The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 13 The Aftermath of the Seven Years' War

Manuel Bonn looked in surprise at the Ming man in front of him who was wearing a simple green robe. Countless familiar yet unfamiliar French words came out of his mouth quickly.

This made Manuel's head feel like a mess, but he basically understood what he meant.

In any case, this is much better than the poor Annan interpreter beside him.

Ou Zibu was almost sweating coldly. He was so careless that he forgot that French also has dialects. The French guy in front of him was speaking the Parisian French, which is known as standard French.

As for Ou Zibu, he learned French from a brother from Morocco when he was in Nigeria. Although it was still French, it had a stronger North African accent.

How can I describe the communication between the two people? It is a bit like the communication between people from the Northeast and the Southwest. They both barely belong to the Mandarin system, but they need to speak very slowly to barely communicate.

Fortunately, Ou Zibu was relieved in his heart. Fortunately, he learned it from the Moroccan brother. If he learned some West African French from those Benin blacks in the project, it would probably be as difficult as communicating in Cantonese and Mandarin.

After the two men struggled to communicate for a long time, Ou Zibu finally understood what was going on. This guy named Manuel Bonn was an explorer from France.

Well, he is called an explorer, but actually he is here to make some money. This guy has a level 5 sailing cruiser equipped with 32 guns and an armed merchant ship equipped with 20 guns.

This force cannot be said to be small. It is no problem to bully the natives of the Malay Peninsula and Kalimantan Island. However, it has no advantage when facing Chinese pirates who have fewer guns but more ships and people.

Therefore, he has been in Southeast Asia for several years, but he has no experience in business, cannot make money through illegal means, and has always been living off his savings. If this continues, he estimates that all the crew members he recruited from mainland France and North Africa will run away.

With his life at his wit's end, this idiot took on a dangerous job.

This was during the Seven Years' War, when Britain and France not only fought fiercely on the European and North American continents, but also in India.

Three years ago, the Governor-General of French India, Count Larry Tolandar, led more than 2,000 French troops and more than 1,000 Tamil vassal troops and was defeated by the British in the Battle of Vindivash, which led to the siege of Pondicherry, an important town in French India.

At this time, the British fleet had a considerable advantage on the sea westward leading to France. In order to prevent the fall of Pontoon, Count Larry Tolandal ordered all French fleets in the Pontoon port to leave India to seek rescue while also avoiding being blocked and burned by the British in the port.

Manuel Bonn happened to be governing locally at the time. He immediately told Count Larry Tolandal that he was willing to go to the East to seek assistance from powerful monarchs under Chinese control, or simply recruit Chinese pirates locally as long as the count was willing to pay.

He also promised to bring at least 1,500 elite warriors to Earl Tolandar.

Not only did Count Tolandal believe such outrageous words, he also gave the fifth-class sailing cruiser docked in the local administrative port, along with the thirteen French naval soldiers on board, more than thirty European scum and drunkard volunteer sailors, and twenty or thirty Tamil miscellaneous crew members, to Manuel Bonn.

When they arrived in Hoi An and saw two large sea vessels with a displacement of hundreds of tons, the Wei family quickly believed what Manuel Bonn said.

Within a year, he not only prepared a large amount of supplies and recruited more than 200 desperadoes, but also contacted the big pirate Tanka No. 2, preparing to make a big move with Manuel Bonn.

Unfortunately, before they could set sail, Champa Island, which had stored a large amount of supplies and personnel, was occupied by a group of strangers who came from nowhere.

The supplies were seized, the people were captured, and the big pirate Tankaer did not show up.

Afterwards, the Wei family asked Manuel Bonn to dispatch two Western warships to go with them to rescue Champa Island.

But Manuel Bonn kept making excuses, and the conflict between the two sides became increasingly serious. The Wei family even suspected that Manuel Bonn had colluded with the second Danjia family and deliberately came to harm them.

Well, I don’t know whether Manuel Bonn has colluded with the second boatman, Ou Zibu, but this guy must be lying and must have other intentions.

The reason is very simple. The Governor-General of French India, Count Larry Tolandal, was defeated in the Battle of Vendivash three years ago. In October of that year, the Local Government was besieged. With the ability of the British army, it was impossible for them to be unable to capture the Local Government after two years of siege.

He also vaguely remembered that Count Larry Tollandal not only lost his local government but was also captured, and was not released by the British until the end of the Seven Years' War. Furthermore, because he had revealed numerous French military secrets during his captivity and was largely responsible for the loss of the Indian colony, he was ultimately taken to Paris and beheaded.

Thinking of this, Ou Zibu stared at Manuel Bonn coldly.

Manuel Bonn was still chattering on about nonsense that had nothing to do with him, when he suddenly felt a cold light piercing his body, chilling him all over, and his speech involuntarily slowed down.

“Local governance is really still in your hands. I’m afraid Earl Tollandal has been captured by the British?

The British East India Company has three-tier battleships in Bengal. Are you, you idiot, going to drag us down with you to our doom?"

Manuel Bonn was stunned for a moment, because at that time, Chinese merchant ships rarely crossed the Strait of Malacca to India.

They may know that the French and British had many strongholds and the East India Company in India, but few people knew specifically about local governance, Bengal and other specific places.

They would not have known that the British East India Company had three-tier battleships in Bengal.

"Sir, the brave French soldiers will defend the local government, and the bounty promised by Count Tollendal remains valid."

Even when facing death, he still insisted on being stubborn. Ou Zibu turned his head and said, "Second Master, this is a scam. Fulangsha's stronghold in Tianzhu must have fallen.

The Anerians have several thousand regular troops in India, 10,000 to 20,000 vassal troops, and a large number of warships. They are definitely not something that can be dealt with by just a thousand men!"

Ou Zibu couldn't guess what the Frenchman was trying to do by insisting that local governance was still in place and trying to trick people into going to India, but he was sure that this guy was just lying.

Wei Haikun's face changed drastically.

However, Ou Zibu thought he was going to capture this Frenchman named Manuel Bonn immediately, but Wei Haikun did not take any action. His face was gloomy for a long time before he squeezed out a sentence.

"Keep an eye on him. I'll go to Guandi Temple and ask Grandpa Luo to come forward!"

Now it was Ou Zibu's turn to be stunned. What he didn't know was that among the more than 1,000 Europeans including their families in the southern city of Hoi An, there were at least 600 to 700 French people, accounting for more than 60 to 70 percent of the Europeans.

Among these French people, there were a small number of Catholic missionaries who had been active in Indochina and hoped to spread the gospel there.

A very large part of them came from the local administration, Kalaika and Yanam in French India.

The Wei family's strength was not enough to overwhelm the French. This was also an important reason why they trusted Manuel Bonn.

A monk can run away, but he can't run away from the temple.

After Ou Zibu knew the reason, he secretly reminded himself that although he knew the direction of history, he needed to be more cautious in making judgments on the details.

But this is interesting. From now on, Manuel Bonn doesn't seem to be the person he thought he was. He is here to cheat people. So what exactly does he want to do?

While he was daydreaming, there was a sudden commotion at the gate of the Wei family mansion. Wei Haikun's son came crawling in, tears of panic hanging in the corners of his eyes.

"Dad, something happened on Champa Island. Those thieves suddenly blocked our port with small boats and trapped Uncle on the island. Ah Hui and the others went to rescue him but were beaten back."

Oh no! Ou Zibu was also startled. It sounded like the head of the Wei family, Wei Rikun, who went to negotiate, was directly detained.

(End of this chapter)