Xinshun 1730

Chapter 40 Ambition
When approaching the castle, several Cossacks on horseback were patrolling outside.

One person supported his partner's knees, and he didn't know what to say with his curled tongue.After glancing at Liu Yu's convoy, he walked around and followed.

Maybe because he caught sight of the beaver fur hat on Liu Yu's head, a Cossack suddenly clamped a horse, and the horse seemed to grow under his legs, galloping towards Liu Yu.

The horse brushed against Liu Yu's horse, stretched out his hand, grabbed Liu Yu's hat in his hand, and ran away sideways.

Liu Yu blurted out "Sukabule" with a correct accent, which was one of the few Russians he knew, and took out a flintlock from the side of the saddle.

Hearing the scolding, the Cossack looked back and saw Liu Yu holding the gun, but he was not afraid.

He stretched out his right hand towards Liu Yu, inserted a thumb between the index finger and middle finger, made the most fucking gesture in Western culture, and poked the thumb inward with every movement.

The big tea-red beard trembled and let out a burst of laughter, and then leaned on the horse's back, twisting its body and galloping towards the distance.

Du Feng, who was beside Liu Yu, was overjoyed, and rode his horse forward, relying on the speed of his horse, to keep pace with that Cossack.

Several Cossacks nearby gathered around, but they didn't intervene in the past. Instead, they watched the fun with a smile on their faces, shouting some words that Liu Yu couldn't understand from time to time.

The hat-snatching Cossack heard someone chasing him, shook his hat in his hand, and circled the convoy.

Du Feng controlled the horse, and when he got close to the Cossack, he stepped on the stirrup, exerted a sudden force, lowered his shoulders and slammed into the Cossack.

In an instant, he snatched back his hat, and didn't return to the team immediately, but turned around and turned to another place.

After going around a few times, the Cossack stopped chasing him and whistled at Du Feng.A few Cossacks watching the excitement nearby were all laughing and talking a lot.

I asked the old-fashioned way to understand Russian. "What did they say?"

"The Raksha man said that his horse had just ran more than a dozen miles at noon, or he would have chased it back. The others laughed at him, saying that his mother must have slept with a juggling gypsy to give birth to him. The technique is so bad..."

"Damn."

Du Feng in the distance went around a few times, returned to the formation with his hat in his hand, and returned the hat to Liu Yu respectfully.

"Young master, these Raksha people have the same habits. If they can beat you well, they won't reason with you, and those tribes will suffer a lot; if they can't beat them, they will be very honest. They are too gangster-like and disobedient, John There used to be a few households in Duoliwei City, but because of the uneven distribution of fur goods, they killed the chief and fled."

Liu Yu put on the hat, seeing that Du Feng was smart, he remembered to call himself the boss and didn't blurt out to call the lord, and said with a smile: "I lost you just now."

"Don't blame the young master. The caravan is also full of desperadoes. When encountering this kind of thing, they always snatch it back. If they can't snatch it back, they will consider themselves unlucky. If they don't snatch the opposite side, it will often get worse."

After such a small episode, those Cossacks who followed did not move in this direction again, and some even leaned over and said a few words in unproficient Chinese, holding two silver coins in their hands.

"Wine, is there?"

Liu Yu shook his head, and asked Lao Bashi to say that there were only rhubarb and tea leaves. The Cossack shook his head in disappointment, and rode away.

Rhubarb and tea cakes are both officially run by the Russian government, and private involvement is prohibited.The money from these official battalions has to be invested in military expenditures, and the Cossacks neither need nor want to cause too much trouble.

Without the harassment of the Cossacks, the team quickly approached the castle of the Raksha people.

Liu Yu quietly observed the distant castle in the team, looking at it from a distance, if it is a bastion, it would be too flattering.

But if it is not, the protruding polygonal corners and the anti-gun slopes are indeed the bastion system, but it is just a low-end version.

The location of the castle is very good, and it can be seen that the person who chose the site is very professional.Backed by Heilongjiang, the main fort is on a hillside, and next to it is a supporting auxiliary fort that supports each other with horns.

The trade area is not inside the castle, but in an open space outside the castle, where there are some wooden houses, and the milky white smoke can be seen from a distance.

The trade area is still within the control range of the fortress. It may be a little further away from the fear of providing cover for the siege party when the city is besieged.

Next to it is a small river that flows into the Heilongjiang River. The Luocha people diverted the river water and built two moats around the castle.

The place between the moat and the river is full of sticks, all of which are small.

On the side of the trench close to the defenders, a low parapet can be clearly seen, behind which there is a drawbridge leading to the main castle.

The surrounding shooting area was cleaned up very cleanly, and there should be a rye field next to it, and the straw stacks piled up in the field could be seen.

There is a small pier in Heilongjiang, which is backed by, and a boat is parked on the pier.Whether it's big or small, it's definitely not what Du Feng called a "birch bark boat".

It was frozen in winter, and the ship was also pulled onto the ice, fixed with wood around it, and looked brand new.A navy flag in the shape of a blue X designed by Peter himself flutters on the mast.

It should be specially built here by a carpenter and boatman, otherwise it would be impossible to have a sea boat in such a place.

…………

In a room in the main castle, logs were burning fiercely in the fireplace, and the rising heat drove away the severe cold outside.

The cross-shaped window lattice is inlaid with some blue-green glass, and the portrait of the crucified Christ bowed his head, as if observing the three people sitting in the room.

These three people are very special. In a sense, none of them is a real Russian, but they all left their names in the history books of Russia.

Abraham Petrovich Hannibal.

Curly black hair, thick beard that stretched from temple to chin, skin as dark as charcoal.Standard black.

