The scientific expedition team reaped a great reward. They brought back 258 species of plants, 58 species of amphibians, 22 species of reptiles and 18 species of birds, turning the Liu Daxia into a botanical garden and zoo.

Lin Feng stroked the macaw Zhang Xiaojing gave her, and said with a smile, "There's too little meat..."

"It's so beautiful, are you willing to eat it? Keep it as a companion to relieve boredom." Zhang Xiaojing rolled her eyes at her, and suddenly saw the silly and cute 'water pig' in the cage, and smiled: "Oh, capybara? Don't you like to keep pets too?"

"Hey, I'm raising it like a pig to eat on the road." Lin Feng picked up her bird depressedly, wanting to leave this noisy zoo and be alone.

~~

The fleet has been at the mouth of the Amazon for a month and will definitely not encounter the Spaniards again. They must set off quickly to find the Portuguese settlements on the coast and complete the supply as soon as possible.

But the Portuguese were so lame in their colonial activities. The Spanish had already digested Central America and started to expand to North and South America, but they didn't even explore Brazil much.

Lin Feng's fleet sailed southwards using the powerful coastal currents created by the Amazon River. They even sailed out of the equatorial doldrums, but did not see a single Portuguese colony.

Fortunately, they met several indigenous tribes living on the coast on the way, and exchanged a lot of cassava, corn and beans with them, which barely provided the fleet members with the carbohydrates they needed. Protein was maintained by trawling and air-dried capybara meat.

As a result, the daily energy gap still has to be made up by drinking sugar water... Many people now have toothaches when they taste sweet, and the doctors on the ship have extracted hundreds of teeth.

After more than a month of awkward sailing, they arrived in El Salvador on October 20th, the third year of the Wanli reign.

This Saldoba is not the Spanish colony in Central America, but the center of Portugal's Brazilian colony, famous for its slave trade and sugarcane plantations.

This peninsula city is located on the triangular trade route between Africa, Brazil and Europe. In addition, Portugal does not have as strong a jurisdiction as Spain, so not only Portuguese people but also many European immigrants have settled here, making Saldoba look quite prosperous. At least the port industry is well developed, so it is definitely not a problem to complete the supply and repair the ship...

Who would have thought that when Liu Yishou explained his purpose to the Portuguese pilot, the other party actually refused to receive them...

Lin Feng had a bad temper to begin with, and she just happened to have her period at the moment, so she could no longer hold back her anger and ordered that the language used be changed when negotiating with the Portuguese.

The rumbling sound of artillery soon rang out. The Portuguese artillery fought back bravely at first, but the situation quickly changed when Oda City Rockets opened fire.

Because El Salvador is a city built on a peninsula deep in the ocean, the artillery can't effectively block the enemy ships from approaching. Lin Feng seized this opportunity and let the frigate approach the seashore at the risk of being hit, and released dozens of "Oda City Remarriage" in one breath.

The rocket, with a long tail of smoke, whizzed into the city and successfully caused several fires.

Although this move did not cause much harm, it was very shocking. The city's big merchants and plantation owners, who formed a council, immediately put pressure on the governor to stop the fighting.

The Spaniards have a grudge against them, but we don't, so there's no need for us to die for those Madrid bullies.

So the fort quickly ceased firing and raised the white flag.

Lin Feng naturally decided to quit while he was ahead and ordered the frigate to withdraw beyond the range of the artillery.

Big ships and big guns are indeed the most universal language in this world.

~~

Soon, representatives of the city council came out on a brigantine and asked to see the commander of the Eastern Fleet, His Excellency Lin Feng, the "Captain of the Ming Navy".

As soon as they met, Lin Feng questioned them angrily, asking why they did not obey the orders of your Majesty the King and provide necessary assistance and protection for the South China Group's round-the-world voyage?

The representative rolled his eyes when he heard the translator's words, thinking, "Do you still remember that you were sailing around the world? I thought you had forgotten because you were enjoying being a pirate."

However, they did not dare to provoke the tigress in person, and quickly explained respectfully that it was because a powerful Spanish fleet arrived in El Salvador a month ago and threatened them that anyone who dared to provide supplies to the Ming people would be an enemy of the King of Spain.

"Aren't your two countries enemies? I heard that the Spaniards dream of annexing Portugal." Zhang Xiaojing said in fluent Portuguese.

Xueba means learning everything from her father. She has learned Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi and Arabic along the way...

"..." The Brazilian representative didn't expect that she knew all this, and smiled awkwardly, "Brazil also has its own difficulties, and the mainland can't help much."

Zhang Xiaojing nodded in understanding and whispered an introduction to Lin Feng.

Portugal's biggest problem was its small population, with only about one or two million people in the country, less than the population of a prefecture in the Ming Dynasty. This made their path to colonization extremely difficult.

This shortcoming was not obvious at sea, because the navy was a technical branch that valued quality over quantity. But once on land, it was no longer possible.

In fact, Cabral led a fleet of Portugal to Brazil in 1500. However, it was not until 30 years later, when Portugal saw that Spain had made a fortune in Central America, that it officially began to colonize Brazil.

