Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 320 The Uninvited Guest

On February 1642, 2, the sky was still cloudy and rainy.In the middle of the night yesterday, several transport ships from the mainland were wandering outside the harbor due to the darkness, and they were not allowed to enter the bay to dock until this morning.

The three transport ships brought 80 yuan of funds raised by the Ministry of Finance to the New China Colony, as well as a considerable amount of weapons and ammunition, cotton cloth, leather goods, hardware products and other commodities.According to the plan, Xinhua Fort will build a large-scale cargo storage and transportation center like the Fort in the River, and all kinds of goods required for future transactions with the Ottoman Empire will be shipped directly from the Xinhua Fort warehouse, which is much more convenient. Also a lot faster.

The three transport ships and an escorting naval warship did not plan to stay here for a long time. At present, the local maritime capacity is still extremely tight, and they don't have much time to wander outside.Therefore, Shi Qinjie immediately ordered people to load a large amount of local specialties such as timber, coconuts, and dried seafood that had been prepared long ago on the ship.Of course, he didn't forget that the most important cargo pulled back by these transport ships was people.

Under the organization of the local militia, 1200 relatively strong Ming immigrants were picked out, and then they boarded the ship one by one with the assistance of the sailors.Before they left, they had been told that after returning to the rich land, they would be granted houses, land, farm tools, seeds and cattle, and then open up wasteland and farm land in a beautiful lakeside area. Dare to imagine a fairy-like life.In the future, the food they grow themselves can be eaten by themselves. If they are willing to work on the construction site during the slack season, they can still eat delicious beef. Where can such a day be found in Daming, where wars are everywhere?

These immigrants have been raised in Xinhua Fort for almost a month, and their physical condition has greatly improved. Most of them have healthy blood on their faces, instead of the bitter look they had before.The immigrants boarded the ship very quickly, and by the afternoon, almost all boarded the ship.The fresh water, vegetables and meat prepared by Xinhua Castle were also delivered to the ship in time. After a few sick and wounded were placed in Xinhua Fort for recuperation, the four ships did not make any stops, and directly pulled anchor overnight and left. Xinhua Bay.

After 1200 immigrants from the Ming Dynasty left, Xinhua Fort suddenly became much empty.With the departure of more than 600 Eight Banners slaves who took two warships of the Second Fleet to the Tacheng area in the south last week, the number of residents (including slaves) near Xinhua Fort suddenly dropped from more than [-] to more than [-]. .With the gradual development of the Tacheng Coal Mine, the population of Xinhuabao has become inevitable.However, the significance of the Tacheng Coal Mine is extremely great. As long as there is spare capacity in the Xinhuabao area, Shi Qinjie will definitely support the construction there.

The day after the transport fleet left, on February 2, the sky was rarely cleared.Originally, this was a comfortable day, and Shi Qinjie, who had just woken up, thought so too.He also asked his secretary Rodrigo to prepare some fishing gear for him, and he was about to relax and enjoy fishing in the bay.And at this moment, a rumbling roar sounded faintly outside the bay.

It's the sound of cannons!Shi Qinjie immediately made a judgment. He had heard the sound of artillery firing many times during the artillery practice on the forts at the mouth of the bay, so he could naturally distinguish what was thunder and what was the sound of artillery!It’s okay to hear the sound of the guns. At least the more than 20 coastal defense heavy artillery that have been installed on the three forts recently are often fired for practice, but the problem is that there is no artillery training today!

"Rodrigo, go and see what's going on." Shi Qinjie felt a little uneasy, so he hurriedly said.

"Okay, sir, I'll take a look." Rodrigo responded, then turned and walked outside the house.But before he reached the door, an officer in army uniform ran in quickly outside the door.

Shi Qinjie took a closer look and found that the person who came was actually Lieutenant Baishui, the deputy company commander of the 3rd company of the army.I saw Bai Shui's face was tense at the moment, and his forehead was covered with beads of sweat. As soon as he entered the door, he yelled: "Old Shi, something is wrong. Our fishing boat was attacked. Just now I was in the middle of the three It can be clearly seen from the fort of No. [-], three galleons with three masts, which look like armed merchant ships, are chasing our four fishing boats. The place where the incident happened is at the mouth of the bay. Fortunately, our catchers The fish boat was not far from the fort, and quickly hid in the harbor, and those few boats should not chase in. Fuck, but now it seems that they are already exchanging fire, and these few boats are really brave enough , to be unrelenting, do you really want to rush in!"

"Which country's ship? So arrogant! I'm afraid no one around here knows that this is the territory of our East Coast Republic of China, right?" Shi Qinjie was a little stunned, and someone really rushed to the door to provoke, this is a big deal!

