Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 260 The Nightmare of the Betsy Misarakas ([-])

On October 1640, 10, the Xinhua Castle Wharf in the New China Colony.The temperature is 31 degrees Celsius, the southeast wind is six, and there is heavy rain.

Li Yi, wearing an oilcloth poncho, jumped down from the rope ladder and landed firmly on the wooden trestle of the pier. He said to Shi Qinjie who came to greet him with a smile: "I'm here to deliver the courier. Li's courier, No deception! 600 slaves, 50 overseers, three platoons of army officers and soldiers, 300 tons of sorghum, 250 tons of cement and lime, ten draft horses, twenty pigs, sixty goats and other odds and ends, please Check it. Oh, by the way, there are some technicians from the building materials factory that you need, a total of ten or so, and they are all on board."

"You're finally here." Shi Qinjie said with a sad face, "If you don't come to my side, maybe something will happen someday."

"What's the matter?" Li Yi was stunned, and then asked: "What happened? Someone attacked you? It shouldn't be, there is no force nearby that has such great strength."

"I don't need great strength, as long as I can pick out hundreds of fighters, I'm enough." Shi Qinjie grabbed Li Yi's arm, and then said: "Don't stand here in the wind and rain, go back to the city and talk about it." .”

Several naval officers walked towards the city with Li Yi.The rest of the navy sailors used pulleys and booms on the deck of the ship to lift the waterproof packaged materials to the dock one by one, and on the dock, a large group of slaves had long been waiting to move these goods to the warehouse.

Shi Qinjie, Li Yi and others walked along the gravel road beside the pier through a coconut grove, and walked more than 200 meters before entering the main city of Xinhua Castle.Today's Xinhua Castle is still a "semi-finished product", with only a few houses less than forty, and a section of the city wall has been repaired here and there. Although the pieces and pieces add up to 500 meters, it is obviously far from completion. Still a long way to go.

On the contrary, a rippling reservoir five to six hundred meters away is more pleasing to the eye. Li Yi noticed it when he was on the boat just now.The reservoir was not there when I came last time, and it was obviously built in the past few months.The bushes and woods around the reservoir seem to have been cleaned up, and it looks like it will be developed into arable land.

A group of slaves uniformly dressed in thick cloth and jeans, wearing oilskin ponchos, passed by in a long line along the streets of the city, shouting slogans as they walked, but the slogans made people feel a little weak.

"Slave who just got off work." Shi Qinjie hastily explained, "Recently, the malaria epidemic has been brought under control. There was only one new death and two new infection cases within a week. The situation is improving. But New troubles came again. On October 1, 2 slaves disappeared in our logging camp in the west of the city. It turned out that they were probably attacked by local aborigines. This is not over yet. On October 10, stay at An Eight Banners supervisor and two slaves guarding the logging camp outside the city were attacked and all died. The barbarians left their bodies, but all weapons and clothes were taken away, and the logging camp was destroyed. October 22 , That is, yesterday, Pei Suoning, who is in charge of the construction of the cement kiln, reported to me that some signs of barbarian activities were found in the forest to the southeast of the construction site, and they have been forced to suspend work at present."

"The natives are so good?" Li Yi said in surprise, "But how do you want me to help? Could it be possible to let my fleet stay here to help you defend? This is impossible, and I have to hurry back to Hezhong Port Transporting people and supplies for you guys. Besides, it’s almost the rainy season now, right? I think the rain is obviously much heavier than the last time I came here. The rainy season, bro, the rainy season is not good for us. The firing rate of muskets At least half of the drop. This is still in a place that can shelter the rain. If it is in the wild, is there any difference between the musket and the fire stick? That is to say, even if our fleet stays and all sailors go ashore, it will at most give you more More than 100 fire sticks, is it meaningful?"

"Who told you to do this? Don't make up your own mind." Shi Qinjie gave Li Yi a blank look, then walked into the room first, took off his raincoat and handed it to the orderly, and said, "You will take your boat along the The east coast sails south. Recently, many of these savages came by canoe, yes, it is the kind of canoe that is common in Southeast Asia, the kind that can seat dozens of people. I suspect that their old nest is on the southern coast Somewhere, see if you can find them."

"Okay, I'll give it a try. But I don't guarantee that I can find it, and I won't look for it for too long." Li Yi said irresolutely: "By the way, how are you sure that these barbarians are in the south?"

