On Fernando Island in Guinea, West Africa (formerly Sao Tome Island), the Governor of West Africa, Duke Colste, was meeting with Dongfang Yue, a guest from the Japanese country, in his Governor's Palace.
"I heard that Luanda in your Japanese country was attacked by pirates?"
Kolster took a leisurely sip of the fine tea from the Ming Dynasty, looked at the Japanese people in front of him, smiled and asked.
"Your Excellency, this is Fuyun City. Luanda was just a name given by Portugal in the past. Now it belongs to our Japanese country. It is already called Fuyun City, just like this beautiful island in front of you. It was originally called São Tomé Island and is now
It’s called Fernando Island.”
Dongfang Yue glanced at Duke Colster, knowing the other meaning behind his words, and replied with a smile.
The meaning is very simple, if you are unwilling to recognize our Japanese country’s ownership of Fuyun City, our Japanese country is also unwilling to recognize your Spanish ownership of this Sao Tome Island.
In addition, the colonies were all taken from the Portuguese. No one was better than the other. They were all robbers. There is no need to say this hypocritically here.
"Oh, yes, yes, it's called Fuyun City!"
Duke Colster smiled, thought for a while and said: "We in Spain have found out the origin of these pirates."
"The pirates now raging in West Africa and North Africa are supported by the Vikings from England, France, Portugal, the Netherlands and Northern Europe."
"Many of them were established by these countries directly providing money, personnel, and support. Pirates were even regular armies before, so their combat effectiveness was very strong, their actions were very fast, and they could quickly digest the large amounts of property they robbed.
, deal with it cleanly.”
"I have already guessed how ordinary pirates can have such strong organizational and military power, and dare to attack strong colonial strongholds, and not many clues can be found afterwards."
When Dongfang Yue heard this, she was not surprised at all, as if she had already known about it.
"Your Japanese colonial strongholds here in West Africa have been looted one after another. Are you just going to give up?"
Kolster was slightly surprised. Spain also used a lot of power to find out the details of these pirates. He didn't expect that these Japanese people, who did not have much power in Europe, could actually do it.
Know.
But it doesn't matter. This time the other party came to look for me, there must be something going on, and it's probably related to pirates.
The three Japanese colonies of Sunset City, Fuyun City (Luanda, taken from Portugal), and Fushui City (Lagos, taken from Portugal) seemed to be on the minds of the pirates, and they visited them every now and then.
Although the Japanese side also carried out strict defense, it would cause a lot of losses every time.
In addition, these pirates sometimes focused on looting Japanese ships. One treasure ship after another was completely robbed, and even all Japanese people on board were killed, and ships were specially sent to the Japanese stronghold.
It can be said that the Japanese people now hate these pirates deeply and wish they could kill them all.
It has been several months. The Japanese country originally planned to continue to expand its colonies in West Africa, but it was tightly restrained by these elusive pirates. There has been no breakthrough, so that the immigrants in the colonies are living on tenterhooks.
days.
"Of course it's impossible~"
"We must kill these pirates completely!"
Dongfang Yue said through gritted teeth.
"Okay~"
"What I want is your words."
"We in Spain are also incompatible with these pirates, and we must wipe them out completely."
When Duke Colster heard this, he immediately followed suit.
The Japanese suffered misfortune at the hands of these pirates, and the Spaniards suffered even more.
Spain has many colonial strongholds and colonies in West Africa. The Japanese are better off. They only have a few colonial strongholds and can focus on defense.
But Spain, with its limited military strength and too many colonies and colonial strongholds, is always stretched thin when facing these pirates, so much so that the Duke of Colste has already written a letter back to the country, hoping to reduce some colonial strongholds, so that it can
Focus on defense.
However, Spain did not agree with his proposal.
Establishing a colonial stronghold is not an easy task. A colonial stronghold often means the ownership of a colony. If you leave in front, the Ming Dynasty may take over.
It will be impossible to take it back after this. Once the meat is in the Ming Dynasty's mouth, it is impossible to spit it out.
Therefore, Spain will not agree to reduce the number of colonial strongholds at all. It is even now trying to expand the number of colonial strongholds and seize more colonies.
