Lieutenant Siwen tidied up his clothes and quietly walked into the living room of the villa.

This is the city of Macau, a small colonial port that was protected by the people of the east coast and was only preserved by the Portuguese. The building area in the port is not large, which makes Major Strongon, who is accustomed to high-rise houses, quite a cramped and cramped feeling, very uncomfortable.

"I don't know how the Portuguese get used to it." He thought to himself. He admits, however, that the Portuguese seem to have been particularly adept at living on narrow coastal or riverine islands, and that they have built a large number of buildings on them. The island of Mozambique off the coast of East Africa, Mombasa in Northeast Fa and Macau in Guangdong are all small but highly densely populated places, and the Portuguese are really good at it.

Macau's Portuguese have now been greatly reduced by the decline of trade, and many have fled to Timor Island or the Bay of Bengal to carry on various coastal trades. For them, the city of Macau is now just a place to rest after a long voyage, where they can eat a little hometown food and feel the majesty and love of the Lord.

What is still in the city of Macau in this year is indeed "true love". The largest number of these true lovers are mercenaries who carry life for the East Coasters. Most of them are of mixed Portuguese descent, and they are quite discriminated against in India, and like the Indo-Portuguese people, let alone in Portugal with a strong Catholic atmosphere, their status is not much higher than that of blacks. As a result, few people are willing to leave Macau to earn a living elsewhere.

If you don't go to other places to ask for a living, then if you stay locally, you can only hope to live on Chinese mainland. As a result, some of them, especially those technicians who could repair ships and guns, were hired by local forces in Guangdong and Fujian, and their lives were not bad. You must know that in Chinese mainland now, anyone who has a little insight knows the importance of muskets and cannons, these Franji people, in the past and the end of the Ming Dynasty, will cast cannons in the imperial court, technology is still possible, although there may not be a high level of that group of people, but it is also a rare talent, so a lot of money is extended to improve the technical strength of their side.

Of course, the people of the east coast did not look down on the skills of the Portuguese, but they still recruited some people to settle in Den Lai and Blackwater, mainly because of their relatively proficient skills. After all, it takes a lot of financial resources and energy to train a qualified industrial worker, so why not use a ready-made one!

And other than that, there was only one thing left in the city of Macau, and that was the huge number of sailors and mercenaries. Of course, the sailors on the east coast need it, and they are all ready-to-use skilled hands, which is naturally better than training new hands from scratch. As for mercenaries, the value is even higher, for example, the East Coast intervened in the situation in Guangdong this time, and recruited a lot of Portuguese mercenaries. They have long been instilled in the military tactics of the Portuguese, trained as well, and are familiar with the tactics of the firearms age, so they are the ideal cannon fodder mercenaries of the East Coast.

Of course, it wasn't just this time that the people of the East Coast thought of recruiting these Portuguese as mercenaries. In fact, in the battle against the natives in the Outer Northeast, they had already recruited hundreds of Macao-born Portuguese Chinese (corresponding to the Indo-Portuguese people) to participate in the battle. It's not necessarily as brave as it gets, but it's definitely worth the money. In addition, Portuguese mercenaries can also be seen everywhere in the battles against the Ainu people on Ezo Island and the battles against the Qing army in Liaodong, which shows that they are widely used.

Therefore, this is basically the situation in Macao now. Gone are the days of commercial prosperity and wealth no longer favoring the narrow seaside city, Macau has begun a painful transformation, and now it seems that they have found a new way to develop, which is to develop together with the "export of labor", supplemented by commerce (the people on the east coast allowed them to trade with the local powers in Guangdong, but the number was strictly limited, although this thing was not easy to regulate).

The son of the late Lieutenant Commander of the East Coast Navy (first class on the verge of retirement) and former captain of the heavy cruiser USS Cadiz Rock, Lieutenant Sven is a graduate of the Navigation School and has served in the Navy for more than five years and is currently serving as the acting captain of a Star-class light cruiser.

This time, he came to Macau mainly to meet with a person and discuss some practical cooperation matters. This person was the special envoy of the president of the Manila Prosecutorial Court of the Viceroyalty of New Spain of the Kingdom of Spain, named Martinez, who had come from Manila, and in order to hide his face, they did not meet in other places, but in the city of Macau.

The Martinest envoy came to Macao, in fact, at the invitation of the people from the east coast. At that time, Ma Wenqiang, the captain of the Southern Pioneer Team, who had not yet left his post and returned to China, planned to implement the Nanyang trade strategy, but due to the lack of strength and helpers, he understood that he could not eat alone, so he came up with the idea of pulling others to work together.

After much careful consideration and comparison, Ma Wenqiang finally delineated the Zheng clan of Fujian, the Portuguese of Macao, and the Spaniards of Manila, intending to work together to establish a solid trade route that encompassed China, the Philippines, and the countries of the Indochina Peninsula. On this route, people on the east coast could purchase raw silk from Vietnam, grain from Siam, tropical specialties from the Philippines, and export raw silk, tea, porcelain and hardware products produced in Heishui from Chinese mainland (even including copper money, Vietnam was short of money at this time, because copper was used many times to cast cannons to fight) to the above areas, making huge profits.

