The temperature in the midsummer of the Black Sea in 1663 increased compared to last year.

The Little Ice Age, which has been raging around the world for many years, finally showed signs of temporary decline. After the temperature fell to its lowest point last year, it began to rise significantly this year, which can be seen from the relatively warm sunshine in summer. But in any case, the low temperature brought by the Little Ice Climate is still much worse than ten years ago. After all, the Little Ice Age has just ended, and the temperature has just reached a turning point. It is impossible to quickly return to normal temperature within a few years. This requires a process.

The most violent blow of the Little Ice Age also had extremely serious impact last year (1662). The Po Plain in Italy was flooded, the Iberian Peninsula continued to drought, the Baltic basin was hit by hail, and agricultural output was greatly reduced. Poland, the main production area, was still in the post-war reconstruction period, and there was no surplus food for sale. Europe, whose population increased rapidly after the war, fell into the torture of famine, of course, people today did not know that the temperature recovery in the second half of the 17th century was just an intermission break. By the first half of the 19th century, the temperature would drop sharply again, and the world of abundance would end again, but this was not what people today could know and had nothing to do with them.

The ports of traditional grain exporters such as the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire are now filled with merchant ships from France, England, United Provinces and Germany. Greece and Armenian grain wholesalers who controlled the Ottoman Empire's commercial system started price on the docks and sent ships of wheat to Venice, Gehnaua, Marseille, Barcelona, ​​Cadiz, Lisbon, London and Amsterdam, earning back a large amount of Western industrial products and precious metals, and the trade was booming.

In this bull market for grain trade, the Crimean Khanate, who had just staggered and carefully joined the international grain trade market, also experienced the charm of trade profits. The feudal lord suddenly discovered that his manor on the north shore of the Black Sea had become a hen that lays golden eggs. This undoubtedly prompted more people to consider whether this industry is worth investing in it. Of course, more Crimeans realized that it was not only possible to get money by fighting and killing, but trade could also make money, and there were quite a lot of them.

The East Coast people made a bridge, the Re*naya people bought it, and the Black Sea liner company transported it into the first batch of Crimean wheat. In this year, it flowed into the vast markets of Italy and Spain, making a lot of profits for the feudal masters of the Crimean Khanate. The first step in testing the capital market, the Crimean Khanate was quite lucky.

However, although the Ottomans and Crimeans made a lot in this food bull market, it only slightly alleviated the financial difficulties of the two countries. After all, their financial expenditures are also very large, and they lack professional and capable financial managers, and the degree of corruption and waste is even more serious. Therefore, the pressure on East Coast people to buy slaves is still very high, especially the Crimean Khanate that was recently built (building lagoon salt fields, Tatar trenches and the city defense of the capital Bekchisale), which clearly requires East Coast people to purchase at least 800,000 yuan a year, otherwise the trade may not be able to continue.

At present, while the East Coast people are trying their best to urge them to expand the area of ​​food plantations, they are also vigorously advocating how broad the future prospects of Black Sea trade will be, so that the Crimean Khanate, which is located in the geographical area, can join the trade feast to increase their income. To this end, Gao Wengang even promised a while ago that it would cultivate a large number of commercial talents for the Crimean Khanate, and set up customs in Kajibey (i.e. Odessa), Haji (i.e. Sevastopol), and Feodocia, which will be managed by the East Coast. Once Crimea's own talent training is in place, it will be handed over to them to manage. All of this is being tried

The picture provides the financial resources of the Crimean Khan. At present, Grey Khan is still considering carefully. Whether to accept it or accept it in full or only accept part of it is not yet determined. However, before that, the East Coast people still need to purchase a large number of Eastern European slaves. Reducing the quota in the past year has reduced the fiscal revenue of the Crimean Khanate a lot. Grey Khan is very angry about this. Therefore, no matter what, the East Coast people will increase the import of slaves this year, otherwise it will likely damage the relationship between the two countries and lead to a sharp decline in trade volume. In short, this is a very troublesome thing. Gao Wengang and others are having a headache about this.

This food crisis caused by the climate undoubtedly affected Spain's neighbor, the belligerent country of Portugal, the warring country on the east coast. This pioneer of navigation in 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. At that time, the British Empire imported a large amount of Portugal's agricultural products, which shows its potential for agricultural production.

