Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1339 The Negotiations Restarted (Today's Four Bursts)

The temperature in the midsummer of the Black Sea in 1663 was higher than that of last year.

The Little Ice Age, which has ravaged the world for many years, has finally shown signs of subsiding temporarily. After the temperature dropped to the lowest point last year, it has begun to rise by a small margin this year, which can be seen from the relatively warm sunshine in summer.But in any case, the low temperature weather brought by the climate of the Little Ice Age is still much worse than ten years ago. After all, the Little Ice Age has just ended, and the temperature has just reached an inflection point. It is impossible to quickly return to normal temperature within a few years. This requires a process.

The worst blow of the Little Ice Age also had an extremely serious impact last year (1662). The Po River Plain in Italy flooded, the Iberian Peninsula continued to be dry, and the Baltic Sea Basin was hit by hail. Agricultural output was greatly reduced, while the main output Poland in the region is still in the period of post-war reconstruction, and there is no surplus food for sale at all. Europe, whose population has increased rapidly after the war, has fallen into the torment of famine—of course, people do not know that the temperature in the second half of the 17th century warmed It's just an intermission. In the first half of the 19th century, the temperature will drop sharply again, and the world of abundance will end again. However, this is not what people today know, and it has nothing to do with them.

The ports of traditional grain exporting countries such as the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire are now full of merchant ships from France, England, the United Provinces, and the German region. Grain wholesalers in Greece and Armenia, which dominate the commercial system of the Ottoman Empire, set prices on the docks. Shiploads of wheat were sent to Venice, Genoa, Marseille, Barcelona, ​​Cadiz, Lisbon, London, and Amsterdam, earning back a large amount of Western industrial products and precious metals, and the trade flourished in a mess.

In this bull market of grain trade, the Crimean Khanate, which has just staggered and cautiously joined the international grain trade market, has also experienced the charm of profitable trade.The feudal lord suddenly discovered that his manor on the northern shore of the Black Sea had become a hen that laid golden eggs. This undoubtedly prompted more people to consider whether this industry is worth investing in. Of course, there are more Crimean People realize that it turns out that money can be obtained not only from fighting and killing, but also from trading, and it is quite a lot.

The people from the east bank set up a bridge, and the Genoese undertook the purchase, and the Black Sea Liner Company carried the first batch of Crimean wheat, which flowed into the vast markets of Italy and Spain in this year, and became the first batch of crimean wheat. The feudal lords of the country made a lot of profits.The first step in testing the waters of the capital market, the Crimean Khanate was lucky.

However, although the Ottomans and the Crimeans have made a lot of money in this wave of food bull market, this has only slightly eased the financial difficulties of the two countries. Financial personnel, the degree of corruption and waste is very serious.Therefore, people on the east bank are still under great pressure to buy slaves, especially in the Crimean Khanate, which has been building a lot recently (building lagoon salt pans, Tatar trenches and the city defense of the capital Bekkisalay), and it is clear that people on the east bank are required to buy slaves every year. At least more than 80 yuan of male and female slaves must be purchased, otherwise this trade may not be able to continue.

At present, while the people on the east coast are trying their best to encourage them to expand the area of ​​grain plantations, they are also vigorously advocating how promising the Black Sea trade is in the future, and let the Crimean Khanate, which occupies a favorable location, join this trade feast to improve their own income.For this reason, Gao Wengang even promised to train a large number of business talents for the Crimean Khanate a while ago, and to train them in Kajibey (that is, Odessa), Haji (that is, Sevastopol), and Feodosia. Customs will be set up locally, which will be managed by the East Bank. Once Crimea's own personnel training is in place, it will be managed by them.All of these are trying to provide the financial resources of the Crimean Khanate. At present, the Great Khan is still under careful consideration. It is still unclear whether he will not accept it, accept it in its entirety, or only accept a part of it. People on the coast still need to buy a large number of Eastern European slaves-the reduction of quotas last year has already reduced the fiscal revenue of the Crimean Khanate a lot, and Gelai Khan is very angry about this, so people on the east coast have to increase this year anyway. The import of slaves has been strengthened, otherwise it may damage the relationship between the two countries and lead to a sharp drop in trade volume. In short, this is a very troublesome matter. Gao Wengang and others are exchanging letters with the local people because of this, and they are having a headache.

