1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 922 Passion for War (Continued)
On August 1676, 8, Longmen Island (now Batam Island, Indonesia).

Liao Jinzhu and a dozen of his companions stood on the pier, watching a thousand-ton warship of the State of Qi dock slowly at the berth, his eyes widened.

Hey, such a big ship, not to mention the densely packed gun holes on both sides of the ship, even with its "strong" body, it can sink the enemy's ship.

"We have such a powerful gunboat. If the Mughals see it, they will be frightened and run away!" A companion said excitedly: "At that time, we will follow behind the people of Qi. If you fire two shots at random, you can win the battle, and you can also capture a lot of battlefields."

"Yes, yes." Another companion echoed: "Two years ago, the brothers in the former battalion followed the Qi State to conquer Japan, and each of them made a fortune. When everyone returned, they were full of all kinds of seizures. Luggage, people are so envious. I heard that the Mughal we are going to fight this time is richer than Japan!... Damn, just thinking about it makes people excited!"

"In war, people will die..." Liao Jinzhu said weakly.

"You might choke to death if you drink cold water, and you might trip over stones and fall to your death while walking on the road. If you have a daughter-in-law to make out with her in the future, you might be squeezed out and die from exhaustion..." a companion said disdainfully. Looking at Liao Jinzhu, he sarcastically said: "Being a soldier pays his salary and fighting for his life on the battlefield. Isn't that just to seek wealth and a family background?"

"Hahaha..." Everyone burst into laughter upon hearing this.

Liao Jinzhu's face turned red, but he dared not refute.

Three years ago, he was "deceived" from Zhangzhou, Fujian Province to Borneo and became a colonizer under the rule of Shun Kingdom.Well, the reason why he was "deceived" to come here was because he and dozens of villagers were going to take an immigrant boat to go to Qi State, which is known as the paradise of the poor.But those goddamn "snakeheads" resold them to the Shunguo immigrant fleet, and then traveled all the way across the ocean to Borneo.

Although a little disappointed, the Shunguo government took good care of these Han immigrants. They were given food and drink, and they were not abused like those local natives, which made all the immigrants feel a little more at ease.Arriving immigrants were gathered into villages and villages, and under the organization of the government, they opened up wasteland and farmed land and built water conservancy projects.

The local government of Shunguo promises to all immigrants that as long as they settle here for three years, the government will give each person [-] acres of cultivated land and [-] acres of forest land, and the tax they pay will be [-]% lower than that of the mainland.

Although the land colonized by the immigrants has been simply cleared by the local natives, there are still a lot of tree roots and grass roots left on the land, and it takes a lot of energy from the immigrants to gradually transform these habitats into fertile cultivated land. .

In Shun State, all young and strong Han men are obliged to serve in the army. Even after three years in the army, they still need to organize regular training for the township soldiers, and occasionally follow the regular army to conquer the soil in the deep jungle. people, or attack the surrounding states to expand the territory of Shun State.

Liao Jinzhu was recruited by the Shunguo government last year and became a drummer in Zuoying.But from the bottom of his heart, he doesn't want to be a soldier. In addition to his cowardly personality and timidity to do things, he also can't see blood (blood sickness). Even killing a chicken will feel horrible and disgusting, let alone the battlefield to kill.

However, the government and military of Shunguo didn't pay any attention to this. From their point of view, this kind of man who doesn't want to see blood must be a cowardly person, so after he is called into the army, he must be strengthened. train.

It should be known that the 15 soldiers and civilians in Shun Kingdom are completely surrounded by tigers and wolves, surrounded by vicious natives full of malice. If the people in the country are too timid to fight and dare not fight with them, wouldn’t they be swallowed up by others sooner or later? Got skin and bones left?

During several months of military training, although Liao Jinzhu had mastered various military essentials, he was still unable to face the bloody scenes. Even when his skin was broken and bleeding during the training process, he would feel guilty and depressed, making it difficult to continue fighting.In desperation, the chief of the Zuoying had no choice but to let him be the drummer in the company. This position could at least keep this "coward" from fighting the enemy face to face and face the blood.

For this reason, Liao Jinzhu was often reprimanded and ridiculed by his officers and companions in the army, and he always behaved submissively and cautiously.

At this time, seeing the large warships approaching from Qi State, he couldn't help but imagine that if he stayed on such a powerful gunboat, he would definitely see very few bloody scenes.

The next day, more than [-] officers and soldiers of Shunguo Zuoying, which Liao Jinzhu belonged to, left Longmen Island by boat along with several other troops that had rested for a whole day, and sailed to the next anchorage under the escort of four warships.

When the fleet passed the waters near Malacca, it encountered two armed merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company head-on.After seeing the Qi flag flying by the fleet, the other party waved to the expedition fleet very enthusiastically.

When the two fleets met and passed by, Liao Jinzhu was very surprised to find that those barbarians with red hair and green eyes seemed to be overly enthusiastic towards them.Everyone had a friendly smile on their faces, and they were all lying on the side of the ship, shaking their arms vigorously, and yelling something in their mouths.

