Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 526 Chinese Workers Collecting Medicinal Materials
Jiang Asheng couldn't help but yelled out that "ghost", he was really unlucky.

First, he was punched in the stomach by Wen Dai, tears and snot flowed from the pain, and he couldn't even breathe.Afterwards, Rapini pinned his hands behind his back and tied his thumb with a black strap, making him unable to move.Wen Dai stuffed the towel around his neck into his mouth, almost suffocating Jiang Asheng to death.

Due to the panic after being attacked, Jiang Asheng's first response was that the assailant was a student from the Crow Department.However, he forgot, how could Shengfan speak official language to him?It wasn't until he was brought to a person whose face was also painted black and green, and the other person asked a question in a slightly jerky Hokkien dialect, that he realized that these people were not monsters, but human beings.

"What are you doing? Who is it?"

The thumbs of both hands were tightly locked, which made Jiang Asheng very uncomfortable.When the cloth in his mouth was taken out, Jiang Asheng, who was dripping with sweat, kept panting and breathing heavily.Taking advantage of this time, he found out from the corner of his eye that there were at least dozens of people around him, which made him even more frightened.Is this the robber who met the murderous scissors?
"Hero, spare your life! Idiot, I grow sugar cane, and my hometown is Fotan Bridge in Zhangpu."

"Growing sugar cane? You didn't work hard early in the morning, why did you come here? Huh?! If you are dishonest, I will kill you!"

"The villain's fellow countryman was seriously ill the day before yesterday, and he had no money to treat him. The villain came out and wanted to pick some herbs for him. The hero has mercy!"

"You still know medicine?"

Seeing Wang Yuanfang's kind tone, Jiang Asheng's tone became smoother, and he replied, "My family used to run a pharmacy in Zhangpu."

"What kind of medicine?"

"Xiang Tianguo and Sambung nyawa. Well, these two things are hard to find, or they won't go so far if they're not small."

"Sambung nyawa?"

Jiang Asheng, who was kneeling on the ground, pointed his eyes at the plant with green leaves and dots of small white flowers in the basket and said, "That's it. The natives use this as a herb for bone grafting, but the villain heard that pulling out poison is also effective."

Wang Yuanfang scratched the herb basket on the ground with a dagger a few times, took out a strange-looking gray-brown nut with a wide bottom and a pointed tip with his gloved hand, and said, "What is this?"

Jiang Asheng hurriedly said: "This is Xiangtian Fruit. It is mainly used to relieve fever and restraint. It takes more than ten years to bear fruit."

"Hehe, it sounds like ginseng fruit." Wang Yuanfang grinned and asked the soldiers beside him to untie Jiang Asheng.

"Let me ask you, do you know how to get to the Dutch castle twenty miles east of Batavia?"

"I know. That place is called Dingjiabao, and the sugarcane garden where the villain is located is only five miles away. But it takes at least five hours to walk from here." In fact, the castle is called Dinkland Castle, and the local The Chinese found it a mouthful, so they called it "Dingjiabao".

"How many Dutch soldiers are there?"

"It seems that there are hundreds of people. I also heard from the foreman, but I have never seen it with my own eyes." Jiang Asheng was taken aback, thinking that these people were going to attack the Dutch castle?God, who are these people!
He hesitated for a moment and said, "Man, there are cannons on the wall of the fort. Every month when the Dutch test-fire the cannons, the sound sounds like thunder."

"Five hours." Wang Yuanfang pondered for a while, got up and took out a handful of shiny Beihai town silver coins from his jacket pocket, and said without counting: "You lead us there, these silver coins belong to you."

Jiang Asheng's pupils shrank suddenly, and his breathing became more and more rapid.He raised his head to look at Wang Yuanfang, and seeing the other party beckoning him to take it, he carefully reached out to take a piece, first bit it with his teeth, then looked at the bite mark against the light, and then his face showed ecstasy.That's when he said to Wang Yuanfang embarrassedly: "I made the hero laugh. The villain has been in Bacheng for two years, and he hasn't seen any money yet."

Wang Yuanfang chuckled indifferently, then turned his backhand and put all the silver dollars into the opponent's hand. Jiang Asheng trembled all over holding a handful of silver dollars.

During the rest time on the marching road, Wang Yuanfang learned through chatting with Jiang Asheng that in a place like Batavia, low-level Chinese laborers like him have not seen money for several years, let alone two years.

"Then what do you usually need to spend money on?"

"The hero doesn't know something. The boss usually sends us lead money. If you want to get money, you have to wait until the contract expires to quit before you can settle the money according to the account."

"Lead money?"

After Jiang Asheng's explanation, Wang Yuanfang learned that a special currency system was implemented in the local sugarcane plantation.

At the end of each day's work, the aboriginal and Chinese laborers will receive a kind of local lead money as the day's labor remuneration.Lead coins are about the size of copper coins, but they can only be circulated within the plantation, and are only accepted by grocery stores opened inside the plantation. Laborers can use these lead coins to go to the store to buy opium and other daily necessities.

