The breeze is light, and the sea and sky are lined. Standing in the second-floor fence of the stern of the battleship "10 August," the flagship of the First Fleet, Lieutenant Commander Lu Ming put down the binoculars hanging on his chest.

The Río de la Plata, known as the Sea of Freshwater, is not for nothing. In this perhaps the widest river in the world, the main force of the First Fleet of the East Coast Navy gathered, including three battleships, three fast cruisers, and six frigate gunboats, and the towering masts and dense gun windows made it impossible for everyone to ignore their presence.

When they "visited" the port of Colonia, they had already surprised the merchants who had gathered there, and the local merchants of La Plata even thought that there was a war. And when their extremely large fleet in the New World sailed to the Río de la Plata, the Spaniards in Ciudad Buenos Aires were also greatly shaken.

The battleship "Rock of Cádiz", which was transferred from the Peruvian fleet to the newly formed La Plata fleet for a few years, as its flagship, can only hide under the shelter of the harbor batteries at the moment, acting as a presence fleet. Until what had happened, the fleet of La Plata, with only four or five warships of various sizes, should not rush out of the harbor to engage the enemy, as some embarrassing tragedy might occur.

"Turn the rudder, adjust the boom, and row according to the plan!" Lu Ming gave the latest instructions to the fleet, and then the sailors scattered and busy. After the demonstration, they will then head south along the coast of La Plata, "visiting" the various Spanish colonies along the coastline. It is said that over the years, the Spaniards have brought a considerable number of immigrants from Central and Southern Europe from the Old Continent to La Plata, and although many of them have been lost to the east coast, the rest of them have opened up some new settlements under the organization of the colonial authorities of La Plata. Or it may greatly enrich the population of the old settlements.

Given the current traffic situation in La Plata. These colonial towns were generally built by the sea. Most of the inhabitants also make a living from farming, grazing or fishing, and some of them even often go to the ports on the east coast to sell their catch. The populations of these small settlements range from a few dozen to a few hundred, with the banks of the Río de la Plata being the most dense; It then follows the Atlantic coastline south, becoming more and more sparse after crossing Mar del Plata, meaning the Silver Sea, and eventually disappears near the Bay of Blanca.

Puerto Blanca (White Bay) was the southernmost settlement of La Plata, and in later generations it was developed very slowly, with settlements not taking shape until the end of the 19th century. In this plane, due to the butterfly wings instigated by the people of the East Coast. La Plata's colonial development process has been greatly accelerated. The Spaniards were so uneasy about their new neighbor that they had been investing heavily in the development of La Plata over the years, and even their king had saved some of his extravagant court expenses in order to develop the colony that was on the front lines against the East coasters.

Truth be told, the fate of La Plata, His Majesty King Philip IV of Spain, was not particularly concerned about the Potosí silver mines in the district of the Inquisition of Chalcas (roughly what would become Bolivia), which was his money bag. But La Plata is also a barrier for Charcas, and if La Plata is lost, then Charcas is obviously directly exposed to the guns of the people on the east coast, and it is only a matter of time before it is lost. Therefore. For the sake of his own purse, for the sake of his own extravagance, for the sake of the Lord's people, the king of Spain felt that he had to keep La Plata. And this. That's why the Spaniards put a lot of effort into developing it in La Plata.

From the end of January to the beginning of February 1646, this large fleet of the East Coast "visited" these Spanish colonies in turn. The local inhabitants were naturally shocked and puzzled, and the forts they had placed on the seashore were wise not to react in any way. Everything seemed so natural, and the East Coast Fleet even went ashore to purchase some groceries and vegetables from them, and they obediently cooperated, but the atmosphere was very strange.

After asserting their military might here, the East Coast Fleet will quickly move south along the warm current of Brazil, where they will first make a short rest in the Falklands Baleen Harbor, and then several sailing ships will form a group to make contact with the local indigenous peoples, the Ona and Patagoni. Over the years, trade between the people of the East Coast and the natives of Tierra del Fuego has been going on intermittently. The East Coast fleet, passing through Baleen Whale Harbour, would sometimes split up a ship to go to Tierra del Fuego and exchange their skins, fats, and timber for spirits, tobacco, metal tools, salt, calico, and other goods. Timber is a much-needed supply for the inhabitants of Baleen Whale Harbor, and it is too much trouble to ship it from the mainland, so it would be nice to be able to buy it from the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego.

