"Maolin, Valparaiso, Lima, Guayaquil and Acapulco are the five major commercial cities, which are commissioned by the Executive Committee and have customs ports." On the escort gunboat of the Third Fleet, the Lieutenant of the Navy of Cai Anguo was talking freely.

Three Southern Railway transport ships were also traveling with the "Da Chi Squid". At this time, they were sailing north along the strong Peruvian current at a high speed of six knots. They had just left the bustling port of Valparaiso and were preparing to head towards the next destination, Guayaquil, located in the Quito Trial Court District. It is expected to take about half a month. This is also the first time that senior officials have visited the East Coast since the establishment of five major customs on the Pacific coast.

The customs of the East Coast people were originally located in Valparaiso were a bit unstable, because this port is actually the outer port of Santiago, and the economic hinterlands are mostly inland towns. Here, the Hidalgo people are very powerful, and the influence of conservative forces such as priests is also very strong. Therefore, the customs of the East Coast people were somewhat unsuccessful. However, after swaying around the naval gunboats and successfully sending a squadron of the South Railway Guards, the attitude of the locals changed subtly - this should be a good start. After all, this is also a port city with annual import and export tariff revenue of 70,000 to 80,000 yuan, and should not be underestimated.

"The situation of Maolin Customs is relatively optimistic. We have been operating in the local area for many years, and we are familiar with people. We are close to our own territory. The trade volume is far higher than that of other ports. The commercial atmosphere is strong, so we can still cover it." Lieutenant Cai Anguo, who has been sailing near the coast of the Peru Governor's District for many years, introduced carefully, "But the other four cities are very problematic, and there are many cases of refusing to pay taxes or smuggling. These smuggled goods are believed to have flowed from the north. At its root, a small number of them come from New Spain, and most of them actually come from the old continent. In addition, the customs officers stationed in our country were bullied by local conservative and xenophobic forces, and deceived and even hurt them one after another. Therefore, last month, your company sent a squadron of the South Iron Protective Team to the Port of Guayaquil, which was the most terror, which slightly suppressed the fierce flames of the Spanish conservative forces."

"This month we sent another squadron of road guards to Valparaiso. Next month, will we send another squadron of road guards to Acapulco to maintain order?" Liu Ang shook his head and said, "The Nantik Road Guard has only five squadrons in total (one of them is a cavalry squadron). He immediately sent out three infantry squadrons. How can we maintain the most important railway order in the future? We still have to find another way to do things for customs."

Of course, Liu Ang also knew that such a thing would not be solved in the short term. After all, it was not long before the full liberalization of trade between Peru and New Spain on the Pacific side. It was natural for local vested interests, conservative and xenophobic forces, and the church was hostile to the East Coast people. In addition, the East Coast people had not cultivated a comprador class who spoke for themselves, so it was difficult to start all the work. There was no other way to solve this kind of thing. If you could not break the deadlock violently, you could only use water grinding skills to penetrate, divide, and win over it little by little, and finally achieve the goal of fully controlling the local economy. This undoubtedly takes time. Therefore, it is necessary to send some warships to cruise in the early stage and send some road guards soldiers to press the formation, because this can avoid some unnecessary losses.

On August 16, 1659, four ships slowly sailed into the tropical port of Guayaquil. However, the city backing the Guayas River was not as hot as expected. On the contrary, the cool breeze blowing from the sea made the climate here very pleasant, which is much better than the places like New China. In fact, it is not only Guayaquil. Most of the entire Quito Trial Court District is located on the plateau. The seasons are like spring, the climate is pleasant, and the resources are abundant. No wonder this is the core area of ​​the ancient Inca Empire era, and the cool weather is the main reason!

The Guayas River and many mule and horse paths lead to the inland port is vast in the hinterland, with a large population, rich products, and not weak consumption capacity, so the annual import and export trade volume is quite large. From here, a large amount of special products such as wood, tobacco, sugar, leather, cocoa, coffee, dyes (plant dyes), grains, etc. are continuously loaded and shipped to the southern railway affiliation area. The hardware tools, textiles, building materials, medicines, dyes (chemical dyes), seafood, refined flour, daily necessities and other specialties from the east coast are transported to the Port of Araucan via the Southern Cone Railway, and then shipped to Guayaquil for sale. The trade complementarity between the two sides is very strong.

