Exciting music was played on the Dock of Oriental Port. Liu Weimin, Chairman of the Executive Committee, led a group of military and political officials to stand by the dock, quietly waiting for the officers and soldiers of the Navy escort fleet who had been away for more than half a year to set foot on the country again.

As soon as Lu Ming, the commander of the escort fleet, had just arrived at the dock, Liao Meng, the chief of staff of the National Armed Forces, greeted him with a smile and whispered in Lu Ming's ear. Lu Ming was very happy when he heard this and immediately sent his adjutant to inform the officers of each ship. Soon, warm cheers rang out on the more than ten ships anchored in the port one by one. It turned out that the dock would be awarded medals and promotion ceremonies on site. A large number of officers or soldiers who made meritorious in the escort battle will be awarded medals and then promoted, and the rest of the officers and soldiers will also be comforted by superiors and rewards.

The grand award ceremony was held grandly under the blowing sea breeze. Lu Ming and 27 officers were promoted to the first level, and 135 non-commissioned officers or soldiers were recommended to the special class of the Navigation School. Among them, Lu Ming was awarded the unprecedented rank of colonel to commend his courage to lead the team to Europe and his calm command in fighting the Spanish Navy. In addition, he also received a freshly released Double Sword Ghawk Silver Medal.

The silver medal was awarded to the officers, while the bronze medal and the steel medal were awarded to the soldiers. In addition to the medals, everyone also received a brass-like Tyrrhenian Naval Battle Memorial, which made the few army officers present so envious that their eyes were almost glaring.

The imperial painter of the military, Perotta, an Italian immigrant from Florence, watched the entire ceremony. He said that he would spend a year to create two new works: "The Burning Tyrrhenian Sea" and "The Navy Award Ceremony". Before that, a painting he created "The Book of Submissions of Buenos Aires" had been included in the National Military Museum.

Non-officials who were lucky enough to observe the normal rituals with Perotta painters, and less than 6,000 immigrants from Livornia and Greece arrived on board (mortality rate is nearly one-quarter). They were organized by sailors and port authorities to enter the immigration isolation camps in a row and received a half-month quarantine. Now many parts of the old continent are still plague. The East Coast, which is already extremely short of population, dare not neglect, so the isolation and observation policy must be implemented, for fear of epidemics and disasters on the East Coast.

The single women among these newly immigrants will be enriched into various settlements built in previous years to balance the gender ratio of the local population. As for the remaining Livornians, the Greeks in Cretan will be enriched into several newly built settlements this year, such as Qingdao Port, Shengjieburg, Baoan Township and other places. They will participate in arduous pioneering activities with the Ming people who arrived there in advance.

The Executive Committee’s policies for these new immigrants are becoming increasingly "harsh" because no matter whether it is land, house or women, it is no longer free. Moreover, the Executive Committee’s requirements for new settlements are becoming increasingly strict. Generally speaking, new settlements (if the natural conditions are not too bad) will definitely suffer a huge loss in the first year, the loss range will narrow in the second year, and it should be almost self-sufficiency in the third year. According to this theory, the Executive Committee has set rules that the new settlements will be transfusion for at most for three years. If self-sufficiency is still not achieved within three years, then the local chief officials will be the worst, and the main officials will be dismissed immediately.

After the award ceremony, the naval officers and soldiers were allowed to take turns to take vacation. Before that, they needed to drive the ship into several shipyards such as Dayuhe Naval Shipyard, Zhenhai Shipyard, Modern Special Shipyard, etc., and thoroughly maintained the ship. The leaking ship boards need to be replaced, the broken canvas needs to be repaired, the faulty artillery needs to be repaired, the plankton at the bottom of the ship needs to be removed, the coating made of tar sulfur glass slag needs to be reapplied, etc., a whole lot of things.

The materials transported back with the ship also need to be cleaned up and received. The copper, lead, tin and other metals that are urgently needed in industrial production are hoisted onto small steamers and then distributed to various factories; livestock (Lusitanoma, Turkmen and a small number of Lascekma) will be driven to the military farm in the ranch township by specialists; and what attracts the attention of the Executive Committee is naturally the payment for goods for the last year collected from the merchant stations such as Bordeaux, Florence, Riga, Danze, Smyrna, Burgas, etc. Venice Ducat, France's Tourrivo (namely Liver, named after the minting in the Monastery of Tours), Empire Lira (the currency of the Principal of Milan, which is passed through the Principal of Tuscany), Ducat, Groz (namely Zloty), Spanish Rial and other currencies filled with large amounts of cash boxes, totaling more than 1.4 million yuan (the cost of procurement of materials has been deducted).