As for the pirates, just wipe them out.
The intentions of Spain's top leaders also made Corster extremely distressed, because there were too many colonial strongholds and the number of troops and warships at hand was limited, so they simply couldn't take care of them.
If the Japanese were harassed by pirates from time to time and were extremely annoyed, then the Spaniards were no longer just harassing them.
Instead, colonial strongholds were looted and breached by pirates every three to five days, and bad news was received every few days, so that Kolster was now facing tremendous pressure.
On the one hand, it is the pressure within Spain. The king requires him to find a way to deal with these pirates. On the other hand, here in the colonies, the governors of many colonial strongholds are like frightened birds. A large number of Spanish matadors do not even dare to stay in the colonies and try every means.
I want to go back to my hometown.
On the one hand, Duke Colster sought support from Spain to send more troops and warships to West Africa. On the other hand, he wanted to investigate the details of these pirates, uproot them, and solve them in one fell swoop.
Get rid of these nasty pirates.
He was not going to play endless games of hide-and-seek with these pirates on the sea.
He couldn't afford it, and doubts about him in Spain had never stopped. If the King of Spain hadn't trusted him so much, and he had rich combat command experience, he would have been replaced long ago.
After all, the position of Governor of West Africa is a really lucrative position. The governor of any colonial point here can earn one hundred thousand taels of silver a year. For the position of Governor of West Africa, anyone can earn millions of taels of silver a year.
There are countless people in Spain who are jealous of this position, and there are too many people who want to get rid of them.
In addition, the existence of these pirates has seriously damaged Colster's own interests.
He has a large amount of land, plantations, gold mines, silver mines, etc. here. In addition, he also has his own merchant ships and companies. Using the power in his hands, he can easily obtain a large amount of profits.
However, the existence of these pirates seriously harmed the interests of the Duke of Colster, and these pirates were eliminated anyway.
He was naturally overjoyed to hear the Japanese gnashing their teeth in hatred for these pirates, which meant that Spain and the Japanese had common interests in this matter.
"How about our two countries forming an alliance and working together to eliminate these pirates?"
Duke Colster smiled and suggested.
“How to form alliances?”
"How to get rid of these pirates?"
Dongfang Yue was very moved, but she still had to ask about the specific matter.
"Conclude a military alliance and advance and retreat together~"
"As for the eradication of these pirates, of course we cannot chase these pirates around the sea. That would be chasing the weakest. We in Spain are prepared to directly attack England, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, attack their homeland, and defeat them."
"Otherwise, even if we wipe out these pirates at sea, they can continue to send new pirates over, and it will never end and the eradication will never be completed."
Kolster said very firmly that this is also something that Spanish senior officials are currently considering.
I clearly know the details of these pirates and know that people from countries like England, France, and Portugal are shamelessly engaging in such despicable methods.
How can Spain be so willing to give up? Spain has won two consecutive wars, so naturally it does not mind continuing to fight a third war.
However, the successive wars in recent years have also left Spain somewhat empty. A large amount of wealth has been spent on it. Although it has won every time, it has still been able to obtain war reparations.
But both England and France are poor now, and war reparations are paid over many years. A one-time payment of war reparations is very small compared to the huge investment.
This is also the reason why Spain is extremely dependent on its colonies, because the income from the colonies can allow Spain to quickly recover.
If we start a war with several countries again now, Spain will appear very powerless, and I am afraid that it will be a situation where victory is worse than defeat.
The result that Spain wants is to crush these countries one-sidedly, force these countries to sign an agreement at the minimum cost, and obtain the maximum benefits.
This is also a conclusion reached by Spain after studying the previous foreign wars of the Ming Dynasty. Only in this way can it become stronger and stronger as it fights.
There is also the fact that in Spain's two foreign wars, Spain was often alone and seemed very powerless. It understands the importance of allies. It would be very detrimental to Spain to start a war without finding allies.
If it goes wrong, Spain may lose the benefits gained from the previous two wars if the war is defeated, so it seems very cautious. Even if it knows that England, France, Portugal and other countries are using such methods, it still seems helpless and cannot take advantage of it.