Taking into account safety factors, the 'private' salt sent from Shengli Port to the mainland will not dock at the Pearl River Wharf outside Guangzhou to unload the goods, so as not to let the people of the Salt Division catch the handle - in the early days, when "Fu Ruifeng" was the exclusive agent, the cargo ships departing from Haihan basically pulled the goods to the wharf outside Lijiazhuang in Panyu for 'delivery', and now with the increase of agents in the mainland, the main 'delivery' location of 'private' salt has also been transferred from Lijiazhuang to the south to Wanshan Port at the mouth of the Pearl River. From Zhangzhou in the east to Leizhou in the west, there are many salt merchants in the coastal areas of Guangzhou, including Fujian, who come to Wanshan Port to buy high-quality and low-cost "Sanya 'fine' salt".

After the sales channels were opened, there were more and more powerful and wealthy businessmen involved in this big network of interests. The low-level distributors are not qualified to establish direct trade relations with Haihan, and most of the people who control the distribution channels are local rich and powerful, and even people from the local government and the salt department also participate in taking a piece of the pie.

Haihan's 'private' salt was dumped at a low price to supply Daming, and the most significant effect was not to lower the price of salt in the market, but to make a large number of small and medium-sized salt farms in coastal areas fall into bankruptcy in a short period of time. In the past, salt merchants took salt to lead and sell 'private' salt, and the source of their goods was still these official salt farms, but after Haihan's 'private' salt appeared on the market, it quickly snatched the market share of the official salt farms, and the shipping price of Haihan people was even lower than the production cost of most salt farms, while the quality of salt was significantly higher than that of official salt farms.

Due to its state-owned nature, the official salt farm has a single industrial structure and business model for a long time, and it does not have the ability to resist market risks. The only business strategy that can change this situation is to reduce production costs and regain the market by increasing sales, but no matter how hard these salt farms try, they cannot compete with the Haihan salt works, which have a cross-generational production capacity. Just a Shengli Port salt farm, the annual output has exceeded the salt needs of the whole island of Qiongzhou Island, plus an iron furnace port salt field, its production capacity is almost equivalent to the sum of all the salt works in the Liangguang area, and the salt workers of the two salt farms together, but not even one-tenth of the Daming salt field, there is no chance to figure out Guò to reduce costs to fight a price war.

In addition to the advantages in terms of output and cost, the advanced business ideas brought by the traversers from later generations have also contributed to it. After the establishment of Haihan Salt Industry Company, almost all of the distributors in other places are operated with the theory of corporate management of later generations, and under the advanced management system, the operational efficiency of the entire sales system is simply incomparable with that of the private commercial banks of this era.

It took nearly two hundred years and several generations for "Fu Ruifeng" to grow from small to large, and to lay out its commercial institutions in various state capitals and cities in the two regions. However, in more than a year, Haihan Salt Industry has developed dozens of large and small channel distributors in various places, covering an area almost to the county level, and the speed of building sales channels far exceeds that of "Furuifeng". In the face of such a huge sales network, if there is no efficient management system, it will be difficult to achieve such a large sales volume of salt, and the executive committee's plan to suck blood from the Ming Dynasty's finances through the 'private' salt business will also be greatly slowed down.

Haihan's 'private' salt is selling well, while the sales of salt from officialdom have plummeted, and this rise and dissipation, Haihan's 'private' salt has swept the southeast coastal salt market The momentum is even more irresistible, only nine months have passed this year, and the current monthly sales have tripled compared with the beginning of the year.

However, this did not make the Executive Committee feel satisfied, because Qiongzhou Island and Yinggehai have entered the vision of the Executive Committee early, but for various reasons have not been officially developed super-large salt farms. If this place can also be fully utilized, then Haihan Salt's salt production will not only consume itself and supply Qiongzhou Island, North Vietnam and Liangguang regions, but also have the spare capacity to export to Fujian and even further afield Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions.

Because the local coastal areas are large areas of saline-alkali tidal flats, there is very little grass and trees, so to develop and build a salt farm there, all daily necessities, including building materials, must be transported by ship from Sanya, which requires a considerable amount of manpower and resources, and the relevant departments are silently preparing for this matter. However, with the arrival of a large number of immigrants from Guangdong, the manpower gap has been abruptly alleviated, and there are thousands of more laborers waiting for work assignments. After weighing up, the executive committee decided to settle in Yinggehai and develop the local salt industry resources.

When the relevant ministries began to prepare for the development of Yinggehai in full swing, the good news finally came back from the Australian 'gate'. With the cooperation of Tom Wang and Enrique, the local Portuguese council finally agreed to add military cooperation to the existing trade exchange agreement.

