December 27, 1724, Portuguese Brazil, Recias.

After more than 160 years of colonization, the coastal plain of Portuguese Brazil has reached a high level of economic prosperity, so that the natural appearance of the region has undergone great changes. In particular, in the eastern coastal areas of Bahia and Pernambuco, large areas of tropical rainforest have been cut down, while vast arable land has covered most of the area. The large estates, with their spacious landlords' houses, sugar mills, churches, and slaves' huts, resembled small towns.

The indigenous villages have disappeared, and the few remaining slaves and some Indians have taken refuge in Jesuit missions. These Indian survivors are often referred to as the Mameluks, or Indo-European mestizos. There are also many Portuguese and black mestizos, known as the Mulato.

Black slaves and mixed Indo-European people made up the working population, while the Portuguese, who were the upper echelons of society, controlled the estates and local government. As the price of sugar in the European market has remained high for more than 60 years, this upper class has had the opportunity to amass enormous wealth and live a life of luxury that is not inferior to that of the European aristocracy. However, at the beginning of this century, Brazilian sugar was strongly impacted by the sugar industry of Qi State, and fell into a certain predicament in the European market, with a sharp decline in profits, but it did not completely collapse, and barely maintained a meager income by virtue of its geographical advantages closer to Europe.

The capital of the Portuguese Brazilian Viceroyalty of Pernambuco was originally Olinda, and Recipai was just a small village located on a sandy beach a few kilometers south of the city, but during the Dutch occupation more than 90 years ago (1629-1654), the entire city of Olinda was completely destroyed, and most of its inhabitants were relocated to Recipai, where the Dutch set up their base camp.

Over the course of more than a decade, this insignificant village grew rapidly until it was now a "big city" with a large area and a variety of styles of luxury houses, completely eroding the old city of Olinda.

With a population of more than 32,000 people, the city has expanded to the nearby islands of Antoniobais, and is the most important political and economic center in the northeast. Within a radius of tens of kilometers, there are hundreds of large and small sugar cane and cotton plantations. However, due to the sluggish sugar market, the economy of the Northeast region, including Rexipai, is relatively sluggish, and the population continues to outflow.

Even more deadly, gold was discovered more than 20 years ago in the Vélias River in Minas Gerais, followed by gold discoveries in Bahia, Goias and Mato Grosso, attracting thousands of Brazilian locals.

The discovery of heavy metals had a very important impact on Portugal and Portuguese Brazil as a whole, and the gold rush triggered the first wave of Portuguese migration to Brazil. According to rough estimates, nearly 200,000 people arrived in Brazil from Portugal and the Atlantic islands in 20 years, with an average of 8,000 to 10,000 people of all kinds crossing the oceans each year: landless peasants, small landowners, priests, merchants, skilled women, and adventurers of all kinds.

On the other hand, the heavy mining of precious metals has temporarily alleviated Portugal's financial woes. During this period, the trade imbalance between Portugal and England had become an immutable fact. At the beginning of the century and in the years that followed, this imbalance was offset by gold from Brazil.

There are three outlets for precious metals, some of which remain in Brazil, thus increasing local wealth relatively; the other part was shipped to mainland Portugal for consumption of large projects such as the royal family, monasteries and royal palaces; The third part was smuggled directly or indirectly into the hands of the English, thus greatly accelerating the accumulation of financial capital in England.

The frenzied gold rush in Brazil, as if it were part of South Africa, has led to the abandonment of countless businesses and agriculture, resulting in extreme shortages of food and other daily necessities, and a cycle of inflation that has affected the whole of Brazil for more than a decade. This has led to severe famine throughout the region, with many towns and villages abandoned and food prices pushed to an unusually high level.

In this situation, Qingguo, which has countless fertile arable land and pastures in La Plata and the east coast area, ushered in a grain bull market that lasted for more than ten years. They transported shiploads of grain, soybeans, corn, and countless cattle, sheep, and livestock to Brazil, exchanging a large amount of gold and silver currency, making a lot of money, and effectively promoting the economic development of Qingguo.

A merchant ship belonging to the American Trading Company has been anchored at the port of Recipai for a week, unloading a shipment of grain and soybeans before purchasing a shipment of Brazilian rosewood, sugar, coffee, and cotton cloth to return to Qingguo. Rosewood is generally re-exported to South Africa or Han China, while sugar, coffee and cotton cloth are used to meet the needs of the domestic population.

