Wednesday, June 1, 1622.

Last week's return of the light cruiser USS Liberty and the Flying Scissors merchant ship means that the first phase of Bermuda's annexation plan has been successfully achieved. And the billion-dollar trophies of precious metals and gemstones almost made Liu Lao, the speaker of the Senate of the Congress, suddenly have high blood pressure.

The financial problems that had plunged the whole country into a fiscal crisis and infighting before have been completely relaxed. Gold and silver bullion was enough to cover most of the expenses, and the invaluable South American Indian gold and silver jewelry and hundreds of kilograms of precious stones made the nouveau riche with a shallow sense of art and aesthetics laugh.

But then, someone stumbled upon a lot of "fakes" in those gold and silver jewelry, which made Finance Minister Liu Xin almost jump. Hurriedly found the metallurgical engineers under the command of Lin Youde, the boss of North Industries Company, to identify them, and as a result, Liu Xinle had snot bubbles.

The history of the Spaniards' looting of precious metals in South American India is a history of "anti-counterfeiting" of precious metals. At a time when platinum, a difficult metal to work with, was unknown, the South American Indians produced a large amount of platinum jewelry, which Spanish adventurers hated as "bad silver", and it was a piece of junk that was considered to take up space on the body. Even the mint in the Mexican colonies occasionally helped some Spanish dignitaries to get out of the counterfeit silver coins of platinum jewelry that they had accidentally obtained.

It wasn't until 1751 that the Swedish scientist Tefel. Severic classified platinum as a precious metal, and at the end of the 18th century, King Louis XVI of France declared it the only metal suitable for a king, and since then it has become the darling of European royal families. Platinum is now officially dressed in a luxurious coat.

Until at least the mid-18th century, platinum was seen by Europeans as a waste that could neither be eaten, could be used, and had no artistic value, even if it did look a bit like silver.

But only certain time-travelers from the modern era know how haunting this guy is. Zhou Junting, the bigwig of Xinhua Chemical Company, who rushed to hear the news, did not say a word, and solemnly demanded the acquisition of all the chemical raw materials.

Estimated in the Hereafter. Or is it measured by the tastes of this era? If you count it as "silver", it is worth up to $4,000. This question made Finance Minister Liu Xin very entangled.

Considering that this batch of nearly 100 kilograms of platinum is too important for the current chemical industry to produce sulfuric acid, after some consultation with the cabinet. In the end, all the platinum was sold to the state-owned Energy and Mineral Group for $100,000, and Xinhua Chemical Company exchanged the platinum from the former for a 5% stake.

Zhou Junting, who got this batch of platinum, announced it in a grand manner. In three months, Xinhua Chemical's acid and alkali output will be at least five times higher than the existing base, and its dependence on imported saltpeter will be greatly reduced, which will be a comprehensive win-win situation for the whole country.

In recognition of the Navy's heavy contribution this time, all the officers and men who participated in the battle received a special allowance ranging from 20 to 50 US dollars, which made the officers and men of the light cruiser Enterprise who had missed another military operation jealous and hated.

In the dock area of Long Island New District, Manchester, hundreds of Indian hired workers, under the command of European technicians, transported all kinds of cement building materials, food, clothing and other supplies onto three flying shear merchant ships.

The construction of Double Bay City on Bermuda Island cannot be delayed. In order to ensure transport capacity, not only the merchant ships of the state-owned import and export group have been specially assigned to be responsible for the transportation of materials, but even the naval warships have to share part of the cargo tasks.

Complementing the heat of the docklands is the jubilant presence of the Navy Headquarters in the Long Island New Area. Because today, the commander of the Navy, Brigadier General Wang Tiezhu, will conduct the second military rank promotion ceremony after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Whereas, the acting captain of the USS Liberty, Captain Sun Yang. He excelled in many seagoing training and in the fight against pirates, especially in the capture of a large amount of booty for the country. With the approval of the Ministry of National Defense, Brigadier General Wang Tiezhu, commander of the Navy, personally presided over the ceremony of promoting the ranks of meritorious officers and men. …,

Navy Captain Sun Yang was promoted to the rank of Navy Lieutenant and became the second colonel-level officer in the Navy. It is Zhang Chunrui, director of naval gunnery training.

