1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 339 Tongzhou Fort

July 1639, 7, Tongzhou Fort.

Tongzhou Fort in this season is one of the most comfortable seasons of the year. The sunny weather, the temperature around 26 degrees, and the gentle sea breeze make people feel very comfortable and comfortable.

After several months of construction, today's Tongzhou Bodeng has undergone considerable changes compared with the original.The first is a wooden trestle deep into the sea. The crude trestle is more than 40 meters long and can be used for two large transport ships to dock and unload at the same time.

However, this trestle is of a temporary nature. When the materials and personnel here are more abundant in the future, Tongzhou Fort will organize manpower to build a relatively modern cement permanent wharf.

At the end of the trestle is a road paved with broken bricks and gravel.Because of the high rainfall in the rainy season here, the dirt road is easy to soften and soften in rainy weather, which affects the efficiency of cargo output and input in the wharf.Therefore, in Tongzhoubao, Commander Wang Xiangmin organized immigrants and natives to use broken bricks, broken tiles, some gravel, sand and other materials left over from burning bricks together to pave such a relatively simple road to dredge the port.

From the wharf road to the west, passing through a pristine sago coconut grove, extending for about several hundred meters, is the Tongzhoubao urban area under construction.Today, more than 20 rows of uniform brick and tile houses have been built in the urban area, some of which are similar to the steeple style common in the water towns in the south of Daming.Red brick walls, blue eaves, and a large number of vegetables are planted in front of and behind the house.

On the north side of the residential area, there are several large-scale brick and stone buildings, which are the most important storage facilities for each new colony in Hanzhou. In addition to the daily material reserves of more than 200 residents of Tongzhou Fort, there are also a large number of immigrant living. necessary supplies.

At the place where it first landed, all the trees were cut down, and there are still many wooden houses built at that time, and more than a dozen new rows have been added.These houses are for the Hanzhou natives and the natives captured nearby. In addition to the compacted wooden boards, the roofs are also covered with thick thatch, which is covered with rammed earth. During the dry season, they can barely live in.

There are two [-]-centimeter-sized windows on the front and rear walls of these wooden houses, and gauze is usually used to block the entry of mosquitoes and flies.It was early morning at this time, and some Hanzhou aborigines and local aborigines walked out of the wooden house listlessly.They didn't wash at all, and went directly to the entrance of a large canteen outside the camp, and then lined up in a neat line, ready to enjoy their daily breakfast.

Breakfast is very simple, a bowl of corn mush, a few pieces of potatoes, not very nutritious, but it can still fill you up.A few soldiers with muskets on their backs and short knives walked around these coolies, and they kept talking, looking at them, they seemed to be scolding them for getting up late, which might delay their day's work quantity.Those Hanzhou natives and natives squatted silently on the ground, quickly eating the food in their hands.

About 800 meters away from the north side of the wooden house area where the coolies lived, a tall chimney could be vaguely seen standing there, and black smoke was still continuously emitting from the chimney mouth.Judging from the size and height of the chimney, there should be an earthen kiln below.As for the kind of kiln, it is nothing more than brick kiln and pottery kiln. Of course, it may also be a retort kiln for drying wood.

After Cui Shaochuan got off the "Pioneer" with many immigrants, he saw those scenes along the way.After more than 20 days, I traveled to Hanxing Island and Midway Island, and came to this immigration transit point that is said to be under the jurisdiction of Hanzhou.After talking with Qi Dajiang and others on the boat, he knew that there were still more than 20 days' voyage from Hanzhou mainland, and his heart was full of bitterness and despair.He claims to be well-informed and understands the entire Nanyang geography, but the distance of Hanzhou is still beyond his imagination.

The south of Nanyang was originally thought to be in Borneo or the area around Java Island, but now it seems that Hanzhou is far away in the sky.But the only thing that made him a little relieved was that whether it was Hanxing Island, Midway Island, or this place called Tongzhou Fort, my Han and Miao descendants were clearly in the upper class.Driven by the Han people, many local natives worked hard in construction and labor.

Suddenly, the immigrant team who were queuing up to enter the camp on the south side of the city let out a cry of exclamation.Cui Shaochuan looked around, and saw that near the edge of the forest, several wooden stakes were erected, on which several naked natives were tied, some of them were obviously dead, their bodies were covered with maggots, and their faces were terrifying.The immigrants who saw this situation panicked for a while.

"Why did those people on the stump look like this?" Cui Shaochuan asked the soldiers on the side of the team who were maintaining order.

"They are all man-eating demons!" Seeing Cui Shaochuan's appearance as a scholar, the village soldier knew that Cui Shaochuan was one of the most valued talents in Hanzhou. They were caught in the camp, they resisted fiercely and even injured our people, our commanding king of Tongzhou Fort was annoyed and ordered us to show him on a pole."

"Are the natives here very brutal? Are they really cannibals?" Cui Shaochuan asked suspiciously.

"When we broke into their tribal camp, we found some bones that didn't look like animals. Our captain suspected that they were human-eating demons."

