Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 808 Sea Toll Station ([-])

"Where did Commander Lee's fleet go?" asked the Governor of New Spain of the Kingdom of Spain, the Colony of Florida, and off the coast of St. Augustine. Navy captain Ding Yiyu was asking his adjutant loudly.

"I don't know." The adjutant shook his head, then wiped the rain off his face, and replied, "According to the plan, Commander Lee's battleship 'August 4th' and four auxiliary ships will only patrol near the Florida Straits. Search for French smuggling ships and conduct interception attacks. Our "theater zone" is on the vast coastline from Georgia to Florida, and our main task is to search for French merchant ships that come here to import cotton. Until the end of April, we and Commander Lee's fleet and Will not meet unless we leave here early."

Over the years, with the rapid development of the cotton textile industry in the East Coast Republic, European countries followed suit, which naturally increased the promotion of cotton planting in the New World.A large amount of barren land was developed by investors, and then planted with cotton, the "white gold", and exported to major cotton textile enterprises in the old and new continents - the port of Luocha of the people on the east coast digested more than half of them every year share, and mastered the pricing power of cotton, a key raw material.

The Florida colony, which had been operated by the Spaniards for many years—but not very well—had gradually embarked on the fast track of development through this shareholder wind.Portuguese Jewish merchants, Genoese merchants, and Dutch merchants (Spain’s economy is basically controlled by merchants from these countries) came one after another. They brought farm tools, fertilizers, and indentured slaves from the Old World, and then reclaimed wasteland in Florida for cotton planting.And this naturally led to a rapid increase in the population of this area. For example, in 1649, the populations of St. Augustine and Pensacola, the two major cities of Florida, had reached 4500 and 3700 respectively (only referring to whites and mixed-race whites). The population of the vast countryside is even more difficult to count. In short, there are still 4 to [-] whites and mixed-race whites in Florida, which is very amazing.

If the development of Florida relies on white immigrants from the Old World (generally in the form of indentured slaves, which was only popular in the United Kingdom before and has now spread to most European countries), then neighboring countries such as Georgia The development of the Spanish missions in the United States relied on the enslavement of the local Indians.Some "evil" businessmen bought a large piece of land in this area with ambiguous property rights (only a few Spanish mission areas, basically no owner's land) by bribing Spanish kingdom officials, and then captured the Indians to return to farming.However, because the enslavement and capture of Indians conflicted with the interests of missionary groups such as the Jesuits, the development of these places was very slow, and the climate has been stagnant, with very little cotton production, which is incomparable with mature areas like Florida.

Therefore, the main patrol area of ​​the east coast privateer formation led by Ding Yiyu (a battleship and a water supply ship) is still on the east coast of Florida. .They have been here for more than 3 days since they arrived in mid-March. For 20 days, they have been cruising day and night, haunting the waters east of Florida like ghosts, without raising the national flag or semaphore, and only covering their heads to intercept ships flying the French flag—even if the French transport ship is not carrying cotton, It is also correct to block it.

As of today (March 1650, 3), they have intercepted two 30-ton transport ships in the waters east of Florida, both of which were French merchant ships returning to Nantes full of cotton from St. Augustine. One of the ships was chasing It was sunk in the process, and the French on the other ship were more fucked up. After seeing that there was nothing to do, they actually dug a hole in the bottom of the ship and sank the ship. He was about to be beaten up by people from the east coast.

In addition, there was an episode during the interception. When the people on the east bank had just "finished the crime", a smuggling boat from Denmark happened to pass by.As a result, this unlucky three-masted Galenic merchant ship was ravaged by dozens of artillery pieces on the "National Will" for an entire hour, and finally surrendered with a white flag.And this Danish merchant ship named "Green Oak" became the only harvest for Ding Yiyu and others in this month.By the way, in addition to some industrial products that people on the east coast look down on, this Danish ship is also loaded with nearly [-] adult cows. It seems to be shipped from the Jutland Peninsula, and the destination is Veracruz, Mexico. s.Some local farmers ordered these cows from the Old World, and of course there is no doubt that this is a smuggling business.

Today, the people on the east coast, who aim to "help the Kingdom of Spain combat rampant Caribbean smuggling", immediately announced to the Danes that their ship and all their goods would be confiscated, and then dispatched more than 50 heavily armed militiamen, led by two Commanded by a senior naval officer, he drove the dozen or so surviving Danish sailors to the island of Tobago.There they would see if they could make some minor repairs to the ship, find some supplies along the way, and wait for further orders.

