The mist that had covered Dunkirk for the whole night had dissipated. Mo San left the cabin surrounded by his entourage, then boarded a small boat, and after a moment he rowed to the dock, some "distinguished guests" in high-end Italian silk costumes had been waiting for him there.

"Enter Mot, did you sleep well last night?" Register Balboa, who had not met for a long time, stepped forward to say hello.

Seeing that the old acquaintance Balboa, who signed the "Peace of Valladolid", took off his hat and paid tribute to him, Mo San was a little flattered. He immediately took two steps, stepped forward on the east coast and grabbed Balboa's right hand, and said with a smile: "It's not bad. But last night, there was a fleet entering and leaving the harbor under the mist. This slightly disturbed me, of course there was no big problem."

Balboa smiled when he heard this, without explaining anything, and in fact there was no need to explain it. In fact, Dunkirk, as the home port of the Spanish fleet, has always been the bridgehead for the Spanish to attack hostile forces. At its peak, Spanish warships and South Dutch privateers who set out here could capture dozens of Dutch ships every month. However, since William II organized a fleet to blockade Dunkirk and dealt a heavy blow to the Spanish, Dunkirk had been quiet for a long time, but now, it is obvious that they have been "resurrected" again.

However, their current enemies are obviously not the Dutch. You should know that the third-level parliament in The Hague ordered 30 large warships in one go in February 1653 when the war was fierce. In December, a batch was ordered again and passed a resolution that no one could sell warships to foreign countries unless approved by the third-level parliament. Such measures greatly strengthened the strength of the Dutch's professional naval warships. According to public information, Mo San and others learned that the Dutch would probably have fifty or sixty battleships in 1654. The real data was that the Dutch would have 64 quasi-battleships equipped with 40-60 artillery pieces by mid-1654, and there were 80-90 escort warships transformed by armed sailboats. However, the tonnage was very small and the artillery was mostly small, but it was enough to use it for escort.

Such naval strength is naturally not comparable to that of the Spanish. The South Dunkirk South Dunkirk is very clear about the strength of their neighbors. Therefore, they are not stupid enough to provoke them. Since the enemy is not the Dutch, it is actually easy to guess. Yes, that is, the French and the Portuguese, of course, if they meet the lonely British, they don’t mind making a vote. France and Portugal are the current enemies of the Spanish. Both countries have ships to go to the North Sea or further to fish and trade, which naturally gives the Spanish in Dunkirk a chance, so that ships are entering and leaving almost every moment in this small port.

After a brief greeting, Mo San and Balboa got on a carriage and headed towards a villa not far from the pier. The villa was not big. It seemed to be built by wealthy merchants in the city. It was perfect for holding a secret diplomatic meeting here.

"Enter Mot, how are you thinking about the mortgage of land south of 45 degrees south latitude that I proposed to you last time to exchange for a loan? In fact, we have also contacted your country through the Peru Governor's District. We should have been in talks at present, so please relax. This is not a formal negotiation. Just treat it as a simple chat. Drink a drink. The coffee produced in New Granada, Peru, tastes very good." Balboa said to Mosan with a smile as soon as he entered the living room.

"The coffee is good, thank you." Mo San handed over his coat to his secretary, then turned to Balboa and said, "I have heard of the wealth of New Granada for a long time. The coffee there should be very good. But there is no such rich area south of 45 degrees south, right? As far as I know, there are many barren grasslands, barren sand, wet and cold forests, annoying continuous mountains, moving glaciers, cold tundra and broken and winding island groups. Even the despicable barbarians are unwilling to survive there. Patagonians, Ona, Tverches, and Araucans, are there 100,000? Such an area where even exiled criminals are trying their best to escape. Your country wants to use it to mortgage a huge loan of 20 million yuan. Is this possible?"

Of course, Mo San would not think that the Spaniard just wanted to "chat" with him. What is Balboa's identity and what is Mo San's identity (Mo San will probably preside over the mortgage negotiations with the Spaniard after returning to China). These two people who have a lot of money will chat in a remote place like Dunkirk. Will anyone believe it if they say it?

