It was a booming time. In the sixth year of Hongguang, the navy of the trading company went out of the Strait of Malacca and took the initiative to launch the Battle of the Arabian Sea in the area of Oman, and together with the Portuguese, defeated the Muscat navy in the Arabian Sea, so that the Portuguese Viceroyalty of East Africa contained the decline, not only held Mombasa, but also continued to restore the colonies established along the east coast of Africa.

This was the beginning of the Sino-Portuguese alliance, and it soon drew Britain into it.

The three parties secretly formed an alliance to jointly deal with the Dutch East India and the Du Company at the right time, and with the help of the colonies established by Portugal for more than 200 years, the Oriental Trading Company carried out large-scale trade between the East and the West, and the fleet set off from Guangzhou or Tamsui, crossed Malacca, arrived at Ceylon, and then went to Goa, and then crossed India, crossed the ocean to the East African colonies, spared the Cape of Good Hope, and could also stop at the Portuguese colonies on the west coast of Africa or Brazil, and then arrived at the Portuguese mainland.

Portuguese merchants were able to participate in the entire trade route, and the trading companies continued to transport oriental goods to Europe through large armed merchant ships built by the Cavite shipyard in Luzon, which could build Manila galleons.

Lisbon became a hub for goods from the East, and Portugal ushered in an era of prosperity. The development of trade routes between the East and the West brought a lot of profits to trading companies, especially when the source of goods was controlled by trading companies.

At the same time, the trading companies continued to import manpower and resources to the Americas through galleons, and finally, in the seventh year of Hongguang, Longtou Bay had a population of more than 2,100 immigrants, established storage points for various ammunition and materials, and formed trade relations with many Indian tribes on the American continent, and established facilities such as fortresses and forts.

Spain also discovered this new competitor through the Indian tribes of northern Mexico, and launched a siege of Longtou Bay in the seventh year of Hongguang.

More than 4,000 troops sent by the Viceroyalty of New Spain besieged for more than seven months, but could not conquer the fortress of Longtou Bay, in the eighth year of Hongguang, Li Zhaoji sent Guo Xu to lead a fleet to the Americas, and relieved the siege of Longtou Bay Fortress, and the naval fleet took Longtou Bay as a base to carry out large-scale raiding operations along the coast of Latin America.

Moreover, Guo Xu got in touch with pirates in the Caribbean, and the two sides launched a war against the Isthmus of Panama together in the ninth year of Hongguang.

From Lima, the fleet bound for Panama was plundered by the Trader's navy, and the Marines, along with the pirates, sacked Panama City.

The fall of Panama cut off the Viceroyalty of Peru from the mainland, making it impossible for silver produced in Peru to be shipped to the Spanish mainland, which had a huge impact on Spain, which was heavily indebted, and prompted peace talks between the two sides.

Eventually, the Treaty of Panama was signed, according to which trading companies were allowed to send one ship per year to trade in Panama, while the two sides lived in peace in the Pacific.

There won't be much to be gained from trading by boat, but Spain's recognition of Longtou Bay is where the real benefits lie.

After the signing of the treaty, Longtou Bay became a base for the smuggling trade. A hundred catties of raw silk cost only 200 pesos in Canton, China, five pesos for silk and four pesos for brocade, but in Lima, where silver is everywhere, the same unit of goods can be sold for 2,000 pesos, 50 pesos and 40 pesos.

This was ten times the profit, and Li Zhaoji even transferred large armed merchant ships from the East and West to undertake the Pacific trade.

Since the 10th year of Hiromitsu, the Pacific Trading Company, which was established by the trading company alone, has been able to bring more than 1 million taels of profits to the trading company, and it has grown rapidly towards 2 million taels.

In five years, another profit point will come from the Golden State. The gold mining island was rapidly produced by the indigenous people of Luzon and the Qing Dynasty, and the production continued to grow, and during the 10th year of Hongguang, the Golden State was able to contribute 2 million taels of silver worth of gold to the financial finances of the trading company every year, and it is still growing steadily.

In the 10th year of Hiromitsu, a new round of expansion began again with the explosive growth of finances, and the decision on the strategic direction once again became an important issue for the top management of the trading company.

However, in the past five years, the top management of the trading company has become more mature, and their self-perception has become closer to reality.

The trading company is no longer the business group whose goal is to make money, but has become a major force in the Eastern world, and any move it takes will inevitably affect the political balance and strategic situation of the East.

After thirteen years of development, the navy has twenty capital warships, of which fourteen are island-class cruisers, while the other six are two-thousand-ton ironclad sail cruisers that began construction in the sixth year of Hiromitsu, and four ironclad ships are under construction.

Li Zhaoji set the next expansion in the twelfth year of Hongguang, when the trading company had twenty-four capital ships, and could also send at least six or even ten large armed merchant ships to participate in the battle, and these armed merchant ships were all of the third class battleship class.

Chen Liuzi was confident of defeating the Dutch, and if he did, the trading company could monopolize the spice trade, which was an important trade between the East and the West, and could also indirectly control the 15 million people in the Nanyang region.

The Army, on the other hand, is more inclined to choose Japan as the target, and if it fights against Japan, the Army will have more room to play and its status will be higher.