Tobago Island is not far from New Granada, and it is basically considered a land without owners. There are only some Indian tribes on the island, and they are relatively fierce and unfriendly to outsiders.In the past 20 years, the Principality of Courland tried to colonize the island three times, but all failed and were expelled by the local natives.The people on the east coast have no intention of occupying the island, and they don't plan to set up long-term settlements on the island, and the range of activities is limited to the coastline, so the security problem is not very big.After all, if it really doesn't work, can they return to the ship, and the Indians can't fight them.

According to the plan made before departure, there are a total of nine ships in the Caribbean Sea this time. Among them, three battleships will act as "thugs" and set up "toll stations" at sea to intercept French ships. They are Major Li Yi's "" August [-]th", Captain Ding Yiyu's "National Will", and Captain Huang Yang's "East Coast Principle".In it, Captain Ding Yiyu’s ship and a fresh water supply ship formed a two-ship formation, cruising in the waters east of Florida; Captain Huang Yang’s ship also formed a two-ship formation with a fresh water supply ship, and patrolled outside Haiti. Li Yi, the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary fleet, commanded a formation consisting of a battleship and four auxiliary ships, patrolling the strait between Cuba and Florida, searching for the French human vessel.The formation composed of these ships basically guarded several major traffic arteries in the Caribbean Sea. If a certain French ship is unlucky, it is still likely to hit them.

After all nine ships have been active in their respective cruising areas for a period of time, they will be concentrated on the island of Tobago as planned-this time should not exceed the end of April at the latest.After meeting in Tobago Island, each ship replenished ammunition, water, coal, and sorted out the spoils. The repair ship "Sea Engineer" also carried out some in-depth maintenance on each ship.After doing this, the nine ships will set off again separately, rushing to their respective cruising waters to intercept, vowing to take all the Frenchmen's merchant ships into the sea.I don't believe it, under such a strong blow, the Frenchman can still remain indifferent.

The Executive Committee, the Government Affairs Council, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff achieved a rare unanimity this time, expressing prudent approval for the Navy's privateering in the Caribbean Sea.In particular, the Government Council, which represents the interests of the domestic business community, and the Southern Railway Company, which represents the interests of the Army, all sang praises for the actions of the Navy, because the reduction of foreign smuggling ships will inevitably increase their exports to the Viceroyalty of Peru. Nothing could be more wonderful.

After Lu Ming came to power, the Joint Staff Headquarters won huge benefits for the Navy.The Executive Committee promised that 30% of the spoils won by the Navy will be returned in the form of special funds for shipbuilding, so that the Navy can rebuild one or two "August [-]" class battleships.However, the Navy may not be very interested in the "August [-]th" class with only two decks. They may invest the money in the research and development of the "Executive Committee" class three-deck battleship that has been approved for more than a year. Even with the establishment of the Western Forging Plant, they became interested in iron-ribbed wood-hull ships and prepared to invest funds in research and development.In short, there are many uses, not limited to shipbuilding, of course, these are things for later.

The two ships led by Ding Yiyu stayed in the waters east of Florida for another ten days. Since the weather here has been bad and rainy since the end of March, the effect was not good.In the past ten days, they only captured one French merchant ship. This ship was captured by the East Coasters very close to St. Augustine, and then the entire ship was taken over by the East Coasters who took over the ship. Near the island of Tobago.

Seeing that there was nothing to do anymore (there has been a lot of fog at sea recently), Captain Ding Yiyu decisively called it a day, led two ships towards Tobago Island, and arrived at the designated sea area on the night of April 4th. Several ships stopped.

On April 4, the main fleet led by Major Li Yi also arrived. So far, all the ships of the East Coast Navy going to the Caribbean Sea have gathered here.In addition to these ships on the east coast, there were a total of three captured transport ships from various countries (two of which were from France), which carried a lot of goods, such as clothing, metal utensils, mercury, graphite, lead, livestock, wine, etc. Spices, spices, sugar, fur, cotton, etc., plus some gold, silver, gemstones, etc., the total value exceeded 28 yuan, which made the army and navy officers and soldiers on the expedition stare wide-eyed.Sure enough, direct robbery is much faster than doing business to get money!

(End of this chapter)