Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 358 Yantai ([-])

On May 1643, 5, on the west coast of Zhifu Bay.A dozen or so local fishermen squatted on the ground tremblingly. They had just been forced to cut their hair short with knives and guns by a group of blond and blue-eyed Semu soldiers, and then they were collectively driven into several wooden sheds to take a bath.This process was definitely not peaceful. Many people cried and cried, but facing those ferocious soldiers, everyone still had to choose to submit.

More than two months ago, the Qing army came across the sea by boat, broke through Laiyang County, Qixia County, Ninghai Prefecture, and Chengshanwei all the way, turned back, surrounded Fushan County, and then attacked Dengzhou.During the more than a month when the Qing army was raging, the local people suffered a lot, and everyone was afraid of these brutal foreign invaders from the bottom of their hearts.Therefore, what the people on the east coast asked them to do, they basically did not have any resistance.

After taking a shower, everyone suddenly found that their original tattered clothes had been taken away by someone!Oh my god, my important property was actually taken away, which made many people unacceptable.But before they were sad, those Semu people who looked like soldiers brought a lot of light blue clothes for everyone to wear.The style of these clothes and pants is a bit strange, but the material feels quite good to the touch, and it looks very durable, which is much better than the suit they originally wore.It’s just that this style is really ugly, but there’s no other way, it’s better to have something to wear than not to have to wear it, so let’s deal with it first.

Luo Tiansheng touched his short hair full of stubble, and put on a set of sky blue denim underwear. After walking a few steps, he suddenly found that the suit fit surprisingly well. "It's strange, these barbarian people have a bit of ingenuity. The clothes are even better than the cloth of Fuji cloth shop in Ninghai Prefecture. I'm afraid it takes several taels of silver to buy them."

Luo Tiansheng was captured by people from the east coast yesterday at the Wolfyan pier in the south, together with four or five old soldiers in the pier and nearly 20 of their relatives.It's unlucky enough to say that Luo Tiansheng was originally a brother of Luo Guoshi, a nobleman in Dezhou and a ten-year Jinshi in Chongzhen. This time he was ordered by his brother to visit an old friend of Luo Guoshi in Ninghai Prefecture.Ninghai Prefecture has just been tortured, Luo Guoshi is very concerned about the whereabouts of his friends, so he specially sent people from his tribe to visit.

I just didn't expect that when passing Huodun to rest, I was so lucky that people from the east coast sent troops to destroy this nearby pier, so he was taken into captivity along with those soldiers and family members who had just escaped from the Tartars and came back from the pier. To the present place.

"This place should not be far from Zhifu Island, maybe ten miles away from yesterday's Huoduntai." Luo Tiansheng thought to himself, "What are these Semu people doing here by plundering a bunch of miserable soldiers? This place is full of sand, or it is the water-hazardous area (swamp area) on both sides of the Dagu Jiahe River. It is not a good place to look at. Seeing that they are digging ditches and draining water, it seems that they want to build a fortress here. The moat. It’s so strange, just relying on these hundreds of people, you want to occupy this place?” Thinking of this possibility, Luo Tiansheng couldn’t help shaking his head, the situation is chaotic, and the building is about to collapse!In this world, there are not only thieves and tartars invading the world, but even the Semu people who don't know where they come from want to come here to cede their land for self-defense. It's really unreasonable!

"Why are you shaking your head? Why don't you hurry up and go to work?" An angry reprimand with a strange accent sounded in his ears, and Luo Tiansheng was shocked. He was still in their hands, and he didn't know what they were trying to do, so he should be careful. Some are good.Therefore, a flattering smile quickly formed on his face, and he said to a seductive soldier who urged him to work: "Don't be annoyed, military master, the villain will go to work now." He grabbed a shovel and ran towards the digging site ahead.

At this time, with the sharp copper whistle of the soldiers and supervisors on the east bank, thousands of North Korean men and women who were squatting on the ground and resting on the entire huge construction site immediately stood up, and then walked silently under the leadership of the foreman. Started hard work in his own contract area.

The terrain here is mainly sand dams, just like the large area of ​​sand dams along the east coast of the mainland, the sand dams here are also very barren, basically no food can be grown, and it is often necessary to spend a lot of money to improve the soil Only then can it become a fertile field.In the southwest of Shaba, there is a large alluvial plain of the Dagu Jiahe River.In this alluvial plain, there are overgrown weeds and shrubs, dotted with swamps, and there will be floods every flood season. It really lives up to the reputation of Dagu Jiahe as "water-harming".

No matter how you look at this land, it is a "bad land" where birds don't shit, but Mo Ming still decided to build the fort here.The perimeter of the fortress he initially planned is about 1000 meters. The sides of the city wall facing the south and west are polygonal bastion structures, and the north and east sides are normal linear city walls. Build a few trestle bridges directly into the sea, and add a few forts, so that the prototype of a port fortress will be formed.

