As a commercial port that was built less than a year ago, Dalian is far from being comparable with well-known cities like Nanjing, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, and even Linqing. For Europeans like Dimon and Kuiyi, who have never seen the world, the city in front of them is already extremely prosperous.

Since it is to be investigated, it is necessary to take a good look.

A colonizer is a colonist, even if he knows that the Ming Dynasty is an invincible giant, but Fan. The first target of Dimen's expedition was still the fort located in Dalian Bay!

As far as the sea defense is concerned, Dalian is not a fortress-type harbor, but as a port city, it is simply a naked beauty if it does not build a fort, so as early as the beginning of the city's construction, two fortress-type forts were built, which is certainly not a fort fort stacked with bamboo fort baskets. Instead, they were built out of stone to form a fortress. These two bastions are not large in scale, they were built on the drawings of the coastal bastions of the early 19th century, and compared with the bastions of this era, its structure is more complete and scientific, and the stone and cement bastions are still very strong, although not as strong as reinforced concrete. Facing the ocean side, in addition to the installation of 50 catties of caron guns, twenty-seven catties of fortress guns were also installed! It was the equivalent of a 36-pounder fortress cannon in Europe, though it would take about another century for the cannon to be minted.

If the two forts were to be completed, they would have eighteen fortified guns of twenty-seven pounds, plus twenty-four eighteen fortified forts and more than sixty caron guns, which would be enough to deal a fatal blow to any fleet that tried to invade Dalian by water.

Although the main body of the fortress was not completed, the gun emplacements had been installed on the side facing the ocean, and everyone chose to remain silent in the face of the huge fortress guns on the gun emplacements.

"Even in Europe, there is no such big artillery!"

In this moment, Fan. Dimon's heart is congested!

Not because you can't take the city, but because ...... To whom the weapons on his ship were sold. Especially when he discovered that the soldiers guarding the battery were actually using flintlock pistols that did not require arquebuses, his face became even more ugly.

Actually, he was really wrong. Those guns were more advanced firing guns than flintlock guns. However, from a distance, it looks a little similar to a flintlock pistol.

"Your Excellency, they seem to be using the most advanced dog-lock flintlock flintlock pistol in Europe."

Second Lieutenant Pierce's reminder to make Van . Dimon said upset.

"I know ......"

He knew, of course, that this was the most advanced firearm in Europe at the moment. Even Batavia doesn't have much. But here, they have already used these extremely advanced weapons.

Damn it, the Portuguese must have sold them these advanced weapons. That's for sure, some of the Portuguese have factories for casting artillery in Macau, well, since they can sell their artillery to the Ming Dynasty, they will definitely sell their muskets to the Celestial Empire.

"Then we're bringing an arquebus, I'm afraid we're going to smash it in our hands."

Even if they brought the most advanced Sur arquebus, it was still an arquebus! It's still better to have no flintlock pistols.

Kuichi interrupted him.

"Pierce, do you know why you're still a second lieutenant?"

"What?"

Pierce looked at Kuichi in bewilderment, apparently he hadn't noticed the Governor's dark face.

"Let's take a look on the streets!"

Fan. Dimon said with some interest.

As a city, Dalian is different from any city in the Ming Dynasty - it has no city walls, and even together with the planning of the city, it is also different from any city in this era, in order to save trouble, Zhu Guoqiang directly chose to take the doctrine, in the city planning directly took the late 19th century, the planning of Dalian when the city was built, the layout of the whole city, is also different from the traditional old city chessboard pattern, but changed to a radial spider web road. The center of the entire city street in Dalian is the 213-meter-diameter Poyu Square, which radiates out from 10 streets, with green spaces and gardens in the middle, and the surrounding large and small trees divide the space...... Of course, all of this is still under construction, but only in the beginning.

As the most prosperous "golden location" in Dalian, all the buildings on both sides belong to the Taiping Commercial Bank, and the largest shareholder of the Taiping Commercial Bank is Zhu Guoqiang himself, as for the shareholder, he is the general in the Pinglu army, which is of course also a kind of interest binding.

Compared with other empty streets, Poyu Street is undoubtedly prosperous, on both sides of the bluestone paved road, many Ming-style buildings have been built, and many buildings are under construction.

Actually, for Fan. As far as Dimon and his entourage were concerned, this group of people were like dirt buns on this wide street, and they were surprised to feel the prosperity here.

