The Victory Harbor shipyard is not a new cargo ship, but a powerful Haihan warship. The mercantilism that Thomas hoped for was not reflected in the Haihan, and it is clear that the Haihan Executive Committee decided to go the route of military expansion, and commerce was only their main way of earning military spending.

Thomas scolded and scolded, but he actually knew very well in his heart that Haihan's current advantage in the military field could not be made disappear by lip service. Portugal's maritime forces in the area east of the Strait of Malacca were no longer at the same level as the Haihans, and now only the Dutch and Spaniards were qualified to compete with this new rising power in the Far East.

Portugal currently has many cooperation projects with Haihan in the military and trade fields, so in addition to envy and hatred, Thomas actually knows that Haihan's growth still has certain benefits for his side. The influence of the Haihan was almost equal to that of the Portuguese trade routes, which could be expanded much faster than the Portuguese themselves. Moreover, the protection that a professional army like the Haihan militia can provide to maritime merchants is far from being comparable to the spontaneous organization of civilian armed merchant ships.

Since Haihan settled in Sanya, in the past two years, he has almost wiped out the pirates around Qiongzhou Island, and along with the waters of the Pearl River Estuary, which is definitely a good thing for the Portuguese who have been in and out of these waters for a long time. There were even Portuguese merchants who began to join the merchant fleet that regularly departed from the mouth of the Pearl River to Sanya twice a month, because these two fleets would be escorted by Haihan warships, and the safety greatly exceeded the ordinary voyage arrangement.

Thomas very much hoped that the Haihan would continue to expand this escort route northward to the coastal areas of Fujian - so that they could compete for the Dutch's trade area with the Ming to the greatest extent, and at the critical time, there would be Haihan people in front to block the guns, and the interests of the Portuguese would not be directly harmed.

If the Dutch and the Haihan do it...... The corners of Thomas's eyebrows couldn't help but twitch when he thought of this, the picture was too beautiful to think. If these two sides fight, no matter who wins or loses, it will be good news for Portugal.

On the one hand, the expansion of trade routes in the Far East requires the support and assistance of Haihan, a strong partner, but on the other hand, the rapid expansion of Haihan has also brought great pressure to the Portuguese, who spend so much time, energy and financial resources to enter the Far Eastern market, but they do not come with the mentality of soy sauce. Although Haihan people are partners, they are also competitors from another point of view, and the greater the advantages of Haihan in shipping, the more unbalanced the position of the two sides in the cooperation.

Although Portugal had been in a passive and weak position in the previous cooperation, Thomas did not want this situation to continue to deteriorate - this passivity had greatly limited the profits that Portuguese merchants could make from the Far East, and to put it bluntly, they were fattening the Haihan people at the expense of the Portuguese kingdom.

Thomas has lived in Sanya for a while, and he also has a certain understanding of the social structure under the rule of the Haihan, although he does not quite understand the concept of the Haihan Executive Committee, but he can also see that the social stability of the area under his rule is far greater than that of the Ming Dynasty, and the power level is also controlled by many people, and it is almost impossible for this force to collapse due to internal problems, so there is no need to expect the Haihan to decline on its own in the short term. The only thing that could hinder its development was probably war.

However, the military strength of the Haihan is incredible, not only the original South Vietnamese army has no solution to it, even if it is a behemoth like the Ming Empire, there will probably not be a good solution to the existence of the Haihan army. The force most likely to break out into an armed conflict with Haihan is probably the Dutch in Thomas's opinion.

Portugal was already at a significant disadvantage in the competition with the Dutch for maritime expansion, and it was obviously unrealistic to expect the Ming to deal with the Dutch. And in the Dutch stronghold on Dayuan Island, it is obvious that the Ming Empire has neither the motivation nor the ability to uproot it. Those who can complete this task can probably only count on the rising Haihan Navy.

This time, Thomas returned to Macau, in addition to debriefing, on the other hand, to accept new instructions from the council. This time back in Sanya, Thomas brought back a batch of goods resold from Wanshan Port, as well as the latest arrangements of the Macau Council.

Thomas's ship did not dock at Sanya Port this time, but went directly to Shengli Port. After docking, Thomas took the lead in getting off the ship, took out a document and gave it to the port staff who were already waiting on the shore: "This is the list of people on board, please give it directly to Director Qiu for review." ”

Thomas is so cautious because there is a second batch of Portuguese military instructors with a total of forty-five people, and the identities of these people are relatively sensitive, Thomas knows that the control of foreign personnel in Victory Port is stricter, so in order to avoid misunderstanding, he prepared the corresponding documents in advance, and asked Qiu Yuan, the person in charge of the Victory Port Management Committee, to deal with it in person.

Thomas has lived in Sanya for a year, and the staff at the port naturally recognized this deep-eyed and high-nosed Westerner, so they immediately took the text to the port center. Soon after, Qiu Yuan arrived at the dock with a few staff members, and after a brief exchange of pleasantries, Qiu Yuan asked the staff to board the ship and check in the new guests -- of course, there was also a preliminary quarantine for these people, so as to prevent any of them from entering the country with some of the obvious symptoms of tropical infectious diseases.

When the two sides began to cooperate last year, Haihan made a request to the Portuguese to hire a group of experienced military instructors to come to Sanya to help train militia soldiers, mainly artillery and sailors. This request was later agreed to by the Macau Council, and a group of military personnel were later sent to Sanya to serve as recruit instructors.

