Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 686 A Captain Called Vancouver
Although the flag of the Beihai Navy has been erected in Jinmen Town, there are still many things to do next.

Naturally, there was no need to look for the location of the camp. The fortress chosen by the Spaniards was very good, not far from the sea, and a well was also drilled.However, after Lu Qi inspected the fortress, he was extremely dissatisfied with the building quality and poor sanitation inside the fortress, so he decided to rebuild the new fortress in his mind.

Before doing it, the first thing he had to solve was how to deal with the more than 50 Miwok Indians who were imprisoned.

It doesn't matter that Lu Qi doesn't understand Spanish, but he brought a translator.So under the confused eyes, this guy first said "Hola" to these people through the mask, then took out the translator and released the pre-translated "You are free".

Lu Qi thought that with this hand, he could instantly add a halo to himself, so he changed his name to "Magic".Unexpectedly, the faces of the Indian men and women who had been brainwashed by the monks all the year round changed drastically, and they kept backing away while chanting a word--Diablo.

have to!Pretending to fail.
Lu Qi was so depressed, he suddenly felt black lines all over his head.If the other party said something else, he might not understand it. The problem was that he was too familiar with a certain game in another time and space, so he immediately understood that they were calling him a demon.

In desperation, he had no choice but to put away the translator, and ordered Li Shi to bring some food and water to these Indians, and then send them a blanket for the night, and tell them to leave early tomorrow morning, wherever they want to go where.In addition, he specifically told Li Shi not to have physical contact with these people as much as possible, and he must not take off the mask and gloves at close range.

Li Shi asked the reason in confusion.In fact, as soon as he entered the gate of the fortress, Lu Qi ordered all soldiers to wear masks. If they want to drink water and eat, they must go back to the temporary camp near the fort, and the first thing to do after returning is handwashing.

"Why? They have been with the Spaniards for a long time, and they may have infectious diseases." Lu Qi pointed to a woman with red spots on her face and said, "See? That's sick."

Li Shi shuddered, and said in astonishment, "Sir, what's the problem?"

"Flower willow! It can be transmitted through saliva. There are also yellow fever and diphtheria, both of which are contagious!"

"He's got the crooked sun!" Li Shi was frightened into a cold sweat, and Chai Rong and Chen Yingqi standing behind him were also all hairy.

One must know that Lu Qi did a lot of homework before coming to North America.The reason why he didn't bring his newly engaged fiancée, nor did he let members of the Overseas Corps bring his family members was because he was worried about infectious diseases.

Since the 16th century, the deadliest weapon Westerners have used against Native Americans in North America is not guns, but infectious diseases caused by various germs, including smallpox, malaria, hemorrhagic fever, tuberculosis, yellow fever, influenza, cholera, plague.
Not to mention, at this time on the other side of the North American continent, a yellow fever epidemic almost ravaged Philadelphia.In just three months, more than 5000 people lost their lives, and the entire city fell into panic; tens of thousands of people, including federal, state, and city government officials, fled in panic.

The source of this plague is Haiti, which is in turmoil.Due to a large number of local black uprisings, the French could not resist at all, so when the French who escaped from Haiti came to Philadelphia with their slaves, disaster struck.

The problem is that it's not just the French. Since 1791, the British and Spaniards have also sent troops to invade because they covet the plantations there.

Who knows if the Spaniards who lived in the fort have ever been to Haiti?Plus California winters aren't that cold!

If this shit would cause an infection, only Lu Qi and Wang Yuanfang who had been vaccinated would be spared.Moreover, there is no specific medicine for yellow fever when there is a fever, and it can only be recuperated by bed rest and supplementing electrolytes.

Lu Qi didn't expect that his words, which were exaggerated by Chen Yingqi and Chai Rong, immediately caused panic among more than 200 soldiers in the Corps.At night, no one is willing to go on duty in the fortress compound, at most they just guard outside the door.

When Li Shi was getting blankets for the Indians from the supplies he brought ashore, he thought it would be a pity to use military blankets for these guys, so he took more than 50 outdoor emergency blankets on his own initiative.This item was purchased by Zhao Xin from another time and space, mainly to provide soldiers with an emergency shelter from the cold when performing missions in the field. After all, the PET film is extremely light and does not take up much space in the bag.

Unexpectedly, the outer layer of the emergency blanket was plated with double-sided silver in order to keep warm. As a result, this thing became a treasure in the eyes of the Indians, and a series of effects were triggered later.

In the early morning of the next day, under Li Shi's order, several soldiers were wrapped tightly from head to toe, with only a slit left for the eyes, which shocked the Indians.They were soon led by gunmen to the gate of the fortress. Several soldiers gave them a bag of food, waved their hands to let them go, and said "libertad" taught by Lu Qi at the same time. .

