginning of the initial operation of Guadeloupe's self-hematopoietic function.

……

Monday, December 15, 1625, Qingcheng, Haizhou.

As a city with a continental climate and a harsh Atlantic influence, Qingcheng has also fallen into a severe cold. The heavy snow that lasted for three days finally stopped, but the temperature dropped to nearly minus 20 degrees. Almost all construction had to be interrupted, and as far as the eye could see, the town was covered with a thick white blanket, and the streams that surrounded the town were frozen into white ribbons.

After months of construction and operation, Qingcheng City began to take stock of the winter and finally settled at 670 people, two-thirds of whom are old nationals who have relocated, in addition to dozens of Wampanoag Indian hired workers who are temporarily living there. On the ice of a creek next to a small town community, a few experienced Indian hired men are cracking the ice and fishing for the season's delicious fatty fish, leaving the immigrant children on the side cheering. On the avenue leading to the port, hundreds of men, women and children, dressed in thick winter clothes, clutched hot air, and shoveled snow to clear a space for horse-drawn carriages.

Due to the heavy snowfall, the cargo ship from Manchester City has stopped at the port for three full days without unloading, so Guan Ruzhong took advantage of the snow to mobilize citizens to collectively clean up the roads and ports, and speed up the handling of goods on board.

The only steam crane at the wharf was mostly buried in snow and could not be used at all, so the unloading of the cargo was almost entirely dependent on the hands of the citizens, and the crew of a whaling ship of a state-owned agriculture, forestry, fishery and animal husbandry group that was temporarily docked at Qingcheng Port due to the bad weather also came to help.

In the midst of the shouting, large and small goods were sent from the cabin to the port board car by the citizens of Qingcheng City like drumming and passing flowers, but unfortunately the number of goods was too much, and a considerable part of it was packed in large volumes, which made Guan Ruzhong, who was trying to move out of the cabin within two days, have a headache.

The 300-ton Navy patrol ship, which is used for offshore fishing protection and daily patrols, has just completed the boiler fire and is slowly leaving the dock, preparing to continue the bay patrol mission that has been delayed for several days.

The "Antlers" class navy offshore inland river patrol ship was a small naval ship that began to be built in batches in the second half of 1625. It adopts the latest 320 horsepower double-expansion steam unit, which can easily run at a cruising speed of more than 9 knots, and is equipped with organ machine guns in the bow and both sides, and a 75 mm naval gun is installed in the stern, and only 20 officers and men are needed for the whole ship. It can be said that the sparrow is small, and it has all kinds of organs.

The Antlers class was born out of the Navy's "Snail" patrol ship that once set a record for sailing speed. It not only became the first mass-produced general-purpose patrol ship of the Navy of the United States of America. Moreover, the first Chinese immigrant captain since the founding of the People's Republic of China was also born on the Antlers class.

Ji Chaohai was the first batch of Ming refugees who immigrated to North America in 1622, and was once the child of Fujian fishermen.

Ji Chaohai, who has often accompanied his father to sea since he was a child, was selected into the navy. And has been serving on the frigate USS Delaware. Last year, the Delaware's glorious record of single-handedly taking on European pirates in Bermuda made Ji Chaohai, who served as the head of the tail gun gun, also come to prominence, and Ji Chaohai was selected to be sent to the Long Island Naval Academy with the rank of corporal in the Navy, but only halfway through the two-year program. He was rushed out by the Navy Command to serve as the acting captain of the Antlers with the rank of Temporary Second Lieutenant of the Navy, and the rest of his studies could only be carried out by correspondence. In the past few years, Ji Chaohai has grown from a young fisherman to a 20-year-old temporary second lieutenant of the Chinese and American Navy.

At this time, Ji Chaohai was wearing a thick navy winter uniform, standing in the humble bridge command room on the Antlers, holding a monocular, carefully looking at the bay. His task is to inspect Qingcheng Bay once a week. But Qingcheng Bay, with a total area of hundreds of square kilometers and a complex coastline, has to be taken care of by a small naval patrol ship. That's almost a dream. But now the situation of the navy's weak strength is so embarrassing, so Ji Chaohai can only ensure the patrol of the coastal area near Qingcheng City.

The patrol ship Antlers, spitting faint black smoke, headed north in the sea more than a kilometer from the coast. It is nearly 10 kilometers away from Qingcheng. In the telescope, a small Indian Massachusetts village can be seen on the coast. Lin Chaoen knew that he was a local native who had a very good relationship with Qingcheng. If there is no trade exchange with Qingcheng, it is estimated that many old people and children will die in a winter.

The cold wind was biting, and even though the officers and soldiers on the Antlers were wearing thick cold military uniforms and deerskin gloves, they still felt numb in their limbs, and after just standing for more than ten minutes, Ji Chaohai felt that his hands, feet and fingers were a little disobedient.

