The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 376 "Open the door, we need to check"

In 1513, when the Portuguese Mascarene was on his way to India, he passed through an archipelago in the Indian Ocean and named it the Mascarene Islands after himself. Bourbon Island and Mauritius Island are the most important islands in the archipelago.

However, the Portuguese passed by in a hurry and did not pay much attention to these islands, so they are still left to sleep quietly in the ocean.

Later, the Dutch followed the Portuguese and came to the rich East to find the source of spices. In 1598, they settled in the "Bat Island" in the Mascarene Islands and named it Mauritius after Prince Maurice.

Soon after the Dutch occupied Mauritius, France also began to covet the island. In the early 17th century, France's trade with the East was increasing. In order to compete with other European countries, France tried to open up a base for expansion to the East near the route around the Cape of Good Hope.

In 1602, a few French colonists landed on another large island in the Mascarene Islands, which is only 1642 kilometers away from Mauritius, as a temporary supply point for traveling to the East. In , the French officially established a colonial organization on the island and incorporated it into the French East India Company. In order to celebrate the Bourbon dynasty's acquisition of another piece of fertile land, the French colonists named the island Bourbon Island.

In 1660, as the Dutch Cape Town and Qi Changning colonies grew stronger, the French were inspired to send the first batch of official immigrants to Bourbon Island. Since then, the number of immigrants on the island has continued to increase. As of last year, the number of French immigrants on Bourbon Island has reached more than people. They built a fortress at the north and south ends of the island, making the entire Bourbon Island an important base for France's "exploration" of the Indian Ocean region.

The Bourbon Island Colony encountered a series of difficulties in its early days.

First, there is the invasion of pirates. The pirates in the Indian Ocean mainly come from the Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. At the end of the 17th century, these pirates moved their nests to Madagascar in order to escape the attacks of the navies of Britain, Spain, France and other countries. Since then, the Mascarene Islands have become a place frequented by pirates. Some indigenous residents on the islands also secretly communicate with pirates, and pirate activities are extremely rampant.

However, with the growing rise of Qi's maritime power, the pirates' activity space and looting frequency were greatly suppressed.

In the 1970s, after the State of Qi occupied Silver Moon Island (now Grand Comore Island), Wangxiang Island (now Rodrigues Island, Mauritius) and the west coast of Madagascar Island, it stationed a West Indian Ocean Squadron in the area, continuously carrying out armed patrols and anti-piracy operations in the area, and successively eliminated several pirate nests on the east coast of Madagascar and Sainte Marie Island, making the once rampant piracy activities in the South Indian Ocean disappear, and completely restoring normal navigation safety in the area.

Another difficulty encountered by the Bourbon Island colony was that for a long time at the beginning, the French immigrants on the island could not find crops suitable for growing on the island.

Well, to be precise, no cash crop has been found that can generate huge profits.

Although the island had fertile land, the immigrants never made good use of it and instead had to fight hard against tropical diseases and storms at all times.

The French coveted the spice business in the East Indies run by the Dutch and tried many times to grow spices on Bourbon Island, but all failed. They could only grow some grains and rice to solve the survival problems of hundreds of immigrants on the island.

However, overseas colonization is to create huge economic value, not to survive on this small island.

Therefore, finding crops suitable for cultivation on the island, especially cash crops that can create value, became the key to the development of the colonial economy.

In 1708, a Dutch merchant fleet loaded with spices and coffee from the South Pacific Islands of Qi stopped at Mauritius to replenish fresh water and food. This scene happened to be seen by the then Governor of Bourbon Island, Mathias Jean Lessor, who was visiting and was instantly inspired.

It is said that the climate and geographical conditions of the Nanyang Islands located north of Qi State are almost the same as those of Bourbon Island. So, can Bourbon Island, which has almost no output, also grow coffee, a crop with huge economic value?

Our Governor of Les Ors immediately decided to organize French immigrants to grow coffee on the island. In 1711, the first batch of coffee seedlings arrived on Bourbon Island from Yemen. There was no other way, as the Qi people had strict export controls on any special crop nurseries in their territory, and foreigners were strictly prohibited from taking them out of the country.

Due to the favorable climate, coffee cultivation quickly spread throughout the island. By 1730, coffee produced on Bourbon Island could meet nearly % of the market demand in France, bringing huge profits to the colonial authorities.

