Just as Major Xiao Xi led his troops to walk among the mountains and ridges of the Mar Mountains, and even abandoned most of his technical weapons, because the mountain roads were difficult and inconvenient to transport, several transport ships quietly sailed to the sea outside San Vicente, and then headed north towards the port of Rio de Janeiro under the cover of several guard gunboats that had been waiting for a long time.

These are thousands of soldiers, mainly from the Third Mixed Battalion, the Fifth Mixed Battalion and the Xiayihe County Security Corps. They will land in large quantities far away from the port fortress, and then find opportunities to break through the city of Rio de Janeiro and its hinterland. Of course, the Navy also demanded the focus of capturing the Portuguese General Saint-Espiritu, because it produces a large amount of high-quality wood, many of which can be used to build ships, so it is the target that the Navy must get after it - but these have nothing to do with Xiao Xi. At this time, his goal is to conquer the town of Saint-Paul and its surrounding villages as soon as possible in order to obtain a large amount of materials, money and population.

Perhaps the St. Paul's flag team was recruited to the north to participate in the war with the Dutch, or perhaps these people went out to "work". At this time, the town of St. Paul was sparsely populated - the captured Brazilian prisoners said that there were usually only one or two thousand people - this can be seen from their inability to set up a blocking position on the banks of the Title River. However, Major Xiao Xi did not dare to take it lightly. On the way they came, they had been attacked by unknown people. He suspected that they were members of a certain flag team, so he kept a reserve force to prevent possible sudden attacks.

The Title River originated in the Mar Mountains and flowed to the famous Parana River. Some sections of the river are navigable, but some are not. The town of St. Paul was originally established here. It was just a religious school at that time, but now it has developed into a commercial town with a population of nearly 2,000 - a large number of slaves, weapons, ammunition, food, and leather trading here - the famous St. Paul's flag team went out from here.

But there is no Sao Paulo flag team to block the road! The Second Mixed Battalion of the Army commanded by Major Xiao Xi did not encounter any decent resistance, that is, it crossed the Tite River, which was originally expected to have a hard battle, and successfully arrived at the north shore. Even the ships crossing the river were collected from nearby. The Brazilians were completely unaware of hiding or burning these crossing tools. They didn't know what to think. Maybe they couldn't bear to bear it. After all, they were all poor people who plant cassava outside the town - mostly mixed-race Mameluco or free Indians. In Brazil, the best land is always used to grow cash crops, and only the most "lowest" people will plant food on unfertile land, and their economic conditions are naturally very bad.

The battle to attack the town of Sao Paulo ended before it even began, which surprised everyone and was also a little happy. Originally, due to the winding and rugged mountain roads, the Second Mixed Battalion did not bring any technical weapons (mainly artillery) at all, and even supplies and ammunition were extremely limited. The Brazilians had to set up positions in the town of Sao Paulo and the Title River, and then blocked the east coast army with a firm attitude. Major Xiao Xi might not dare to spend it for a long time here.

But things in the world are often so nonsense! Just as the second mixed camp crossed the river, a group of grenadiers were pale-faced and wearing armor and bullets to attack the vanguard, the Brazilians in the city actually sent an envoy. There were five messengers, one of whom was a nobleman (but not very well dressed, perhaps a "emerging nobleman"), and the other four were all merchants. The Brazilian envoys told Major Xiao that thousands of loyal believers in the town of St. Paul were ready to fight for their faith and property at any time. If the East Coast people were as hard as attacking St. Vicente, they would definitely have the price of bleeding back.

But correspondingly, if the Second Mixed Battalion was willing to let Sao Paulo go and not fight, then they were willing to pay a considerable "redemption fee" for the East Coast people, which was considered to be the need for everyone, and everyone was happy. After a while of discussion, Major Xiao Xi and others agreed to the Brazilian's request and agreed to the redemption fee of 200,000 pesos (about 166,700 yuan), which seemed a bit high for Sao Paulo, which has a population of no more than 2,000 (mostly white Portuguese and their mixed-race descendants, mostly missionaries, merchants and slave hunters), but it is not unacceptable, because the business here is actually quite prosperous, and a considerable amount of money may be used in the government vault.

After discussing the redemption of the city expenses, the Brazilians went back with relief to announce the "good news" - according to their observations, the East Coast people were actually civilized people, and their compliance with the treaties and agreements was generally acceptable, which was enough - the Second Mixed Battalion of the Army did not retreat to the other side of the Title River, but began to collect food and tax on the spot.

The tax targets are naturally plantations distributed in areas outside the town. To be honest, these manors are not as rich as imagined, at least not as good as Bahia and Pernambuco, where the sugar tycoons are really rich. But in the jurisdiction of General St. Vicente, the extreme inconvenience of transportation with the coastal coastal areas makes the population here relatively sparse, and the density of the manors cannot be compared with the coastal areas in the northeast, and even the adjacent Rio de Janeiro is much stronger.

