Lavradia was very exaggerated, like a starving ghost who saw a big meal. Li Junwei asked: "Why, is your colony short of people?"

"Yes, very lacking!" Lavradia did not hide it.

Li Junwei smiled, "You must know that we didn't tie these people up and give them to you for free. If that's the case, wouldn't it be cheaper to kill them directly? I need you to recruit them, which will incur costs, maybe... maybe the cost will not be lower than buying black slaves in Africa."

In the mid-to-late 17th century, it was a period when black slaves were relatively cheap. The price of a strong black man was between 90 taels of silver and 200 taels of silver. In the Brazilian colonial cities such as El Salvador and Recife, the price has remained at around 130 taels in recent years, and the price actually fell a bit. This price shows that the Brazilian colonies did not need too many people.

"Your Highness, what we need is not black slaves, but free labor." Lavradia said excitedly: "Black slaves can only be used as livestock with two legs. They can be used to grow sugarcane, cotton, and dig minerals. But Brazil is not Brazil thirty years ago, we need more free labor."

When the Portuguese first came to Brazil, the first commodity to make money was mahogany. This mahogany could not only be used for high-end furniture, but also contained water-soluble red fuel in the trunks, which could be used as dyes. Brazil's name comes from this tree. This mahogany is widely distributed in Brazil, especially the coastal mountains along the southeast coast. Therefore, the first group of Portuguese pioneered were Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and other places that had been included in the sphere of influence of the empire.

At that time, the Portuguese hired Indians to log, so they could only set up strongholds on the coastline. As the Spanish discovered cochineal insects, a small insect growing on the cactus in Central America, could also be used as dyes, while mahogany took 30 years of growth, so the profits of mahogany became lower and lower. Following closely, the Portuguese opened plantations and planted sugarcane. The coast was Sao Paulo, which was the mountains, and Rio de Janeiro was not suitable, so the colonial focus turned to El Salvador and Recife.

Following closely behind was the cultivation of cotton and coffee. The main economy of the colonies evolved into a tropical plantation economy. Therefore, the Portuguese captured Indians as slaves in large quantities, which led to conflict with the Jesuits. The Indians in Brazil were only about two million, and were widely distributed. The Portuguese lacked the ability to penetrate deep into the hinterland of Brazil, so the manpower was soon exhausted and they turned to import African slaves into labor.

However, with the rapid development of the two provinces of the Empire Cape Town and South Africa, the economic model of the Brazilian colonies has changed again, because Brazil not only needs to be the source of raw materials, but also needs to do some primary supporting industries as the closest civilization in South Africa. Because Cape Town is a free port and the storm in the Cape of Good Hope sea, the most suitable raw material production area in South Africa is Brazil. The expansion of plantations can be developed by purchasing slaves, but what about primary supporting industries?

Cape Town is also called Textile City in the Empire because the city has the largest textile industry overseas of the Empire, which is much better than Penang. Local ranches and land produce wool and cotton. In the east, Australia and Brazil produce raw materials. Cape Town is the only industrial center in all directions, with trade scope radiating across the Americas and Africa, and the market is vast.

The cotton needed by the textile industry needs to be transformed from seed cotton to lint, that is, remove the cotton seeds in it. This requires a cotton gin. The empire has the latest cotton gin, and Brazil does not lack hydraulic machinery to drive this kind of machine. The process of cotton ginning alone consumes a lot of manpower and time. Obviously, slaves cannot do this kind of process, and no workshop owner dares to hand over expensive machinery to slaves, otherwise they will not be able to afford to destroy the machinery.

Another industry in the Cape Town area is shipbuilding, and Brazil produces a large amount of tropical hardwood, and cutting down trees is not something that slaves can do. You should know that in the inland area of ​​Recife, there is still a republic established by black fugitive slaves. It has been cleared for more than ten years, but there is no result. Isn’t it to let slaves cut down trees to indulge fugitive slaves? The development of Brazil’s economy has formed a hot trade with Cape Town, local and Africa, and ships are the main means of transportation. More than a dozen shipyards have emerged in Brazil. Some shipbuilding, most of which can only repair ships, but repairing ships also requires free labor. As for the industries such as hemp ropes that have emerged for shipbuilding for Cape Town, they even need to hire workers.

