Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1285 Order Reorganization ([-])

On April 1661, 4, on the Brazilian plateau, it was raining continuously.

Lu Xiaofeng walked on the muddy ground with one deep foot and one shallow foot. The expensive whale leather boots were covered with red mud, and the black trousers were also covered with spots.It was almost evening, and smoke rose from the roof of a house not far away. It should be that the new immigrants were cooking.Looking at the houses full of Iberian style, Lu Xiaofeng grinned. Now they have become the houses of immigrants from the east coast, because the Ministry of War has used military tickets to transfer the entire manor (including fields and outbuildings) from the Portuguese colonial They "bought" it in the hands of some people, and then resold it at domestic auctions to immigrants who were interested in settling in the Brazilian highlands.Under such means, the new immigrants made money, the War Department also made money, and even the freed Indian slaves made money, and it was undoubtedly the white colonists who paid the bill.

Not all white colonists were willing to return to the North.Even if they stay in St. Paul, they can only believe in the Catholicism managed by the people on the east coast, even if only a small piece of the real estate handed down by their ancestors is left in the end, even if the slaves bought at a high price are gone, even if many of the land that originally belonged to them The property is now full of yellow-skinned pagans (I have to face them day and night). Even though there are many reasons, many people worry that they will be hungry and cold after returning to the north. At that time, there was nothing left, so I finally chose to stay under the rule of the people on the east coast-of course, some people held the idea that King Alfonso would finally defeat the evil heretics and rescue them from the fall, just like expelling Like the Moors, they chose to stay in the local area, waiting for the unlikely eventuality.

Where Lu Xiaofeng is going now, there are several Portuguese families. It was originally a family. A poor boy who came to the New World to struggle, married a rich old woman, and had three grown sons.After the people from the east coast came here, they were only allowed to keep a total of 150 mu of land and a few necessary agricultural tools, daily necessities and livestock. The others were compulsorily purchased by military tickets, which is actually quite pitiful—of course, the Indians People will certainly disagree with your statement.

Colonial manors like this in the countryside are called "estancias" by the Portuguese, and the owners of the manors are called "caspas".Most of the hosts and hostesses of the first generation were uneducated, but starting from the second generation, as long as there were some savings in the manor, their children could still receive a little education.Lu Xiaofeng once met such a young girl of Italian and Portuguese descent during his visits. She can skillfully recite the poems of Dante and Petrarch, and she is also very beautiful, which is very amazing.

But in the manor that I am going to visit today, there is no beautiful ode girl, but only a cunning middle-aged man, a chattering old woman and their three stupid sons.Along with Lu Xiaofeng came the young army second lieutenant Jiang Ning and [-] soldiers under him. He was responsible for protecting the lives of government officials such as Lu Xiaofeng and cleaning up the security situation nearby.

The reason why they came to this manor today—perhaps it is more appropriate to call it a village now—is that there were reports from immigrants, and there were members of the St. Xiaofeng and Jiang Ning came here hand in hand, intending to check the situation.After all, the Sao Paulo flag team members are not gods. They also need to eat, drink, rest, and supply supplies. If there is no one nearby to connect with them and provide supplies, they will soon lose their mobility and disappear.But now the people on the east coast have arranged for several new immigrant families to live with these Portuguese manor owners. If you think about it, these St. Paul’s bannermen would not dare to live in the manor openly, so they must have a lair in the wild, and This is what Lu and Jiang want to figure out.

The former owner of the manor came out to meet Lu Xiaofeng and Jiang Ning together with a few immigrants from the east coast, and at the same time cast awe-inspiring eyes on the twenty heavily armed infantry behind them—some soldiers from the Taoyuan County Security Regiment, replacing the already The Jingjiang County Security Corps that returned home was disbanded.Lu Xiaofeng and Jiang Ning chatted with them briefly at the door, and then led the team to live in. They will live here for the next few days, and carefully investigate the security incident of the St. Paul's flag team nearby. The board and lodging expenses will be paid in full, and of course the unspent military tickets in the hands of the Ministry of War will be used.

