Zhao Wenting did not just ask Li Su to see the lessons of the failure of the Kowloon Reform, but simply introduced the situation of colonies in various countries to him. As the Commissioner of the American Affairs Department of Overseas Affairs, Zhao Wenting was also a rank of a chief official in the border areas and had an understanding of the development of overseas countries. For European countries, colonies cannot become a burden on national finances and is also an iron law.

There are two ways for the empire to explore overseas. One is a colonial company such as Africa and Borneo, which is under the name of development companies. The empire can occupy a considerable shareholding by just authorizing it. The powerful class also has investments, and the middle class in big cities in China will also buy shares, which is almost a method of colonization for the entire nation.

The second type is the national behavior. Many provinces surrounding the Indian Ocean and the three provinces of the North Sea are examples of the empire's overseas development. This is a pioneering development supported by the state's finances. The powerful army directly eliminates the indigenous regime, seizes land, plunders the indigenous people into slaves and cooperates with the prisoners sent to carry out forced labor, transform the indigenous people's residence, and make the local area adapt to large-scale immigration. Then, taking advantage of the opportunities of local civil strife such as the Ming and Qing Wars to migrate on a large scale and even forcibly move people overseas to settle and develop, and combine the local climate to develop corresponding agriculture and animal husbandry, and then various industrial and handicrafts were born.

Obviously, almost all the early costs were borne by the imperial finance, and then the empire transferred these costs to the indigenous people through war means, and the financial pressure that could not be transferred came from the empire's victory in the traditional Han area. However, with the establishment of the empire, this method ended.

Both methods laid the empire's overseas territory, and subsequent developments were activities carried out on this basis.

This is just an empire, and for several European colonial countries, Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, the rest of the countries such as Sweden also have overseas territories, they are not worth mentioning, and some of them were simply annexed directly.

The Spanish were robbers, France was religious madman, Portuguese were adventurers, Britain was entrepreneurs, and the Netherlands was traders. These identities can simply summarize the colonial characteristics of these countries.

The Dutch were merchants, and they would not immigrate overseas in large quantities. In fact, there were only two million people in the United Republic of the Netherlands, and there was no basis for large-scale immigration. The Dutch liked to control islands on the waterways, rivers into the sea estuaries, build forts and ports, and conduct trade activities. Although they also had a history of conquering the indigenous people and enslaved them, they were not the mainstream of colonization. Dutch colonization was a corporate act, and the national finances did not invest at all. The Netherlands government not only did not protect overseas colonies, but even sometimes won the Second Anglo-Dutch War, but sold New Amsterdam in North America to Britain, and this colony was later New York.

The Spanish overseas colonies were actually of the same level as the king's territory in their country. Like France, Spain regarded colonies as overseas territory. To another extent, Spain's overseas colonies were the king's private property. One-fifth of the minerals produced in the colonies belonged to the king. Therefore, there are taxes and colonies in Spain, and there are no species, and there are also colonies.

The tax rate for goods transported from Spain to the colony is 9.5%, and the tax rate for foreign products processed by Spain is 12.5%. The tax rate for foreign products is 29%. In addition to paying the royal wu tax, the mining industry in the colonies also charges mining area usage fees, additional taxes, etc. All transactions in the colonies are subject to 4% commodity tax, while the Indian adults also have to impose a cap tax of 52 taels of silver. Everything produced in the land must be collected as church tithes. Of course, there are countless exploitations of things such as indulgences.

Alcohol, salt, mercury, cards, gunpowder, tobacco, and spices are all sold by the king and contracted by merchants. Of course, there are still types that can be found by law. In every local war, the Spanish kings asked the colony's gentry to donate money. The Spanish colonists can be said to have sucked bones and marrows to the colony, but this does not mean that Spain can obtain a large amount of fiscal revenue from the colony.

There were six million people in Spain, and the colonies ruled more than 25 million people. In fact, the colonies could only provide less than 30% of Spanish finance. In the peak of 1598, the colonies only provided Spain with fiscal revenue equivalent to 6.7 million taels of the empire, but most of the years were no more than four million taels, and the minimum year was one million taels, and this money was often not used as Spanish fiscal expenditure. The precious metals brought back by the Spanish twin fleets from the colonies were mostly just a little count at the Spanish port and transported directly to the Netherlands as the interest for the Spanish Kingdom to repay the debt.

You should know that when the seventeenth century just entered the seventeenth century, the Spanish Kingdom had about 200 million taels of silver in debt. Half of the finances were used to pay interest every year, which was interest, not capital.

If we don’t care about the debt problems of the Spanish Kingdom, Spain’s overseas colonies are undoubtedly successful because they can directly bring income to the local area. The Portuguese colonies are generally similar to Spain, but they are smaller in scale and less in income.

The French also learned from the Dutch to start colonial companies and explore North America, but it soon evolved into overseas territory. France named a large number of adventurers and soldiers as lords. The biggest beneficiary of New France in North America was the church. The French king relied on North America's fur trade to make profits. Although there were taxes, considering that there were less than 40,000 New France, and the French had always been friendly to the Indians and did not rule the Indian tribes like Spain, so their income in the colonies was lackluster.

As for the British colonies in North America, they did not have any actual fiscal revenue. The British colonies were highly autonomous and the local taxes were completely in the hands of the parliament. The British king sent the governor to the place, and the parliament was only paid wages to the governor and his bureaucrats. It was common for arrears of wages for a few years. The colonies were not represented in the British parliament, so naturally they would not provide taxes to the British king. The taxes in the colonies were only used for themselves.