As for the planned flood area in the southwest of the fortress, Mo Ming decided to build a small artificial reservoir. On the one hand, it will serve as a barrier for the west and south walls. sources of domestic water.Of course, just in case, some water wells must be drilled in the fortress, and some water collection facilities such as rainwater collection pools must be built to prevent water from being cut off when people are besieged for a long time.

Calculated in this way, the project volume is actually quite large. According to the thousand North Korean migrant workers and hundreds of captured Ming fishermen, it is not known that they will be busy until the year of the monkey.Now there are some messy tents everywhere on the shore, barbed wire is pulled everywhere, and a lot of supplies are piled up on the grass in the open air, and the soldiers of the 102nd company just cover them with a layer of tarpaulin and ignore them.There is no way, there are too many supplies such as food, munitions, and cloth, and there are not enough tents to store them, so we can only deal with them like this.

The "Polang" and other three ships set off for Jingyi County to pick up people and livestock yesterday.Now moored in the harbor are the three ships "Fubo", "Duohai" and "Baobab" that came from Heishui Port after maintenance. They arrived here last night.The cabin was loaded with some livestock brought over from Jingyi County, a large number of processed fir, birch and other wood from Heishui Port, and about 130 or 3 recruited Sakhalin natives.Mo Ming was very enthusiastic about these newly arrived aborigines. After rewarding them with a lot of property, he organized a total of about [-] aboriginal soldiers into the No. [-] Squadron of the Standing Squadron, which will serve as an important defense force for the Yantai Fortress in the future.

"Captain Mo, the Heishui Coal Mine officially produced coal on May 5. They dug a few more shafts in the mountains. I sent 8 North Korean men to dig coal. After the ships returning from the county brought a new batch of labor, I sent 400 more people to the coal mining area. At present, they can produce more than 200 tons of coal every day. But the transportation is quite troublesome, and the coal mine is several kilometers away from the port. At the beginning, we could only carry the coal out of the mountain by manpower; after we brought back some horses from Jingyi County, our work became easier.” Johnson, who came from Heishui Port to report to Mo Ming Holding the work report at hand, the sergeant said sternly.

"It's too much to produce more than 200 tons of coal per day. We can't use so much at all." Sitting on a rattan chair, Mo Ming said, "Build a coal washing plant on the spot in the mountain, and the raw coal mined will be cleaned after washing. Then transport them to the wharf of Heishui Port for storage. As for the manpower, you can choose from those coal diggers. We don’t need so many people to dig coal at present. By the way, how to solve the security problem? Do these North Koreans obey orders? Has anyone escaped?"

"I promoted some of the group of North Koreans captured by us last year, as well as some exiled exiles of the Lee Dynasty captured from Jingyi County a while ago, to serve as foremen, and let them supervise the work of the remaining North Koreans. Their families were all left in the urban area below the mountain. I asked them to exchange the coal they mined for food every day. They are not stupid. Escaping alone in Sakhalin Island is a dead word. With the continuous mountains and primeval forests, it is difficult for a single person to survive the winter. He either died of freezing and starvation or was eaten by bears." Johnson said with a smile, "The situation is not bad so far. Before, only people in twos and threes escaped. They all ran back again, and I made them all slaves."

"Well, you did a good job." Mo Ming nodded approvingly at him, and then continued to ask: "I don't worry about the coal mine anymore. But the brick kiln factory has to be done quickly, as you can see, now Yantai Fortress Start construction, we urgently need a lot of bricks, you have to pay attention to this matter. The silt from the Heishui River and the coal powder washed from the coal washing plant are all good raw materials for burning bricks. In short, this matter must be hurry up! I don’t want Due to the lack of building materials, the Yantai Fortress has not been completed before June next year!"

"I understand. I will take this matter as the top priority when I go back." Sergeant Johnson nodded vigorously, and said, "This brick kiln is expected to have an annual output of 300 million standard bricks, and I have sent a hundred people to work on it." For this matter, the kiln body will be completed almost at the end of this month, and it will be put into use next month. At that time, I will send a large number of workers to make bricks, so the construction here will not be delayed."

"Now there should be nearly 300 North Koreans in Heishui Port, and our guard force is less than 500. We must be careful not to cause trouble." After thinking for a while, Mo Ming urged, "Arrange [-] people went to the port of Rishiri Island to build a pier. There is no need to send guards. Such a big island has nothing to eat. Where can they go? Use the fishing boat in the pier to send them some food regularly. If the construction period is slow, a batch of rations will be deducted, not afraid that they will be dishonest. In addition, the second dock in Heishui Port will also be officially started, and the wood drying plant will also be gradually prepared. A batch of farmland has been reclaimed, the waterway of the river port has to be dredged, and the trade cannot be delayed. Damn, there are so many things to do! I leave it all to you, and I can’t leave here for the time being, so don’t let me down!”

Hearing this, Sergeant Johnson got up and stood at attention, and said loudly, "Captain Mo, don't worry, the staff department will definitely complete all the tasks!"

(End of this chapter)