By the way, the acting captain who had been hanging on Major Sun Yang for half a year also canceled the word acting and became the official captain of the Liberty, which was the first official captain among the four enterprise-class light cruisers.

At the same time, Zhou Kemin, the first mate of the USS Liberty and a lieutenant in the navy, was also promoted to captain of the navy; Acting Captain and Gunners of the USS Liberty and a former Scottish veteran sailor of the Hound Dog, the Kent Navy Temporary Second Lieutenant, also removed his acting and temporary prefixes, becoming the first European American to officially hold the status of a naval officer in the Navy of the American Republic of China.

The Vostok light cruiser, which is serving as a military guard on Bermuda, will also become a full naval lieutenant with the first mate, Interim Lieutenant Andrew, but no one is present at the moment, so the promotion can only be carried out when the other party returns to the mainland to recuperate.

Most of his colleagues were still out on official business, so there weren't many people in the Navy Command cafeteria today, only the officers of the Enterprise were watching and greeting.

Seeing Sun Yang chatting with everyone in the hall with the rank of major, Captain Bai Jun, the acting first officer who was transferred from the Dongfang to the Enterprise, looked much darker.

"Bai Jun, come and have a drink." Suddenly, a glass of bright red wine was handed to him, and Bai Jun looked up and found that it was actually Major Sun Yang.

"No matter what, we're all our own people. No one knows how history will move. I'm just a little more lucky this time, to be honest, in terms of ability at sea, there is no doubt about your Bai Jun's level! ”

Sun Yang handed over the wine glass with a smile, as if he had long forgotten how much the colleagues in front of him and himself had a lot of trouble.

"You're welcome, Major." Bai Jun took the wine glass, drank it all, and then walked out of the banquet hall without looking back.

"Brother Sun, it seems that Brother Bai is still very unconvinced." Zhou Kemin walked over from the side, as if he was a little embarrassed that he was promoted so easily.

"War is a combination of ability and luck, and no one dares to guarantee that a single shell will kill a future admiral?" Sun Yang drank all his wine and patted Zhou Kemin's shoulder with a drunken face. "Brother Zhou, let's get stronger in the future and go to Daming together?"

Belch...... Seeing that the young captain who was complacent was already a little drunk, Zhou Kemin could only smile, but his mind had already flown to a certain Indian girl.

Today is the first Children's Day after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and he promised to accompany Dama to the Indian Primary School in the Indian Nature Village community tonight.

Dama specially used his meager salary to buy many delicious rock candy and pastries from Chinese stores, and Zhou Kemin also prepared some children's clothes in advance. These are the gifts that are about to be given to the little ones of the Indians. It's the result of a long discussion between the two.

Every time he sees the image of Dama fulfilling his duties as a Chinese teacher wholeheartedly, Zhou Kemin has a faint sense of worry. He admits that he has a deep affection for Dharma, but this affection has not solidified into something more real.

Why has this feeling not been good? Zhou Kemin couldn't say it himself before, but he simply thought that the concepts of his colleagues had not changed. But since the news of the imminent arrival of Ming immigrants spread, the talk of ethnic origin in the navy has suddenly increased a lot. This made Zhou Kemin hesitate.

Many of the people in the army have already married local Delaware women, and some have even given birth to children, but no one in the navy has yet taken a step beyond the thunder pool, and Zhou Kemin doesn't know if he will come to that day.

Every time he goes on a date with Dama, the other party will talk with shame about the fact that a certain girl in the village has married a Chinese officer in the army, and Zhou Kemin will find various reasons to diverge from the direction. …,

At least, Dama is only 16 years old this year, he is still very young, and he is only 23 years old, so he shouldn't be in a hurry, right? Zhou Kemin kept reminding himself like this.

It's nightfall. In the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the lights are still on.

Su Zining was engrossed in reading the document in his hand, which was an urgent diplomatic document sent by the Feiyun from Porto Sangra in the Azores.

The Consul General of the Consulate General in the Azores, Shi Wenbo, had officially received a diplomatic reply from the Spanish side in early May. Albert, Marquis de Santa Cruz, the commander of the Spanish naval forces, had sent a clipper letter to San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rican colony in the Caribbean.

At that time. A Spanish Navy's Caribbean Fleet, based in San Juan, will sail to the port of Recife, Brazil, in South America, to pick up thousands of "mercenaries from the East" arriving in Brazil. The transportation cost was deducted from 4,000 Type 21B flintlock rifles exported to Spain.

