1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 82

The torrential rain continued in the middle of the night, and after dawn, the entire city of Batavia was knee-deep in water.The houses of the natives living in the low-lying areas of the city were flooded by the stagnant water, making other urban areas full of scattered natives avoiding the rainstorm.But to recede the stagnant water, I am afraid it will not be possible to do it in a day or two.

The Batavian colonial organization dispatched a large number of mercenaries to drive the natives who had fled from various parts of the city to the outside of the city one by one, and then tied them with ropes and sent them to various plantations and mines in the outskirts.

If all these natives who have lost their homes are allowed to disperse in the city, it will definitely bring various diseases and security problems.

However, it may not be long before many natives will come out of the forest to fill the gap left by their predecessors.After all, many handymen and coolies in the city need these natives to supplement them.

Cao Xiong and the others sat in the carriage and watched blankly as the mercenaries in the city brandished muskets and sticks and drove out the natives who were huddled in every corner.

"Uncle, can we get some natives to go back and help with the work?" Qi Dalu asked.

"Just these lazy natives, do you still expect him to help you with work?"

"Take a knife and force them to do it! ... There is no shortage of people there."

Cao Xiong thought about it, and seemed to think it was feasible, but there was an idea in his heart, which was extremely repulsive to do so.It's not that I feel sorry for these natives, but I just think it's disgusting to let these natives go to such a large piece of land.

When they arrived at the mansion of Mr. Ludwild, they were welcomed in by the red-bearded butler Anri Credo as usual.

In addition to Ludwig, there were several naval officers in the room, wearing fancy military uniforms.In Batavia, only the navy officers and soldiers are decent Dutch, and the army officers and soldiers, except for some senior officers, all other personnel are hired from other countries.Most of them are from Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and other countries and regions.Without him, Gein these areas are at war all year round, able to fight, experienced and... cheap.

"Cao, you're here." Ludwig greeted Cao Xiong affectionately, and introduced several naval officers to him.

Arjan van Dijk, commander of the Batavian fleet, his adjutant, Captain Ruben Knab, and a second lieutenant, Andrew Florent.

"Cao, you have to obey Colonel Van Dijk's orders for any actions at sea in the future. Of course, in Batavia, you are free." Ludwig said seriously.

Cao Xiong nodded, taking advantage of others, being protected by them, naturally he had to work for them.He still trusts the Dutch's level of naval warfare.As long as you don't encounter the siege of hundreds of large and small ships like Zheng Zhilong, you should basically be able to win against ordinary opponents.

"This Second Lieutenant Andrew Florent has rich combat experience and has good coordination skills. From now on, he will serve as your liaison officer and coordinate all operations between us."

Liaison officer?You bastard, you even sent me a supervising army!

Cao Xiong squinted his eyes and looked at Second Lieutenant Andrew Florent. He was in his early twenties, with brown-red hair, blue eyes, a high nose bridge, a thin face, and a serious expression.Look, he is a serious young man.

"Of course, Second Lieutenant Andrew Florent is not very proficient in Chinese. You'd better ask for an interpreter to facilitate communication with each other." Ludwig said with a smile.

Everyone chatted again, how to cooperate in the future, how to unify the signal flags, and even consider unifying the artillery specifications and some issues of common supplies.

When talking about professional naval warfare, Cao Xiong realized how backward and primitive their previous combat mode was.With the gradual increase in the power of artillery and the technological advancement of sailing warships, the combat mode that used to be based on boarding battles and jumping gangs to seize ships has gradually been eliminated.

What followed was that battle line tactics and fleet division tactics gradually entered the main combat mode.

However, Cao Xiong's troops, except for the Spanish galleon that could implement line-of-line tactics, the other ships could not use line-of-line tactics at all because of the lack of artillery and unreasonable deployment.

"Lord Lu, can you sell us the boat?" Cao Xiong asked suddenly.

"Oh, my dear Cao, do you want to buy a ship?...a warship?" Ludwig asked curiously.

"Yes! I want to buy your kind of Galen warship."

Ludwild and Colonel Van Dijk looked at each other. It seems that the company has not yet retired any warships. However, in order to strengthen the strength of the partners, it is not impossible to consider selling one to them.When the partner's strength increases by one point, the company can reduce its investment by one point, so that limited resources can be invested in other investment projects.