"Are you sure this is a newly built city?"

"At the beginning of the year, when the Northern Expedition recovered here, this was just a barren land!"

Obviously, no one believed Yun Haiping's answer.

Who can believe all this?

At night, the street lamps in Dalian City are lit, and you are in a hotel next to a small square on the other side of the city. Dimon noticed the industrial area in the distance, where there were shipyards, arsenals, yarn mills, and other factories.

During the day, Van . They had visited there, and although they were not allowed to enter the arsenal, in the shipyard, on the stone slipway, they saw many workers busy there, and the ship they were building was not the same shape as the European Galen and the traditional Ming sea-going ships, but a new type of ship, with its round bow and stern not only lacking in beauty, but even looking a little ugly.

But even so, he still believed that the construction was a kind of warship, and those gun windows and dense ribs could not hide people's ears!

There are at least three of these warships on the slipway, which is a real concern!

Although the current East India Company has nearly 60 ships, none of them have any warships, all of them are armed merchant ships, in fact, there are not many specially designed warships in the Netherlands in this era, most of them are armed merchant ships, but there are more guns and fewer guns.

It seems that they are forming a real fleet!

Although he didn't think that Ming would get involved in Batavia, the businessman's instincts told Fan. Dimon, that's not a good thing. His brow furrowed.

"Your Excellency the Governor, I don't think this is a good place to do business!"

A snap interrupted his thoughts.

"It's really not a good choice, it's too close to the north, and the time we got here is even farther away than going to Nagasaki."

Fan. Dimon nodded.

"But, on the other hand, it's also an opportunity for us, and it's going to be the first port of our free entry, from where we sail west into the Bohai Sea, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, and if we establish a trading base here, it will be easy to enter the capital of the Ming Dynasty in the future, which is a place that Europeans have never been."

The Europeans were, of course, but European merchants never went directly into that city to trade. In fact, for European merchants, let alone the capital, even if they can directly enter Guangzhou to do business, it is already God blessed.

Although the Ming Dynasty lifted the sea ban, what is this opening? It is to allow the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty to go to sea for trade, which does not mean that Westerners can come to the ports of the Ming Dynasty to do business casually. In other words, the maritime ban that was fully liberalized during the Wanli period was actually the "Navigation Regulations" half a century earlier, just like Cromwell's "Navigation Regulations", which was the "opening" to protect the Ming maritime trade monopoly, and only the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty could transport the goods of the Ming Dynasty to overseas for trade, and in order to ensure all this, European ships were even directly prohibited from entering the port of the Ming Dynasty for direct trade.

This kind of trade protection is undoubtedly extremely important for the daimyo who have just opened the sea, after all, as soon as they go to sea, they will face Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, those maritime experts, and if they are completely open to free competition in the port, how can the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty compete with them? Nautical protection of nature is a matter of course.

However, many people do not agree with this, in their opinion, Cromwell's "Navigation Regulations" is to protect Britain, but this behavior of the Ming Dynasty is to close the country, "I Qing Dynasty" to close the country, that is to follow the Ming Dynasty.

See, in fact, those people are still a problem with the ass. In their eyes, the farts of the Qing Dynasty are fragrant, and the foreigners are of course more fragrant!

And this is also the reason why the trading strongholds of Macau and Geranza are important - this is the best choice for them to obtain Ming goods, otherwise they can only sit in Batavia and wait for the merchant ships of the Ming Kingdom, but the fatal is so, there are still middlemen to make the difference.

That's why, Fan. The reason why Dimon is here in person is to get rid of the middlemen.

"Yes."

He nodded.

"However, this is still difficult to change, its geographical location is not ideal, I have asked some Ming people, there are less than a million Ming people living here, and as long as you walk in the north for a few days, you will enter the territory of the barbaric Tatars, who are at war with the Ming Kingdom!"

"The territory of the Tatars? In what place? ”

Fan. Dimon asked suddenly.

"Just to the north, Dalian was occupied by the Tatars in the past and recovered by His Royal Highness the Prince, but the Tatars are still a threat to them."

He replied.

"We can also go to Korea, which is now also the territory of the Tatars, and even their emperor is there."

"Tatars?"

Fan. Dimen pondered for a moment, then said.

"Are they barbarians? Like the Tatars in the Crimea? ”