This situation was soon discovered by the East Coast people during the "taxation" operation. The owners had very few gold and silver coins in their homes, and they suffered from the lack of precious metals in their daily lives, which led to the prevalence of barter trade. Therefore, after spending a few days to collect more than ten manors in a row, the second mixed camp only got a pitiful less than 2,000 pesos, which was completely incomparable to the island of St. Vicente and Saint Paul where merchants gathered together. Major Xiao Xi was so angry that he scolded the owners for being all locals.

However, although there were not many precious metals collected, the amount of supplies was extremely abundant, especially wheat, wine, vegetables, cattle, sheep, melons, fruits, etc., which could be used as military supplies. In addition, there are also small local sugarcane, cotton and tobacco plantations. These manors were given the key attention of the officers and soldiers of the Second Mixed Battalion. The logistics consultants in the battalion came to the door with 100,000 military tickets. The owners of the manors had the urge to pick up the melee gun and fuck them with them in an instant. However, under the gaze of the large group of East Coast soldiers wearing dark blue military uniforms, they finally retreated weakly, allowing the East Coast people to "buy" away the cotton, sugar, tobacco and leather they had accumulated for many years, leaving behind a large stack of roughly printed waste paper.

"The entire São Paulo Parish is actually the granary of Bahia, Pernambuco and other places. There are very few sugarcane plantations here, and the number of cotton plantations is OK. Maybe it is because of the stimulation of demand in our country. Tobacco plantations are fewer, but they have developed rapidly in recent years, but they are mostly located in the inland further west. I heard that Brazilians organically combine tobacco plantations and pastures, and use livestock manure to fertilize fields, and the tobacco leaves grown are better." On June 25, when meeting Captain Yang Liang who led his army to reinforce, Major Xiao Xi said: "The crops here are growing well. Wine, wheat, fruits, vegetables, beef cattle, and cheese are exported to other generals. There is even a flour mill and jam processing workshop in the town of São Paulo. It looks similar to the agricultural areas in the Duck Lake area in China. At most, the sowing area of ​​cash crops is a little larger."

"That's good!" Captain Yang Liang marched for days, his legs were covered in mud, but his spirit looked pretty good. At this time, he only heard him say, "You should occupy such a good land. It is located on a plateau of 800 meters above sea level. It has sufficient light and a mild climate. It is many times better than that of Bahia and Pernambuco. It is only the Brazilians who see sugar producing there, so it is not rare to be a treasure. If you want me to say, this best wheat planting area is more than three Pernambuco. This time you will take over whatever you say. If anyone objectes, it is ****, and everyone will be punished!"

"Don't talk about this for now. Our troops are not very strong. The Jingjiang County Security Corps wants to defend St. Vicente Island. Now we can only use less than 3,000 people. The number of people is that the Portuguese manors gathered together, so we are unable to control too many areas now. Even when we go to major manors to collect taxes, we cannot go too far, for fear that we will not be able to come back, and there are enemies everywhere outside! Look, a grain collection team I sent out yesterday was attacked by the enemy hiding in the woods. More than 40 people only came back 30. It is probably done by the Sao Paulo flag team. It is really a headache." Major Xiao Xi took out a bag of Congo tobacco from his pocket, lit it and said.

"Is it so easy to be an occupying army?" Captain Yang Liang also felt the same when he said this. "The third day after you left, a riot occurred in the Port of St. Vicente. Cough, because a militia raped a Portuguese noble woman. Although the riot was quickly suppressed, we also lost 18 soldiers. The Volunteer Army (the Qing army captive) who went to the suburbs to collect taxes also killed 9 people in a tax-resistant operation. This time, I brought more than 1,000 volunteers to the Parish of St. Paul. I encountered four attacks along the way, and lost more than fifty people in total, but only less than twenty enemy troops were left. I was also Indians. It was so annoying that the war loss was so bad."

"As long as we stay here for a long time, such attacks will occur one after another. The Parish of St. Paul is famous for the flag team. These people are away all year round, sometimes for several months, and for more than a year. When they hear the news, we will be under greater pressure, and there may be more casualties and injuries." Xiao Xi sucked and spitted the smoke ring and squinted his eyes and said, "In fact, it is not scary to confront each other head-on. My second mixed battalion can completely defeat them in a few hours. I am afraid of such piecemeal attacks. How many of us have we spent with them? Today you hit you ten or eight, and tomorrow you will be fifteen or sixteen. In addition, the long-term epidemic factors are unimaginable. The second mixed battalion is the main force of the country. Every soldier is an elite trained by a lot of money. It is really worthwhile to lose money here..."
Chapter completed!