In mid-December 1676, Porto Cadiz, Spain.

The sufficient rainfall lasted for three years has brought great benefits to Spanish agriculture. The reservoirs that had been gradually drying out in traditional agricultural areas such as Andalusia and Granada have become full again, agricultural production has recovered to a certain extent, and grain production has gradually increased. This can be seen from the decrease in grain imports for three consecutive years.

Of course, Spain's agriculture has only been restored. The large-scale farmland water conservancy facilities left over from the Moorish era were gradually deteriorating during the Castile era. Although the Spanish government also restored its efforts and made several rounds of investment in agricultural infrastructure in Andalusia, Granada and other places, to be honest, it is still much worse than the Moorish era, which destined that their grain output could never return to its heyday.

I don’t know if the nobles in Madrid regretted the expulsion of Moors and Jews in multiple batches that were expelled in multiple batches. Most of these people were later absorbed by the Ottoman Empire, greatly enriching the empire’s agricultural population, commercial talents and technical reserves, and playing an immeasurable role in the development of the country’s economy. Of course, we all know that in the Spanish Kingdom where religion was in charge, it is acceptable to be expelled by anyone with ideology.

Well, let's talk about agricultural production again. The harvest of grain for three consecutive years (of course, relatively speaking, the Spanish still needed to import part of the grain, although the gap was already small), greatly slowing down the outflow of precious metals and alleviating the financial difficulties of the Kingdom of Spain, which made Spain feel relieved. They were originally worried that the years of poor harvest and heavy war burden would have a disaster-like impact on the country, but now it seems that it will not.

However, excessive optimism should not exist. This is the perception of Li Qing, who left the Crimean Khanate in mid-December and returned to the Port of Cadiz office. The Kingdom of Spain is now deeply trapped in the quagmire of war, but the palace expenses and other non-essential expenses are very huge, which has caused great difficulties to the finances. In addition, the heavy financial burden brought by past debts, it can be said that the Spanish finances are on the verge of collapse every year. The gold and silver nuggets they got from New Spain and Peru are often only enough to pay the Dutch interest and a small part of the principal to the Dutch, which shows the degree of financial difficulties.

In fact, the French-Dutch war has become such a big scene now, and the Spanish Kingdom is willing to join the war to declare war on France. In addition to the persuasion of relatives, the Kingdom of Austria and its intention to avenge the previous shame, the Dutch promised to exempt a considerable portion of the principal and interest of historical debts. These old debts owed decades ago by the Philip IV era have tortured the Habsburg family for two generations and have been unable to pay off the principal and interest of the debt. This time, Prince Orange mobilized various relations to coordinate the interests of domestic bankers and merchants, and removed this part of the debt burden from the Spanish. The Spanish were greatly relieved.

However, they may have underestimated the intensity and length of the war, which made their already tight finances worse again. Although the Dutch allocated more than 2 million rupees of aid at the beginning of this year, the money disappeared after only one splash, because the Spanish Navy, which had a large number of more than 100,000 people, spent a lot of money every day, and this amount of money could not last long, unless they immediately make peace with the French and then disband at least half of the troops. This is the only way to save the finances.

Of course, the Spaniards cannot do this now because the war is still continuing. As a last resort, they could only find the East Coast people and request further financial assistance, which is one of the main reasons why Li Qing urgently returned to Cadiz from the Black Sea. However, it seems that he can't play a big role in his return. The East Coast is still engaged in infrastructure in China, and the government is heavily in debt and owes a lot of money. Their major commercial stations stationed in Europe have only profits in batches in the past two years, and the funds can be used for themselves are very small, especially those stations located in Kafa and Haji. In the past two years, in order to purchase slaves from Poland and Ukraine, I don't know how much money it has spent. At present, the Venetians have been requested to provide assistance. Since the end of last year, the Venetian Circulation Bank and the newly established Rialto Plaza Bank have provided more than one million Dukat credit support for the above two commercial stations to facilitate them to eat a large number of slaves.

To be honest, once you use up all this money, you don’t know how to repay it. Fortunately, the annual interest rate of the loan provided by the Venetians is only 4%, the absolute conscience price, and the term is very long. It is not easy to be chased behind the debt. At worst, some of the cash will be repaid in the future, and some of the materials will be compensated, and then some of the land will be granted for free on New China Island. It should be able to barely repay the principal and interest. Moreover, this should be a way of repayment that Venetians prefer.

Therefore, when the East Coast people are in short supply of money, how could they take out a large amount of money to support the Spaniards? They even couldn't even get much supplies, because it was obvious that producing these supplies would cost money. The East Coast people are now very short of money, and all production plans are planned, so it is impossible to change them at will. Therefore, after thinking about it, Li Qing's special envoy still found Paul of the Doria family and discussed with him to see if he could raise a loan from the "magical" Italian merchants.

"The situation in Italy is very complicated now. The French army invaded Sicily for a second time. This time the scale increased slightly from the last time, with a total of about 3,000 people. King Carlos had ordered the Naples army to cross the sea to Sicily, and joined forces with the local nobles to expel the French invaders. You know, there are many big families in Tengna*a who operate estates on Sicily, making profits by growing grain and sugar cane. In this war, everyone suffered great losses, and even the source of food was quite insufficient. For this reason, the government has issued two bonds to raise funds to the Fengyu Office to add more grain from Crimea and Egypt." Paul Doria complained a lot as soon as he came up.

