Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 605 Lando's Mission

"Can you mark all the facilities in the port?"

"It's fine to allow me to go anywhere, but there are a large part of the port that neither I nor my subordinates can set foot in." Li Huamei said regretfully, "They monitor me very strictly—in the past, the Australians guarded me personally, but It’s relatively loose. Now it’s replaced by recruiting Ming people from the mainland, but it’s much tighter.”

"So you're not attractive to them anymore." Li Siya joked, "Your charm has declined."

"No, I think they like me very much, especially among naval officers." Li Huamei said, "But there are some Australians who are very vigilant and suspicious of everyone - including themselves. Consider Considering that they are actually outnumbered, there is nothing wrong with doing so.”

"How many troops do you estimate they have?"

"I can't estimate this, but in the port, you can see about two companies of infantry at any time, and the training is very good-it is completely European-style training, and the equipment is very complete. The gunners and sailors are not counted. If the sailors All armed, at least twenty companies can be formed. The sailors are also well trained. The Australians have a lot of firearms and ammunition."

"In this case, there is no hope for the Dutch to attack Lingao."

"Not at all. How many ships can the Dutch dispatch? Fifteen ships? Sixteen ships? They only dispatched fourteen ships during the expedition to Penghu." Macau has not been captured, and now if we want to attack Lingao, which is ten times more difficult than Macau, I am afraid that we will not even be able to enter the port, and we will only get nowhere."

"So they are willing to pay five thousand dong." Li Siya said.

"We have a very good relationship with the Australians, and the Goa trade is profitable. Why go to the fire for the Dutch? It's only five thousand guilders."

"It's not as simple as [-] dong." Li Siya opened a corner of the curtain and stared at the dripping fountain in the atrium, "You said: the strength of the Australians has been increasing day by day in the past three years." Be strong one day. When they are strong enough to ignore the heroes in the South China Sea, will our sisters have a better life?"

"They're very early. Zheng Zhilong..."

"Zheng Zhilong is also a threat." Li Siya said, "The Australians in Lingao are more dangerous than Zheng Zhilong—no one knows what their intentions are—they still have a lot of cards to play."

Li Siya thought that a war between the Dutch and the Australians would do them no harm.Since it is impossible for the Dutch to eliminate the Australians--they will only be beaten badly--their interests in Lingao will not be affected in any way.With the threat of the Dutch as a formidable enemy, the Australians will only win over their existing partners, and Li Huamei can get more benefits from them.

Generally speaking, this opportunity is well used, because the two "double losses", and the Li family sisters "win-win".

"We want to make the Australians suffer a little bit." Li Siya said, "then they will treat you better. In short, it's better that there is more chaos in this sea."

"The Dutch can't make the Australians suffer. They can't."

"It's up to us," she said. "Give the Dutch a hand."

Li Huamei said calmly, "What do you want to do?"

"There is a person, I am going to use him."

"Aragones? Although he is in a bad situation, he is not a useful person."

"Him? Useful. But I'm going to use this guy: Wes Lando."

So she sent one of her most trusted black female slaves who often handled secret affairs for her to see Lando.Not only can this woman speak good Portuguese, but she is also a cold-blooded killer when necessary. This person is good at concocting and administering poisons. He once quietly eradicated many enemies and those who annoyed her for Li Siya. people.

With her keen sense of smell and pervasive spies—she raised a large number of scum of various nationalities in Macau, acting as eyes and ears—Li Siya grasped all kinds of information in the city.

When Weiss Lando appeared in Macau, she didn't arouse much interest. It was just a common European dregs in the Far East—relying on brute force and wielding knives and guns to get some benefits.Even she aboard the Countess of Scarborough wasn't too impressed with the man.Except for the Italian with a strange accent and a behavior that doesn't fit in with the surroundings.

She saw him many times later in the street, in hotels and in churches.This person has never received his attention, but once, one of her subordinates brought her a strange thing.