The barbarians also put down two small boats and presented a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables to the fleet as a token of condolence.

Well, it is probably because the Qi people are powerful and famous in this area, so these Yi people from distant countries have to try their best to curry favor and flatter them, so as not to offend the Qi people.

After the fleet continued to sail in the strait for three days, it arrived at a small island near the mainland on the north side. The Qi people called it Penang Island (now Penang Island in Malaysia), which is said to be named after the many betel nut trees.

It was originally just a deserted island, where only pirates lived.Later, when the fleet of the State of Qi "discovered" this ideally located island while suppressing pirates in the area, they took it as their own and built docks and castles as an important stronghold at the western end of the strait.As for the Kedah Sultan Kingdom on the mainland opposite the island, they naturally dared not say a word, watching helplessly as the Qi State built a colony at its doorstep.

The entire island has many granite mountains and narrow plains along the coast.The Yangwu Fort built by the people of Qi is located in the northeast of the island. It benefits from the shelter of the strait, the wind and waves are relatively small, and the plain area is vast, making it the core of the entire island.

The fleet only stopped in Penang for a day, and then set sail again, heading for India.

The reason why they were in such a hurry, Gein, was that a few days ago, the two Dutch merchant ships encountered in Malacca informed the Qi people that the Mughals seemed to have known that the Qi country was about to launch a war against them, so they simply acted first. Many Qi State merchant stations and strongholds in the Mughal territory launched raids and fought with the armed guards hired by Qi State merchants.

As for the specific situation, the Dutch are also unknown.However, if you want to use a country's huge military power to target a few small commercial strongholds, the result is probably not very optimistic.

On August 8, the fleet arrived at Anhuabao, Daxi Island (now Dengla, a small town in the east of Great Nicobar Island), and made a short stop here.

The island is humid, hot and rainy, and is covered with forests. Everyone is ordered not to enter the nearby jungle at will, and officers and soldiers are also required to cover all exposed parts of the body to prevent mosquito bites.

The entire Anhua Fort is small in scale, with a radius of less than 1000 meters and a population of just over 360 people (excluding the island's natives), with limited supplies.Therefore, the fleet only added a little fresh water here, and left behind dozens of unwell officers and soldiers. In the early morning of the next day, the fleet ships left the island one by one and headed for the next stop-Ceylon.

The next part of the voyage was the longest one that Liao Jinzhu had experienced since he set off from Shunguo by boat. It took about ten days or so. Just when he was in a daze and felt that he had reached the limit of endurance, the fleet finally arrived. Zhaowen Fort in northern Ceylon (now Jaffna, Sri Lanka).

Zhaowen Fort is located in the southwest of Zhaowen Peninsula (Jaffna Peninsula), about [-] kilometers north of Colombo, the ruling center of the Dutch, more than [-] kilometers away from the capital of the Kingdom of Kandy in the south, and about [-] kilometers away from the capital of the Kingdom of Kandy in the south. Governing the city) is only [-] kilometers away, and controlling the Zhaowen Strait (Paulk Strait) is of great strategic significance.

More than 50 years ago, the Portuguese colonists conquered the Kingdom of Jaffna, and carried out a vigorous construction on the basis of the former King City of Jaffna. They built castles, ports, Catholic churches, government buildings and other facilities in the city to make it It became the center of Portuguese colonial rule in the north and an important port city.

In the 22nd year of Ganwu (1664), because the Portuguese "unauthorizedly" gave Mumbai Island to the British as a dowry without notifying the people of Qi, Qi was greatly dissatisfied.Therefore, with the acquiescence of Qi, the Dutch dispatched an expeditionary fleet to seize the entire Ceylon, expelled the Portuguese from the island, and completely controlled this important producing area rich in cardamom.

Later, Qi State used its support for the Dutch East India Company to fight against the British in the Far East as a bargaining chip, and promised not to touch the spice business in the area, and easily won the northern part of Ceylon from the Dutch.

In the following ten years, the Qi people from the north and the Dutch from the west and south continued to squeeze and encroach on the Kandy Kingdom located in the central and eastern regions of Ceylon.To this day, the Kingdom of Kandy, which almost unified the whole of Ceylon, is left with only a small piece of territory in the south-central plateau, lingering and on the verge of collapse.

In order to stabilize the order of the colonial rule and suppress the Sinhalese who occupy the majority of the population, the Bangladeshi trading company that ruled the area listed the Tamils ​​who are ethnic minorities in the northern part of Ceylon as the main cooperation objects, and still followed the customs of the local Tamils Law to manage the entire Zhaowen area.

The Qi people also expanded the original castle, and built many Taoist temples, Mazu Temple, Guanyin Temple, Drum Tower and various management agency buildings in the city.

