After dealing with Grand Duke Jacob with refugees, Zheng Yong rushed back to Riga without stopping, and then received Matthias, the head of the Deher family who came from Gothenburg.●⌒,

It was already 1655. Christmas in 1654 just a few days passed, but the old Mathias still insisted on a boat to arrive at Riga Port and held talks with Zheng Yong, who was fully responsible for diplomatic and trade affairs in the East Coast in Europe at this time. The content of the talks was of course very obvious, and naturally the situation in the Baltic Sea that is becoming increasingly sinister.

"I am very sure that the Swedes are about to start a war with Poland. Although they are secretly informed, they have been accelerating the preparation of war materials recently, which cannot be concealed. The copper mines, iron ore and iron smelting workshops run by our family have received many production tasks, and some artillery casting workshops invested by the Hamburgers have also begun to work day and night. Finland, some parts of North Germany and the inland Sweden have begun to collect food, grass and soldiers. The war is imminent and may break out in a few months. The target is undoubtedly Poland, which has been greatly weakened by Ukraine and Moscow." Mr. Matthias Deher sent away the irrelevant people as soon as he came up, and then talked with Zheng Yong alone.

Zheng Yong, who was making tea for Mr. Deher, was not surprised when he heard this. He paused for a moment, and then said indifferently: "This is inevitable. The Swedes had long wanted to occupy more land. The entire Livornia, Pomerania and even part of Poland were coveted by Sweden, the newly ascended king of Sweden. Besides, the cousin of the former Queen Christina must be eager to make achievements in order to hold the throne. Mr. Deher, you must not come to Livornia often. In fact, if you live in Riga, the second largest city in Sweden, you will know that the Swedes have already collected taxes twice to raise military expenses for war. In fact, if the military funds we transported from the New World were unloading in Wendao Port, I doubt that this batch of sensitive materials transported at sensitive moments would be forcibly bought by the Swedes."

"Even the reasons for the Swedes to intervene in the war are ready-made." Zheng Yong poured a cup of Xuedou tea for Matthias Deher with a porcelain cup. He pushed it to him and said, "The idiots in Moscow are savage and rude. They not only robbed randomly in the occupied area, but also threatened trade in the upper reaches of the Dvine River. Isn't this a ready-made excuse for Stockholm to intervene?"

"We are extremely opposed to any attempt to dominate the main ports on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, and this is also the attitude of the third-level parliament of the United Provinces." Matthias Deher made his position seriously, and said: "The Swedes have already owned half of Livonia, West Pomerania, Bremen-Felden and other places, but they are still not satisfied. This is really disappointing. To be honest, although our Deher family and the Tripp family have invested in Sweden for many years, their peaceful persuasion of the ambitious Carl X has failed. They avoid talking about whether to interfere in Polish affairs, but this is an obscure attitude in itself."

"So you chose Brandenburg people?" Zheng Yong also made a cup of tea for himself. After a sniff of intoxication, he said slowly: "Frederick William, the general election officer, was lucky. He led his troops to the war in the last few battles of the Thirty Years' War, and received East Pomerania as a reward after the war. Now he inherited the Principality of Prussia and was eyeing West Pomerania under Sweden's control. And this man was an ambitious speculator and actually established a standing army of up to 8,000 people, which is rare in the entire Baltic Sea. You know, the Swedes are strong in their professional standing army. Now that the Brandenburg people have also caught up, this place may become a troublesome place in the future. But is Frederick really worthy of the bets you have placed?"

"The war with Britain has ended, and it's time to reorganize the order," said Mr. Deher. "The influence of the United Province is far beyond your imagination, Zheng. Not only Brandenburg, but Denmark and some German states, no one wants to see Sweden continue to expand its influence in the Baltic Sea. So someone must stop Sweden from invading Poland."

"It's up to you. It has nothing to do with us anyway." Zheng Yong sat comfortably on the chair, took a sip of tea, and said leisurely: "We have fulfilled our promise not to sell military funds to Sweden, but the British took advantage of the loopholes and sold a large amount of Birmingham-produced arms. In this way, our losses are quite considerable. Is your promise to open the Brandenburg market to our merchants still valid?"