It was a rectangular piece of paper, beautifully printed, with a beautifully printed round head of a European man on it.As for the text on it, she didn't recognize it, it should be a European language.In addition, it is an Arabic numeral 10.

The source of this piece of paper is the proprietress of the small hotel where Lando stayed.The man tried to pay the bill with this piece of paper after he was drunk, and when he was rejected, he became so drunk that he stuffed it into the proprietress's corset.

Li Siya told the proprietress to buy this piece of paper for one riyal.In this piece of paper, she thought of the similar prints that were found from the shopkeeper Wen back then.However, the shopkeeper Wen's body is red, and it says 100 in Arabic numerals.The profile picture is that of a yellow man.In addition, the text above is also Chinese characters.

Weiss Lando turned out to be an Australian!At least it has a deep relationship with Australians!Li Siya discovered a new continent.Thinking about it this way, when Aragones attacked Lingao, he was throwing himself into a trap!Needless to say, the other party sent this person to Macau for their own sake.

She immediately asked someone to keep an eye on this Australian—but almost a year later, Lando not only did not return to Lingao once, but he never even went to Huang Shunlong's shop once. He had no contact with the outside world at all, except for The Jesuits will go out when they are working, and spend almost every day in Macau living a dreamy life.

In any case, he didn't look like a spy.

She got all the news about the man from Jesuit insiders.Lando received it from the Ming government.The Daming government captured him from a small county called "Lingao" along the coast. At that time, he was rescued by several fishermen and sent to the county.

The insider told him: Lando served the Jesuits very faithfully, and Lord Jalanzani was very satisfied with him—except for spending money.

After a long period of observation and testing.Li Siya confirmed one thing: Lando is an Australian, but Lando and the Australians in Lingao are not in the same group.

If it was a group, he would never have had any relationship with the Australians in Lingao in the past two years, and he has never done anything to serve the Australians—except for night raids on Bo The news of the shop may have been leaked by him.

In addition, she also knew from Jalanzani's attendants that Lando had said to the chairman several times: "They are all Chinese, although they are not from the Ming Dynasty."

Although the chairman might not understand what he meant, Li Siya understood very well: Lando made it very clear that he knew the details of the Australians in Lingao.As for why he said so emphatically that "they are Chinese, not people from the Ming Dynasty", there should be other reasons.

If it was an ordinary person, Li Siya would have secretly kidnapped him and tortured him to find out why.But Lando was serving the Jesuits in Macau, and she was not mad enough to dare to offend the Jesuits.

Now is a great opportunity.Li Siya thought about it for a few days and came to such a conclusion.

If the Dutch wanted to find out the secrets of Lingao, she could let Lando go. If Lando was a spy of the Australians, he would never tell her the key defense measures of Lingao.But Lando didn't know that Li Huamei was hers.As long as a comparison can be found.On the other hand, Lando is not a spy, and he has more detailed information about Australians than his breast sister.

If this is the case, Lando will be a rare commodity to live in!Li Siya thought that the Australians would definitely be a tyrant in the South China Sea in the future, and the benefits of having someone who knew their details in their hands were immeasurable.

Lando didn't know that he had been tricked by Li Siya.Now that he accepted the money, he decided to go to Lingao himself.Go and see with your own eyes what the Chinese are doing in Lingao, and evaluate whether you can defect to the other side.In his opinion, any army in this time and space cannot be an opponent of the Chinese armed with modern weapons.In case the Chinese actually suffered a defeat at the hands of people from this time and space, it would be better for him to simply give up the idea of ​​defecting to them.

However, the faces of Europeans are too conspicuous when they go to Lingao, and they will be targeted by the Chinese as soon as they enter the country.It is impossible to impersonate a businessman—I am not like a businessman, who knows nothing about the trade here, and cannot withstand interrogation at all.Lando thought twice and decided to pretend to be the priest's entourage.The Jesuits will send two missionaries to Lingao recently.After Lu Ruohua's letter requesting to send more priests arrived, the Jesuits sent three more people there, but Lingao's demand for priests continued unabated. In addition, another priest fell ill while preaching in the Li district in the previous stage. The Lord calls".According to the request of the Lingao Church, the Society of Jesus decided to send two more priests to Lingao to preach.