Recently, he has been managing family business in Cadiz Port, entrusting people from the East Coast. Although the Caribbean has become a mess recently, the family has spread out import channels, and has sold the goods directly from Air Canada. There are also Doria's family business, which is not very affected by goods produced directly in the New China Island plantation. It can still supply goods to lower-level wholesalers relatively steadily. Although the supply of goods is a bit tight, it is much better than others. Therefore, the relationship between families like them and the East Coast is very close. If it were not for major interests, they would not hide anything from the East Coast. Therefore, Paul said this and Li Qing listened carefully.

"So, a lot of idle funds in China have been invested in government bonds issued by the government. In the first half of this year, they raised 18 million bank liras to Vienna. Now the funds are a little difficult for a while." After Paul Doria said this, he looked at Li Qing and said: "The Spanish royal family still owes us the huge loan of more than 60 million liras to the Naya businessmen group. If they can raise funds, there may not be many people who are willing to do so, because the risk is too high."

"This is not OK. Spain is now in a difficult situation. Southern Netherlands, Francis Conte, Lorraine, Sicily, are starting wars everywhere. Even in the Pyrenees near the homeland, their army has just suffered a defeat recently. In addition, the Shanghai army has also attacked from time to time to meet with the French Eastern fleet, which is a huge loss. The Dutch have already forgiven many of their debts and agreed to a large number of debts that are about to expire in the next few years or temporarily suspend interest calculations, but this still cannot fundamentally solve the Spanish's wealth. Political issues. They now urgently need a new capital injection to maintain their recovery of Sicily, defend Francheconte, and stabilize the Pyrenees defense line." Li Qing immediately stopped Paul Doria's subsequent complaint after hearing this, and said in a slightly serious tone: "Listen, Paul, we cannot let the Kingdom of Spain fall, no matter what. They need money to continue the war now. If the financial side cannot be guaranteed, then there will be any unpredictable situations that will occur, and no one can say."

Speaking of this, Li Qing asked her secretary to bring herself a hand-painted map of Western Europe, pointing to the countries above and said, "Louis XIV is a very ambitious monarch. He has never forgotten to expand territory for the Kingdom of France. Look at this war. After they lost the best opportunity to enter Amsterdam a few years ago, they are now stuck in front of the Mez River, and are likely to be unable to make a breakthrough, even if Prince Conde leads the army. Franche Conte, Alsace-Lorraine, the Holy Roman Emperor The princes of the country were very afraid of it, and Austria was ready to chop back the French expansion claws. Look at the south, tsk, Savoy, Italy, it was such a big piece of fat, and it seemed to be no difficulty to fight. Moreover, Italy has always been very rich. You guess that Louis XIV will rush his troops south to occupy the rich northern Italy after the expansion of Louis XIV in the northeast and east. Paul, you can see now how important it is to have a Spanish kingdom that retains certain strength and is full of hatred towards France, right?"

"During the last century, when King François I of France occupied Italy, you Genoa and the tragic situation of the major merchant groups in Milan, I think there must be many records in the family documents, right? How much money was stolen? How many people were arrested? No, Paul, don't think this situation will not happen again. The Kingdom of France has been losing harvest for two or three years because of heavy rains during the autumn harvest season. Although more than 20 million people provided wealth to the monarch, the war still drained their treasury. Moreover, Louis XIV is still a monarch who spends money and likes to build a large scale. I think he may be very interested in the wealthy Italy. When it comes to the United Provinces to make peace with France, Austria withdrew from the war, and Spain surrenders, I think neither Genoa, Milan, Parma, Tuscany, Luca, Venice, and Pisa can survive alone, right? Would you like to take on another head to see you as the rulers of pigs and sheep? "Li Qing put down the map and looked at Paul Doria with a pity and said, "It's time to make a decision, Paul! Spain cannot collapse, no matter what! Now bring my words back to Italy and raise at least 20 million bank lira as quickly as possible. The interest rate is at will, preferably not exceed 8%. Spain cannot hold on for too long. Don't look at me with that look. I know that many of the interest rates you lend to the Spanish are 12%, 15%, and the Dutch even borrowed 20% interest rates (to be honest, the Dutch never thought that the Spanish would repay the principal and pay interest forever). But this time it is different. The Spanish are very short of funds and the interest rate really cannot be too heavy. For this reason, we can provide a certain degree of guarantee."

Li Qing said this, so Paul Doria can no longer shirk responsibility for this. Besides, what they are saying is the truth. The Italian region is indeed one of the directions of expansion of the French. Once Louis XIV is blocked in the other two directions, it is difficult to guarantee that he will not change the main attack direction and aim at Italy. Who will save them at that time?

However, the reason is correct, but 20 million lira is a huge sum of money. Even the famous Saint-Georges Trading Company cannot be raised in a short period of time. It still depends on everyone to share the basic form of operation. The governments of Genoa, Tuscany, Milan and other countries issue Spanish war bonds, and then contract them by major domestic merchant families and banks. Anyway, retail investors are not interested in such extremely risky bonds and cannot buy them. Although the East Coast people have agreed to provide guarantees, it is still unknown what the collateral is and how much guarantee is.

"Can't we persuade the Kingdom of Spain to stop the losses in time and sign a peace treaty with Paris?" Paul Doria suddenly asked again.
Chapter completed!