In 1733, the new Governor of Bourbon Island, Labourdonnais, saw that the sugarcane industry on the neighboring island of Mauritius was booming, and he established dozens of sugarcane plantations and two sugar mills. These sugars could not only supply the needs of hundreds of thousands of people in Qi's Madagascar Island and several colonial territories in South Africa, but could also be sold to countries and regions such as Arabia, Persia, and Egypt via ocean-going cargo ships. The money was rolling in, making people very jealous.

Therefore, in order to obtain greater economic benefits, Governor Labourdonnais prepared to engage in diversified operations. While continuing to consolidate and increase coffee production, he would introduce sugarcane cultivation on a large scale.

However, with the large-scale cultivation of cash crops, the colonies faced another more serious problem - lack of labor.

Since the establishment of the colony, the number of immigrants to Bourbon Island has been increasing, but due to the influence of tropical diseases, the mortality rate is also abnormally high. The number of immigrants each year can only maintain a slight population growth after barely making up for the replacement shortage on the island. However, with the rapid development of the island's economy, the labor force immediately became seriously scarce.

France is similar to some European countries such as the Netherlands. The process of primitive accumulation of capital in the country is not as intense as that in England, and it has not created a large army of bankrupt farmers. Therefore, there is no large-scale wave of emigration.

Therefore, until the time when Governor Labourdonnais came up with the idea of ​​building a sugarcane plantation, there were only about 820 white immigrants on the entire Bourbon Island, and this was only after the addition of some Creoles (mixed black and white) that the island grew to its current size. At that time, the immigrants were mainly retired employees of French companies, adventurers and prisoners. Only a small number of immigrants really wanted to come to the island to cultivate land, and most of the physical labor on the island was done by captured slaves.

The slaves on the island mainly came from Madagascar and East Africa. In the past, the slave trade was mainly run by pirates. Later, the pirates were swept away by the Qi Navy, and the French became slave traders, capturing slaves from Madagascar and the coastal areas of East Africa or buying them from local tribal leaders, and bringing a large number of slaves back to Bourbon Island.

The colonial authorities of Bourbon Island also personally participated in the slave trade, buying large numbers of slaves from slave traders at low prices, and then reselling them to plantation owners or free immigrants on the island, making huge profits in the process.

Coffee cultivation is labor-intensive and requires a large number of slaves. By 1730, after the rise of coffee plantations on Bourbon Island, the slave population had soared from dozens to more than . If sugarcane cultivation was to be launched, it is conceivable that the demand for slaves on the island would be even greater.

So the French turned their attention to the island of Madagascar.

This huge island has a population of tens of millions, it is simply an inexhaustible "human mine"!

More importantly, if we French control this big island and then integrate and absorb it, we will have the capital to fight against the Qi people in the Indian Ocean region.

However, if he wanted to stir up trouble in the Indian Ocean and Madagascar Island, would it provoke a strong reaction from the people of Qi and lead to their ruthless suppression?

You have to know that the influence of the Qi people spread throughout the Indian Ocean. Not to mention Qi's South Africa and Qi's Madagascar, even on the nearby Fu'an Island, the number of Qi immigrants exceeds 1,200, and their strength far exceeds that of us French.

They only need to move their little finger to put Bourbon Island into an irreparable situation. Just when the Governor of Bourbon Island, Labourdeau, was hesitant and indecisive, two months ago, a piece of news came from the colonial outpost of Tamatave on the east coast of Madagas Island that shocked him.

The local priest Father Matthew successfully inspired a king of Merina with the mercy of the Lord and baptized him as a Catholic.

The "pious" king promised the French that he would "hand over" a large number of prisoners of war to the French as slaves to meet the labor needs of French plantation owners. In return, the French needed to provide him with a large number of firearms to support his unified war operations.

The fanatical Catholic priest even provided the Melina people with more than 20 retired French veterans with military experience to help them train their army and teach them how to conduct "modern" warfare.

Obviously, influenced by religious ideas, those devout priests were more radical and bolder than the local colonial authorities. They tried to turn the entire central plateau into a Catholic world through the baptized King Merina and turn all the ignorant and barbaric Merina people into believers of God.

Oh, God, when they did such a bold thing, didn’t they consider the reaction of the people of Qi?

The people of Qi have been coveting the entire Madagascar Island for a long time. They have been looking for an opportunity to destroy the Kingdom of Merina on the central plateau and then annex this vast island.

If they had not been afraid of France's powerful influence in Europe, they might have driven our French forces out of this island and the Indian Ocean before swallowing up this big island.

