Just a few days before the Luoqia County Magistrate Han Gang thought about expanding the source of cotton, Lieutenant Ji Wen, who had made meritorious service due to multiple ocean voyages, quietly stepped on the land of the North American continent. On the sea not far behind them, several selected capable officers stayed behind the "Exploration" expedition ship that had fallen anchor in order to prevent any unexpected situations.

The "Exploration" is an experienced expedition ship that has completed a global voyage and is well-known. The ship's standard displacement is 1,250 tons, double-axle and double-slalom 170 horsepower, four-mast (straight sails), a designed speed of 10 knots, and a maximum speed of 13-14 knots. The ship is equipped with 24 crew members and 32 gunners. However, because it was a secret mission to come to North America, there were 4 diplomatic officials, 6 trade officials, 10 intelligence officials and 42 (just two platoons) fully armed Ministry of Internal Affairs police, so the ship carries a total of 118 people.

They also came with two little Spanish merchants. These two guys lived in Florida for many years and had close trade ties with the East Coast people. This time, they were tempted by Lieutenant Jiwen, who led the team, with a large amount of money (a thousand pesos per person, and promised to purchase the dried fruits, cotton or tobacco they sold first after the event was completed, and sneaked onto the ship of the East Coast people, and then came to the location of Mobile Port in later generations.

At this time, this place was nominally the land of the Mobile Indians, but in fact it was deserted. The Mobiles only came here when they were hunting or gathering food, and left it to be deserted at other times, just as it has been for millions of years. According to Pedro, one of the Spanish merchants, he had visited the Mobile tribe, which was in the inland area, with a population of not much or too little, and was about a few thousand people. He divided many small villages to make a living by settling. Men go out to hunt and fish on weekdays, and they also shoulder the heavy responsibility of fighting with other tribes to defend the village. Women grow corn and vegetables in the village, and children go out to collect fruits. The division of labor is quite clear, and they are typical Indian farming settled people.

To be honest, the Indians in southeastern North America were relatively lucky at this time, such as the Mobiles here, the Guarais, Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Nazizs, etc. (The ethnic composition is quite complicated). At this time, except for a few brave European merchants, the most contacted one was the Spanish who established a colony in Florida. Perhaps it was the reason for a governor and a policy, except for the initial Desotho expedition that was not very friendly to the natives, the later Tristandruna, Hu

The colonial leaders such as Ampado adopted a friendly attitude towards the Indians. That is, they took the initiative to form alliances with the Indians living in the Mississippi River Basin and got along with friendly relations, and then launched a series of trade activities, and both sides benefited a lot. Of course, during the trade process, the Spanish inevitably passed smallpox to the Indians, and then the Indians passed on to more Indians through their internal trade networks. Therefore, the local population had experienced a sharp decline before, and now it has slowly recovered.

Pedro and another merchant named Fernandez had done business with these natives living in the lower reaches of the Mobile River, selling iron, glass beads and some other goods to them, and what they exchanged for from the Indians was fur and a small amount of food. The arrival of European merchants had a profound impact on the Indian society. Farming people like the Mobile were better, and the transformation into business did not have too fatal impact. But for some nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, this transformation was more difficult, because commercial trade obviously greatly reduced their fishing and hunting time, which led to their lack of food and had to obtain food from other tribes through commercial means again - of course, they would sometimes send troops to loot other tribes.

However, no matter what, the arrival of the white colonists (mainly the Spanish) brought profound changes to the Indian settlements in southeastern North America, and at the same time they realized the outside world for the first time. They have since had some connection with the world economy. Especially in these Indian tribes that were very close to Spanish Florida, they have been deeply involved in their economic system, such as cotton and tobacco leaves that the East Coast people vigorously imported. The Mobiles have already opened

They started to plant on a small scale, and some small Spanish or Italian merchants who were not very strong came to buy them - as for the big merchants in Florida, they were too lazy to buy these things from natives, and they were not interested in anything except fur. What? Do you think you are buying cotton and tobacco to be exported to the east coast? Sorry. There are a lot of them in their own plantations. Instead of buying these things, Spanish large planters prefer to buy these "native slaves" to work in their own plantations.