"Rubin, you come and observe for a while, and I'll go roast." Ji Chaohai took off his gloves and breathed vigorously, while beckoning to the sergeant's deputy behind him, "When you return tomorrow, send some food to those natives." ”

"Yes, my second lieutenant sire." The European non-commissioned officer happily took the binoculars, and was very friendly to this little commander, who was two years younger than himself and had an easy-going personality, and even dared to joke, "The hot soup has already been cooked, as well as smoked sausages and biscuits, you are satisfied!" ”

Rubin was a Greek who was captured by the Arabs as a teenager and sold to pirates, and worked as a slave on ships. In 1623, during an operation to clear the Caribbean pirates, Rubin was rescued and became a sailor on the Delaware. In last year's Battle of Bermuda, Rubin was the gunner of Ji Chaohai's artillery group, and he was also promoted because of his military exploits, and now he has become Ji Chaohai's sergeant and sailor captain.

Returning to the small warm captain's room, Ji Chaohai took off his coat comfortably, sat by the honeycomb coal stove, drank hot tea and ate biscuits, and picked up the navy textbook and read it slowly.

“…… In order to build a strong navy, it is necessary to go through a conceptual shift from 'understanding the ocean' and 'using the ocean' to 'controlling the ocean', and serve the strategy of the whole country with its proprietary 'maritime thinking'. Therefore, the navy is not a narrow sense of maritime violence, but an organization that studies how to control the sea and prevent the adversary from using the sea......"

silently read the latest "Navy and the Country", and the obscure meaning between the lines made Ji Chaohai see it in a fog. Without the instructor's explanation, it is difficult to understand this textbook, which is said to have been written by Rear Admiral Wang Tiezhu, the commander of the Navy, with only one's own superficial understanding.

"Ensign, there's a situation!"

I don't know how long it took, but suddenly Rubin's voice sounded outside the captain's room, and it sounded like something big was going on.

……

The government office building of the capital city of Mangwe, the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"Is it French? Asking for trade in North America? Yan Xiaosong took the telegram from Qingcheng City and felt a little surprised.

According to the rules of the Treaty of Peace between the United States, Britain and France, the French colonies of Quebec did not have the right to trade directly with China and the United States, partly to limit the economic autonomy of the colonies. On the other hand, it is also the monopoly management ideology that the local French elite has always had.

"Yes. The famine in Quebec has been going on for two full years. They urgently need to solve the problem of food supply in the colonies, and perhaps they are indeed going to the point of exhaustion. In the 17th century, we were the only ones who could deliver food across the ocean. ”

After the latest adjustment of the work functions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the second half of the year, many foreign affairs have been divided in more detail, among which the foreign affairs of England and France in North America have finally been shared by a 25-year-old young man named Dai Botong. It made Su Zining and Yan Xiaosong a lot easier.

Dai Botong was just a college student majoring in foreign languages before the catastrophe, and it was a coincidence that it was the university that Su Zining studied at that year. In the past few years, under the influence of Su Zining, the predecessor of the senior idol. Dai Botong has become a key talent deliberately cultivated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"Exchange furs for food with us? They really regard the Quebec fur monopoly as their biggest asset. Yan Xiaosong smiled and threw the message aside, leaned his hands behind his head, and leaned comfortably on the back of his chair, "Maybe a beaver skin can be sold for a high price in Europe, but here, it is the last thing we need." ”

"Hehe, their bid in North America will definitely not be the European market, I think it can, their supply is indeed relatively sufficient." Dai Botong flipped through a document he had found from the Ministry of Commerce, pointed to a few lines and counted jù. "It's been a hard time all over North America in the past two years, except for us. Food was already difficult to obtain in the Indian trade, while the sale of food to the Indians was increasing. In fact, the profit of fur is very high, and it is basically a hand-to-hand transaction, and it doesn't matter how much the total amount is, the main thing is that it doesn't take much effort. Maybe also open a Quebec market for our other goods. ”

"What kind of market can the three or four thousand French people in Quebec bec? Again, the fur trade is profitable, but it's not what we need most, and we won't be short of money to that point. Yan Xiaosong shook his head slightly, as if to inspire this key training object of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "I have another number from the Ministry of Commerce here: since last year, our whaling volume has not been enough to supply the domestic demand for industrial raw materials, and we have begun to import whale products from the Azores. Since the 16th century, the French and English have had a large number of whaling ships whaling in the northeastern seas of North America, and these are the things we need most. ”

"Hehe, take our needs as the starting point. Brother Yan, I understand! Dai Botong nodded hurriedly.

"Wait, there's a need for them to consider." Yan Xiaosong seemed to remember something, and immediately called out to Dai Botong, who was going to go out, "Let Guan Ruzhong talk to the French about whether to allow our merchants to establish a trading post in the north, so that it can be more convenient to safeguard the long-term trade interests of both sides." ”

"Crossing the Azores and pact line to lay nails for the future? This is too explicit, right? Dai Botong suddenly realized again, and deeply felt the pervasive and sharp reaction of a diplomat like Yan Xiaosong.