"It's not safe here, so it's better to be fully prepared." After recruiting a relatively spacious storage room as a residence, Jiang Ning dragged out a grill from the marinade room in the manor, and asked the soldiers to fill up the muskets. Ammunition, put it on this temporary gun rack, and then let the soldiers do their own work, but they can't go far.

Lu Xiaofeng, a civil servant, also loaded his 1633 flintlock pistol with ammunition, and then set up a cauldron at the door of the storage room.As a culinary enthusiast, his greatest joy is to share all kinds of fantastic food he "invented" with the soldiers. This will see him adding pickled whale meat and vegetables (purchased from the manor) to the pot, While skimming off the froth on the broth, Jiang Ning slowly tasted the yerba mate tea beside him—he put the tea in a military glass kettle and sucked it with a hose.

Nothing happened during the dinner. Jiang Ning told everyone to rest after assigning tasks. After all, he had to go out to search for traces of the St. Paul's flag team tomorrow morning, and it was impossible without sufficient physical strength.

However, it seemed that the enemy was destined not to let them sleep well. After four o'clock in the morning, a shrill scream spread far in the manor.Lu Xiaofeng, Jiang Ning and others who were lying on the bed in their clothes jumped up and ran towards the door quickly. At this time, it seemed that the enemy had charged very close. Just as they ran to the threshold, Jiang Ning was shot on the coat. a hole.He didn't have time to panic, he directly grabbed a loaded rifle on the gun rack, aimed a little, and then shot outwards. After one shot, the second shot and the third shot—anyway, there were enough guns on the gun rack. 19 rifles with good ammunition—two of the enemies rushing from the yard fell down, and the rest of the people thought that more than one person from the east coast was firing their guns (because the rate of fire was too fast), and their footsteps slowed down a little Huan, hiding in the dark and peeping this way from a distance, never dared to take the risk of charging again.

Jiang Ning's actions gave everyone enough time to react. The soldiers who heard the movement rolled off their beds one after another. Jiang Ning.Second Lieutenant Jiang Ning and Lu Xiaofeng looked at each other, and then said: "Divide people into two groups, the B-ranks in the shooting test stand back and reload, and the A-ranks step forward and shoot in volleys. Don't shoot randomly, follow the command in all actions."

The soldiers did as they said, and soon advanced to the gates, windows, etc., intending to rely on the walls to shoot at the enemy.Jiang Ning stopped their reckless behavior, but took out a bayonet and pried off a small piece of the wooden wall, allowing the soldiers to shoot from here.Coincidentally, the enemy commander seemed to be rushing up with reinforcements at this time, and the musket shooting between the two sides suddenly reached a climax. The projectiles flew across the yard, and the flames ejected from the muzzle could be seen at a glance at night. This is undoubtedly true. The officers and soldiers on both sides pointed out the direction of shooting - because the people on the east bank were protected by the wall, the shooting team composed of three or five people could always shoot the projectiles to the enemy's side, which caused their casualties to increase sharply. Yes, because they were shooting out of the hole dug in the wall, it was difficult for the enemy to hit the shooter on the east bank, so it is a miracle that only one of Jiang Ning, Lu Xiaofeng and others was injured.

After more than half an hour of fierce musket fire, the enemy commander changed his tactics. He placed a few people in the front to attract the firepower of the soldiers on the east bank, and then circled the rest of the people to the back of the storage room and climbed onto the roof. Then began to sabotage, intending to shoot from the top down to hit the East Coast people.It's just that they made too much noise. After being fired by a volley of guns, there were screams on the roof, and three corpses fell down; the rest of the enemies hurriedly threw some burning torches down, They rolled and climbed down, and the tactic of flanking from the roof failed.

The battle after that was a little dull. In the intermittent shooting, the East Coast man seemed to have shot the enemy commander, but it should not have caused fatal damage. The enemy slowly withdrew after yelling. The battlefield, and then there was no more sound.Second Lieutenant Jiang Ning was unmoved, and insisted on waiting until dawn before taking people out of the storage room. The yard was in a mess, with five or six corpses lying around, if you count the three corpses that fell from the roof last night , This attack killed a total of nine enemy soldiers—Second Lieutenant Jiang could tell from the faces of these people that most of them were Mamelucos of mixed blood, a few were Indians, but none of them were white.

