At the same time, the lime kilns around the city of Macau are doing surprisingly well, because the citizens of Macau saw last night how the priests used lime water to sweep the courtyards and how to use lime to fill the manure pits and gutters.

As a result, out of fear of the plague, and this is also the order of the legendary miracle doctor, many citizens have begun to follow suit.

As a result, in the following days, the city of Macao was filled with the smell of burnt quicklime almost everywhere, citizens walked on the streets, stepping on lime under their feet, people even glimpsed a white courtyard from time to time from the gate of some holes, large and small ditches from time to time discharged a wisp of white lime water, the nullah waterways on both sides of the street also flowed with gray-white lime water, in short, at present, the entire city of Macao is almost covered by lime, even the Governor's Palace is no exception.

As the bells rang for the city, Governor Bugano was hurrying from his home to the orphanage, and his secretary and black butler were already chattering all the way about how the Australians had miraculously eradicated the plague.

In fact, the Governor General had already made two major decisions before departure, one was to immediately give Australians and Australian goods the "most preferential tax" treatment, and strive to make Australians use Macao as a procurement center for raw materials and finished products facing the mainland. The second is to give "national treatment" to the four Chinese merchants who participated in this trade in Macao, that is, they will be given equal trade status with Portuguese merchants.

Although these two decisions still had to be made to convince the members of the city council, Governor Bugano did not think it was a big problem, because the four powerful Chinese businessmen already had complex and deep connections with the gentlemen of the city council.

Obviously, there are important trade interests behind these two decisions, and through these two days of exchanges, the Governor has learned that the Australians are in great need of minerals and various raw materials from the mainland, and Macao, as a "Rouyuan Zhiyi" with good relations with the Qing court, has sufficient conditions to become this transit and distribution center.

Although no one can say how many business opportunities and how much future there are at present, judging from the "wealthy" of Australians and the purchase volume fed back by Portuguese businessmen, just the current trading business, even if it is the "most preferential tax", can at least increase the absolute value of the tax revenue of the Governor's Palace of Macao by 30% this year!

Of course, the above two points are also the things that Sun Lao later negotiated with the Governor in the city council hall, and the Australians fairly proposed that the "most preferential tax" is a two-way street, saying that once the Port of Macao reduces the trade barriers between the two sides and gives the Australian Commonwealth preferential treatment, then all ports under the control of the Australian Commonwealth will also enjoy equal treatment.

At this time, both Governor Bugano and Pimont noticed that the Australians, from Speaker Sun and Fleet Commander Gu Jin to their trade representatives, had been emphasizing the word "reciprocity".

Obviously, this has made it clear that the openness of Australians' own ports depends on the openness of the other port.

At the same time, the two Governors noted that whenever the Australians said that they would "give Portuguese merchants reciprocal tax incentives and exemptions from non-tariff barriers", they did not mention the Portuguese East India Company, but simply stated:

"Reciprocal benefits and facilitation ...... Portuguese businessmen"

Obviously, this statement made the governor and Macau's legislators a little nervous.

Because this means that a huge number of small sea trading companies, and even individual traders, who are active in the South Seas like stragglers, will eventually run to the Australians to do business, consciously or unconsciously.

It is important to know that Australians have rare Australian goods in their hands, so it can be expected that as Australians become famous, more and more maritime merchants will spontaneously go to Australians and become trading partners.

Obviously, this is because it is only in the ports of the Australians that they are not constrained by all kinds of discriminatory tax and trade barriers, and these Portuguese customers, who could only survive under the wing of the Portuguese East India Company, no foreign port was willing to shelter them before the Australians appeared.

For these maritime merchants, they would not hesitate to throw themselves into the arms of the Australians after a simple weighing of the pros and cons, whereas in the past, the East India Company was the dominant one, and even if the Portuguese and Indian companies had more exploitation of them, these merchants had to endure.

Moreover, the Australians have long made it clear that this treatment is not only for Portuguese businessmen, but for businessmen from all over the world and then one country!

Yes, the Speaker of the Australian Commonwealth has made their manifesto in the City Council, and it is clear that this manifesto is not just for the Portuguese, but for the world.

Thus, Governor Bugano could reasonably have figured out that when Sun Lao's speech was over, the intelligence agents of various countries lurking in the city of Macao would certainly do everything possible to obtain the text of the speech, and in about a month, the translated texts might appear at the headquarters of the Batavia Netherlands Company, possibly on the desk of the Governor's Palace in Manila, and then in the following months, they might be sent to the headquarters of the East India Companies in the Indian subcontinent.

Not to mention the rest, if the Australians also let the Dutch accept this concept of "open door and equal interests", the Dutch will inevitably become allies of the Australians.

Obviously, this is not impossible, because these band of mercenary traders from the Netherlands, these infidels, they only have business in their eyes!

Well, if that's really the case, how will the trade pattern of the entire South Seas region change in the near future?

Well, things seem to have changed since the Australians came along, and the perceptive Governor and MPs have a vague sense that this change could be disruptive, so where is the world going? Probably only God knows......

It has to be said that the one who thought the most about these changes in the situation was Governor Bugano, the governor of Macau, because his port of Macau suddenly had an additional rival for his compatriots - Timor.

He knew that the exiled governor Pimont must have made some kind of secret agreement with the Australians, well, in order to recover the rich South Seas trading stronghold belonging to the Portuguese, Pimont was of course understandable, but he was also worried that this would shift the focus of Australian trade to Timor Island, and that the port of Macau might gradually lose its traditional dominance.

Although Macau was the only trading post in the Far East of all European countries, the Australians clearly had a characteristic: they seemed to be only interested in the pro-Ming Chinese merchant groups in the city, and he also learned from various sources that there was indeed a large group of Australians who did not like the court of the Tatar prince in the north.

This is no longer a rumor, but a real existence.

Especially when Sun Lao and the others took the initiative to inquire about the current situation of the Ming court in the interior many times, the governor of Bugano could clearly see that this group of Australians was full of sympathy for the Ming emperor who had been exiled to the mountains in the western interior and had not been heard from at present.

Therefore, he had to take certain initiatives to strengthen Macau's relationship with Australians.

Now that the plague had been resolved, the Governor thought it appropriate to discuss his ideas with the councillors, and that he wanted to give a fair and equal position to the pro-Ming Chinese merchant groups, and that he intended to get in touch with the Ming generals and guerrilla generals who were still active in the Liangguang area, especially in the coastal areas of Guangxi.

Of course, he also had to do what he liked, and continue to maintain the chain of interests with the Qing officials, so that he could smoothly obtain all kinds of materials of interest to the Australians, you know, many of these materials are forbidden to be shipped abroad, but the governor of Bugano has the means to obtain these materials.

He is confident that the members of the city council will agree with his approach.