And this food crisis caused by the climate undoubtedly also spread to Spain's neighboring country and the belligerent country on the east coast-the Kingdom of Portugal.This pioneering seafaring country on the Iberian Peninsula was famous for its agricultural production in the 19th century. At that time, everyone who came to the Kingdom of Portugal praised the country's wheat, olive oil, fruits, vegetables, cheese, wine and wool. Not to mention, the British Empire at that time imported a large amount of Portuguese agricultural products, which shows the potential of its agricultural production.It’s just that in the 17s, most of Portugal’s land was still in a state of abandonment, and there were not many people to cultivate it, so that some wild wolves wandering around on some sparsely populated plains are quite strange. - And it is this inefficient use of agricultural production potential that makes this country need to import one-fifth of its grain every year. The cod fishing industry, which was once prosperous in the last century, has also shrunk. was consumed on food imports.

The enemy's food crisis is naturally an opportunity for the people on the east coast.And because the people on the east coast stationed a squadron in the Cape Verde Islands this year (for this reason, the local professional warships were almost empty again), after the escort fleet bombarded the Portuguese coast for the third consecutive year in the first half of the year, April At that time, more than ten professional warships from the Cape Verde Squadron sailed to the sea off Lisbon, intercepted two grain ships from Syria, and paid for the grain on board to be resold to Puerto Jacopo. Kurlanders.

This move by the people on the east coast has touched the sensitive nerves of the Portuguese. After all, they have 20% of the food shortage that needs to be imported from abroad, and seeing that the abnormal weather this year may reduce the food production, so they immediately persuaded the nobles and businessmen in Lisbon , so that these people handed over the armed merchant ships in their hands, and then mixed them with the naval fleet, went to sea and fought two small but fierce naval battles with the people on the east coast.

In these two naval battles, the Portuguese were sunk 4 ships and seriously injured 6 ships, while the people on the east coast were sunk 1 ship and damaged 3 ships, and more than [-] naval officers and soldiers were killed or injured.Later, the British naval squadron stationed in Tangier escorted a group of merchant ships to transport some food into Lisbon. Therefore, they could only lead the fleet back to the port of Praia in the Cape Verde Islands. At the same time, they sent people to contact the local Joint Chiefs of Staff to see what to do next.

Although the temporary dispatch of the Cape Verde fleet by the East Coast Navy did not achieve the expected blockade goal, their move still frightened the Portuguese. The Duke of Seoul also had to hold back temporarily, and once again sent a negotiating team headed by the king's younger brother, Prince Pedro, to the port of Palermo to conduct peaceful negotiations with the people on the east coast.

Zheng Yong, the East Coast Plenipotentiary Envoy to Europe, was visiting the Principality of Tuscany. After hearing the news, he laughed and ignored the arrogant Iberians. Instead, he took a boat to the Ottoman Empire to work with the host Gao Wengang discussed the issue of trade with Austria, and the focus was on the slave trade that had plagued people on the east coast for a long time.Naturally, Zheng Yong has nothing to do about this, unless the Ottoman Empire is willing to let the Huaxia East Coast Republic appoint officials to control its customs, financial departments, Sudan treasury and other taxpayer organizations, and at the same time strictly reduce unplanned expenditures, it will be possible to solve the problem The financial problems of the Ottoman Empire, but how could the Ottomans agree?In the end, the problem was still there and could not be solved. In the end, Zheng Yong also had to make a decision to buy 1663 more slaves in [-], valid for one year, hoping to postpone the problem until then.

After the Ottoman Empire swayed for a while, at the beginning of June 1663, Zheng Yong, the special envoy of Zheng Yong, returned to the Port of Palermo again at the kind invitation of Paul of the Doria family, and restarted peace talks with the Portuguese. .

Due to the relatively pragmatic attitude of the Portuguese, the re-opened negotiations have made much faster progress than last time. The Portuguese negotiator, Prince Pedro, pointed out that the Kingdom of Portugal is willing to reluctantly give up everything in Brazil, including the general area of ​​Rio de Janeiro and the south. Territory, and is also willing to hand over Lorenzo Maguis and the nearby land in southern Mozambique to the people of the East Bank for management. Some ten leagues of land were ceded to the Duchy of Courland in response to the territorial claims of the East Coasters.

On the issue of Articles 100 and 120 of the peace clauses, the Portuguese also made major concessions. Fines, a total of [-] million Cruzado war compensation, I believe it should be enough to satisfy the appetite of the people on the east coast; another example is that they promised not to build fortresses and station a large number of troops at the junction with the territory of the east coast in the future, and at the same time demand that the east coast of China The republics are treated equally so as not to arouse mistrust between the two countries.