"Ah!" Cui Shaochuan was also taken aback, eating people raw, but there are some records in ancient books and documents, but there are occasional rumors in some deep mountains and forests in the Ming Dynasty, but he has never witnessed it with his own eyes.Now in this remote Weiyuan Island, he suddenly heard a cannibalism nearby, even though he has experienced a lot, he was still a little startled.

"You..., have you ever wiped out the cannibals around here?"

"The forest here is dense, how can we completely wipe it out." The village soldier was also distressed, shaking his head and said: "Only when we have more people here, maybe we can catch them one by one from the forest. However, these natives are It's very easy to deal with, as long as you don't get attacked by them in the forest, you won't be an opponent at all against our country soldiers."

Hearing what the soldiers said, Cui Shaochuan felt a little relieved, and then looked around at some places around the Tongzhou Fort. A protruding masonry bastion with several cannons placed on it.These defensive facilities should be more than enough to deal with some natives with weak force.

"Commander Qi, you have worked hard all the way!" Commander Wang Xiangmin of Tongzhou Fort welcomed Qi Dajiang, Niu Hu and others into the official hall, and asked them to bring pots of fruit.

"Commander Wang, I haven't seen you in a few months. You have kept the Tongzhou Fort in order!" Qi Dajiang followed the crowd, grabbed a coconut in the basin, pried open a hole with a short knife, and drank it while holding it.

"The blue thread on the road!" Wang Xiangmin said, "Everything is good here, but there are too few people. Well..., Commander Qi, among this batch of immigrants, how many people can we keep in Tongzhou Fort?"

"How many people are left, how can you ask me?" Qi Dajiang drank the coconut in one breath, then touched his mouth and said, "What is the immigration quota for Weiyuan Island given by the civil government? When the time comes, you We have to discuss how to divide it with other points.”

"Our Tongzhou Fort is not qualified to discuss with several other places!" Wang Xiangmin said: "Commander Qi doesn't know yet. Our Weiyuan Fort has established a separate colony area, with the former commander of Weiyuan Fort Xie Limin as the general manager, unified planning Manage the entire Weiyuan Island. Moreover, our immigration quota for the entire Weiyuan Island is only 500 people per year."

"That's it." Qi Dajiang said with a smile: "You have more people left behind in Tongzhou Fort, and naturally fewer immigrants can be allocated to Jinhua Fort and Weiyuan Fort."

"I don't know if the Annan people you brought this time count as the number of immigrants. If not, you can leave us with more people." Wang Xiangmin said: "There are still those who have health problems, why not put them all here temporarily , can do something for us in Tongzhou Fort."

"I want to keep more people, but you don't have many houses to live in."

"It's enough to drive those natives out of the wooden house, and then make room for immigrants to live in." Wang Xiangmin said disapprovingly: "As for those natives, just set up some tents for them."

Qi Dajiang smiled, but did not respond.Almost all places in Hanzhou are extremely short of people, and the transit points they occupy are still far away. They all hope to increase the population in the areas under their jurisdiction.Not only to obtain more labor, but more importantly, it is driven by the potential insecurity in people's hearts.After all, in this barren area, there are more of the same kind, who can rely on each other and hold each other together to defend against foreign enemies.

"What's new in Hanzhou?" Qi Dajiang asked.

"In the eastern part of Hanzhou, two new settlements were opened in the south of Weihai. ...Xinxiangbao began to expand to the west, breaking down many native tribes along the way. Oh, yes, a month ago, our Hanzhou Two warships fought a battle with the Dutch not far from Jianye Port, and at that time, the chief steward was also on one of the ships."

"Oh! How is the situation?" Qi Dajiang asked nervously.Hearing that Qi Tian was also at the scene of the naval battle, he couldn't help but feel worried.

"At that time, the Dutch were also two warships, and they chased their ship from the direction of Timor Island. As a result, when they went to the waters outside Jianye Port, they encountered our new warship Yangming. They began to eat some Fortunately, the Yang Ming hit a Dutch warship with a missile and set it on fire. The other Dutch warship saw that the situation was not good, so it slipped away immediately."

"The He people are so bullying!" Qi Dajiang said bitterly: "Two warships dared to come to our Hanzhou waters to invite me to fight. What happened afterwards?"

"Later?... Later they came with two more warships and touched our Jianye Harbor, but they didn't dare to enter the harbor and left after wandering for a day."

"Is there any news about Dili City?"

"...No news has come out." Wang Xiangmin glanced at Qi Dajiang, and said: "According to several inspections by flying fish boats, the Dutch still keep three or five warships to blockade outside Dili Port."

Qi Dajiang listened, a little silent.It seems obvious that the Dutch used Dili City as a bait, trying to lure the Hanzhou warships all the way there, and deal a heavy blow.Their persistence greatly exceeded Han Zhou's previous estimate.What is even more worrying is that the material reserves of Dili City seem to be unable to last for such a long time.Even if they save some food, I am afraid that at this time, they will run out of ammunition and food.

(End of this chapter)