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In 1580, Portugal was forced to accept Spanish rule for 60 years due to the succession of royal in-laws, and as Spain declined and poverty increased, Spanish rule in Portugal became more and more unpopular, and Portuguese domestic uprisings continued;

It was not until November 1640 that the Portuguese nobles hatched a conspiracy, which was officially supported by João, Duke of Bragança.

In the early morning of 1 December, the nobles occupied the royal palace of Lisbon, executed the Minister of State, forced the Spanish garrison to surrender, deposed King Philip IV of Spain, and appointed João, Duke of Bragança, as the new king, as João IV.

Only then did Portugal once again break free from Spanish rule. However, after independence, Portugal was not in a bad situation.

João IV realized that Portugal itself was very weak. In order to seek foreign support against Spain and regain lost territory overseas;

João IV launched a so-called "reconquest diplomacy". Diplomatic envoys were sent to England, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Rome expressing Portugal's willingness to join the French-led Bourbon bloc to fight against the Spanish-led Habsburg bloc.

For the Portuguese, it was only natural that the enemies of Spain should accept Portugal as an ally; But for the great powers of France, it was more profitable to make Portugal an enemy than an ally;

Because in this way, the commercial ports and strategic fortresses in the hands of the Portuguese can be attacked openly.

The result of João IV's so-called "reconquest diplomacy" was a sad one: Portugal broke away from the Habsburg family bloc (independence from Spain), but was not accepted by another Bourbon bloc, led by France.

Tiny Portugal has been excluded from Europe's two dominant family groups, and has become a piece of meat that both sides want to swallow.

On the Church side, the Jesuits supported João IV and the Inquisition sided with Spain and did not reach a consensus.

In short, the situation is very bad for Portugal.

This time, Jia Dier and Ma Shidu came to obtain trade privileges with Great Qin. And then use it as a bargaining chip to get Portugal out of its diplomatic predicament in Europe.

Qin Mu tried a little, and basically clarified their thoughts, he asked Ma Shidu and Jia Dier to be brought down to settle down, and then called Yang Shen, Jin Lei, and Shi Chunqiu, and the four of them were in the octagonal pavilion, drinking and talking about the matter.

"King Qin, the minister thinks that what matters in front of my Great Qin is important. It is still committed to expelling the Tartars from the Central Plains, and as for the West, it is not too late to start in the future. Shi Chunqiu, the right attendant of the ministry, said.

Shi Chunqiu's words are not unreasonable, but in Qin Mu's opinion, there are advantages and disadvantages to cooperating with the Portuguese, so that Portugal can get some advanced technology and talents from Europe, and in the future, the sailors of Great Qin can also have a very good guide.

From China to Europe. No matter how far the road is, it will be extremely difficult to rely on the Great Qin Navy to fight through step by step.

If the Portuguese helped, there were their supply ports along the way. With them guiding the course, then Great Qin would be able to expand its power to Europe as quickly as possible.

In addition, the world's largest gold mine: the Rand Gold Mine. Lying quietly at the southern tip of Africa, how can the British be allowed to take the lead again?

Qin Mu said: "People have no foresight. There must be near-term worries, and the Tartars in the north are of course the most important, but they cooperate with the Westerners. It does not hinder the great cause of Great Qin to drive out the Tartars. On the contrary, there will be a certain promoting effect. ”

Jin Lei agreed with this, and he sighed instead: "Portugal is just a small country, and it is unbelievable that it can control such a large overseas territory!" ”

Qin Mu also said casually: "There are countless wealth overseas, as long as you get out of the city, you can easily get it. I can no longer watch others come to our doorstep, wanton plundering and indifferent, this cooperation with Portugal is just the beginning. ”

Yang Shen thought for a while and said: "King Qin, Daqin is now going to focus on dominating the world, for Portugal, my Daqin is inevitably a little far away from the water can not save the near fire, in the minister's opinion, the foundation of cooperation between the two sides is not solid." ”

"Yang Qing, this negotiation with the Portuguese, it's up to you to negotiate, Luzon is an important Spanish colony, as long as we send sailors to attack Luzon, it will be the greatest help to Portugal, isn't this the basis for cooperation?"