After doing well with the Ona people and the Lady Aracalu on Tierra del Fuego, another group of Lady Aracallu on the northern shore of the Strait of Magellan, Lesco Island, and the Braunschweig Peninsula gradually learned of the existence of the Terra del Fuego because they often crossed the Strait of Magellan by canoe to Tierra del Fuego. Soon, under the deliberate influence of the Easterners with some unknown care, the Lady of Arakalu also established trade links with the Easterners, and sold a secret piece of land to the Easterners for five boxes (50 bottles) of the Great Qu in the River.

Agents from the Directorate General of National Intelligence built a liaison station with more than a dozen houses and a playground for hundreds of people to train on the land. There are probably more than 20 East Coast people, including the secret police, who are stationed here to help the Araukan guerrillas who come here on a regular basis to solve their problems, or to help them communicate with the East Coast mainland and solve their various needs.

Speaking of the Araucan guerrillas, we have to mention the attack on the island of Chiloe off the coast of Chile by the shipwreak led by Yunsheng No. 1 when the East Coast was just starting the country. After defeating the few Spanish colonists on the island, the people of the east coast distributed the captured weapons to hundreds of Araucan resistance, led by Vicente, and persuaded them not to be confined to the island and to expand their range of activities as much as possible in the mountains across the sea. The strength of the Spaniards there was weaker, which made it easier for them to enlist the support of the vast majority of the oppressed Araucans.

Over the years, Vicente's rebels have risen and fallen, and even Vicente himself died near the later Puerto Montt, but this force has never been completely wiped out, leaving a group of Spanish officials in the Santiago Prosecutor's Court District with a hard night's sleep. Recognizing that Spain was too powerful in central and northern Chile, the rebels turned to the mountainous regions of southern Chile. The Spaniards were extremely weak in these impoverished mountainous areas, and white immigrants were rare; Due to the terrain of the area, the military superiority of the Spaniards was also infinitely reduced, and the Spanish colonizers themselves did not pay attention to the desolate southern region, so that the rebel army was able to survive, and in the following years it grew slightly to the size of seven or eight hundred people.

Of course, the Araucan guerrillas survived, and the East Coasters also contributed a lot. For nearly a decade, agents from the General Directorate of National Intelligence had been secretly contacting the guerrillas through the land areas of southern Patagonia and secretly financing their vast arsenal of old arquebuses, Spanish swords, European cuirasses, bows and arrows, spears and other weapons. Sometimes, when they were short of food, the people on the east coast would even mobilize some potatoes from the barbelen whale harbor warehouses to the bitter guerrillas, so that they could continue fighting.

In general, the chess piece laid by the East Coasters in Chile was relatively successful. For more than a decade, the investment of the East Coasters was nothing more than old weapons seized in warehouses, a small amount of food, and the dispatch of a small number of intelligence agents to help the Araukans train soldiers, but the gains were enormous. Because of the presence of these Araucans, the Spanish colonization of the southern mountains of Chile was not possible at all, and the colonization of the south-central region was also seriously hampered, so far only a few hundred white farmers were sent to build a small wooden castle on the seashore south of Osorno, which was named Puerto Barrios (later Puerto Montt) - named after the Spanish captain Barrios who pioneered the area, as a base camp for the attack to destroy the Araucan guerrillas - this is another butterfly effect caused by the people of the east coast. At the same time, they had strengthened the power on Chiloe Island in order to use it as an important base for the eradication of the Araucan guerrillas, along with the port of Barrios.

This time, the East Coast Fleet went to the Strait of Magellan, of course, not to do any trade with the aborigines - or they were just doing some trade along the way, but the main purpose was to strengthen ties with the aborigines on both sides of the Magellan Strait (with a focus on the north shore), and at the same time to go to the secret intelligence station occupied by the East Coasters, to send the latest instructions from the mainland and a large amount of supplies to the personnel stationed in the station, and by the way, to see if they could meet the Araucan guerrillas who have now moved to the mountains of southern Chile.

On February 22, 1646, after wandering outside the Strait of Magellan for several days, a fleet of three battleships with hybrid sails finally found a time when the visibility at sea was relatively high, and then all three ships lowered their sails and sailed into the Strait of Magellan at a low speed purely by steam power. And this is also the second time that Lieutenant Colonel Lu Ming himself has entered the Strait of Magellan after more than ten years. (To be continued......)