In order to ease the conflicts in the colonial areas, the Qi people adopted a more tolerant colonial policy than the Portuguese, allowing local people to rebuild many Hindu temples destroyed by the Portuguese, and even kept some Tamil places in the inland areas administrative system.The original customary law of Tamil is also acquiesced, but the premise is that it does not conflict with the laws promulgated by Qi State.

The Zhaowen area is hot, dry and rainy, and there are no rivers or lakes, but the groundwater resources are quite rich.The local Tamils ​​and Sinhalese used groundwater to create complex well irrigation systems.Standing on the farmland, the neatly arranged water well booms constitute a unique local landscape.Rice, potatoes, onions, tobacco, mangoes and other crops are mainly grown here to provide food, vegetables and fruits for merchant ships.

The sudden influx of thousands of coalition officers and soldiers immediately packed Zhaowen Fort to the brim, and at the same time terrified the local natives.You must know that when attacking the Kingdom of Kandy, the Qi people often dispatched only one or two hundred people, supplemented by a servant army composed of hundreds of Cochins or Tamils, and they were able to beat the army of the Kingdom of Kandy into a state of disarray and continued to lose their lives. The division lost ground and retreated to the central plateau.

Now, the sudden arrival of thousands of troops from the Qi State can bulldoze the remaining Kandy Kingdom and the Dutch several times together!

When they heard that this army was only an advance team, and dozens of warships and more than [-] troops would arrive one after another, the local Tamil people were shocked beyond measure.

The once ferocious Portuguese occupied and controlled most of Ceylon. At their peak, the number of real Portuguese soldiers never exceeded 2000.In the Battle of Mount Gannoruwa (1638), which broke out decades ago, Portugal assembled more than 4000 troops to attack the Kingdom of Kandy, of which more than 900 were conscripted Indians, Malays and local Sinhalese , while the number of Portuguese soldiers (including Portuguese-Indian mixed blood) was only [-].

Now, the Qi State has assembled and mobilized more than [-] troops to conquer the powerful Mughal Empire. It is not known which one is stronger and which one is weaker, but everyone understands that this will be a fierce confrontation between the two major powers in the Indian Ocean region. Collide.The winning side will dominate the political and economic order of the entire Indian region in the future and become the real regional hegemon.

Due to the arrival of too many officers and soldiers from the navy and army, the local officials of Zhaowenbao had to force the Tamil servants under their command to vacate a large number of civilian houses outside the city, as needed for the army to stop and rest.

Liao Jinzhu and dozens of officers and soldiers of Shunguo Zuoying were lying under the shady treetops, eating sweet mangoes one by one, and blowing the pleasant sea breeze, all of them felt smoky.

Damn, it started from Shun country and arrived here with the army of Qi country. Except that the journey from Daxi Island to Ceylon suffered a little bit, it was so easy and comfortable along the way, and the material support was also in place.All kinds of canned food, coffee, cane sugar and tobacco that only domestic officials and wealthy businessmen could enjoy in the past were distributed by the Qi State's logistics department to the officers and soldiers of the vassal state as if they didn't want money.

During the sailing period, beer, mead (rum), wine, and shochu will also be distributed daily at discretion, which flatters every officer and soldier of the Shun Kingdom and shouts surprises.

No wonder, those former battalion brothers who had followed Qi to conquer Japan, when they heard that Qi was going to recruit troops to attack other countries, whether they were officers or ordinary soldiers, they all tried their best to apply to fight again.

This is not going to war, it is clearly going on a boat cruise with the army of Qi State!

According to those former battalion brothers, even during the war, the casualties suffered were extremely light.Two years ago, the expedition to Japan lasted half a year, and there were more than ten battles. Among the more than 600 officers and soldiers of the Shunguo Front Battalion, only 12 were killed, 17 died of illness, and 41 were injured. The battle loss rate was only [-]%.

If disease and death are excluded, the battle loss rate is about 41%.Moreover, among the [-] injured people, except for a dozen who were truly incurable and disabled, the rest returned to the team alive and kicking after several months of care.

Thinking about it this way, it is actually not too risky to fight with Qi, and it can also get a lot of rewards.After defeating Japan, Qi State demanded 500 million taels of silver in compensation from the Japanese shogunate on behalf of the coalition forces.

Afterwards, according to the military strength and battlefield performance provided by the vassal states, Shun Kingdom received 42 taels of silver as military compensation.If the gold and silver and material seizures obtained after the capture of Japanese cities were included, Shunguo had received a total income of nearly 60 taels of silver.

Not to mention, Shunguo brought back more than 800 young women and more than 200 artisans of various kinds from Japan.This is the most important "strategic material" for the poor Shun country.

"Beep beep..."

Suddenly there was a rush of assembly calls in the distance, which woke up these Shunguo officers and soldiers who were enjoying the sea breeze and being served by several Tamils ​​attentively.

"What's the matter! Could it be that we are about to set off at this time and go to war?"

A group of Shunguo officers and soldiers couldn't help but look at each other, and their minds became tense.

Damn, I'm here to fight!

(End of this chapter)