In order to reduce the cost of governance, the king divided the region into fifteen private and autonomous captain colonies. The scattered and unorganized tendencies of the captain colonies made them a loose sand, and they were defeated by the French colonists who came later, and lost most of Brazil.

Fortunately, the Portuguese navy was ahead of its time and repelled the French from the sea, regaining lost territory. In 1549, Portugal reorganized its South American colonies and established a governor to manage the entire Brazil on behalf of the king. The captain's colony was changed to a province, and the original captain was renamed a senior official.

But in fact, the substance remains the same, with each province returning to its own independent state, following orders but not announcements, and basically becoming independent kingdoms.

"So Brazil is actually an alliance of opportunists..." Zhang Xiaojing reminded Lin Feng in a low voice. Seeing her eyes widen, she said bluntly, "It's like a group of businessmen who each have their own agenda. Do you understand?"

"I understand." Lin Feng's eyes lit up, and she finally understood. She smiled at Zhang Xiaojing and said, "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

As she spoke, she snapped her fingers and asked Ma Yishan to hand the list to the representative, saying, "We were originally planning to sell this batch of goods to you. Since we are afraid of offending the Spaniards, we have no choice but to go..."

"rio." Zhang Xiaojing said.

"Yes, I went there to ask." Lin Feng put on sunglasses and looked like he was going to see the guest off.

The representative of the council was also a big businessman. With just a glance at the list, he knew that these were goods that the Ming people had looted from the Spanish treasure ship.

Far from being frightened, he swallowed hard and said with a smile on his face, "Wait, wait, I was talking about before. Now that I'm here, naturally everything can be discussed."

Those are all valuable hard currencies!

Isn't this nonsense? Can worthless things be loaded onto a treasure ship? Is it necessary for the marquis and admiral of the most powerful country in Europe to lead the most powerful ocean-going fleet to escort it?

Not to mention sugar, tobacco, spices and other treasures produced in America, porcelain and silk are even more precious treasures shipped from the Far East!

And the quantity is huge. Even if the Ming people sell it to them at the FOB price, they can still make a lot of money by shipping it back to Lisbon!

As for whether the Spanish would cause trouble for them, others would worry, but they did not, because the Portuguese already had these goods.

For the same quintal of sugar, can you tell which quintal is produced in Cuba and which quintal is produced in Brazil?

As for porcelain, silk and spices, they were originally monopolized by the Portuguese, right?

~~

When the representative brought back the good news, the whole of El Salvador was in a sensation.

The Portuguese, who had been on high alert just now, turned into hospitable hosts and warmly welcomed their most valuable old friends from the East.

However, Lin Feng was worried about them and declined Portugal's hospitality. He only asked them to clear a dock and temporarily hand it over to his side so that his ships could dock there for supplies and trade.

I asked for another dry dock, and used the trade and time to quickly connect Liu Daxia's broken one, and then inspect the other ships.

As a result, the other ships were fine, but the Quanzhou and Gaoyou Lake were dragged out of the Havana dock with their bare butts because they had not been painted and there was no time to put the copper hulls back.

As a result, the ship's planks, which had only been replaced half a year ago, had already been completely eaten away by shipworms, making it inevitable that the ship would sink during the ocean voyage.

The shipyard in Brazil did not have the ability to add copper hulls, so the local shipwrights suggested that they make do with the repairs first and then go to Rio for a major overhaul. Although they could not add copper hulls there, they had Rio!

Rio is Rio, and rio also means teak. Rio is very warm. Teak is very beautiful, and it is strong, wear-resistant and corrosion-resistant. It is also the best ship material.

Lin Feng accepted the boatman's suggestion because the fleet had to pass through Rio anyway, and the merchants in El Salvador had limited financial resources. They spent every ducat, emptied the material warehouses, and even took out all the gold and silver utensils in their homes to pay Lin Feng, but only took half of the goods.

In fact, being able to pay several million taels of silver is already terrifying... If the sugar business in the 16th century was not more profitable than drug trafficking in later generations, how could they have paid so much money?

~

On the twenty-seventh day of the winter month, Lin Feng's fleet arrived in Rio, 1,400 kilometers south of El Salvador.

It’s actually a bit strange to call it a winter month, because it’s summer in the southern hemisphere.

Well, when is it not midsummer in Rio?

In fact, the full name of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, means "January River", because the Portuguese sailed here in January 1505 and got its name.

However, Brazil is indeed named after its wood. Brasil means rosewood, a type of wood that is much more expensive than teak.

With the help of the Salvadoran parliamentarians, the communication was much smoother. However, Rio was mainly a timber merchant, and they were not as rich as the merchants in Salvador, so they could not afford to pay so much money.

After Zhang Xiaojing saw the Brazilian rosewood, she discovered that it was actually the expensive Su wood in Ming Dynasty, so she reluctantly agreed to make up for the missing parts with the best rosewood.

So the fleet rested for another month in Rio, allowing the bored sailors to enjoy the passion of the Brazilian girls.

The fleet set out again after celebrating New Year's Day of the fourth year of the Wanli reign in Rio.