Back to Ming Dynasty with Industrial Revolution System

Chapter 1375 Ah San
"Welcome to Calcutta!"

Qin Zuoming, Chen Bangyan and others led the East India Dispatch Army and Tubang mercenaries to see the ships of the Nanyang Fleet arriving from Malacca on the river beach.

Officers and soldiers of the Nanyang Fleet got off their ships one by one and set foot on this hot land.Because the soldiers of the Nanyang Fleet often operate in the hotter Spice Islands near the equator, they don't think there is anything.

"There are a lot of farmland here, but it seems that it can't support so many of you, right?" Deng Qianlong glanced at the villages and farmland near the bastion.

"There are three villages near the bastion. It is very difficult to provide food for more than 1000 people. We can only buy from other villages. After we set up a business station here, many indigenous businessmen gathered to trade with us. It is too easy to buy rice from them. Bangladesh is rich in rice, as long as we have money, we can buy enough food even if the people under the princes starve to death." Chen Bangyan said.

"Our Nanyang Fleet brought five fortress artillery to strengthen the defense of Calcutta according to the requirements of the military department. The above attaches great importance to the Calcutta Castle. This is a future naval base, and we need to have enough food for the crew of our incoming ships. " Deng Qianlong said.

The reason why he asked about food as soon as he came here is because Calcutta will be one of the three major naval bases in the Indian Ocean, so naturally it depends on whether there is enough food here.Even if the goal is the stars and the sea, the first thing to consider is still to fill the stomach.

"There is absolutely no problem. If it doesn't work, we can buy the land and hire refugees to farm."

The people of the East India Company completely regard Calcutta and the nearby farmlands and villages as their own territory. In their view, there is nothing that money cannot do.

It took a lot of effort to transport the five-door plug fireproof gun from the galleon. After all, it was a two to three-ton artillery and needed to be transported to the shore by a small boat.

Originally, Calcutta Fort had two artillery pieces brought by Chen Bangyan, but now there are five more artillery pieces, for a total of seven artillery pieces.

"Move these five cannons to face the land, and move the other two to face the river bank." Qin Zuoming adjusted the deployment of the cannons.

"The first thing we need to besiege is Pulicat, the headquarters of the Dutch on the east coast of India, and their stronghold in Ceylon. The second is the headquarters of Goa and the seven islands of Bombay occupied by the Portuguese." Buddha Francis Day said.

As the steward of the East India Company in Surat, he knew everything about his rivals, the Portuguese and the Dutch.

"We will start the cleaning operation after a short rest, and then you will send someone to show us the way." Deng Qianlong said.

Calcutta's native mercenaries saw another group of their masters coming, and their big boats were still on the river, and they were even more in awe of their masters from the east.

Usually, even the upper castes don't have such big ships. It is conceivable how powerful their new masters are, and they are not afraid of angering the rulers of Bengal.

"These are the Tubang soldiers you trained? They look quite different from the warriors our Nanyang Fleet recruited in Japan." Deng Qianlong noticed these thin-looking Tubang mercenaries.

"Yes, they are all poor people at the bottom of Bangladesh, and their military pay is only one-tenth of that of our soldiers. If the food is not counted, sending a soldier from our mainland is equivalent to hiring 10 native mercenaries here. Of course, for The most important thing for them is to be able to feed their stomachs, and the military pay they are given is only a little subsidy. The combat effectiveness is very average, after all, it is for the refugees who have enough food. Only a small number of them can be enterprising, and they may be able to become low-level officers. Ah Three, say hello to this lord." Qin Zuoming said to a young Tubang soldier.

"Hello, sir!" The Tubang soldier saluted Deng Qianlong, using half-baked Chinese.

"Can you understand Chinese?" Deng Qianlong was a little surprised.

"Yes, sir!" said the Tubang soldier known as Ah San.

"That's right, follow us well, and you might become an officer if you make meritorious service in the future." Deng Qianlong nodded slightly.

Such Tubang soldiers who are willing to accept Sinicization are naturally welcome, and appointing such people as low-level officers can assimilate lower-level Tubang soldiers.

"Yes, sir!" Ah San raised his head and chest, being praised by his employer gave him hope of being promoted.

"He can understand most of the Chinese, but the Chinese he can speak is still very limited. Among the 500 people, there will always be someone who is gifted in the language. Wait for a longer period of time, and train a group of dozens of small native officers. , they will lead our soldiers to fight north and south for us." Qin Zuoming said.

The cost of recruiting soldiers here is too low, and at the expense of giving them almost no pension, and no need to arrange mail and dispatch back home.

It is not necessary for them to have the same combat effectiveness as local soldiers, just to be able to bully the princes of the Tubang in South Asia.

The arrival of the ships of the Nanyang Fleet also alarmed the aborigines in nearby villages.

Bengal sent customs officials here to collect taxes on goods traded between the East India Company and Indian merchants at the preferential rates that the Mughal emperors had given to the East India Company.

However, several Bangladeshi customs officials here have discovered that something is wrong.

The East India Company is obviously a British company, but the blond-haired and blue-eyed businessmen who trade only account for a small part, while the majority are Chinese businessmen with black hair and yellow skin. This obvious difference makes the customs officials suddenly Just noticed.

He asked the people of the East India Company, but the other party only said that the Chinese merchants were employees of the East India Company and should enjoy the privileges of the East India Company in India.The ambiguity made officials in Bangladesh suspicious.

The arrival of the Nanyang Fleet caused riots in nearby villages, and Bangladeshi officials were even more suspicious.

"The people on this fleet are indeed from Huaxia. What are they doing here?"

"The arrival of their fleet may have an attempt on our Bengal, and we must report it to His Royal Highness the Second Prince, so that he can guard against the East India Company."

"They said they would build a merchant station here, but they built a castle here! Their ambitions are huge!"

After the arrival of the Nanyang Fleet, the doubts of several customs officials reached their peak. They discussed privately and planned to send two people to the Calcutta bastion to investigate the details of the bastion.

Usually, when they traded with Indian businessmen, they were conducted outside the bastion, and the defense of the bastion made the Mughal Empire ignorant.

(End of this chapter)