Lando went to ask Father Comange, only saying that he was very curious about Lingao and hoped to visit with the group.His request was granted immediately.So Lando became a member of the Jesuit mission.

The spring sunshine, through the gaps in the bamboo bushes outside the window, spreads mottled shadows on the square brick floor.The breeze shakes the emerald bamboo, and a broken curtain flows back and forth like a stream.

The bamboo has all turned green, and the withered yellow leaves of winter are fading one by one.There is life in the garden.

The furnishings in the study are so simple that it is hard to imagine that it is the study in the private residence of Wang Zunde, Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi.

Wang Zunde was reading a letter with his head down.His attire is very simple, almost on par with a poor scholar.Wang Zunde is famous for his simplicity, he is always a vegetarian in ordinary clothes, and he has a reputation for integrity in official circles.

This is a letter brought back from the capital by one of his disciples.With his dignity and status, it is convenient and quick for the Titang officials in this province to send private messages for him, but Wang Zunde never labors for them—who knows if Dongchang has seen these Titang officials send them back to the province? private message.

A private letter from Beijing, the content is nothing more than anecdotes from parents, various news, and trends in the court.It turned out to be nothing, but I was afraid that I would be in trouble if I found out some "shouldn't" words from the eunuchs in the East Factory.

The letter was written by a court official in the same year.And this letter made him feel an inexplicable worry.What aroused his concern were the several "postscripts" that accompanied the letter.

According to the customs of the officialdom in the Ming Dynasty, people wrote a letter in addition to a text, and there was a so-called "fuqi".Fuqi is an anonymous letter, which is used to ask for entrustment or to discuss confidential matters.
Now the letter in Wang Zunde's hand also has three copies.

As usual, the main text of Xinde is some polite words about living in the cold and warm, and Wang Zunde hastily swept over the matter.The first one was about the news from the imperial court. He roughly read it, and it was about the recent trends of the imperial court: Yuan Chonghuan’s prospects are not good—more than a month ago, the imperial court sent people to Guangxi to arrest Yuan Yuanyuan in Teng County. Families and relatives enter Beijing.This senior official who was once highly regarded by the emperor may not escape the disaster of execution.Although Yuan Element and himself had nothing to do with each other and could not be implicated in him, seeing him being reused and then arrested, he couldn't help but feel sad in his heart.

He picked up a second copy of the vice-president.
The above content is the news of the imperial court and Jianlu fighting with the bandits.The war in the east has temporarily calmed down since the imperial court took back Zunhua, but the situation of the bandits in the northwest is getting bigger and bigger day by day, and it is gradually igniting a prairie fire.Moreover, among them, the post soldiers, town soldiers, and military households in Shanzhen "have a lot of thieves."

Seeing this, Wang Zunde couldn't help sneering, thinking that this was just expected.The arrears of the town soldiers are already calculated on an annual basis, and it is even more unsuccessful to abolish the postmen.The northwest of Shaanxi is a place of bitter cold, not like Jiangnan and Guangdong, where they can barely survive.It turned out to be a half-starved and half-satisfied dawdle, but now that they are cut off, how can they survive if they don't rebel?
This kind of chaos, I am afraid that there will be no seven or eight years that cannot be suppressed.

He dropped the copy and picked up the next one.
This letter is written very briefly, but it is more important.The main point is that since Xiong Wenhuan recruited Zheng Zhilong, the situation in the southeast coast has stabilized, and the emperor seems to be satisfied with this.Xiong Wenhuan is being urged to "clarify the ocean" as soon as possible.

"Hmph." Wang Zunde snorted.Xiong Wenhuan's move was nothing more than attacking the thief with a thief, trying to make both sides hurt and he just took advantage of the fisherman.It's just that this matter may not be as simple as he thought.