More than 50 Indians also noticed that these outsiders with similar faces to them disliked them.But they are still very happy to be free and have food.

As soon as the Indians left, Lu Qi ordered the military doctors accompanying the team to prepare disinfectant.He planned to disinfect the interior of the fort first, and then demolish all the buildings, especially the monastery.

He was nervous and busy, and Wang Yuanfang, who was on the Thunder God, was not idle either.There are still a lot of supplies on the ship that have to be sent ashore, and it is estimated that it will take at least three to five days to ship them all.

On November 1793, 11, a set of radio waves was transmitted from the Thor in the Golden Gate Strait, passed through two relay stations on Unalaska Island and Dabo Town, and finally arrived at Beihai Town.

Needless to say, Dabo Town on Bitter Leaf Island, the relay station on Unalaska Island in the eastern part of the Aleutian Islands was set up by Wang Yuanfang and the others on the way here, and a platoon of troops was specially left on duty.

The reason why they chose there was because they wanted to use Unalaska Island as a forward base for landing in Alaska in the future, and because the Russians had a permanent settlement there.

It is said that 52 years ago—that is, in 1741, the Danish Vitus Bering and the Russian Alexei Chirikov were commissioned by the Russian Empire to explore the North Pacific on the St. Peter and St. Paul.After the ships were separated by a storm, Chirikov discovered several islands in the east of the Aleutians, while Bering found several islands in the west.

Many people on Earth know what happened later. Bering got scurvy and died in the Komandorski Islands. The survivors returned to Okhotsk and reported that a large number of fur animals were found on the Aleutian Islands. .Fur hunters flocked to Siberia and gradually moved east across the Aleutian Islands to Alaska.

In 1759, fur trader Stepan Grotov landed on the shore of Unalaska and made it his stronghold.Only four years later, due to the cruelty and greed of Russian businessmen, they forced the local Aleuts to work for them and pay fur taxes, and took their families as hostages, which finally triggered a large-scale rebellion of the Aleuts.

After that, the Russians launched a bloody revenge. At least [-] aborigines were killed, and the Aleut population on the entire island was reduced by two-thirds.

By 1768, Unalaska Island became the main port of Tsarist Russia in the region, through which the furs obtained from the islands were traded and transported back to Okhotsk by merchant ships.After another four years, the island became a permanent Russian settlement.

According to the trajectory of another time and space, the next step for the Russians is to establish the "Russian-American Trading Company", which started the 19-year North American trade monopoly and gradually swallowed up Alaska.

But in this time and space, everything was completely changed by the "Battle of Usolie" three years ago.Since the power of the Tsarist Russian Empire was completely driven out of Eastern Siberia, no matter whether it was Okhotsk or Kamchatka, all businessmen who coveted fur profits turned to Beihai Town to serve.

You must know that although Beihai Town now controls the entire East Siberia in name, because Okhotsk and Kamchatka Peninsula are far away and extremely cold, they are still controlled by a group of fur traders.Zhao Xin was also happy. He felt that anyway, the land transportation to the west was under his control, and those Russian businessmen would not be able to make any money.

Since last year, the businessmen of Baiber City have tried their best to lobby the Governor's Palace, intending to form a joint venture "Sino-US Trading Company".Considering the massacre of the Aleutian aborigines by Russian fur traders in history, Zhao Xin asked Baiber to tell those merchants that as long as they pay taxes on time and abide by the laws of Beihai Town, they can do whatever else, and the governor's office will not get involved.

On the way to California, the Thor made a special stop at Unalaska Island, and it took a week to build a relay station tower.Of course, the Russians on the island dare not fart, otherwise they would not even be able to transport a hair to Europe.Although they didn't understand the purpose of the triangular tower built of steel pipes, they still patted their chests and said that they would take good care of it. The only request was that they hoped that the passing ships of the Northern Navy would bring more food and alcohol.

After Zhao Xin received the telegram, he learned that Wang Yuanfang and the others were progressing smoothly. He immediately notified the navy to order the "Jaguar" motorboat to immediately go to Whale Harbor to load supplies, and set off a week later to deliver the second batch of supplies to Jinmen Town.

"Jaguar" is the second flying shear ship built by Beihai Town Shipyard, with a length of 68.88 meters, a width of 12.13 meters, a draft of 6.4 meters, and a full-load displacement of 1550 tons.The ship is equipped with a crew of 50 and is equipped with four 75mm guns and four heavy machine guns.