"There is no flag flying, so I can't tell which country it belongs to." Bai Shui said helplessly, "But I can guess, except for the Portuguese who are across the Mozambique Channel, the only ones nearby are near the southwestern coast. The Dutch have set up several slave hunting stations. I guess they are the Dutch. They are used to being arrogant. They often go to Mozambique Island, Sofala, and the Marquis of Lourenço to fight the autumn wind. The Portuguese have nothing to do with them. This time It’s not ruled out that they got it right and ran all the way to our place to check on the situation.”

The Dutch slave capture point mentioned by Baishui is located on the southwest coast of Madagascar, near the later Tulare.Since the Dutch took over the Fort of Good Hope of the British East India Company a few years ago, they have been suffering from a shortage of immigrant populations.In addition to recruiting immigrants from Europe who could not get along for various reasons, the Dutch also brought many Malays, Javanese, and Chinese from the East India region to the Cape Colony to farm and work.

Due to the real pressure of the people on the east coast, the Dutch did not build Cape Town as slowly as in history, and their Batavia High Court sentenced batch after batch of people under their rule with incredible efficiency. The subjects were "guilty", and then they were all sent to the Cape Colony to grow vegetables, alfalfa, and graze cattle and sheep for the East India Company.

However, if this is the case, Governor De Young of Fort Good Hope is still not satisfied.Especially after the people on the east bank completely defeated the invading Kama tribe army through a brilliant victory, Governor Dejan, who was shocked by the military strength of the east bank, began to increase the strength of the Cape Colony through various methods.He first made some concessions with the people on the east bank on the issue of the delimitation of the two colonies, in exchange for a temporary peace; slave.

In addition to these, he also sent some Dutch ships stationed there to harass and attack the Portuguese colonies along the coast of Mozambique, and went ashore from time to time to plunder, and captured many local Zambezis.While attacking the Zambezi on the west coast of the strait, they naturally turned their attention to Madagascar on the east side of the strait.The southwest of this huge island is a flat grassland area, where many semi-nomadic indigenous tribes live.Compared with those in the central plateau or in the north, the aborigines on the southwest coast have a lower level of civilization, and most of them are still slave societies. Therefore, they have become good targets for the Dutch to plunder.According to estimates by people on the east coast, since the Cape Colony was transferred to the Dutch, they have plundered no less than a thousand native slaves on the vast land near Tulare.Thanks to their efforts, the population of the entire Dutch Cape Town colony is estimated to have climbed to more than 3000 at this time, and it has initially gained a certain strength.

"Come on, let's go to the fort to have a look." Shi Qinjie didn't talk nonsense, and walked towards the pier with a wave of his hand.There were several canoes on the pier. Shi Qingjie and others took a few guards into the canoes, and then several Irish sailors started rowing the boats and headed for the fort at the mouth of the bay.

More than an hour later, Shi Qinjie and others boarded the No. 5 Fort on the South Cape from the side and rear of the fort in the bay.There are [-] platoons of army officers and soldiers stationed in this fort, as well as a large number of coastal defense heavy artillery gunners composed of local residents or clever people from the new Ming Dynasty immigrants.

Fort No. 24 currently has two 18-pounder guns, four 12-pounder guns and four 50-pounder guns installed, and the firepower is quite good.At this moment, there are more than [-] gunners on the fort, all of them are making noise, and some people are walking back and forth between the various gun positions, looking a little chaotic.

This gunner team has only been formed for less than a month, and has not fired live ammunition a few times, and its military quality is also very average.At this moment, they suddenly encountered hostile ships attacking, and they were indeed a little panicked for a while.After seeing the No. [-] battery firing just now, they didn't care that the artillery hadn't been calibrated and the firing table hadn't been fully established, so they hurriedly fired a few shots at the enemy ships on the sea.It's just that the results of the artillery shooting were of course extremely bad. Without exception, several shells fell into the sea, and it was just a waste of precious gunpowder.

"Why panic? Don't fire indiscriminately!" Bai Shui walked to the barracks of his own army as soon as he got on the fort, and then ran to the various forts with the army soldiers to suppress them, and drove the panicked gunners back to their respective cannons one by one. On the emplacement.After finishing these, he also ignored Shi Qingjie and others, and went to the positions of the two 24-pound cannons, and began to carefully guide them to fire at the three Dutch ships on the sea.

At this time, the three Dutch ships were also a little panicked after being shot by the artillery on the fort.They didn't expect that there were so many heavy coastal defense artillery hidden on the promontories that seemed to be full of lush forests, so they turned around in a hurry.

(End of this chapter)