They didn't see that they obviously possessed powerful strength, but they just endured it and watched the separatist forces in Mai Li conquer and fight each other. They were waiting for the indigenous people to kill each other and lose their resistance, and then they would easily go and pick this fully "ripe fruit".

If we French personally intervene in the civil war in the Kingdom of Merina, we will invite disaster!
Sure enough, less than two months after this incident, the people of Qi came knocking on the door.

Seven ships flying the flag of Qi gathered off the coast of Bourbon Island, claiming to land on the island to search for a group of pirates who had fled there.

Yes, Qi had the power to hunt down and kill pirates in the entire Indian Ocean region, which was tacitly acknowledged by all countries and regions around the Indian Ocean. At that time, many colonial territories, including the Dutch Mauritius Island, the French Bourbon Island, and the Portuguese Mozambique, opened their ports to the Qi Navy, provided them with necessary supplies, and even allowed Qi Navy officers and soldiers to go to the island for a short rest or treatment of injuries.

But the problem is, there are no pirates on our Bourbon Island at this time. What do you mean by insisting on landing on the island?
This is naked revenge!
But Governor Labourdonnais did not dare to refuse outright, and sent envoys on a small boat to negotiate with the Qi people, trying his best to explain to them that there were no pirates on Bourbon Island and all the residents were subjects of France's overseas territories.

But the people of Qi insisted that they had received "accurate and reliable" intelligence that a pirate ship that had robbed Fenghua (now the northwestern port city of Mahajanga in Madagascar) had fled to Bourbon Island and hid in a secluded place somewhere on the island with the stolen property.

The people of Qi demanded that the colonial authorities of Bourbon Island immediately open the port and allow the Qi army to land on the island and arrest those vicious pirates.

If the French refuse, the Qi Navy will be forced to take drastic measures to maintain justice and order in the Indian Ocean region.

Damn it, "upholding justice and order in the Indian Ocean region", isn't this just pointing fingers at us French and accusing us of engaging in piracy and harbouring the pirates that you Qi people have fabricated!
As for the claim that pirates robbed your Qi people's Fenghua Port, that is simply nonsense!
Fenghua Port is the second largest colonial outpost on the west coast of Madagascar, second only to Jianyang Port (now the southwestern city of Tulear in Madagascar). It has a population of more than 1,800, six or seven port artillery batteries, and more than 30 large and small cannons. Which pirate would be so crazy as to attack this hedgehog-like fortress?

Faced with the Qi people's toughness and naked threat of force, Governor Labourdonnais was unwilling but had to choose to compromise temporarily and ordered the port to be opened to allow the Qi people to land on the island for inspection. With the defense facilities on Bourbon Island, it would certainly be no problem to deal with pirates, but it would not be enough to resist the powerful firepower of the Qi navy.

If you must go to the island, then come on. I want to see how you people from Qi capture those so-called escaped pirates on the island!
However, less than a day after hundreds of Qi armed soldiers landed on the island, Governor Labourdonnais's defense was broken.

Several coffee plantations on the island suddenly caught fire, most of the coffee crops were burned, and the slaves working there all fled and hid in the jungle.

Soon after, plantation owners and immigrants kept coming to complain that the Qi people broke into residents' homes in the name of arresting pirates, and tortured and interrogated French immigrants suspected of being pirates, causing panic among the residents of the entire island.

Soon, some residents cried out that young women in their families had been abused or disappeared, all by the armed soldiers of the State of Qi who landed on the island.

What the hell!

What do you people of Qi want to do?
Are you here to destroy this Bourbon Island?

Governor Labourdonnais immediately found the head of the Qi armed forces who had landed on the island and sternly demanded that he restrain his subordinates and refrain from harassing local residents and destroying plantations.

But the Governor's request was ignored by the other party, who informed the French colonial authorities that after a careful search, the Qi people had found clues of the pirates and were very sure that the French were harboring the escaped pirates.

He believed that after a few more days of pursuit, all the pirates would be caught and brought to justice.

Governor Labourdonnais stared blankly at the other party's fearless expression, and suddenly a bad feeling emerged in his heart.

The people of Qi seemed prepared to seize Bourbon Island by means of frame-up in response to their French interference in the Merine civil war.

Oh, and the word "seems" should be removed.

Because, the sound of gunfire began to be heard continuously on the island, as well as the screams and cries of innocent residents.

Governor Labourdonnais looked gloomy.

(End of this chapter)