The arrogance started from Chinatown

Chapter 237: The Taiping Army in Iquique

As the steamship's whistle sounded, a 60-meter-long passenger and cargo steamship slowly entered the port of Iquique.

Situ Ye stood on the side of the boat, looking at the desert and the large white rocks in the distance and said, "It's not quite what I thought!"

"Who would have thought that there would be sand everywhere here? It's much worse than San Francisco!" Guan Qianbo looked at the scattered piles of wood in the port and the simple wooden houses around it.

There are large white stones in the distance. From afar, it seems that many people are moving on them, as densely packed as ants.

Although I heard from the captain before that there was only bird droppings here and nothing else.

However, the dilapidated and desolate state of this place still exceeded their imagination.

"Be careful when you go down, there are some Chinese miners here... Although you are dressed neatly, you still have to be careful that the locals may mistake you for miners and capture you!" the captain reminded.

"Got it! The ship will wait for us here for a few days. This place is not that big, so we can probably get things done quickly." Situ Ye said.

We should be more careful about what the captain said.

Fortunately, we brought a Spanish translator and a few Germans with us.

With these foreigners around, things become much more convenient and a lot of trouble can be avoided.

The group got off the boat, feeling finally alive, and looked around as they walked.

Here you can also see foreigners wearing gentlemen's clothes and brown natives wearing simple clothes.

"The people here are mostly Mexican..."

"The rich ones are all foreigners...they are Spanish. The others who look like Mexicans are natives, and they are said to be Peruvians!"

Everyone looked around as they walked, and asked the Spanish translator and the German to inquire about the news of the Chinese here.

After giving out a few dollars, the situation was quickly understood.

Those large pieces of white rocks are guano mines, and the Chinese miners work in those guano mines under the scorching sun.

In addition, there are many guards at the guano mine who watch the miners work and prevent them from escaping.

Situ Ye and Guan Qianbo discussed it and decided to split the men into two groups. One group would go to the mine to bribe the guards and look for the man named Weng Derong.

The other group stayed on the ship.

To avoid any accidents and getting caught in one fell swoop.

After finishing the meal, the two sides separated.

Situ Ye took several Chinese and Germans, as well as a Spanish translator, and rented two horse-drawn carriages to the distant guano mine.

When we arrived at the outskirts of the mine, we saw some soldiers sitting on rocks, with their guns lying loosely on the side.

"It's a gunpowder gun!" Situ Ye felt relieved immediately after seeing the gun leaning against the rock.

In addition to guns, the guards also carried knives.

Situ Ye counted and found that there were twenty or thirty soldiers in the area he saw, and there should be about a hundred people in the entire area.

If a conflict really breaks out, they may not be afraid of each other. They brought a lot of weapons with them, including several spears.

Seeing the carriage approaching, several soldiers immediately came over lazily.

"Who? What do you do?"

"We are Americans. Our boss heard from someone that a relative had wandered here, so he asked us to come and look for him. We brought him a letter!" The Spanish translator immediately got off the carriage and stuffed a few British dollars into the other party's hands.

"Please help us, can you find someone here?"

The soldier looked at the few British pound coins in his hand, then turned his head to look into the distance.

There are so many of them, and you only give them a few British francs?
The Spanish translator had no choice but to stuff a small bag of British silver into the other party's pocket.

The other party accepted it with satisfaction and asked, "What's your name?"

"Weng Derong!" Situ Ye also got off the carriage and said.

"I'll go and ask for you. If I can't find it, I won't return the money to you." The soldier looked at Situ Ye and the foreigners who got off the carriage, and said directly.

I have to say, if it were just Situ Ye and a few others, things wouldn't have gone so smoothly.

Peru has been colonized by Spain for so many years that the impression that the foreigners are superior has been ingrained in their bones.

And in their opinion, Germans and Spanish are almost the same, not to mention there is a real Spaniard among them.

Naturally, I won't cause trouble.

"Tell him that if he can't find it, bring two Chinese people here and I will ask them!" Situ Ye said to the Spanish translator.

Ten minutes after the soldier left, he brought back two thin, dark-skinned Chinese men, one of whom was older and had gray hair.

The other one looked to be in his forties.

Both men had shackles on their feet and were only wearing tattered pants, and were barefoot.

However, people look particularly old in this kind of environment, and the real age of these two people is probably much younger than they look.

After seeing Situ Ye and the others, the other party seemed a little excited and asked quickly:
"Who are you? Where are you from?"

"We have been here for more than ten years, and we finally see fellow villagers. Are you from the Qing Dynasty? Is the current imperial court still the Qing Dynasty?"

Situ Ye spoke to the Spanish translator, then took the two of them aside to talk.

"We are from the United States, and the country is still under the Qing Dynasty!" Situ Ye asked:

“Who is Weng Derong?”

The two looked at each other and said, "General Weng has passed away! What do you want from him?"