Speaking of which, although the First British-Dutch War lasted for several months than in history, in September, the overwhelmed two countries finally reached an agreement and signed the Westminster Peace Treaty. At this point, the war that lasted for more than two years finally came to an end. The Dutch lost face, and the British got some of the things they wanted (indemnities, land and commercial interests). They also relied on the nearly 2,000 Dutch ships seized in the war to greatly expand their transport fleet size, and increased their domestic ocean transportation capacity by about 50%. It is precisely because of this that although the British government has suffered a huge debt of 2.5 million pounds, it seems that it is still profitable at the moment, as far as the entire national level is concerned.

Of course, there are gains and losses. Although the Dutch failed in this war, they also had time to rebuild the commercial network that was severely impacted during the war to quickly stop losses. Some naval ships could also free up their hands to serve the country's interests in other aspects, such as showing off their power to Lisbon at the mouth of the Tejo River, resuming African trading posts or colonial ports that were taken away during the war, and entering the Baltic Sea to serve the balance of power implemented by the Netherlands. In short, there are still many things to do.

"Of course our promise is effective." Matthias DeHell glared at him with some dissatisfaction, as if he was angry that Zheng Yong questioned their integrity, but soon he changed his face and asked Zheng Yong mysteriously: "I heard that you received Prince Waltermar in Riga two days ago. Is this true?"

"My God, are you all dog noses? Is the sense of smell so sensitive?" Zheng Yong said in a slightly sarcastic tone. "Prince Waltermar is only visiting in his private capacity. His friendship with me was established in Arhangel. It is normal to visit old friends when traveling to Livornia, right?"

Waltermar was a Danish prince and also the son-in-law of Mikhail, the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty of Russia. Of course, because the Russians forced him to convert to Orthodox religion, he always refused to marry the Tsar's daughter Irina, at that time, many Russian ministers came to persuade him, saying that Princess Irina was "very pretty and never drank strong wine, so for such a beauty to change her faith." His father also forced his son to agree to the marriage for diplomatic reasons and a dowry of 300,000 rubles. However, due to religious reasons, Prince Waltermar was detained in Russia and was not allowed to leave until Tsar Mikhail died.

However, although Waltermar did not have a very pleasant life in Russia, after the death of the old Tsar, he became a bond between Russians and the West because of his special experience. The prince himself was obviously willing to do so, because while enhancing his influence, it could also bring great benefits to him. It should be noted that after the death of the old king (the old king and his illegitimate son had a total of 26 children), he was not very economically prosperous. It was indeed a good thing to be a liaison between Russia and the West.

This time Waltermar came to Riga, of course, not as Zheng Yong said, who came to visit his old friend, but acted as a secret contact person of Tsar Alexey to contact Zheng Yong, asking Zheng Yong to hand over part of the military funds stored in the Baltic Sea to the Russian army, the premise that the Tsar's army fought to Livonia as they wished. Zheng Yong had agreed to the Russians' request in principle. After all, who would sell these military funds to whom the Russians wanted, and if the Russians wanted (and saved freight), they would sell them to them, so as to save time to be robbed by the Swedes. However, Zheng Yong also tentatively asked the Russians whether they could sell those Lithuanian prisoners of war, but the Russians simply rejected their lower limit. Obviously, it was not as low as the men on the grassland.

However, the Russians did not simply refuse the requests of the East Coast people. For example, they accepted a battle tour group of officers sent by the East Coast with about 40 people to follow the Russian army to watch the battle. This is undoubtedly extremely critical for the East Coast to improve the vision of their army officers and enhance the combat qualities of large corps, because this is the only way to regularize the construction of the army. Russia, Ukraine and Ukraine have a battle scene with more than 100,000 troops in Lithuania, and it is not common even in Western Europe. They can agree that dozens of East Coast officers will follow the Russian army's main force on the north route to advance westward. This is indeed quite sincere.
Chapter completed!