Although for the traversers, the operational ideas of four hundred years ago can only be described as primitive, the professional military qualities of this group of Portuguese instructors are still quite good. They are all professional soldiers who have been in the army for many years, and have had some actual combat experience in the battlefields of Europe and the Far East, and they are well aware of the need for those practical combat skills on the battlefield, and they also understand the importance of maintaining strict military discipline in the army. They may not be able to adapt to the operational requirements of the militias, but they are more than capable of training new recruits.

In the more than six months since the Portuguese instructors were hired, they have assisted the military training department in training more than one battalion of recruits. Because of the relatively lucrative treatment they received in Sanya, these Portuguese were also happy to stay here for a long time, after all, the place was safe, they did not need to go to the battlefield to fight, and the income they could obtain was far higher than that of being an armed attendant in Macau.

For Haihan, the arrival of these external instructors has greatly solved the problem of its own shortage of professionals, and the cost of hiring them is also worth the price from the perspective of effect. Of course, the most important ideological education course, the military training department will not let the Portuguese interfere, this matter is the responsibility of the special political department, there is a complete set of ideological training content so that those ignorant recruits can grow into loyal fighters of the executive committee in a short period of time.

After tasting the sweetness, Haihan once again thought of the Portuguese in the recent wave of military expansion, hoping that they could provide more military instructors to serve in Sanya. After repeated discussions, the Macao Council decided that the results of assisting Haihan militarily still outweighed the disadvantages, so it decided to send another group of people to serve in Sanya.

After carrying out the personnel registration and quarantine work, Qiu Yuan asked the group to take the group to another pier to cross the bay by boat and report to the garrison garrison area of Shengli Port. Naturally, someone from the military will take over and arrange their next life. Thomas's work doesn't end there, he also has to apply to meet with the executive committee members to convey some of the opinions of the Macau Council.

Two hours later, somewhere in a conference room inside Fort Victory.

"Mr. Thomas, if the Portuguese merchants simply want to return to Annam to engage in trade, there is no problem, and we can give some assistance. But if you want to establish a permanent port and other military facilities there, there is nothing we can do. Tao Donglai said in a deep voice: "Several ports on the coastline of Annan that we temporarily control are also used in the form of concessions, and my country can also follow our example." ”

Thomas secretly slandered himself that the place occupied by Haihan in Annam was indeed in the name of the concession, but neither Haihan nor Annam had any intention of exchanging the actual control of these areas again. Whether these places are called Haihan Concession or Haihan Territory, probably the Haihan side doesn't care too much, and the only one who really cares about this difference in names may be the historians of Annan, at least the statement "Concession" is not recorded so that Annan is too ugly on his face.

But this method can be used by the Haihan, but the Portuguese cannot copy it. The reason for this is simple, because the Portuguese originally supported the South Vietnamese court, and the northern court that now ruled Annam, was purely hostile. If it weren't for Haihan's timely intervention, the northern court might have been overthrown by this time, so the gang that now controls the power of Annam not only does not have any good feelings towards the Portuguese, but is mostly jealous.

If the Portuguese wanted to apply to the current Annam court for a place of residence like Macau, not to mention the time limit for using the land, there was a great chance that this plan would be rejected by the Annamite people directly. The Annam court, which still remembers the civil war that had just ended less than a year ago, probably would not have forgiven its former opponents so quickly, let alone given them land to settle on its own land.

But if the Portuguese want to maintain the Malacca-Macau route, they must have some safe stops halfway through the long journey. Sanya can be regarded as one, but the voyage from Sanya to the Portuguese port in the Strait of Malacca is thousands of nautical miles, and such a long distance will undoubtedly be a very difficult voyage if you only rely on the supplies you carry when you set off. As a result, the establishment of a safe and stable stop on the coastline of the Indochina Peninsula, which is now the southern part of the kingdom of Annam, in the middle of the voyage, became a goal that the Portuguese had to accomplish.

After the end of the civil war in Annam in the first half of 1629 and the complete withdrawal of the Portuguese from Annam, it became extremely difficult for Portuguese merchant ships to travel to and from this part of the sea, because some of the ports they had previously been able to call at were now banned by the Annam court, so that the sailors had to risk being deprived of supplies at sea to complete the voyage.

Originally, the Portuguese were still counting on the Haihan side to quickly rebuild Hoi An Port after the war, so that they could also follow together, but they didn't expect that the Haihan people would withdraw directly after helping the northern court to fight the civil war.

The Haihan people can afford to drag it, but the Portuguese side can't afford it. Due to the inconvenience of supplies on the way, the Portuguese merchant ships that originally traveled between the Strait of Malacca and Macao have been reduced to less than one-third of the previous two years in the past six months, and the vast majority of these remaining ships have continued to insist on the huge profits from trading with Haihan. Most of the other ships began to turn to the South Seas, exploring the uncharted waters of the Banda Sea, the Maluku Sea, and the Halmahera Sea.

If it continues to drag on, it will inevitably affect the current state of maritime trade, and the Macao Council weighed it and thought that since the Haihan people did not want to move for the time being, it would be better to take the initiative and seek a suitable location in the Indochina Peninsula to establish a docking and supply point. But there is definitely no way to bypass the Haihan to do this matter, so it is reasonable to say hello to the Haihan people first, after all, they are the current protectors of the Annan court.

Of course, before coming here, Thomas also had a certain amount of psychological preparation, knowing that his request might not be accepted by the Haihan people. After all, this kind of dual-use facilities are a bit sensitive, and the Haihan people have a temper that can't rub sand in their eyes, and most of the council's plans will be rejected. As expected, Tao Donglai, after listening to his request, made a very clear refusal, and instead built a concession in the form of a concession to seek the land they needed.