Of course, with grain and livestock alone, Qingguo was unable to reverse the trade deficit with Brazil, and generally piggybacked on some of the high value-added industrial products from Hanzhou, such as clocks and watches, compact instruments, high-end utensils, waterproof rubber ponchos, rain boots, hardware, steel bars, etc., and sold them to plantation owners and factory owners who were happy to enjoy them.

"Those Englishmen are really worthless, so they will catch some black slaves and sell them." Ding Zaichu, the director of the trading station of the American trading company Yongding (now Buenos Aires), stood on the side of the ship, with a pipe in his mouth, and watched as the two English slave ships drove down more than 100 black slaves one after another, ready to take them to the city to sell, and said with disdain.

"It's so normal. Europeans have been doing this business for more than 200 years, and they have also created a very prosperous trade in the Atlantic triangle. Olsen, the first mate of the Hesheng, glanced at it, and then shifted his gaze to the loading and unloading site below.

It's so fucked up, the Portuguese port is still so backward after a hundred years, there are only a few booms in the entire terminal, and they are all manually operated, not only the load is small, but also extremely inefficient. Loading and unloading some of the bulk cargo, even relying on the primitive operation of the black coolies on the dock to carry the ground on their shoulders.

Like the rich and powerful Qi State, not to mention the very modern lifting and hoisting wharf facilities in Hanzhou, even many ports in some overseas territories have also installed steam booms and steam conveyor belts, and the loading and unloading efficiency kills this port in minutes.

Even if several of our port terminals in Qingguo may be a little backward compared with Qi country, there are many mechanical booms and pulley sets, as well as a number of rails, human conveyor belts and other auxiliary loading and unloading equipment, and the efficiency of cargo handling is far more than that of Rexi Pai Port.

"Sir, I don't think it's possible to complete the loading and unloading of goods today." Olsen sighed, turned his head and reported to Ding Zaichu: "We will have to stay in Rexi Platoon for a few more days. ”

"It's fine." Ding Zaichu nodded and said, "Perhaps, after we stay for a few more days, your captain will be able to recover his health and regain command of the Hesheng." ”

"Yes, all of our crew want the captain to recover and bring us back to Yongding without a hitch." Olsen said insincerely.

Oh, it is better if the captain continues to be sick, then he can command this merchant ship with a displacement of five hundred tons on his own, and enjoy the supreme authority that only a captain has.

Olsen is a descendant of a mixed race of European and Indian races, and belongs to the invisible third-class race in Qingguo, and every bit of progress and leap in society has to pay an extremely difficult price. Those pure Han people of the first-class race and Hanyi mixed ancestry of the second-class race are at the top of the entire Qingguo society, not only monopolizing most of the key positions in the domestic military and political affairs, but also occupying an absolute dominant position at all levels of society.

By 1720, the population of Qingguo was more than 800,000 (excluding indigenous Indians), while the population of Han Chinese and Hanyi mixed race (including Han-European mixed race and Han-Indian mixed ancestry) was less than 30,000, about 250,000 people. There are more than 400,000 Europeans and European-Indian people of mixed descent, second only to these two ethnic groups in social status, mainly engaged in commerce, handicrafts, transportation and plantations. Even lower than them were a group of indigenous Indians who had fought with the Gyeongs, including the Polar Islanders (Tierra del Fuego), the Tverches, the Pervenches, the Guarani and the Mapuche, who had been dismissed as free men because of their military exploits and had the official national status of the Gyeong.

As for the country's large number of indigenous Indians and gauchos, they are not recognized as official nationals, but are reduced to rural "savages", who are often wantonly arrested by plantation owners and mine owners, reduced to slave labor, and live a miserable life.

The Han princes, nobles and high-ranking officials in China enjoy the most favorable political and living environment, and their children receive the best education from an early age, and even send the most promising children of their families to Han Continent to absorb the world's most comprehensive and advanced scientific and technological and cultural knowledge.

Olson doesn't think there's anything wrong with that, and where in the world is it not? At the very least, after a lot of hard work and hard work in Qingguo, making outstanding contributions or mastering special professional skills, there is still a slight chance to be among the upper echelons of society. It is better than the mixed races of Spanish America and Portuguese Brazil, which will never have a bright future, and have even been brutally excluded from mainstream society.

On December 31, the last day of the year, the merchant ship "Hesheng" slowly sailed out of the harbor laden with goods, and then raised several mainsails and turned around and headed south.

Not long after it left the Recian row, two English merchant ships hurriedly unloaded the remaining black slaves, and set sail one after another, following the trajectory of the "Hesheng" and chasing it from behind.

(End of chapter)