Pedro and Fernandez are such small merchants. They don’t have much capital, so they often go deep into the Indian tribes along the old road of the Spanish expedition to trade to earn some hard money. In addition to this Mobile tribe, they are also familiar with the Choctaw tribe in the later New Orleans. In addition, they can also say a little about the Naziz people in more inland areas. In short, the relationship is still quite strong - at least they will not be attacked by the Indians for no reason.

At this time, Ji Wen and others took several small boats to the shore. In addition to diplomatic and commercial officials, there were 8 intelligence officials (the other two were civilian analysts and temporarily stayed on the ship). In addition, 42 combatants also went ashore. They placed their equipment and supplies on more than a dozen pack horses brought with them. Including two Spanish merchants, a total of 63 people slowly walked towards the Mobile village in Pedro's memory - the last time he came here was two years ago.

"We came to North America this time. The task was very heavy, but the most important thing was to do a good job of communicating with the Indians. Spend money when it was time to spend money, and be generous when it was time to be generous. We must gain the trust of the Indians." On the way forward, Lieutenant Jiwen chatted with his deputy deputy Lieutenant Lieutenant Echthot (formerly Sergeant Esposito), in Chinese, and heard him say: "Of course this does not mean that we are going to deceive each other. In fact, the Ministry of the Ministry (the Ministry of Admiralty) did not give us such instructions. Our task this time was very easy, that is, to hand them over and gain their trust. This time, so many cargoes brought in the cabin were not so much for trading with the Indians, but for them half sold and half for them."

Ashto nodded and signaled himself to understand. After a while, he couldn't help saying, "But I'm still puzzled. Why should we be so kind to these Indians? Because they are far away from us and have no conflict of interest with us? Moreover, the people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before leaving also specifically reminded us that they should build Indians well and wait for an opportunity to spread the knowledge of civilized society to them and help them become civilized as soon as possible. What else should I say, if possible, invite the prominent people of their tribe to visit or even study on the East Coast. This is really nonsense. How could this happen? Why? Why? "

"Don't criticize the policy of going up the peak. It will not be of any benefit to you." Jiwen glanced at Ashto and reminded him in a vague way, but then he said: "But to be honest, I don't know why this is the case. It seems that the local officials have great kindness to the Indians in the North American continent - well, to be more precise, have great expectations - this is really hard to understand. Could it be that the Executive Committee wants to build a colony here too?"

Speaking of this, Ji and Ai looked around at each other, and then shook their heads at the same time: What is this place? There are barren grasslands and forests everywhere in the wild, and occasionally some mosquitoes breed, and there are swamps everywhere with water. In short, it is not a good place. Although the climate here is very suitable, and the accumulated temperature is much better than the northern part of the human bone, overall, it is impossible to transform without spending a lot of effort. There is nothing else, and the chance of a disease outbreak is too high.

No wonder the Spaniards are unwilling to come here. It turns out that Florida is enough for them to suffer. They really don’t have the energy to open up other colonies! But the problem comes. The Spanish, who are so close to them, don’t have the energy to open up colonies. Could it be that the East Coast people, far away from the South Cone, have the ability to open up colonies here? This is not very likely, and the Executive Committee seems to have no such opportunity recently, which is very puzzling.

However, it is not a bad thing to come here to be a "good person". At least the East Coast trade team led by Jiwen and others, which is of a mission, will be welcomed by the Indians to a certain extent. After all, the Mobiles are not uncivilized savages. They are like the Choctaws who are separated by a sea, and are willing to contact and cooperate with outsiders and cooperate with them. They must form a military alliance, so they can tell what is good for them and what is bad for them. The East Coast people come with sincerity and will surely be welcomed by them.

And their predictions were correct. That afternoon, this conspicuous team soon met the Mobiles who went out to hunt. Pedro and Fernandez, who were very knowledgeable about their language, immediately stepped forward to negotiate. The Mobiles were indeed familiar with them. Therefore, after hesitating for a while, they finally accepted the explanation from Pedro and they agreed to take this strange team into the territory of their tribe - of course it is not the core village, there are a large number of elderly, weak, women and children there. They were also afraid that this well-equipped team would cause any trouble, so they only agreed to negotiate in a small outer village. (To be continued)
Chapter completed!