The shipbuilding facilities, cotton ginning factories and other emerging industries, combined with breweries and sugar factories, have given birth to two cities, Recife and El Salvador, and the cities need more facilities and more labor.

In the past, this was not a problem. Brazilian merchants hired people directly from the local area, but now this is a problem. After signing the Lisbon Treaty with the empire, Pedro II's first order was to tighten the local immigration laws. You should know that Portugal is just a small country with a population of less than one million and cannot withstand such large-scale immigration. Therefore, Portugal urgently needed people. If it weren't for France's war on most of Europe and Habsburg fighting against the French Ottomans at the same time, the Portuguese king would have to recruit immigrants in Prussia and other places.

"It must be God who heard my prayer, and surely yes, sent the great you to solve our problems..." At the end of the explanation, Governor Lavradia was almost crying.

Li Junwei did not expect such an ending. Both sides hit it off and each took their own needs. Although Chile and Nangang are still colonies, because they are in a temperate area and are still the target area for empire localization, Li Junwei's policy is still to have no place to do people. Traditional Indian indigenous people are nothing, but Catholicism, white, black, and mixed races must not be kept. If they cannot be handled well at the beginning, they will harm their descendants.

After briefly thinking, Li Junwei asked Lavradia to send people to northern Chile to wipe his butt and persuade the armed mobs to go to Brazil. As for the Catholics in the Nangang area and the Catholics in southern Brazil, Li Junwei did not move rashly. After all, Gao Bicheng's army is still fighting in the north, so it is indeed not suitable to cause trouble in the rear. Chile is nothing. Anyway, the imperial army has occupied the vast and rich Peru, but the Nangang area is not possible. Not to mention anything else, the Gao Qiao herders formed by the mixed blood of whites and Indians will not be provoked. If these grassland nomadic peoples destroy the transportation lines, they will never be at peace.

Lavradia chose to take a boat to El Salvador and Recife, mobilizing merchants and churches to go to Chile, but after doing this, he turned back and came back to visit the imperial prince's house in the name of celebrating the Chinese New Year. But in fact, Lavradia had already heard of King Yu's solution to the Peru region. Like Thomas, he wanted to buy a Peru colony for the empire. A mature colony like Peru, in Lavradia's eyes, was simply a chicken that could lay eggs, and it was profitable to buy it. Therefore, Lavradia chose to stay with Li Junwei and asked about this possibility.

During the Spring Festival of the 27th year of the empire, the Shenjing Palace was filled with joy. Although the emperor had only one son and three daughters, King Yu was outside, and his five children were raised in the palace. King Cheng Lin Junhong's son was the oldest. He originally took boys to set off firecrackers, but Li Junwei's letters from overseas made the children's firecrackers more tricks. King Yu missed the glorious history of using firecrackers to blow up cow dung with King Cheng in his youth. After hearing this, the next generation of children found that he had never seen cow dung, only mule and horse manure.

As the emperor, Li Junhua was very strict with the education of the next generation, but the Supreme Emperor said that if even cow dung could not be blown up, how could it be called setting off firecrackers? He asked the children of each family to clean up early, but the royal villa in the countryside was not easy to stop Li Junhua. A large number of people were so overwhelmed with the help of the ship. In the afternoon, the palace was much deserted.

The guard officer sent by Li Junwei walked into the imperial study room and saw a huge map hanging there, but the most eye-catching one on it was a black and white road. It was clear that the railway line planning was planned. The guard officer quickly bowed his head. About ten years ago, the imperial subjects had a statement that the emperor of the empire was the railway emperor. In fact, when the emperor was still the crown prince, the first official position he held was the co-organizer of the Beijing-Tianjin Railway, and personally supervised the laying of the Beijing-Tianjin Railway. Before the Beijing-Tianjin Railway was paved, the Sushen Railway in the south also began to pave. The two railways demonstrated the feasibility of laying railways in the north and south of the empire, and assisted the development of railway locomotives and other industries.