In all fairness, the Portuguese did make substantive concessions this time. For example, after giving up the vast General San Vicente last time, they said this time that even the relatively prosperous and affluent General Rio de Janeiro can also Giving up is indeed a big piece of meat.But how could these concessions be accepted by the people on the east coast who were aiming at General Seguro's area?The negotiation guidelines that Zheng Yong received clearly stipulated that the northern border should be pushed to the Porto Seguro area at a minimum, so he opened his mouth and asked the Portuguese to cede all the land south of San Salvador. Now the Portuguese The so-called concessions still did not meet his requirements, so this one is doomed to fail to reach agreement.

What's more, the Portuguese in the Cape Verde Islands, which the Navy is determined to win, did not mention a word, which made Zheng Yong quite dissatisfied. In terms of territorial terms, the Portuguese did not meet the requirements of the East Bank at all.

In terms of war reparations, the Portuguese’s total of 120 million Cruzados is far from enough, and there is still a big gap from the bottom line of 200 million Cruzados that the locals have accounted for. Therefore, we still have to continue to grind with the Portuguese. Squeeze more oil out of them to be satisfied.As for Lao Shizi’s terms of dismantling the border forts and restricting the garrison, on the contrary, Zheng Yong didn’t mind very much. After all, with the strength of the people on the east coast in South America, it doesn’t matter what you want to do with the Portuguese. It doesn’t matter whether you garrison or not. Besides, you may not have too much money to maintain a large army and repair a large number of city defense facilities—but since it is a peaceful negotiation, there is always such a struggle, so Zheng Yong is messing with them a little After working together for an hour or two, I finally chose to lightly let go of this item, which means that we people on the east coast have also made concessions. You Portuguese should not be ignorant and continue to struggle on other issues. The entanglement leads to the breakdown of the negotiation, and then the responsibility is all on your side.

Naturally, the negotiations could not continue for this reason. Prince Pedro was not authorized to continue to make concessions, so he made it clear to the people on the east coast that this was the biggest concession he could make within his purview.Zheng Yong understood this, but he also said that the conditions of the Portuguese were still not satisfactory to himself and the Chinese East Coast Republic government behind him, so he would not reach an agreement with Prince Pedro on this (in fact, Zheng Yong is also continuing to wait for more Favorable and more profitable opportunities), so after more than half a month of intermittent negotiations, they reached a deadlock again at the end of June 1663.Later, the two sides chose to adjourn the meeting indefinitely at the same time with a tacit understanding, so the negotiation ended without any results. The Genoese who had been following the negotiation process were very disappointed, but there was nothing they could do.

In this way, a month or two passed, and soon came the warmest midsummer in Europe.During this period, Zheng Yong had returned to the United Provinces himself by boat with his entourage, and met with officials and businessmen of the United Provinces in Amsterdam and The Hague respectively, and negotiated many business cooperations—now the United Provinces The province has become more and more dependent on the supply of good and cheap goods from the people on the east coast, especially when their goods are smashed by the English because of their high cost. The commercial capitalists of the United Provinces represented by the Rip family had to gradually increase the shipments of goods on the east coast to various places in order to compete with the increasingly powerful industrial capitalists in England.

After finishing all the work in the United Provinces, Zheng Yong and his family rested comfortably in The Hague for more than a month. During the period, they even met with the young heirs of the Orange family. They have always been friendly with the republicans, but this does not prevent them from communicating with the Orange family to a certain extent.Subsequently, he planned to take a boat trip to the Baltic Sea before winter, and make a series of business visits to Hamburg, Lübeck, Wendau, Königsberg, Riga and other places, in order to strengthen the commercial influence of the East Coasters in this area By the way, hold a secret meeting with Grand Duke Jacob of the Principality of Courland to discuss a joint strategy to deal with the Kingdom of Portugal - of course, there is some encouragement in it, after all, the Principality of Courland has only 20 people and is hostile to Portugal The pressure is really great for them, although the Portuguese have never sent troops to land in Courland.

In October 1663, Zheng Yong left the United Provinces on two merchant ships from the Amsterdam Merchant Station, and sailed for the Baltic Sea with a Dutch merchant fleet.And at this time, in West Africa, thousands of miles away, a major event happened that may affect the final process of the East-Portuguese peace negotiations. It's just that there is no radio at this meeting, and it cannot be transmitted to Europe immediately. There is no doubt that the matter will ferment deeply in the next few months to a year, and eventually set off turbulent waves in Europe and even North and South America, involving many countries in the whirlpool.

(End of this chapter)