Unlike other countries, Britain adopted a monopoly approach to profit from the colonies indirectly. For example, only Britain could trade with the British colonies, which gave British merchants a stable market overseas. Britain also developed fishing, whaling, tobacco, indigo, sugarcane and other agriculture in the colonies. These products could only be sold to the British, and these were the best-selling products in the European market. Because of these, when Britain's industry and commerce developed, the expanded tax base would naturally benefit, but in essence they benefited from the British capitalists, not the British government.

After Zhao Wenting introduced Li Su, he said, "After hearing this, you should also understand that since the government cannot directly obtain income from the colony, it will naturally not protect the colony. Therefore, there is a situation where the local area is the local area and the colony is the colony."

As Zhao Wenting said, in the original history, the colonies in the 17th century were generally peaceful. Until the 18th century, wars in the local areas of various countries continued to colonies, causing wars between colonists and raising the cost of colonization.

"You are going to tell me that Your Highness believes that ruling Peru is a loss, so he refuses to rule, right?" Li Su asked back. After seeing Zhao Wenting nodding, Li Su said: "But ruling here is not a loss. According to my estimate, our military liquidation operation can bring at least 20 million taels of income!"

"Conservatively estimated it is 40 million taels of silver." Zhao Wenting, who has been coordinating the rear, has a better understanding of the overall situation.

Li Su said, "Well, damn it, it's at least twice as much as I thought! Lord Zhao, with a bottom of 40 million, can't he establish a rule over the American colonies?"

Zhao Wenting said seriously: "I think it is difficult to succeed. Prince, it takes people to rule a piece of land. Let's not talk about the Governor of New Spain for the time being, let's talk about the Governor of Peru. It takes at least 100,000 people to rule such a huge place, including officials and soldiers. Well, let's remove the soldiers and just talk about bureaucrats, at least 30,000 people. Where can the empire find 30,000 Spanish-speaking people?

Not to mention that we cannot find 30,000 similar officials, we cannot even find the translator. Therefore, we can only use the original ruling order of the Spanish, which means that in the next ten years, Peru will still be the Spanish. When we cultivate our own bureaucratic team to replace them, it will be a protracted war. In this way, we must bet on the war dividends we have obtained now to bet on an unpredictable future.

Even if we succeed, we will face various problems. Do you think our Religious Bureau can solve tens of millions of Catholics? What will happen if a large number of Catholics, blacks and whites flock to our colonies? Our religious policies, ethnic policies and immigration policies are very strict, which means that our rule costs will only be higher than those of the Spanish."

After hearing this, Li Su calmed down a little, and said, "But this is also a big market for tens of millions of people. If you get it, the entire empire will benefit."

After hearing this, Zhao Wenting burst into laughter and said, "Criminal, have you ever wondered why the British would rather dig food in the land of North American colonies than rob the Spanish colonies in America?"

Li Su can give many reasons in this era, each of which is convincing but not the main one. National strength, technology, cost, etc. are all possible. However, the history of later generations tells us that even in the 189th century when the British were dominant, they did not snatch the Spanish American colonies. Because by this time, the gold and silver mines in the American colonies no longer had such high income, as for the overseas market...

Zhao Wenting said to Li Su: "Criminal, in the Governor's Palace in Lima, I got a report given by the Seville Trade Referee, which said that only one-sixth of the goods imported from the Spanish colonies last year came from the local area, and the one-sixth of the goods from the local area were about 27,000 tons, only 1,500 tons were produced in Spain, and the rest were all produced by foreign countries or made by the Spanish with foreign raw materials.

This means that the Spanish only controlled five percent of the colonies' trade volume. Considering other aspects, only ten percent were taken into account, while the remaining ninety percent were occupied by European countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, France, and the British occupied the majority, so they did not have to start a war and had at least a market equivalent to a Peruvian governor's area. And we can also obtain these by non-war means.

In fact, you should know that with the rise of the two provinces of South Africa and the Americas, the proportion of our goods in Spanish colonies is getting higher and higher. Even without this war, we can compete with the British. With this war, we can get faster speeds and broader markets in negotiations.

Other people's colonies are the best colonies. You don't have to pay the cost of ruling, but you can get the freedom of trade. This is the Spanish colonies in the Americas."

Li Su was stunned. He had never thought of a similar problem. Zhao Wenting personally gave him a cup of tea and said, "The Prince..., the Spaniards wanted Peruvian colonies and continued to be his native emperor, and what we wanted was a market, and this market did not belong to the Spanish. Naturally, the Spanish would not have too much opposition. Both countries took their own needs. Isn't it good to end the war?"

"But..." Li Su was still hesitant.

Zhao Wenting said: "Think carefully, which colony in America do Chinese merchants like the most?"

"Brazil of Portugal." This is not to be questioned, so Li Su directly answered it. On the other hand, wasn't the Brazilian colony like the future Spanish colony envisioned by King Yu and Zhao Wenting? The Brazilian colony market also did not belong to the Portuguese. It was originally the sphere of influence of the Dutch British. However, due to the rise of Cape Town and South Africa, the empire merchants now occupy the main market of Brazil. Brazil has become the empire's commodity market and raw material production place. The empire provides protection for the Brazilian colonies. Both Portugal and the empire are happy.

Li Su sighed and said, "Maybe this land is too rich and tempting, or my desire for land is too strong."

Zhao Wenting laughed, patted Li Su on the shoulder, and said, "Criminal, in fact, young people in China are similar to you. They like to expand territory, but in fact, most of the Spanish American colonies are not within the scope of the two generations of emperors. You should know that there is an iron rule formulated by the emperor's overseas expansion."
Chapter completed!