In the 1660s, most of the land in Portugal was still abandoned and there were not many people to farm. So, some sparsely populated plains could still see wild wolves wandering from time to time. This is also weird. It is this inefficient utilization of agricultural production potential that the country needs to import one-fifth of the grain every year. The cod fishing industry, which was once extremely prosperous in the last century, also shrank in a disastrous manner, and a large amount of precious metals were consumed on the import of food.

The enemy's food crisis is naturally an opportunity for the East Coast people. And because the East Coast people stationed a squadron in the Cape Verde Islands this year (for which it almost left the local professional warships empty again), after the escort formation launched a shelling offshore in Portugal for the third consecutive year in the first half of the year, in July, more than ten professional warships of the Cape Verde squadron arrived outside Lisbon, intercepted two grain transport ships from Syria, and paid for the food on the ship and sent it to Jacob's port to resell it to the Cours.

The East Coast people's move touched the sensitive nerves of the Portuguese. After all, they had a 20% food shortage that needed to be imported from abroad. Seeing that the abnormal climate this year's food production may decrease, they immediately convinced the nobles and merchants in Lisbon, causing these people to hand over the armed merchant ships in their hands, and then mixed them with the naval fleet, and went out to sea to engage in two small but very fierce naval battles with the East Coast people.

During these two naval battles, the Portuguese were sunk 4 ships, seriously injured 6 people. One person on the East Coast was sunk, three people injured, and more than 400 naval officers and soldiers were killed and injured. Later, the British Navy squadron stationed in Tangier escorted a batch of merchant ships to transport some food into Lisbon, which broke the Portuguese's dilemma. After seeing the blockade failed, and there was no suitable supply and maintenance base nearby, the people on the East Coast could only lead the fleet to return to Playa Port in the Cape Verde Islands, and at the same time sent people to contact the local Joint Staff Headquarters to see what to do next.

Although the temporary dispatch of Cape Verde fleet in the East Coast Navy did not achieve the expected blockade, their move still scared the Portuguese. At the strong request of Queen Gusman, the powerful minister, Duke Mellor, who had always been tough on the East, had to temporarily deterrent and sent a negotiating team led by the king's younger brother, Prince Pedro, to go to the Port of Palermo for peaceful consultations with the people of the East Coast.

Zheng Yong, the plenipotentiary envoy of the East Coast to Europe, was visiting the Principality of Tuscany at the time. After hearing the news, he laughed and ignored the arrogant Iberians. Instead, he took a boat to the Ottoman Empire and discussed the trade issue with Gao Wengang, who was in charge of the work there. The focus was on the slave trade that had plagued the East Coast people of the East Coast. Zheng Yong naturally had no choice but to do so. Unless the Ottoman Empire was willing to allow the East Coast Republic of China to appoint officials to control its customs, financial departments, sultan's vaults and other tax-bearing organizations, and at the same time, strictly reducing unplanned expenses, it was possible to solve the financial problems of the Ottoman Empire. But how could the Ottomans agree? In the end, the problem was still there and it could not be solved. In the end, Zheng Yong had to make a decision to purchase more than 5,000 slaves in 1663, which was valid for one year. I hope to postpone the problem and look at it later.

After wandering around the Ottoman Empire, in early 1663, Zheng Yong and Zheng's special envoy returned to the Port of Palermo again at the warm invitation of Paul of the Doria family and started peace talks with the Portuguese.

The negotiations started again, which were much faster than last time due to the relatively pragmatic attitude of the Portuguese, Prince Pedro, the negotiator of the Portuguese, pointed out that the Kingdom of Portugal was willing to give up all Brazilian territory, including the General Region of Rio de Janeiro and all Brazilian territories south of Mozambique, and also willing to transfer the Lorenzoma clerk and nearby land to the East Coast people for management. At the same time, it was also understanding the East Coast people's efforts to obtain compensation for their ally, the Principal of Korland, and was willing to cede about ten kilograms of land on the southern bank of the Congo River to the Principal of Korland in response to the territorial claims made by the East Coast people.