"They appeared near us from the south." Shi Qingjie said, "Please, haven't you checked the information in the data room? The indigenous people in the northeastern part of Madagascar are called the Bezimisaraka people. From Antsiranana in the north to St. Mary's Island in the south. Of course, they rarely come to Antsiranana, but unfortunately, they have come now and know our existence .Guards, go to Company Commander Shou and bring the two captured barbarians.”

The guards responded and left.After a while, Daoist Shou and several army soldiers walked in with two aborigines wearing clothes made of an unknown fiber fabric in the rain.

Li Yi, who was sitting on the chair, stood up involuntarily, and then asked Shi Qinjie in surprise: "Southeast Asian?"

"To be precise, it should be of Malay descent." Shi Qinjie said.Before he came here to take up his post, he checked some information in the reference room, and then asked a few people who knew a little bit about the history of Madagascar for advice, and he also had a rough understanding of the residents on Tsushima Island.

Li Yi walked around the two "Malay" captives, and the more he looked at them, the more he felt that they looked like the natives in Southeast Asia, and their appearance and characteristics were completely different from the Bantu blacks on the East African continent.First of all, their hair is different from the curly and fluffy black hair (which can effectively prevent sun protection and enhance heat dissipation). Their hair is dark, long, and straight, which is typical of East Asian and Southeast Asian hair; in fact, their skin is different from Blacks have dark skin. The skin color of these two people is only darker and brighter than the average Chinese. They are essentially yellow-skinned people, or it is not impossible to call them brown-skinned people. Black people of the Bantunegero race are not the same thing at all.

Furthermore, although Li Yi doesn't understand their language, Shi Qinjie has a little research on it.He asked the two captives to say something casually. Although he couldn't understand what they were saying, even Li Yi knew at this moment that what they spoke with those Bantu Xhosa people was not in the same language at all.

Shi Chinger told him that the two should speak Malay, Indonesian or Maori, which are classified as Malayo-Polynesian languages, but he couldn't tell which one.Because the words they speak at this moment may have been dialectized after a long period of evolution, but many words obviously come from Malay.Some words sound like Arabic or Persian. This may be because Arabs and Persians have come to Madagascar to trade and live in Madagascar since 1000 years ago, and they have been influenced by them over time.

All in all, Shi Chinger believed that these people were of Malay descent at all.Maybe a group of Malays who lived near Malaya and Indonesia mastered the laws of the monsoon and ocean currents in the Indian Ocean, and then for some unavoidable reason took a canoe made by themselves to sail to Madagascar, and then lived and thrived. .One of the most direct evidences is that the canoes used by these barbarians are exactly the style of canoes made by the natives in Southeast Asia.Moreover, they can smelt pig iron and forge iron weapons. It is said that the level of civilization has reached the feudal society, which completely exploded the backward and ignorant Bantu blacks on the African continent.

"They are indeed not Bantu blacks." Li Yi finally said, "But it doesn't matter, they are all barbarians to us, the difference is not big. By the way, you just said that they can make canoes and have a little bit of navigation technology , so doesn’t it mean that we can catch them as slave sailors? You know, there is a huge shortage of sailors in China. Every year, we go to the Caribbean to recruit pirates, but the number is still too small to be enough. Then In addition, our merchant fleet will be greatly expanded soon, and the sailors are in short supply. Now, whether they are called Bezimisaraka or Malays, they are excellent slave sailors! We can completely conquer them , and then recruit a large number of them to serve as sailors on merchant ships. We don’t need too many on each ship, put seven or eight, and use our own people for the rest. This will save a lot of sailors, which means that we can Equip more merchant ships. Yes, that's it! What a great idea! Haha!"

After silently thinking about it, Shi Qinjie also felt that this idea was really good.It just so happens that these barbarians are now in the hands of the people on the east coast, and Li Yi feels that he has "sufficient reasons" to conquer them.Of course, even if these barbarians have not offended the people on the east coast at the moment, Li Yi will find countless reasons to conquer them. After all, this has never been a warm and kind world, but a world full of the law of the jungle and the law of the jungle.

The two had a good plan, and then began to calculate the existing resources and manpower in order to formulate a realistic combat plan.Moreover, it is the rainy season now, and the heavy rain is not stopping. How to conquer these barbarians is really not an easy task, and it must be considered comprehensively.

(End of this chapter)