The immigrants who tremblingly hid in the house during the fierce battle last night came out tremblingly. Lu Xiaofeng stepped forward and called them one by one. , the others were lucky enough to survive, probably because the enemy had no time to deal with them.

The former owner of the manor, the Portuguese Rodrigo, stared at the corpses on the ground with a pale face. He had seen several of them before, but he did not expect that they would die here.This is terrible, the East Coast people must think that they are in collusion with them, God, this is not true!

"Arrest their family!" Jiang Ning waved his hand, and the wolf-like soldiers stepped forward and tied up the family of five. Rodrigo and others did not dare to resist the power of the muskets, but they kept defending excitedly What.But who will care about them? The people on the east bank just want to kidnap them and lock them up. As for whether they are guilty or not, they have to be interrogated by the gendarmerie, and it has nothing to do with them.

The arrested Rodrigo family will naturally be sent to the nearest settlement, Taiping Township (located near the small town of Mogi das Cruz in later generations, newly established two months ago), only there is the gendarmerie offices and interrogation rooms.Jiang Ning didn't know what was waiting for Rodrigo's family. Maybe they didn't participate in the collusion with the Sao Paulo flag team members, or maybe they did. I'm afraid it's hard to figure it out.The final outcome of their family is probably exiled to overseas colonies by the gendarmerie who would rather kill the wrong than let go, because only in this way can everyone feel at ease.

After sending people to search the vicinity for a while—two more bodies were found, who should have died while being injured and fleeing—Jiang Ning returned to the manor with his people.Last night, two people on the east coast were killed and one was injured. The dead were two sentinels who were on duty at night. The wounded was wounded in the abdomen by a musket shot last night. At this time, this person is obviously dying. Although the wound has been carefully cleaned, But the wounded man, who knew that he was hopeless to be healed, called his fellow countryman, told him a brief last message, and then asked Lu Xiaofeng, who was standing in the room, to shoot himself, so as to end his continuous pain.

Lu Xiaofeng was too young and seemed unable to bear such a thing, so he refused humbly, and then, with red eyes, he came up with alcohol to wipe the wounds of the wounded soldiers, hoping that he would recover.The wounded soldier stopped his hand with difficulty, and then turned his begging gaze to Second Lieutenant Jiang Ning who had just returned.

Second Lieutenant Jiang, who has experienced this scene many times, sighed, and saw him stepping forward to hug the wounded soldier gently, then holding his hand with both hands, and said in a hoarse voice: "Julian, your family will The government has taken good care of your son, and your son will be assigned to work in the township government. We will tell him that you died while fighting for the country, and that you fought to the last moment. You heroically killed many enemies, and then perish with the enemy..."

Julian was immediately relieved when he heard the words. He gently withdrew his hand, fumbled for the general cap to straighten it, and finally looked at Second Lieutenant Jiang Ning with eyes full of sadness and nostalgia.Seeing this, Second Lieutenant Jiang waved his hand and drove the others out of the room. Then he loaded the 1633 flintlock pistol on his waist, pressed it against Julian's chest, and lightly pulled the trigger to end his 34-year-old suicide. life.

"Long live the Great East Coast! All the people of St. Paul deserve to die." He murmured softly, holding a pistol.

On April 4, Lu Xiaofeng, Jiang Ning and others who had finished their investigations in the vicinity returned to Taiping Township, which was being established, where he met the adjutant of Major Xiao Xi of the Second Mixed Battalion.The two unanimously suggested selecting veterans with military experience from the hinterland of the country to live with the newly arrived immigrants from Huai'an Prefecture, and at the same time provide intensive military training to these "weak citizens like chicks", and emphasized that this work must be done immediately. Go ahead without delay.In addition, the two unanimously asked when this year's autumn and winter sweeps will start, and said that the situation in the countryside is relatively chaotic, and the law and order strengthening campaign must be launched as soon as possible by means of thunder, otherwise the next step of immigration and border work cannot continue.

(End of this chapter)