In Article 4 and Article 5 of the Peace Article, the Portuguese also made major concessions. For example, they stated that war reparations could be increased to one million cruczado, plus the fines to the Almeida family, totaling one million cruczado war reparations, which is believed to be enough to satisfy the appetite of the East Coast people; for example, they promised not to build fortresses at the junction of the East Coast territory in the future and stationed a large number of troops. At the same time, they also required the East Coast Republic of China to treat them equally, so as not to arouse distrust between the two countries. ︽2︽2︽.*2 Pavilion︽2,

To be fair, the Portuguese did make substantial concessions this time. For example, after they gave up the vast General Saint-Vicente region last time, they said that even the relatively prosperous and prosperous General Rio de Janeiro could also give up, and they did cut a large piece of meat. But how could these concessions be accepted by the East Coast people who are determined to be in the General Seguru region? Zheng Yong received a guideline for negotiations that clearly stipulated that the northern border should be pushed to the Portuguese Port, so he asked the Portuguese to cede all the land south of San Salvador. Now the so-called concessions of the Portuguese still did not meet his requirements, so this is destined to be unable to reach an agreement.

What's more, the Portuguese in the Cape Verde Islands, which the navy was determined to win, did not mention it at all, which made Zheng Yong quite dissatisfied. He felt that these Portuguese were really cheap and had to suffer more to understand "why flowers are so red". Therefore, in terms of territorial terms, the Portuguese did not meet the requirements of the East Coast at all.

In terms of war reparations, the Portuguese totaled 1.2 million Cruzado, which is far from enough. It is still quite different from the bottom line of the 2 million Cruzado that the local government has assigned. Therefore, we still have to continue to grind with the Portuguese, and we must squeeze more oil from them to be satisfied. As for the terms of the Rausch demolishing the border fortress and restricting the garrison, Zheng Yong did not mind very much. After all, with the strength of the East Coast people in South America, we can still control the Portuguese. Whether you are stationed or not, you will have to do it once.

Even so, 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, you always have to fight for it. Therefore, after a little bit of an hour or two, Zheng Yong finally let go of this choice, which also means that our East Coast people have made concessions. You Portuguese should not be ungrateful and continue to be entangled on other issues and thus lead to the breakdown of the negotiations. Then the responsibility will be all on your side.

The negotiations naturally could not continue to proceed when it came to this point. Prince Pedro did not get the authorization to continue to make concessions, so he clearly stated to the East Coast people that this was the greatest concession he could make within his authority. Zheng Yong expressed his understanding of this, but he also said that the Portuguese conditions still could not satisfy him and the government of the East Coast Republic behind him, so he would not reach an agreement with Prince Pedro on this (in fact, Zheng Yong was also waiting for an opportunity to gain more favorable and better gains). Therefore, after more than half a month of intermittent negotiation, the negotiations fell into a deadlock again in March 1663. Later, the two sides chose to reconcile indefinitely at the same time, so the negotiations ended ineffectively, which made the Hot*naya, who had been paying attention to the negotiation process, very disappointed, but could not do anything about it.

Several months passed in a row, and soon came the warm summer season in Europe. During this period, Zheng Yong had already taken his entourage to return to United Province by boat. He met with officials and merchants of United Province in Amsterdam and The Hague respectively, and negotiated many commercial cooperations. Now United Province has increasingly relied on the supply of affordable and affordable goods for East Coast people, especially when their goods were hit by the English because of the high cost. In order to consolidate the market, United Province commercial capitalists represented by Deher and Tripp families had to gradually increase the shipment of East Coast goods in various places to compete with the increasingly powerful English industrial capitalists.

After working hard on a stump in the United Provinces, Zheng Yong and his family rested in The Hague for more than a month, and even met with the young heirs of the Orange family. Although the East Coast people have always had good friends with the Republicans, this did not prevent them from having a certain degree of communication with the Orange family. Then, he planned to take a boat to the Baltic Sea before winter came, and make a series of commercial visits to Hamburg, Lübeck, Wendor, Konisburg, Riga and other places to strengthen the business influence of the East Coast people in the region. By the way, a secret negotiation with Grand Duke Jacob of the Principal of Courland to discuss the strategy of jointly dealing with the Kingdom of Portugal. Of course, there is no lack of encouragement. After all, the Principal of Courland has only 200,000 people, and it is really stressful to them against Portugal. Although the Portuguese have never sent troops to land on the land of Courland.

In October 1663, Zheng Yong left the United Province on two merchant ships from the Amsterdam Merchant Station and sailed towards the Baltic Sea with a Dutch merchant fleet. At this time, a major event that was far away in West Africa, thousands of miles away, which was likely to affect the final process of the peace negotiations in the East and Portugal, but there was no radio and it could not be transmitted to Europe immediately. However, this incident would undoubtedly ferment deeply within the next few months to a year, and eventually set off storms in Europe and even North and South America, bringing many countries into a whirlpool.
Chapter completed!