All kinds of problems occurred before and after the construction of the two railways, including engineering and technical problems, but they were finally solved one by one. Starting from the seventeenth year of the empire, the construction of the imperial railway ushered in a major explosion. First, the existing railway began to expand with the assistance of the imperial finance, and later local governments also began to build railways on a large scale, which was why the name of Railway Emperor was called.

"How is King Yu's health?" Li Junhua asked on his own initiative. Although the guards had already said it in front of the royal family, they all reported good news and not bad news. Now, in front of the emperor and King Cheng, the guards dare not stop telling the truth.

The guard officer said honestly: "The prince is still strong and has suffered from dysentery and malaria during this period. Fortunately, the military doctor who accompanied him had special medicine and he was cured quickly. The Qiansui Master cares about his health very much. He is not easy to take risks, even the local women... have been carefully selected, but because he has been with the army for many years, he is not as fat as when he was in Shenjing. However, King Yu said that this is a good thing. If there is something wrong, he can run faster even if he runs away..."

The guard wiped the sweat from his face and kept saying, "These words were all made by King Yu ask him to tell the truth, but he felt a little ruthless."

"Your Majesty, don't worry. If the third brother was unwell, he would have gone to Cape Town long ago. Why would he still celebrate the New Year in Nangang?" Lin Junhong said comfortingly.

Seeing that Li Junhua stopped asking, Lin Junhong said: "How is the war in America now? Is it still going well?"

"According to the words of Thousandsai, it went very smoothly. The Spanish Lima fleet had been completely destroyed, and the large number of military investments made us gain a lot. Now the army is advancing towards Potosi from Lima and Nangang. General Gao Bicheng proposed the slogan of fighting Potosi for the New Year, which should have been smooth. Thousandsai began to negotiate with the Spaniards and was still cleaning up Catholics in Chile and Nangang. The American strategy has been on track.

However, because the frontline situation changes rapidly, the American strategy has also changed. Especially the direction of Panama, which was originally planned to be captured before the New Year, but King Yu said that the current situation is more beneficial to unite with the European situation." The guard said, taking out a new plan from his briefcase and handing it to Li Junhua.

According to the new plan, the war between Panama and the Caribbean began together, but at that time, the empire also had to take sides in the Great Alliance War that took place in Europe. At present, Li Junwei insisted on forming an alliance with France. As for the detailed plan, there would be a cipher text. The strings of numbers were very troublesome. Lin Junhong immediately arranged for someone to decipher, but he knew that there was one thing that the emperor could not wait, so he asked: "Major, have you ever mentioned the situation in Russia?"

"No." The guard said immediately.

"Okay, have you mentioned it normally? Maybe he wrote it in a cipher text, but he just didn't tell you." Lin Junhong said again.

The guard officer thought carefully: "You can be sure of the humble position, there is no. You just saw the situation in Russia in the local, Cape Town and Lisbon documents. By the way, Lord Pei from Xijin area also submitted a very detailed notice to Mr. Qiansui on this matter, but Mr. Qiansui just cursed something after reading it."

"What are you scolding?" the emperor asked directly.

"I don't remember it very clearly, it seems that I'm calling a woman a stupid blind bear." said the guard.

"You are sure he is scolding a woman, not..." Lin Junhong asked, halfway through, glanced at the emperor and then said, "Are you sure?"

The guard nodded affirmatively: "It must be a woman who scolds her. The Qiansui Master said something stupid and ill-fated."

The emperor breathed a sigh of relief and was seen by the guard officer. The guard officer was a little confused. Why did the emperor seem to be glad that he was not scolded? But then he thought that the emperor could not have such an attitude, so he immediately lowered his head and did not dare to look again.

But what the guards didn't know was that Li Junhua was glad that he was not scolded, and he and Lin Junhong asked him tirelessly, just to know King Yu's attitude, but never thought that King Yu had no attitude in this matter.

After sending the guards away, Li Junhua asked: "Junhong, why did the third brother not mention this? Is he going to do his own thing?"
Chapter completed!