"Well, the company will seriously consider your request. ... But, Cao, do you have sufficient funds for the purchase?"

"There is still money to buy the ship. You know, we robbed the town of the Spaniards." Cao Xiong didn't dare to say it, and robbed someone else's silver ship.

"Haha..." Ludwig and several officers laughed. The Dutch would gloat over any misfortune that happened to the Spaniards.

"Cao, I hope we have the opportunity to go to the Philippines again to rob the Spanish town!" Colonel Van Dijk said with a smile.

"It's best to go to Manila!" Ludwig said: "It is said that there are piles of wealth there! Moreover, there will be a silver transport fleet coming from Peru every year."

The Dutch's remarks about how to rob the Spaniards once again shattered Cao Xiong's three views.Damn it, whether the red-haired ghost is a high-ranking colonial official or a naval officer, they are so open-minded about robbery!No matter how you look at it, you look more like a pirate than me!
Zhang Fulu sat in the lobby of the Shunxiang Inn somewhat dejectedly, surrounded by various paper craftsmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, potters, papermakers, water mills, etc., a group of more than [-] people.They were gifted to Cao Xiong by the Batavian Chinese businessmen headed by Su Minggang and Lin Liuge.Of course, they only have five years of labor service, and they also need to pay wages every month, two taels of silver per person per month.

Zhang Fulu is their leader, but he is not a craftsman.Three years ago, it was still a maritime merchant with two lucky boats, but it did not know what kind of bad luck it had.The two lucky boats encountered sea storms one after another and sank in the sea.For this reason, he went bankrupt and was exiled in Nanyang, where he had to bow down to Su Minggang as a desk keeper.

Yesterday, Su Minggang found him, and took a dozen or so craftsmen from six or seven Chinese merchants to serve on an island thousands of miles away to the south.Although, the labor service period is also five years, and there is still an income of three taels of silver per month.However, Zhang Fulu didn't want to go at all.

Batavia was already thousands of miles away from Daming, and the island they were going to this time was thousands of miles further south, which meant that they were even farther away from their hometown.

However, Su Minggang directly took out his debt deed, saying that as long as he has served for five years, the 200 taels of silver on the debt deed can be returned in half.

Forget it, forget it, just go to the big island in the south for five years, maybe save a hundred and eighty taels of silver, and return to Batavia, it is not impossible to turn around.

Stefan Grechdin is a cannon-caster from Switzerland.When he was in a pot of porridge in Europe, he once heard a rumor.A group of Portuguese were in the far east, because they knew how to cast cannons, they were all hired by a big country in the east to help them cast long-barreled cannons to deal with the barbaric Tatars real people, collectively referred to as Tatars).

And those cannon-casting masters were paid a lot of money, and some returned to Europe, bragging about the wealth and generosity of the East.Stephen Grechdin was also moved by this.

He spent all the silver coins on his body, took a merchant ship of the East India Company to the Far East, and after a long five-month voyage, he came to Batavia.

However, the reality is cruel. Batavia does not need the so-called cannon-casters here. What they want are more mercenaries, sugar makers, planters and gardeners, and even sailors on board.As for the wealthy Daming, you still need to spend a large amount of silver coins to pay for this journey.Oh, and that's a lot of money, too.

Stefan Grechdin wanted to find a job and earn some travel expenses.But who would have thought that after the money earned for more than a month was handed over to a Chinese businessman traveling between Daming and Batavia, the other party would sail away at night without saying hello.

Oh God, they are all liars!Stefan Grechdin cursed unceasingly. At night, he wanted to find a European "female countryman" to talk about his distress, but they only accepted money.

He was ruthlessly thrown out into the filthy rainwater.If the two kind-hearted Orientals hadn't pulled him up, he believed that he would have caught a cold or died.

Although the two well-meaning oriental men couldn't understand what they were talking about, they could understand the gestures they made.They needed me, they needed me to serve them, and after arriving at an inn, their leader listened to the narrative of the two men and gave him two gold coins, yes, Dutch gold coins, gold ducats.

Stefan Grechdin knew his dream of getting rich was about to come true.They may be the envoys of that great country in the far east, and they need to forge cannons for them.

Oh God, I'll make them better cannon than those Portuguese.For gold coins!
(End of this chapter)