Although the two sides did not clearly define themselves as military allies in the agreement, they still set the corresponding bottom line, that is, the two sides shall not assist or cooperate with a third party in any way to threaten or damage each other's interests by military means, and if such a situation occurs, the cooperation agreement will be terminated immediately and automatically.

The reason why this article was added to the trade was because both sides were still afraid of each other, and the Haihan side was afraid that the Portuguese would rebel and contact other Western countries to attack the Sanya ruling area, and the Portuguese side was also afraid that the Haihan people would not keep their promises, and maybe one day they would unite with the Ming or North Vietnam and completely expel the Portuguese from the Far East Sea. As a supplement to this agreement, the two sides also agreed in principle not to send armed vessels to operate in the vicinity of each other's ports, so as not to cause unnecessary tensions.

As for the arms trade, which is seen as a major event by both sides, the rules and regulations are much more complicated. A series of issues such as pricing power, 'delivery' cycle, 'delivery' location, payment method, etc., need to be finalized one by one, and in this process, in order to maximize the actual benefits, the two sides have also experienced many 'lip fighting' at the negotiation table.

Although Tom Wang is not a person who belongs to the 'door' of the Ministry of Commerce, under the influence of a group of black-bellied old fritters, he has also seen a little bit of business skills. In addition, he already knew Portuguese and did not even need an interpreter, so there was no big obstacle in communicating with the Portuguese Council. Judging from the content of the agreement reached in the end, although Haihan's side failed to take much advantage due to the cautiousness of the opponent, it basically did not suffer a loss.

Haihan only listed one condition for the Portuguese on the whereabouts of the exported weapons, that is, they could not sell a single shot made by Haihan to the Ming Dynasty. Yes, that's right, the Executive Committee does not intend to find any more agents in the arms trade in the Far East, especially in Daming, a market with huge consumption potential, which cannot tolerate the 'insertion' of Western countries. It was their freedom to ship the weapons they bought back to their colonies as a means of defence, or to ship them back to Europe as lucrative commodities to sell, and the Executive Committee would not interfere - at best it would provide some reference.

Of course, in the process, Tom Wang did not forget the instructions of Tao Donglai and others, and made some predictions about the recent results of the European battlefield in front of the Portuguese Council - of course, these predictions were sorted out according to relevant historical data and let him memorize, in fact, the purpose was to convince the Portuguese that the path shown to them by the Haihan was the most correct.

Although Tom Wang memorized the historical materials compiled by the General Staff Headquarters, and was very strong, because the Portuguese merchant ships traveling between the Indian Peninsula and the Australian Gate could only make a round trip for several months or even half a year, some of the "heavenly secrets" about the war situation in Europe that he had leaked had to wait until the next time a ship came from the Indian Peninsula to be verified.

On this issue, Enrique did Tom Wang a great favor, and he used what he saw and heard in Sanya as a reference to convince the Council that Tom Wang said that something would happen. For example, King Tom accurately stated that three years earlier, the Protestant King Christian IV of Denmark, with the support of Britain, France and the Netherlands, launched an attack on the Holy Roman Empire and occupied the northern part of Germany and the western part of Bohemia. King Tom also revealed that in April this year, the Holy Roman Empire launched a counterattack and defeated the British commander Mansfield in Saxony, and the meritorious general was Wallenstein, a 'Bohemian' nobleman hired by the Emperor, - this news has not yet reached the Far East from the European battlefield, and the Council does not believe this unfounded prediction.

The victory or defeat on the European battlefield has nothing to do with the Haihan people tens of thousands of miles away, but Wang Tom reminded the Portuguese not to miss a good time to do business, because according to the inference of Haihan's exclusive technology, it is very clear who will have the upper hand in the European battlefield in the next few years.

For the Haihan people, it doesn't matter if these countries play a dog brain, but for the Portuguese, the victory or defeat will directly affect their long-forgotten plan to restore the country, you must know that Spain is the main force of the Habsburg dynasty, one of the two sides, and at least a powerful actor with a lot of scenes in the whole European process. If there is a way to take advantage of the war situation and consume the Spanish army and national strength, these grape people will definitely spare no effort to do it.

In the end, the Portuguese Council chose to listen to Tom Wang's guidance in disbelief, and according to his instructions, the weapons were sold to Denmark first. In its original history, Denmark made peace with the Holy Roman Empire in May 1629, signed the Treaty of Lübeck, and pledged not to meddle in German affairs. This contract also marked the end of the second phase of the Thirty Years of the European War, in which the Holy Roman Empire was supposed to be considered the winner, because its power had extended from the heart of Europe to the Baltic Sea in the north.

At this stage when the Danes began to lose their ability to take the offensive, it was believed that the sale of Haihan's powerful weapons would help them fight the Spaniards for a longer time - the more the Spaniards died, the better news would be for the Portuguese, who were anxious to recover.