These coins will be transported into the Dayuhe Mint as quickly as possible, and then minted into the east bank silver dollars and deposited into the bank to supplement the rapidly lost silver in China. Now the amount of silver on the market is getting smaller and smaller. According to statistics from the Bureau of Statistics recently split from the Mei agency, the proportion of wages paid by workers in various industries in China has dropped to about one-seventh, and a large number of bank acceptance bills are flooded.

In retail commercial transactions, the transaction volume of bank acceptance bills has also increased day by day, and is gradually reaching more than 40%, and is still growing rapidly. There is no way, who makes coins very scarce? In countries where commercial transactions in the East Coast are not yet very developed and silver coins are not yet very fast, the large demand for currency in the market will inevitably make people look at "paper currency".

Of course, this kind of thing is what officials in the East Coast financial system are happy to see, but before this, they still need to solve a very difficult problem, that is, some six-month bank acceptance bills issued a few months ago are about to expire, and a peak period of cash will inevitably come. A large number of holders will flock to various bank outlets and exchange the due bills at hand for silver dollars. This is a very test of the capital adequacy ratio of the East Coast bank system. If something unexpected happens at this time, the reputation of the government's issuance of paper money in the future will inevitably be greatly affected.

Now, they can finally breathe a little relieved. Originally, everyone was expecting the army that invaded Asuncion to "get" a sum of money back to save the emergency, so they can hold on to the threshold in front of them first, but now there is obviously no need to be so troublesome. It can be said that the timely recovery of the trade payment from last year can be said to have saved the lives of the Ministry of Finance and the two banks. Otherwise, what will they use to repay? If the army fails to transport a large amount of silver from Asuncion, then they will have to issue new and return the old ones, but in that case, their reputation will be terrible.

Lu Ming, who had just been promoted to Navy Colonel, is now one of the only two colonels in the naval system. After the award ceremony, he immediately followed the members of the Executive Committee to the conference room on the third floor of the Executive Committee's administrative building and held a small-scale meeting. The focus was on reporting on various events that happened on this trip and inquire about European intelligence, including their attack on the Spanish Santo Domingo in the Caribbean Sea, which will also be included in the report.

As early as the way back, Lu Ming had already started to write his events along the way into a special report. At this time, facing the inquiries of all the central leaders, he just adjusted his thoughts and reported: "The naval battle with the Spanish Navy Mediterranean Fleet in the Tyrrhenian Sea broke the shadow of the naval officers and soldiers. The war-loss ratio that is beneficial to us also makes everyone's spirits higher. Our naval officers and soldiers, who were originally afraid of a veteran naval power like Spain, will lose their inferiority complex after this war, which is of great significance to our naval construction."

"This battle should have greatly shocked the Spanish, making them realize that even in their backyard, the control power has dropped significantly - thanks to the Dutch. The number of warships, the aging of ships, the tactics are out of order, and the naval talents are severely cut off due to repeated defeats. These have greatly affected the combat effectiveness of the Spanish Navy and become one of the important factors that affect the outcome of this naval battle." Lu Ming continued to report what he had summarized after careful consideration. "In addition, countries in the western Mediterranean, such as Genoa, Savoy, Tuscany, and Milan all know our reputation. Even Venice, Ottomans and Morocco in the eastern Mediterranean have recognized our combat effectiveness, which will be of great benefit to our country's international status, and this improvement of national status will inevitably bring a large number of tangible or intangible benefits to our country."

"In addition, the Spanish Kingdom's defense in the Caribbean was a bit lax. They only built a large number of fortresses and deployed a lot of heavy artillery at ports such as Belle, Cartagena, Havana, and Villacruz, but the defense in the rest of the area was completely messed up. This time, our fleet captured a large number of Spanish towns in the Spanish Santo Domingo, and the resistance was minimal, but the spoils received were very huge. I suggest that we continue to stick to this behavior and regularly attack the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean until the end of the war. But in this process, we must also choose the right time, that is, try to avoid the time period of the Spanish sailing fleet entering and leaving to avoid losses." Lu Ming finally introduced his achievements in San Juan and other places in early June, and urged all the Central Committee members to approve the normalization of this looting.

However, the members obviously had their own considerations. They only heard the Finance Committee Member Nie Xiaoqian ask: "In your judgment, does the Spanish Kingdom have the intention to seek peace? Will it cause any bad impact if we expand the war to the Caribbean?" (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!