This has to be said to be an extremely beautiful job done by Shi Wenbo. The purchase price of 4,000 flintlock rifles was actually only $140,000 for the Ministry of Defense, but after it was transferred to the Spaniards, it was a blockbuster deal of nearly $400,000. And so it goes. The problem of the last leg of the migrant transport from Brazil to Bermuda was solved.

According to the content of Yan Xiaosong's previous letters, Su Zining knew that in the next few years, Yan Siqi, the pirate leader of the Ming Dynasty, would be responsible for collecting the displaced people, and then continuously transporting Ming immigrants to Brazil through the Portuguese and Macao councils and the Indian colonial fleet.

Calculated at about 4,000 people per year, the state must arrange more than 2.5 million US dollars of special funds for immigration affairs every year to pay for the transportation of hired ships, the maintenance costs of the rest camps at the ports along the way, the construction of housing projects after the arrival of immigrants in North America, and the technical training of migrant personnel.

This does not include organizing the transit transportation of goods to the Ming Dynasty through Portugal, and repaying and supporting the Far East layout of Yan Siqi and others.

If this terrible expenditure is only for one year, then the country will grit its teeth and get through it, and if it lasts for a few years, then in this era, for a small country like the American Republic of China, it will be an out-and-out continuous economic blow. Perhaps with the exception of immigration-related work, the construction of the entire country will basically have to be stopped.

Once development stagnates, even if the population base expands several times, the country will be greatly abandoned in this rare best growth period at the beginning of the 17th century, and the average living standard of the people will continue to decrease under the huge financial burden, and the final result will be that it will be impossible to support this mess, and many internal contradictions will emerge collectively.

It's not always that good luck to knock out millions of dollars of loot from a pirate, so how to pass on this cost has become a matter of Su Zining's hollowing out thoughts in the past few days.

Svenbeau and Miya were already secretly carrying out a secret counteroffensive plan to support the Bohemian Protestant coalition in 1622, trying to expand the scale of the war as much as possible.

While the more powerful Kingdom of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire would eventually continue to defeat these German Protestant aristocrats, they would also continue to deepen the panic and hatred of other European nations, forcing certain countries that were still on the sidelines to go to war, especially England and France.

If the war continues to expand, at least tens of millions of dollars of military spending will flow out of it into the pockets of the American Republic of China. In order to ensure that this goal is achieved, Su Zining even plans to apply to the cabinet and the Congress to come up with special funds to secretly fund those countries that oppose the Habsburgs.

Walking a tightrope in the turbulent 17th century was indeed a very exciting thing. But Su Zining felt more and more confused, and he couldn't say anything about this feeling, but he just felt that what he had done didn't seem to be what he expected. …,

"Su Zining, why are you still in a daze? The coffee is cold! ”

A familiar voice came from his ears, Su Zining came back to his senses, quickly turned his head, and changed his smile to a smile.

"Aren't you leaving for Bermuda tomorrow, you should go to bed early today!"

Yuan Xinyi sat on Su Zining's side with a strange expression, looked at Wen Jiàn with countless lines and circles in the other party's hand, and then let out a long sigh.

"You're worrying about it again, so many important things, can't other people think better, just raise your hand to vote, lest you say that you are self-righteous when you get it." The female translator still seems to be a little concerned about what happened at the last congressional hearing.

"When people find themselves unable to find fault with you, that's when your real bad luck begins. Either it means that you have lost your usefulness, or you have lost your vitality and sense of existence. They need someone who can help them think and do things, and who can make them pick and choose. Su Zining closed the text, looked at the ceiling light, and a self-deprecating smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, "Sometimes I wonder, am I the catfish?" All I have to do is keep muddying the water so that the other fish can swim. ”

"Narcissism! It's obviously a-stirring stick! glanced at her boyfriend, and then hugged each other's waist affectionately, "Su Zining ......"

"Huh?" The Minister of Foreign Affairs was absent-minded.

"Let's get married." The female translator rested her head on her boyfriend's shoulder.

"Huh?!"

Su Zining was stunned for a moment, the coffee in his hand shook, and a little color splashed on the table. (Your support is my biggest motivation.) )