But these discussions have changed with the arrival of the Hongguang decade. In that year, there had to be a discussion between the trading companies and the Manchus on whether to continue the Treaty of the Han River, and Lee Zhaoji meant to renew the treaty for five years as agreed, but the Manchus demanded a revision in order to normalize relations between the Manchus and the trading companies.

Originally, this was nothing, and the two sides could negotiate while renewing the contract, but in February of the tenth year of Hongguang, Li Zhaoji got a conclusive news that Dashun was gathering troops in Xuzhou and Xiangyang, and reached an alliance with Daxiguo, preparing to launch a full-scale war against Daming.

And all this starts with the situation on the mainland in the past decade. Dashun and Da Ming and Da Watermelon divided the territory of the original Da Ming, and the three parties did not recognize each other, and they all thought that they were orthodox.

But over the past decade, the performance of the three parties has been different. The worst performance was the Great Western Kingdom, Zhang Xianzhong led his four righteous sons in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, taking advantage of the bloody battle between Dashun and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, attacking Hanzhong, threatening Guanzhong, but was defeated, and was once beaten into the Sichuan Basin by a group of soldiers and horses of Dashun.

In the first year of Hongguang, Daxi took advantage of the civil strife in the southwest of the Ming Dynasty to enter Guizhou and Yunnan, but met Zheng Sen, who led the new army to quell the rebellion, and was defeated again.

After that, both Dashun and Daming had conquered Daxi, but both sides had too many troops involved in the frontal battlefield, and the attacks launched by a small number of soldiers and horses ended in failure.

So from the fifth year of Hongguang, Dashun and Daming both went to the road of striving for Zhang Xianzhong's alliance. But it is clear that the more pragmatic Dashun has succeeded.

Not to mention anything else, the Ming Dynasty wanted to appease Zhang Xianzhong at the beginning, and asked him to be the town of the Ming Dynasty, and he didn't even give a prince, but only promised to seal the country, or to seal the country after he laid Hanzhong.

Later, the conditions were relaxed, but it was just that he was named the king of the county and Xu Qishi was in Sichuan. On the contrary, it was Da Shun, at the beginning of the military pressure, in the discovery that it could not succeed, and heard that the Ming Dynasty appeased, so he immediately announced the recognition of the Great West Kingdom, the two sides demarcated the border, smoothly formed an alliance, and discussed the Ming Dynasty, about the country of brothers, Li Zicheng even promised that Zhang Xianzhong could choose Yunnan, Guizhou and Huguang to attack in either direction, and the land occupied was his land.

There is no doubt that Dashun's foreign policy was not influenced by scholars and doctors, and was therefore very pragmatic, not only in its dealings with the Great Western Kingdom, but also in its dealings with the Manchus.

After the recovery of Shanhaiguan, Dashun and the Manchu Qing Dynasty were hostile for a long time, and this hostility lasted until the seventh year of Hongguang.

Before the fifth year of Hongguang, the Manchu Qing Dynasty continued to send mobile corps composed of foreign feudal Mongols and Eight Banners soldiers, from Xuan, Da and even Yansui to enter the customs to plunder and harass, and succeeded twice.

But Dashun is far stronger than the Ming Dynasty, in the process of establishing a new army in Dashun, not only firearms infantry was established, but also two special armies were established, one was camel cavalry, and the second was musket cavalry.

These two types of cavalry played an important role in the border raids against the Manchus, especially the camel cavalry, whose key weapon was the camel cannon.

There are two kinds of camel guns, one is the Fran machine that is changed from the style of the ship's gyroscope gun, which is actually a one-pound gun, which can be erected on the camel's camel frame, and the camel can be fired directly when the camel kneels.

The other is the carrying gun, which is a large arquebus, which can also be fired from a camel. These two kinds of cavalry allowed Dashun to have self-propelled artillery troops, and in the face of the superior cavalry of the Qing army, they let the camels lie on the ground and surround them into a camel city, and the camels were covered with felt, sprinkled with water and soil, and then set up camel cannons to deal with the harassment of the Qing cavalry, and when they were tired or scattered, they sent cavalry to launch a counterattack.

The two kinds of cavalry cooperated with the border infantry, so that even if the Qing army entered the border wall to plunder, it was often unable to bring back the looted cattle, sheep, livestock, and food population.

In the seventh year of Hongguang, Dashun organized cavalry and infantry mixed troops, starting from Datong, entering the naturalization, after the siege, the Mo Nan grassland was swept and cleared, but the Qing army immediately sent cavalry westward support, the cavalry on both sides fought on the grassland for several months, with the advent of winter, naturalization was not overcome, Dashun finally retreated to Datong.

This war, like the Korean Peninsula War, made both sides realize that each side could not help the opponent. Therefore, from the first half year of Hongguang, the two sides were able to conduct contacts and negotiations, and the two sides did not form an alliance, but recognized each other, ceased war with each other, restrained the border people and border troops, and carried out mutual markets in Datong, Zhangjiakou, and Shanhaiguan, and the relations between the two sides entered into normalization.

The normalization of relations between Dashun and the Manchus and Daxi eventually contributed to its conquest of the Ming Dynasty. Obviously, this will affect the strategic balance of the mainland, because Li Zhaoji judged that Daming was not Daxi's opponent.