"But don't forget, the King of Qin still occupies the land of the Central Plains, and sending a navy to attack Luzon at this time is really an extraneous branch, and the minister asks the King of Qin to think twice." Shi Chunqiu said bluntly.

Shi Chunqiu has always done things step by step, this is his character, and Qin Mu knows it very well. It is believed that the majority of the ministers of the DPRK and China also hold the same view as him, and they are unwilling to make any more extraneous problems until the world is unified.

But the so-called extraneous branches depend on how you look at it, after the first battle in the East China Sea, the losses of Daqin and the Zheng family were not small, but with the submission of Zheng Zhilong, the combined naval force was much stronger than the original;

And attacking Luzon will not actually take up much of Great Qin's war resources, and it will be almost enough to gather one hundred and ten elite warships. It costs a lot of money to keep the navy, and it's a huge waste for you to let him be idle with such a cost-intensive service.

Qin Mu said: "Shi Qing, look at the problem on both sides, some wars, not only will you not lose money, but you will also make money. Westerners often send a fleet to the sea, and they can bring back a steady stream of wealth for the Bennei;

It is precisely because Great Qin will face a series of wars to unify the world in the future that it is even more necessary to let the navy out of the army, so that they can bring back a steady stream of wealth for Great Qin and continuously pump blood for the great cause of unification.

Only in this way will Great Qin not become poorer and poorer, and the people will not become more miserable because of the war. On the other hand, the goods of Daqin must also go as soon as possible, so that the country can prosper rapidly;

Now that the Westerners are in control of the South Seas, if Daqin's goods want to go out of the country, the navy must open the way first, so that Daqin's goods can obtain the greatest profits. Spain had no more than three or two thousand troops in Luzon, and it was not very difficult to take it. ”

Qin Mu's words made Shi Chunqiu a little dumbfounded, Qin Mu let the navy launch a war with foreign countries, but it was actually to give a blood transfusion to the country.

This way of thinking, completely out of his ideological framework, made him very uncomfortable.

Since ancient times, in Confucian thought, war has been the most costly for the people and money. Soldiers, murder weapons, saints have to use them as a last resort. In other words, you can't use knives unless you have to.

Qin Mu didn't care what he thought, and said to Yang Shen: "Attacking Luzon, this is the sincerity that my Great Qin showed to Portugal, Yang Qing, you have to remember that in the eyes of Westerners, there are only eternal interests, no eternal friends." When cooperating with Westerners, you must not talk to them about benevolence, righteousness and morality. This will not work in front of Westerners, who will only take you for a fool. So, when you negotiate with them next, you have to put the interests first, and the more benefits you can extract from the Portuguese, the better. ”

"Minister, obey the order."

Of course, Qin Mu would definitely not attack Luzon by himself, and he had to pull in the Portuguese and make the enmity between Portugal and Spain deeper and deeper.

And at dusk they dispersed.

Li Shi leaned up and said, "King Qin, the revenge gunner you want has brought it." ”

"Oh, bring it up."

When the Zheng family attacked Taiwan, they seized a lot of rifles from the Dutch, Li Shi asked people to bring one, Qin Mu looked at it carefully, the barrel of this rifle has rifling, and the bullet accelerates and rotates in the rifle when shooting, so the trajectory is more stable and the range is longer.

And the biggest problem is also in rifling, because rifling makes it much more difficult to reload than a smoothbore gun, and to load a bullet, you have to hit it hard with a hammer to load the bullet.

But despite this, this is no small progress.

The rifled gun represents the trend of the development of hot weapons in the future, Qin Mu is very concerned about this, he remembers that there is a kind of mini bullet later, which is a very good solution to the problem of difficult loading of front-loading rifled guns. Before the development of the rear-loading rifled gun, this was definitely the most powerful gun.

The principle of the Mini bullet is actually very simple, a small hole is dug at the bottom of the lead warhead, and when fired, it ignites to inflate the bullet and close to the chamber, and under the pressure of rifling, the warhead can rotate out at high speed, and the hitting accuracy is greatly improved.

Qin Mu memorized this principle, and then asked Li Shi to send it back to the ordnance supervisor along with the rifle for the ordnance supervisor to develop.

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(To be continued......)