How bad is the Spanish situation now? Mo San also knows something. First, the uprisings and rebellions have been suppressed in various places, but they have greatly involved the Spanish's energy, making it impossible for them to concentrate all their efforts to fight the French; secondly, these rebellions have brought about a sharp deterioration in local security situations, and the continuous strengthening of agricultural and local centrifugalism with poor harvests, which is often very fatal; thirdly, the heavy debt burden has pushed the Spanish to breathe

Their anger is that they get so much gold and silver from America every year, and half to two-thirds of them have to pay back principal and interest. In addition, due to the poor commercial capabilities of the Spanish, they are completely unable to leverage the advantages of a large number of specialty products in the New World. All of this together leads to Spain's current dilemma, industry and agriculture are on the verge of collapse, military failures, local centrifugalism is strengthened, and the financial burden is extremely heavy. If they do not find a way, Spain may collapse.

However, since the Spanish government has been overwhelmed and went bankrupt several times, they have to consider "finding ways" to reduce the burden. In the 16th century, they cheated the German Foger family, who had a good relationship with them, and in 1627, they cheated the Genoese again. These shameless behaviors of untrustworthy greatly increased the difficulty of the Spanish financing. Now they borrowed from Portuguese Jews (a group of people who are not afraid of being cheated), and the annual interest rate borrowed by Dutch bankers exceeded 20%, which is obviously one of the important reasons why they were trapped in the debt quagmire.

Nowadays, perhaps the Spanish thought that they could no longer borrow money from those Jewish vampires, so they seriously considered the East Coast people who were close to them in the New World. The Spanish were not fools. Of course, they knew that the East Coast people had territorial ambitions for La Plata, but they could still distinguish which is more important, colonial territory or European territory. In their eyes, they were afraid that the entire La Plata would not have the "small places" such as Francheconte, Southern Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, Parma, and Alsace Lorraine.

According to the provisions of the Valladolid Treaty signed by Spain and the east coast of the two countries in 1648, the rest of the land in La Plata except the Port of Blanca and the area east of the Uruguay River is the legal territory of the Kingdom of Spain. But the problem is that the Spaniards were neither able nor willing to develop most of the areas of La Plata, so the Spanish proposed loans with land as collateral.

For the Spanish, it was natural to give up some barren lands to preserve the above-mentioned European territory. After all, La Plata did not create any benefits for the king and did not have much population, but the above is different. Not only is it densely populated, but the tax base is also wide. Most of the locals are Catholics, and their loyalty to the king is also quite good. It is undoubtedly far beyond La Plata in terms of value.

Now Mo San has directed the topic to La Plata, not to mention whether La Plata is worth 20 million yuan south of 45 degrees south latitude. Balboa is not easy to respond to when he heard this. He is not so shameless and cannot tell lies with his eyes open. What's more, he has never been to those places. His impression of it is limited to the oral narratives of others (even geography books published on the East Coast). Therefore, he naturally thinks that it is extremely barren, and the price of the 20 million yuan one is indeed an exaggeration.

"Mr. Balboa, I'm honest, you may not like to listen, but don't mind, because we're just chatting in private." Mo San took a sip of the coffee sent by his servant, smelled the rich fragrance, and said, "I think the land south of 45 degrees south is of no value. The land there can't even be enough food without transformation. It's cold, dry, and the barbarians are extremely fierce, and there are no fishing resources near the coast, which is enough to discourage any investor. Therefore, I think that a wild land south of 45 degrees south of 45 degrees south of can only be mortgaged at most 2-3 million yuan, which is based on the value of the land itself..."

Balboya almost jumped up from the chair when he heard this, from 20 million to 2 million. The difference was too big! Fortunately, his cultivation was pretty good. He resisted the urge to denounce Mo San, and his brain began to turn rapidly, preparing to refute Mo San's words. Before he could say anything, Mo San signaled his followers to take out a hand-drawn map of the southern cone from his briefcase (of course it was extremely simple), and then used a pencil to draw a dotted line: the 45-degree line of the south latitude.

"The 45-degree line in the south latitude is here." Mo San put down his pencil and said expressionlessly: "It's all a barren land. It's more than three million, who would want such a place?"
Chapter completed!