The whole ship, including the keel, auxiliary keel and main tongmast, is made of teak, the rib frame, side panels and decks are made of welded and riveted steel plates, and the part of the hull below the waterline is covered with copper skin.In addition, in the lower compartment in the middle of the hull, a 600-horsepower medium-high speed diesel engine is installed to drive the double-sided propellers at the tail.

It took eight months from construction to launching of this flying shear cargo ship, and after several sea trials, changes and reinforcements were made to the parts that are vulnerable to strong wind damage. At present, its fastest speed record is 16~17 knots.

At present, it is initially estimated that the "Jaguar" departed from Whale Harbor and traveled eastward along the Aleutian Islands. Counting the stopover time, it will take about 25 days to reach Jinmen Town.

If there are no accidents during this voyage, the shipyard in Beihai Town will use it as a template to build at least fifteen more large clipper ships of the same model to meet the increasingly tight demand for sea transportation capacity.

When Lu Qi led his men to carry out the large-scale demolition of the Spanish fortress to the third day, the second officer in charge of the cockpit on the Raytheon moored in the strait noticed on the radar screen that five Two kilometers away, there are two ships sailing from north to south, close to the coastline.

After learning of this situation, Wang Yuanfang immediately ordered the whole ship to enter combat readiness, and all personnel transporting supplies returned to the ship, and notified Lu Qi on the shore by walkie-talkie.

"Comrade Wang, is the ship from the north Russian? Over."

"No, those businessmen don't know we're in California. Over."

Half an hour later, the target appeared, a fleet of two brigantine sailing ships.But when Wang Yuanfang saw the flag flying on the main mast through the binoculars, he blurted out in surprise: "Why are you British?!"

Ten minutes ago, in the captain's cabin of the Discovery, a young officer on duty entered the room and reported: "Sir, we are about to arrive at San Francisco."

"Yeah, that's a long enough trip. Inform Lieutenant Broughton that we'll stop here for two days to resupply fresh water before proceeding to Monterey."

The speaker was a middle-aged officer with a medium build.He has a big round face with a double chin and piercing eyes.This person's name is George Vancouver, a captain of the Royal Navy and the commander of this fleet.

Well, in another time and space, including Vancouver City and Vancouver Island in Canada, as well as Vancouver in Washington State of the United States, Vancouver Mountain on the US-Canada border, and even Vancouver Mountain in New Zealand, they are all named after him.

Vancouver is historically famous for its adventures.From 1791 to 1794, he led an expedition that explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America and drew detailed maps.

At this time, Vancouver turned to another middle-aged man wearing glasses and wearing casual clothes in the house: "Mr. Menzies, do you plan to go ashore to have a look later?"

"Forget it, I hate Catholics, and I hate Brother Verez here even more, he is a hypocrite."

"But there are Catholics in Monterey. I said why do you hate Catholics so much?"

"Catholics are a group of insidious people, don't even look at confession or something." The doctor began to chatter. "They tried to overthrow Congress. One of my best friends, you don't even know how good she is, she said a lot of things to me about Catholics, I forget, but I know they are sinister. At all They cannot be trusted."

Just as Vancouver was about to refute, the door of the captain's cabin was pushed open, and the officer on duty who had just left said to him with a panicked expression: "Sir, come and see, there is something wrong! A strange ship!"

When Vancouver and the doctor came to the foredeck, the Thor across the strait was only three nautical miles away from them.At this moment, there was no trace of fog on the sea, and the vision was good, and the tall poop of the Thor was clearly discernible.The British on the two ships were all dumbfounded, and they were even more confused when they saw the flag flying on the Thor through the binoculars.

"Mr. Menzies, have you ever heard of a country with a white five-pointed star on its flag?"

The doctor on board looked at it with binoculars for a while, and said with a little recollection: "I have never seen or heard of such a flag, but I have heard people mention such a ship in India."

"Well?"

"Captain, do you still remember that Dr. Higgins we saw in Madras two years ago? He said that he saw a big white boat near the Pearl River of the Qing Empire a few years ago. He also went to Passing by as a guest on the other party’s ship. But when the ship was leaving, it inexplicably bombarded their warehouse on an island.”

Vancouver's forehead buzzed, and he immediately recalled what happened.He immediately ordered the whole ship to prepare for battle and notified the Chatham.To be honest, these two ships of his are both exploration ships of the British Royal Navy, and they can fight a dozen merchant ships when they encounter them, but with such a big thing in front of them, I really don't know what to do.

After a lot of tangling, he finally decided to send someone to contact the other party first to find out the truth. It may not be a good thing for such an unknown force to suddenly appear in North America.And judging from the fact that the fort on the shore has not moved so far, I am afraid that the local Spanish fortress has fallen.

(End of this chapter)