Although the Guangdong side doesn't have much contact with Zheng Zhilong, they know a lot about the situation.The news came mainly from the Portuguese.Including Zheng Zhilong's family history and his special relationship in Japan, etc.Wang Zunde knew very well that Zheng Zhilong was by no means a kind person, nor was he an ordinary pirate who would be satisfied with the title of "Guerrilla General".

After that, he refused to withdraw from the Zhongzuo Institute and stole the Jinsha for nothing more than to use it as a port to trade with Japan and other places.The Portuguese come to Guangzhou City twice a year for trade, and a lot of useful news can be drawn from their mouths.For example, Zhongzuo is more ideal as a trading port than Yuegang; Zheng Zhilong's repeated attacks on Yuegang are not aimed at robbery, but mainly to force merchants to dare not trade in the local area, etc.

"Zheng Ni is a wolf with great ambitions, and he is definitely not sincerely submitting to the imperial court!" This was Gao Shunqin's comment after hearing Zheng Zhilong's caress at that time - of course it was private.

But Xiong Wenhuan didn't see it that way.For more than a year, he has continuously supported Zheng Zhilong's ships with heavy artillery, and even sent a lot of Hongyi cannons that Wang Zunde made for Fujian to Zheng Zhilong.Zheng Zhilong in Fujian simply wants the wind to get the wind, and the rain to get the rain.He knew that the Zheng family had bought properties in Fujian, and even reached out to Guangdong, where they bought many farmlands and properties, and there were even farms he bought outside of Guangzhou.It is the extreme of madness!

But after all, Zheng Zhilong wiped out Zhu Cailao and other sea bandits one by one. As long as Xiong Wenhuan keeps reporting success, any impeachment will have no effect.On the ruling and opposition sides, there are quite a few people who agree with Xiong Wenhuan's approach.The court meeting is very beneficial to him, and there is a possibility of promotion in view of the momentum.

These news seem to have nothing to do with Guangdong.However, Wang Zunde knew that if Xiong Wenhuan was promoted, he would most likely come to take over his position-Guangdong also has pirates, and their momentum is no less than that of Fujian.Xiong Wenhuan has gained the reputation of being a capable member of the "Supporting Thieves and Jinghai", and most likely he will come to Guangdong.He is now the governor of Fujian, and he has made great achievements, so it may not be just the governor of Guangdong.

If I can't quickly open up a situation and win a few victories at sea, I'm afraid the position of governor of these two provinces will not be able to sit still.

It's just that the pirates on the Guangdong ocean are not easy to get along with.The most popular one is Liu Laoxiang. This person has been patrolling outside the Pearl River Estuary for a long time, going deep into the Pearl River from time to time to rob villagers and ships, and blocking overseas trade.The Portuguese in Macau came to talk with him every three days, hoping that the two sides would jointly attack and suppress.

The Portuguese had big plywood boats and big bronze cannons from the Red Barbarians, and their combat power was considerable, but Ming could not send any troops.If you want to attack, you have to pay the army and prepare the ships, all of which require a lot of money.The chief envoy of Guangdong has been crying for poverty, saying that there is no money in the treasury.At present, most of the money for casting cannons in the provinces is still owed.The price of guns allowed by the Ministry of Industry has not been seen until now.

However, Guangdong has a lot of financial resources. If you really want to fight, you can do it no matter where you make a fortune first.It's just not worth it.

Moreover, the official circles in Guangdong knew nothing about Liu Laoxiang's details, not even as much as the Portuguese.Without a guide, it is simply wishful thinking to find Liu Laoxiang's fleet among the vast sea and countless small islands.In the end, it was nothing more than losing troops and losing generals.The imperial court could afford to lose in the past, but now, the imperial court can no longer afford to lose.Losing a battle means never recovering.

Thinking of this, he was very irritable.

(End of this chapter)