Every other day, the laborers have to hand over the remaining lead coins on hand to the treasurer who manages the plantation's accounts, and then reuse them again.The finance deputy will record the quantity handed in by each person and record it in the account of the worker. At the same time, the worker will keep a copy of the account, which will be stamped with the confirmation stamp of the finance deputy.If the worker's share is lost, you can make up a new one based on the records of the deputy finance minister.

When the workers' contracts expired and they planned to leave the plantation, he could use this record to exchange for settlement in silver coins.

Jiang Asheng signed a three-year contract with a proprietor surnamed Chen, and his annual salary was twenty Dutch guilders, or 17 taels of silver.Half of it will be deducted for daily meals and daily necessities, in addition to repaying the twenty silver dollars borrowed for the boat fare.As a result, the Chinese laborers had little money left, not to mention looking for women, and they couldn't even afford to get sick.

Fortunately, Jiang Asheng's family used to run a pharmacy and knew a little about herbal medicine, so he earned some money by using his three-legged cat to help people treat diseases.I don't ask for more each time, 5~10 lead coins, which is much cheaper than the doctor invited by the plantation, but he has to figure out the way for the herbal medicine.

"What diseases do Chinese laborers usually suffer from?"

"Baby fever, typhoid fever, snake and insect bites, that's all. No villain can do anything about it." Jiang Asheng picked up the compressed biscuit scum that fell on his body one by one, put it in his mouth, and looked at Wang Yuanfang's hand The compressed biscuit that hadn't finished eating said: "Hehe, this place in Java is plagued by miasma. Once infected, the skin will peel off even if you don't die."

Seeing this, Wang Yuanfang took out another compressed biscuit and handed it to Jiang Asheng. He suddenly remembered that Zhao Xin had mentioned opium before, so he asked casually, "Are there a lot of opium smokers in this place?"

"Why not many?" Jiang Asheng didn't notice Wang Yuanfang's eyes, his attention was all on the biscuits.He followed it with one hand, took a bite with satisfaction, and said: "Our boss and the financial deputy will suck a bag every day, and it will cure all diseases! But opium is expensive locally, and it is like a villain for a year." I can’t make much money, so I’m not willing to buy it.”

As mentioned before, the introduction of opium in the early Qing Dynasty was brought back by the Chinese who had left their hometowns after the southeast coast was pacified. As a result, the trend of swallowing opium arose in Fujian and Guangdong.

Many people will be curious, whether it is in Yunnan, Guizhou or Southeast Asia, why is there a habit of swallowing opium there?Two words, miasma - that is, malaria.

The south of the colorful clouds in the early days was by no means the direction of the heart.I would rather be a dead ghost in the Central Plains than a wandering spirit in the frontier. What I'm talking about is the horror of the Southwest. In the early 17th century, when the Dutch colonized Asia and even occupied Taiwan, they used opium to treat tropical diseases such as malaria.Because of malaria, people are afraid of the cold, and after smoking opium, the body will be warm, so there is a saying that opium can cure miasma.This is true in Yunnan, especially in tropical Southeast Asia.

Speaking of this operation of the Special Operations Battalion, thanks to Jiang Asheng who is familiar with the terrain, otherwise it would not be possible to cover the tens of miles in a day.But even so, it was fine for Jiang Asheng to drill into the dense forest to find herbs by himself, but that was not the case with 200 people, so Wang Yuanfang could only let his teams take turns to use machetes to open the way.

The humidity in Java's tropical jungle is astonishing. Walking in it is like walking in a steamer.Although short-term adaptive training was carried out on Dazhan Island, it was nothing less than purgatory for Sauron soldiers who had lived in the outer northeast since childhood.After walking for two hours, some people were driven crazy by the humidity and heat, and wanted to get naked.

Before Wang Yuanfang set off, he gave everyone a death order. They must not take off their clothes, and they must tie up all the gaps in the clothes, otherwise the poisonous insects will take advantage of them.But even so, those dry leeches would still get into the soldiers' clothes and suck blood greedily.Fortunately, the soldiers of the special warfare battalion each brought two packs of salt before departure, which made it easy to deal with the leeches, and also replenished the rapidly depleted salt in the body.

In this way, when Wang Yuanfang and the others arrived one kilometer away from Dinkland Fortress in the dark, there were more than 50 soldiers unable to participate in the battle due to damp heat, fainting, and poisonous insect bites. Even Wang Yuanfang himself was very tired. .

Although Java Island at night is much cooler than during the day, it is still sweltering and hot for the North Navy, which is almost all northerners.In view of this, when Wang Yuanfang managed to get in touch with the Thunder God, he changed the time of attack to dawn.

On Thor's side, the negotiations between Deng Fei and Batavia during the day were just a formality. In order to find out the news, he left the other side to have a meal on board at noon.

When he learned that Jiang Fan was actually a master, Jiabidan Wang Zhusheng and his three Lei Zhenlan were very respectful and polite in their words, so Jiang Fan also heard some information from Wang Zhusheng.Of course, these are only said with Jacob's permission.

According to Wang Zhusheng, the Dutch East India Company established two occupation systems in Java, the colony directly under the company's direct control and the vassal state.