As for where the war competition will go in the future, Wang Tom did not further 'revea'. He would not tell the Portuguese that the good days of the Habsburg alliance would only last for two or three years, and with the announcement of the dispatch of troops by King Gustav II of Sweden in 1630, a new war would begin again, and in this five-year period, the 'fierce' intensity of the war would only be greater than that of the previous war.

Although it did not fully trust Tom's nonsense, the Portuguese Council decided to buy a batch of weapons produced by the Haihan first, firstly, for research to see if the Haihan people had any secrets in manufacturing technology that could be imitated, and secondly, to ship these weapons to Europe to earn economic gains.

As for whether or not to quietly sell this batch of goods to the South Vietnamese court, the council did not dare to wade into this troubled water. The South Vietnamese were now on the verge of economic collapse, there was no cash in the treasury, and even if they wanted to, they were powerless to pay on credit, and the Council could never have taken any military risks for a regime in such poor economic conditions. Wang Tom had already expressed his position in front of them, and within a year or two at the latest, the Nguyen regime in South Vietnam would be brought down. With such a clear remark, it is naturally inconvenient for the Portuguese, who have just reached a cooperation agreement, to 'meddle' in Annam's internal affairs, otherwise they will really provoke the Haihan people, and I am afraid that there will be more than one South Vietnamese who will be unlucky at that time.

Of course, this agreement is not yet fully effective for the Portuguese Council of Australia, which has to be reported to Goa, which is located on the west coast of India, and then the news is transmitted back to China through the long sea route. However, before this long waiting period, the Portuguese Council of Macao 'Gate' can give full authority to the Kingdom of Portugal and implement this agreement first.

On October 2, 1628, Enrique took the "Lightning" sailing ship piloted by King Tom himself, and once again arrived at Victory Harbor from the Australian Gate. And the mood when he entered Hong Kong this time was undoubtedly the most relaxed of the three times he came here, and there was no longer a specific task to be 'handed over' to him, and there was no need to report everything to the Australian 'door'. Enrique's days in Port Victory, at least, will be very relaxed.

Almost at the same time as Enrique's third visit to the port of Victory, a fleet sailed out of the adjacent port of Sanya. After leaving the port, the fleet turned west and made its way along the coastline. The fleet traveled through the sea for a whole day, and arrived at its destination when the sky was about to darken, located in the Yinggehai area in the southwest corner of Qiongzhou Island.

As for the situation here, the ships sent by the relevant departments to do surveys have been eight times, if not ten times, and the geographical environment here can be said to be very clear. The fleet sailed inland along a narrow channel less than 50 metres wide into the saltwater lake, where much of the water comes from seawater backflow, and the flat terrain of the vicinity makes it an excellent place to build a saltworks.

But there is a reason why no one has developed this place for hundreds of years since Yacheng was opened. The land here is vast and sparsely populated, the land is alkaline, the basic cultivation of food is not alive, and there is no forest nearby that can provide timber for building houses, if you want to develop here, it is purely a thankless thing for the people of the Ming Dynasty who need to be self-sufficient in everything and lack a detailed social division of labor.

In the surrounding area, the only one with rich immigration experience and practical 'operation' ability is the Haihan family. Although the natural conditions of Yinggehai are relatively harsh, Haihan has not carried out large-scale relocation once or twice, and has very rich experience in handling this kind of affairs. Once the fleet had landed, the laborers disembarked and needed to build temporary shelters on the shore for hundreds of people to stay overnight before the sun had completely set.

Most of the first batch of immigrants who were sent to the Yinggehai area were engaged in construction-related trades, and they did not become residents here, and their main task was to build temporary shelters and various supporting living facilities in the local area.

Due to the saline-alkali nature of the local perennial seawater immersion, the water here is a little bitter, similar to the taste of seawater. In order to allow the people and animals who have settled here to drink water healthily, the Ministry of Construction has also moved two derricks to the door, hoping to drill several artesian wells here. Considering that fresh water is a scarce resource here, several large freshwater cisterns have been designed to store special items that cannot be separated from water.

The group had 10 days to set up camp, and 10 days later, the first migrants from Sanya New Port would arrive. Regardless of where these immigrants came from and what occupation they were in, they will probably have to 'deal' with salt water in this place for years to come. On the third day of the advance team's arrival, Anthy, the head of the salt company, also personally inspected the site and decided to stay here for a few days, until he had seen the first batch of immigrants settle down and start work according to the standard method of excavating salt fields. In mid-October, the group of immigrants who had crossed the ocean to Victory Harbor the previous month received an order from the Executive Committee to set off again from their temporary residence and take a boat to their real place of residence, Yinggehai Salt Farm. Although being a salt worker was not a pleasant thing, the immigrants chose to believe the propaganda of the cadres and experience for themselves what kind of environment the salt works were under the rule of the Haihan people.