"Let's talk, business is not in people's affection, and if you talk about it, you won't get pregnant." Yan Xiaosong spread out his hands, his expression was deliberately strict, and he looked very unpumped.

……

Under the watchful eye of the Navy patrol ship Antlers, a French sailing ship from Quebec docked at the dock of Qingcheng, and more than a dozen French sailors stared at the town a few hundred meters away, one by one with their noses pricked up, as if to catch the smell of food from the smoke.

And in a certain house in the town, in the face of the complaining expression of the French merchant envoy in Quebec, Danielson, the acting civil affairs officer of Qingcheng City, was sympathetic and wanted to laugh, and kept holding a coffee cup to hide his expression.

"Dear Mr. Danielson, we have enough fur to pay, but only if we need to get 100 rasts (a unit of European cargo weight, about 2 tons) of grain at one time, oats are fine!"

Sitting in the warm living room, the old and greasy dress of the French merchant envoy contrasted greatly with the clean and tidy environment around him. Faced with the brightly dressed Dutch-born acting civil affairs officer in front of him, the French felt like a beggar with a low status, and the tone of his voice was involuntarily much weaker.

"100 Rust grains? You know, it's not just North America, it's the whole world that can't get enough to eat. Danielson, who was instructed by Guan Ruzhong, raised his innocent face. Extremely hesitant. "And we're not interested in fur anymore."

Damn Yankees. Are they blind, a beaver pelt can fetch at least 60 livres in Europe (French silver coins, 1 pound at the beginning of the 17th century was about 12 livres), and our bid is only 40 livres! The French merchant envoy rolled his eyes directly. Thinking that the other party was taking advantage of the opportunity to bargain, it did not occur to them that the cost of getting a beaver pelt from the Indians was less than 10 livres.

"If you can provide more food, the price is negotiable." Seeing that the other party was unmoved, the French merchant could only breathe in a low voice.

"I'll repeat it again. We are also short of food. Danielson put down his coffee cup and smiled, as if intending to send it off, "Unless you can provide what we need." ”

"Oh, of course! We have a lot of good goods, and fur is just the easiest thing we can carry! The French merchant panicked for fear that he would return empty-handed this time, so he quickly stood up and raised his voice a lot, "Cod, timber, blubber." And many more! ”

Danielson frowned slightly, a look of disappointment. This expression sank the eager and anxious heart of the French businessman.

"Okay. Mr. Danielson, perhaps you can consider it from the perspective of our fellow God's people, that every week people are starving to death, that we have been abandoned by Paris in this terrible world......" The French merchant finally sat down in despair, knowing that he had no cards to play.

"I hear you, and God hears you. Well, this unfortunate place requires too much candle and grease, and in addition to fur, I could consider taking whale products, 10 pounds of whale products for 1 pound of grain. ”

For these shameless guys, 10 pounds of whale grain is worth far more than 1 pound of grain! The French businessman's face turned red suddenly, but now he had a request for others, and he could only hold back his anger, but it was really difficult to nod.

"Well, then, you can go back and report this conversation to your Excellency the Governor." Danielson grinned and stood up and took a list out of his pocket, "Of course, this time it won't leave you empty-handed, this is a list of 10 Rust's grain, worth 12,000 livres, but if you insist on paying with beaver skins, then the price I can accept for each beaver skin is 16 livres, which is 750 pieces." In addition, there is a letter from the Ministry of Commerce of our Government that I would like you to transmit to His Excellency the Governor, which has a very positive impact on our efforts to work together in North America. ”

"God, what's the difference between this and robbery......" the French merchant envoy wanted to cry without tears.

……

The French, who came to Qingcheng to "beg" in the name of a friendly visit, finally received 20 tons of grain from the hands of Danielson, the acting civil affairs officer of Qingcheng, after paying a large amount of real money and more than 300 beaver skins. While this is a drop in the bucket for a starving Quebec City, it's off to a good start. As for how many despicable price reduction methods those Americans use, it doesn't matter to Quebec now.

In order to leave a "good impression" on these French people who were sleeping on the sea, the Qingcheng city government specially held a lunch send-off party for each other. During the banquet, the French crew and merchants devoured and were even shocked to be able to eat fresh fruits and vegetables in the winter.

In the end, under the instruction of Guan Ruzhong, Danielson also presented each crew member with a "delicate" small porcelain cup and a small mirror, so that these Qiu Ba, who had been adrift at sea all day, were ecstatic when they saw their unkempt face, and even more thoughtfully the leading French merchant envoy. For the sought-after sale of Chinese goods in Europe, French merchants have long been in fierce competition with each other, and it is likely that in addition to the grain trade, French merchants in Quebec can do something extra......

It may take some time to bypass the French government and finally establish a trade relationship with Quebec privately, but the miserable situation of the French in Quebec today is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Yan Xiaosong and others. (To be continued.) )