This commercial route model, several other partners have also expressed their approval, believing that there is indeed a lot of room for profit, and it is what many people want to do but have not done. They either had limited influence in Indochina, did not have access to sufficient goods, or were under-financed, for a variety of reasons, so that for many years only the Dutch East India Company was able to make effective use of the traditional trade routes in East Asia and make a profit.

For example, the Dutch shipped Nanyang specialties to Chinese mainland to sell in exchange for silk, tea, porcelain and other goods, and then sold them to Japan to obtain gold, silver and copper sheets. Copper can be sold to the Chinese, it can be sold to the Vietnamese, and of course it can be taken back home as ballast to sell as much as possible for profit. Then they could buy leather and raw silk in Vietnam, and the leather could be sold to the Japanese to make armor, and the raw silk could of course be sold to the Japanese, but at the same time it could be brought back to Europe to be sold, and in short, all kinds of short-distance trade took off, and it was more professional than anyone else in this sea. From this point of view, you can better understand why, after controlling the spice production area and sales network, the Dutch are not satisfied, and want to continue to expand more spheres of influence, because there are too many profits in this to give up.

Now the people on the east coast are also eyeing this market, so after some good preparations, it was finally decided to pull the Portuguese, the Spaniards and Zheng Jing together to spread the risk. In the more than a year of negotiations and consultations since last year, the Portuguese and Spanish sides have basically been in no major trouble, and the only obstacle is Zheng Jing in Fujian. If he nods now, then this plan for southward trade will soon be carried out, and if he does not nod, then the people of the East Coast may have some unexpected trouble running these routes.

Some people may say that the influence of the Zheng family overseas is not as good as day by day, and there is no need to take them to play with them for a long time. This is not true, the right aspect is true, the Zheng family has not had many ships to do business in the South Seas for many years, and its influence is not as good as it was back then; What's not right, if the people on the east coast want to trade with Nanyang, they actually need Zheng's supply, otherwise they are afraid that the quantity will be seriously insufficient, and they will make a lot of less money.

Of course, these are not all the reasons! What the people on the east coast want most now is to leave Zheng Jing a back road, a back road that is much safer than Taiwan, and that is the Philippines. They learned that the Spanish rule over the Philippine archipelago was far from secure, that various rebel forces were everywhere, and that they did not even know how many islands there were, nor did they know how much of the indigenous population lived in the region. This situation is actually very suitable for foreign immigrants to secretly cultivate, and the Spaniards may not be able to stop it. Although it seems that Spain, a quasi-ally of the East Coast, is a little incompatible, who let you just hit the muzzle of the global planning of the East Coast, you can only suffer a small loss.

As soon as Lieutenant Sven entered the parlour, his host (the Portuguese) appeared before him, along with Martínez, the special envoy of the President of the Manila Court of Justice. The two sides exchanged pleasantries for a while, and then sat down in turn and began to talk.

Lieutenant Siwen is a soldier, so he is not particularly familiar with these, especially some details. Therefore, the main task of his trip was to determine specific sea routes with the Spaniards and Portuguese, which was what he was good at. As for the other details of the trade, he carried with him a detailed plan written by the Ningbo side in Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin, which he had prepared to hand over to the Spanish and Portuguese representatives, who would take back for careful examination.

In general, the Spaniards and Portuguese were interested in joining the trade route dominated by the East Coasters. The Portuguese in Macau, in particular, were even more excited and saw this as another great opportunity for Macau's commercial revival, so they were very active in discussing specific routes.

After seeing that everyone's atmosphere was mobilized, Lieutenant Siwen proposed that everyone should send people and ships out to form a joint fleet according to the previous plan. This is actually the right reason, and it is not surprising that everyone listens to it, if you want to move the cheese of the Dutch and steal business from them, you must naturally pay attention to safety, and it is the most appropriate way to be together.

The only question now is probably who will be in command of this so-called combined trade fleet. Lieutenant Siwen unabashedly believed that this trading fleet was led by the Easterners, and naturally should be commanded by the Easterners to maximize its effectiveness.

There is no doubt that this argument of the East Coast people does not please the Portuguese and Spaniards, but they are also a little lacking in confidence, and they are also a little afraid of the rampant past image of the East Coast people, and they can't even refute it for a while, so they can only push back and discuss it with their superiors.

Of course, Lieutenant Siwen saw this kind of performance. He knew in his heart that this was about eight or nine and ten. And at this time, it is actually quite exciting to think about it, the Eastern Coast Republic has now formed a joint fleet with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, and a de facto alliance with the Spaniards' Windward Fleet in the Caribbean. Now, in the Far East, in the name of trade in the South Seas, the intention of forming a joint fleet to control the South China Sea is quite obvious.

This grand strategic layout, he is already quite excited to participate in just one part of it.