"Dead of illness?" Situ Ye was slightly stunned. "He has been dead for several years... Did you come here just to find General Weng?"

"Who has the final say here now?"

"We are all coolies mining here, what do we have to say?" The older man said bitterly:
"If you have anything to say, you can tell me. My last name is Chen, so I won't tell you my name. It would be disgraceful for us to be like this."

"This letter is for Weng Derong, but he has passed away due to illness, so it can be given to you!" Situ Yedao took out a letter wrapped in oil paper from his arms.

Before coming here, Chen Zhengwei had said that this situation might happen.

It's been more than ten years, maybe the person is still there.

The man surnamed Chen quickly opened the letter, and then a look of reminiscence, trance and surprise appeared on his face.

"Master Lin is actually in the United States! I met Master Lin several times before, but I didn't expect that more than ten years later, I would hear from him again!"

"But now things are different!"

In the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's military system, the army commander was in charge of 1 people, and the division commander was in charge of 3156 people.

In the later period of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, official titles were rampant, and the highest title of king had more than 2000 people.

There are even more officers at the level of army commanders and division commanders, but most of them simply do not have enough troops under their command.

However, Lin Mingsheng brought the remaining troops to join the King of Attendants after the death of the King of Wings. This remaining army was very powerful and was quite famous under the King of Attendants.

At that time, Weng Derong was only a division commander. After the King of Attendants was defeated, Weng Derong gathered many remaining soldiers during the retreat and thus proclaimed himself the military commander.

This man named Chen had met Lin Mingsheng several times while following Weng Derong, so he was a little surprised when he saw the signature.

After a while, the other party calmed down and asked, "What is the situation in the United States now? Who is the person in charge?"

"The situation is much better than here! The person in charge is my boss, Mr. Chen, but my boss is engaged to Mr. Lin's daughter, and they will be a family in the future!" Situ Ye heard something from the other party's words.

"Does he want us to go to the United States to help him?" the other party asked again.

"He wants to rebel?"

Situ Ye smiled, worthy of being a remnant of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

"My boss needs some brave and hardworking people to do the job! As for whether you will rebel or not, I don't know! But can you still hold knives and guns?"

The man surnamed Chen looked down at his palms, and after a moment of silence, he said, "Although I am old, I can still kill people!"

"Then how did you end up like this?" Situ Ye looked at the guano mine next to him.

"It's hard to explain in a few words!" The man surnamed Chen sighed and then spoke.

The remnant of the army was forced into a corner and had no choice but to sell themselves to sea merchants, and then were sold here to work as miners.

They were shackled when they boarded the ship. Besides, they were just trying to survive and didn't think of resisting.

Everyone was transported here in batches, and after arriving here, they were dispersed to various places to mine.

Not only were they shackled and starved to eat, but there were also soldiers watching them with guns, so it was difficult to resist even if they wanted to.

Besides, there is nothing but desert and sea around here. Where can these people run to even if they resist?
Without supplies, what would it matter if they managed to seize the boat? Besides, they didn't know how to sail.

The man surnamed Chen sighed and looked melancholy.

Then he looked at Situ Ye and asked, "Master Lin wrote to ask us to go to the United States. I have no objection. As long as there is a way to make a living, it is better than mining here!"

"How many people do you want?" The man surnamed Chen was a little nervous when he said this.

“How many people are there in Iquique?”

"There are still about 10,000 of us, and there are also some Chinese workers who have been sold here one after another. Adding up, there are no less than 15,000 people!"

"These 15,000 people are distributed throughout Iquique, in a total of seven or eight mines, with the largest number of people being 2,000 to 3,000, and the smallest number being less than 1,000." The man surnamed Chen became even more nervous.

Lin Mingsheng's letter only talked about the situation in the United States and asked whether they wanted to go to the United States.

But he didn't say how many people were needed.

If they only need a few hundred people, or even one or two thousand people...if these people run away, the remaining people will be even more sad.

"Our boss said we'll take as many as we can get!" said Situ Ye.

"Really?" The man surnamed Chen's eyes suddenly widened and he became emotional.

"How could it be false?" Situ Ye smiled.

"How many ships have you got?" the man surnamed Chen asked.

"We came here this time to explore the way and see your situation!" said Situ Ye.

When Chen heard this, he realized that he was too impatient.

After looking at the soldiers not far away, he said, "These people must go together, otherwise those who stay behind will surely die. Can you arrange a ship to transport more than 10,000 people?"

"So many years have passed, there's no need to rush!" Situ Ye was calm.

"I have to go back first to see how to arrange it, and then I can give you an answer."

"You're right... I've been through this for so many years... but I just can't calm down when I hear this news!" The man surnamed Chen said self-deprecatingly.

　Just refresh and watch again. I just made a serious mistake.

　　Apologies to the readers who initially saw duplicate or missing content.

　　0.04 has been changed.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)