At the age of 28, he is already a Brigadier General of Russia. Together with Hannibal's surname, he was also bestowed by Peter I. It is hoped that this adopted son can establish a career like the famous general who made Rome tremble in ancient times.

Vitas Bering.

His skin was as pale as white wax, and his face was covered with freckles common to Nordic people, Danish.

At the age of 45, he will leave an indelible mark on the world map in the future. His name will be like a sword, splitting Asia and America.

Chuanbei.

Obviously, the Japanese have naturalized the Orthodox Church at this time and changed their name to Gabriel.

A shipwreck more than 20 years ago caused many unpredictable changes in the fate of this Edo businessman.Came to St. Petersburg from the bitterly cold Kamchatka Peninsula. He followed the order of Peter I and established the first Japanese language school in Russia.

"His Majesty the Emperor ordered me to continue to investigate the mouth of the Amur River (Heilongjiang), and hope to find a waterway from the mouth of the Amur River to Japan to carry out trade with Japan."

"After completing the exploration of the Japanese route, I will continue to search for a route from Asia to America. His Majesty's encyclical clearly stated that if possible, an accurate map should be drawn, and the Northwest of America should be drawn into the empire's territory .”

The emperor Bering mentioned had already died of illness last year because he rescued the sailors who fell into the water.

The female emperor who came to power now has a bad reputation. It is rumored that she is a Polish military prostitute and does not have much ambition.However, the one in power was still the member of the Boys Army who called Peter brothers and sisters back then. Admiral Apraksin made it very clear that he would let Bering continue to complete his expedition.

The continuous southward invasion over the years has allowed the Russians to freely use the mouth of the Heilongjiang River, and no longer have to set sail from the cold ice-covered waters of Okhotsk.

Denbei will also sail with Bering this time, trying to find a reliable route to Japan, and at the same time determine whether Sakhalin Island is an island or a peninsula, and whether it is connected to Japan by land.

"Yes, yes. It would be extremely beneficial to open up a trade route from the Amur River to Japan. His Majesty the Emperor ordered the carpenters here to build a ship a few years ago."

"I hope that while exploring the sea route, you can also explore the situation of the Amur River's counterparts, measure the water depth, and draw a complete route map."

"If possible, I also hope that you can find a route from here to America. You know, there are very few sables and beavers here, and there should be such expensive and beautiful animals in the north of America. No Fur, the Cossacks are not willing to be in this kind of place. Without the benefit of fur, they would rather go back to Ukraine to farm.”

Hannibal used a distant Russian title, but was very supportive of Bering's expedition and route charting.

The boat on the pier outside the castle has just been completed this year and can accommodate four to fifty people for sailing, directly reaching the Pacific Ocean through Heilongjiang.

As Peter's close servant, he was very aware of Russia's current financial situation, and he understood why these Cossacks traveled all the way here to suffer and suffer.

They have no ambition to expand the border of the country, what they are doing is just the fur here.

A full sable skin fetched £3, or an ounce of gold; a full beaver skin cost double that.

The European beaver is extinct, as are the sables and black squirrels of the Baikal forests.In recent years, it is rare to see beavers that used to be everywhere and built dams on the banks of the Heilongjiang River.

In the past, only a small amount of money was needed to lure hundreds of Cossacks who came forward, threw away their hoes and plowshares, and came here to make a fortune.

And now, the Cossacks are not willing to come to this kind of place anymore, because there are fewer and fewer stories about getting rich overnight, and there is no money to be made, so why come to such a ghost place?

Isn’t Ukraine’s fertile, fat-like black soil delicious?Isn't the warm wind from the Sea of ​​Azov bad?Why do you want to come to this kind of place?
Fur, rhubarb, and tea, these three things accounted for more than one-third of the treasury revenue in Peter's time, and Peter was able to raise a huge army by relying on these three things.

If a route to northern America can be found, the beaver skins, sables and black squirrels there can make thousands of Cossacks go away with the dream of getting rich, and it can also increase more income for the treasury.

More importantly, it is the legend about Japan in the West.It is said that there is Treasure Island, which is full of gold and silver.

Peter used to work as a carpenter in the Netherlands, and the Dutch trade in Japan has always attracted him. So after the Cossack dealers in Kanchaka who collected furs found the shipwrecked Denbei, Peter immediately asked Denbei to open a Japanese language school.

Before Peter died, there was a plan.Send troops to continue southward from Heilongjiang, push the border closer to the Chinese capital, and force China to sign a trade agreement: no more tariffs on rhubarb and tea, and no longer sell rhubarb to the Dutch and Portuguese.

If a route from Heilongjiang to Japan can be found, then even if the cold east cannot become St. Petersburg, it should be able to become a trade zone like Arkhangelsk.

Only in this way, without the temptation of fur profits, can enough people be attracted to come here.Without a population, this place is just a desolate border area after all.

Although Hannibal was demoted here because he participated in the court struggle against the powerful ministers to support the mistress as the female tsar, the powerful ministers in power still continued Peter's policy, and no one died.He was demoted here precisely because of his superb military engineering skills. The old people of the "Peter Gang" hoped that he could preside over the construction of a fort strong enough to serve as a base for the future southward conquest. .

The new route from Siberia to the Americas, the trade route from Heilongjiang to Japan, and the new border line going south to the border area of ​​North Korea, these are complementary Eastern plans, and none of them can be dispensed with.

Hannibal stood up, looking through the green glass on the window sills, looking at the new caravans in the distant trade zone, full of ambition.

"Here, there will be North Korean businessmen, Japanese businessmen, and more Chinese businessmen in the future. And here, it should not be our natural frontier with them."

I have been studying in France for a long time, and my mouth is full of dreamy words like "natural frontier".Hannibal was convinced that the opposing army, which had only the level of a 30-year war, was vulnerable.

(End of this chapter)