It can be said that if the Spaniards were not so resistant, the entire Quito Trial Court District (of course, Bogota, Panama and other probation court districts are the same) can slowly prosper based on trade with the East Coast and maintain a prosperous situation of both production and sales. Of course, some people may say that the East Coast people are using industrial scissors to harvest the value of the Spanish labor, but who cares? The Spaniards are also enslaving the Indians. The Mestiso people worked hard for them to produce the tropical goods they produced and they were transported back to the East Coast, pleasantly enjoying the people of the East Coast, and these slave owners can also live a better quality of life and accumulate more money. Of course, if the slave owners are generous enough to leak a little in their fingers (almost inevitable), then the whole region will benefit from this economic model.

"The temperature in any area depends on its altitude." The customs chief, who was born in the Dayuhe Youth Cadre School, still knows some geographical knowledge. He only heard him say: "The locals divided the entire Quito Court into three parts: "hot zone", "temperature zone" and "cold zone". The hot zone is very small, and the temperature zone is very large, but the cold zone still covers most inland towns. In general, the climate here is very mild, and fruits, coffee, potatoes, cocoa, tobacco, corn, small

The production of traditional commodities such as wheat, sugar cane, cotton, sulfur, lead, and tin is very large. In addition, in recent years, under the guidance of trade, local planters have begun to prefer to plant rice, hemp, beans, yucca, plantain, barley and citrus fruits to export to the east coast to gain greater economic benefits. In short, this is a very rich place, and people's lives are also very peaceful. Even the mixed-race Mestisau people and even the poor Indians of the ancestral lineage are not bad."

"Are you having trouble here?" Looking at the squadron leader of the Nantie Road Protection Team who came to salute, Liu Ang asked the customs chief: "Is the Spanish still so hostile?"

"To be honest, the hostility is still quite large, because we have impacted many people's business and attracted hostility from the church forces. But after the guards arrived, our situation improved a lot. At least, we bought a few good houses in the dock area and no longer had to live in temporary shacks." The customs chief complained, "Some Spanish merchants are willing to contact us, some of which are speculators who don't have much capital but want to soar into the sky, and some have been hit by us

The local big businessmen, they all proposed to cooperate with us to make money, which seemed a good start. Of course, there were also some merchants who asked us for the detained smuggling ships, even set fire to our house in the middle of the night. The officers and soldiers of the road protection team fired fire and killed and injured several people, and these things gradually disappeared. In short, our situation here is not very good, but we have still imposed nearly 70,000 yuan in import and export tariffs on the company over the past year."

"Excellent achievements." Liu Ang commented, "Working well, Nantie will not treat you badly. The officers and soldiers of the road protection team are also a strong support for everyone. We must support the customs and expand trade. In the past, Guayaquil was a closed market that we had never entered. Now we can sell so many goods in a year and impose a tariff of 70,000 yuan. This is our joint efforts, and we encourage you."

After inspecting Guayaquil Customs, Liu Ang took the "Big Red Squid" guard gunboat to turn around and head towards the Turtle Islands. As for the three Southern Railway Company transport ships, two were fully loaded with cargo, and one went north alone to deliver goods to the Port of Acapulco, located in the Guadalajara Procuratorial Court District. After all, it was also a large port.

As the South Pacific circular route becomes more and more important, the importance of the Turtle Islands (i.e., the Galapagos Islands) on the east coast navigation map is increasing day by day. In this regard, the Executive Committee has officially authorized the Southern Railway Company to set up a settlement near the later Port of Baccrisso, called Xuanwu Port, and the entire San Cristobal Island is also named Xuanwu Island.

Currently, there are only four or five hundred people settled in this settlement. It was developed based on the temporary camps established by the Army and Navy during the Second East-West War. Due to the drought, agricultural output is relatively small, and most of them are drought-resistant crops such as corn and sorghum. However, as a supply base, it is not bad (the ships passing through Xuanwu Port carry fewer people). This year, Xuanwu Port welcomed a considerable number of technicians, and built the skeleton of a small shipyard, making this port truly capable of ocean supply ports, and became one of the key nodes for the East Coast man-controlled strangle the South Pacific.
Chapter completed!