The territories under the direct jurisdiction account for three-fifths of Java's total area and more than one-half of its total population.The Dutch were appointed by the company to control the highest power in the territories under the direct jurisdiction, but the privileges of the feudal princes of the original Banten Kingdom were retained, allowing them to continue to serve as officials of lower-level institutions.

The vassal states in Java include Banten, Cirebon, Solo, Yogyakarta and Manguni Karan.It is nominally ruled by the sultans of the states, but the judges stationed by the company have great power, and can even directly interfere with the succession of the throne.

According to the preliminary information, Deng Fei feels that if Beihai Town wants to occupy Batavia as a base, suppress the forces of the Dutch, Spanish and British, and achieve the goal of controlling the Sunda Strait, it needs at least 1 people—— The army of four regiments and twelve motorboats and gunboats similar to Beihai No. [-] and No. [-] form four fleets, which can only be dealt with militarily.

You must know that the Dutch strongholds in Southeast Asia include not only Batavia, but also Semarang, Mataram, Banten, Pattani, Banda Islands, Ceylon and so on.

In terms of economy, Deng Fei lacks understanding of the economic system established by the Dutch, and the Chinese plantation system has only listened to brief introductions by Wang Zhusheng and others, so he has no idea for the time being.He felt that instead of spending half a day trying to understand it himself, it would be better to let the people from the Ministry of Trade conduct an investigation after capturing Batavia.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, Deng Fei asked Jiang Fan to organize his opinions and ideas into a document, and sent it to Beihai Town by telegram.An hour later, Wang Yuanfang also got in touch, and the two agreed that the time to launch an attack on Dinklan Fortress was [-] o'clock in the morning, and then finalized the follow-up battle plan.

The purpose of attacking the Dinkland Fortress was actually to set up a forward position in the east of Batavia City. One was to attract the Dutch to come to die, and the other was to correct the direction of Thor's artillery fire.

At three o'clock in the morning, the sky was already a little bright. Under Jiang Asheng's guidance, thirty soldiers from the Beihai Special Warfare Battalion swam across the lake and swamp on the east side of Fort Dinkland, and entered the grass 300 meters away from the castle to stand by. More than 20 minutes later, when they heard two blowing noises from the walkie-talkie, six soldiers squatted up from the grass, held up their rifles with silencers, and pulled the triggers in the dim light of the morning sun. .

At this time, the sentinels on the castle wall were at their worst. The bullets roared, and blood mist burst out from the heads of several drowsy defenders leaning on muskets.Before the Dutch could react, Wendy, Rapini, and a dozen other soldiers jumped up from the grass, ran towards the castle wall with the installed anchor hook launcher in their arms.They crossed the wooden fence in the clearing, took aim and pulled the trigger.

With a bang, the anchor hook painted black flew obliquely into the air under the impact of the high-pressure air in the gas cylinder of the gun body, and then hung on the inner side of the castle wall. A 7mm thick climbing rope.Wen Dai climbed up the rope first, while the other soldiers below aimed their guns at the top of the city wall.

Since the "Red Creek Massacre", Batavia has not experienced war for many years.Although Governor Altyn issued a warning order before, Dinkland Castle only increased the number of people on duty because it was far away from Bacheng.The defenders in the fort focused all their attention on the sea to the north, and never thought that someone would attack from the interior.

Although the sound of the anchor hook shooting and falling alarmed the people in the barracks, the North Navy, which had been preparing for a long time, moved faster.When a German mercenary from Württemberg walked out of the barracks to check sleepily, Wen Dai, who had just climbed up to the top of the wall, immediately pulled the trigger.The sound of the human body falling made the two horses in the barn restless and neighing.

The groom who was woken up pushed open the door, and was about to see what happened. He turned his head inadvertently, and saw a few guys whose faces couldn't be clearly seen suddenly appeared on the castle wall. Judging from the clothes of these people, , Not one's own soldiers at all.At this time, these people were walking down the stone steps with something like muskets in their hands.

not good!The groom turned pale with fright, and was about to retreat into the house when he saw a guy who looked like a hellish ghost pointing the weapon in his hand at him.The groom's legs gave way, and he fell down and sat in front of the door, and immediately heard two "pops" above his head.

He couldn't care about anything else, he opened his mouth and shouted: "Come here!" However, before he could finish his words, the next bullet came in an instant, leaving a bloody hole in the groom's forehead.

At this time, the defenders in the barracks were all awakened, and they rolled off the bed one after another. When they were hesitating whether to rush out with weapons or stay in the house, the door was kicked open from the outside with a "bang", followed by a A black pipe thicker than a musket barrel protruded from the door.Before the German soldiers could react, everything in the house began to boil and jump with the howling bullets.

Sheets, blankets, pillows, human bodies, blood. In less than a minute, the barracks where twenty soldiers lived was already full of dead bodies, bloody and pungent.

At the same time, the same scene was playing out in other rooms in the castle.It's just that when Wen Dai and others rushed into a rather ornately decorated room and beat the German officer hiding behind the cabinet to death, a woman's crying sounded instantly.

"Damn it, you killed my husband!"

(End of this chapter)