After the initial shock, Hersman immediately felt awe of the military strength of the Australian and Song Dynasty.

Thousands of construction workers were strictly managed by the Ao-Song Dynasty, working and resting in a unified manner under the guidance of horns and passwords, and students from Taipei Normal School came to teach cultural classes at night... He could almost have foreseen that, when the Doge's palace needed it, these workers, who were familiar with the instructions, who worked closely together, and who had rudimentary literacy, would immediately put on their uniforms, take up their rifles, and become a group of soldiers ten times better than Gustav's (Note 1) army.

Thinking of this, this former European military aristocrat had a different meaning in his eyes. He looked deeply at the workers singing and busy on the deserted construction site, as if he saw thousands of soldiers training.

"Let's go, Hersman." I said to him, "The next carriage is coming, we should go to the port, haven't you always wanted to see the port of our country." ”

Hersman nodded slowly, subconsciously grasped the saber at his waist with his left hand, and turned to keep up with us.

Both to the north and west of Taipei are large construction sites. The port built along the Taipei River can no longer handle the increasingly heavy transportation demands. As a result, a new port covering several square kilometers – a particular part of all the infrastructure during the Taipei boom was a particularly large area – is being planned and constructed.

The large port, which will be named New Port, is designed to be dual-use. The water depth of up to 10 meters can accommodate the largest ironclad battleship at present, and even now, the renovated new port has two sub-ports of "Kyushu-class" steel cruisers that can withstand 13,000 tons.

Instead of entering the port site, we overlooked the magnificent port from the fort in Huwei Park.

After looking at the port construction site for a while, Hersman felt aesthetic fatigue with the super projects everywhere along the way, but he thought about the few cannons around him.

His rough hands caressed the cold cannon body, and his big head subconsciously leaned closer, observing these cannons produced in the last century little by little.

"Produced by the Red River Arsenal in the South China Sea Governor's District, the Type 1580 fortress gun. Foundry worker: XX, XX, XX, inspector: XX, general director: XX. ”

Hearing Hersman softly read out the inscription on the cannon, Jiang Xiaobai said interestingly: "This kind of cannon is outdated. It was probably the last large-scale bronze cannon, several times more expensive than today's iron cannons, and was phased out at the beginning of this century. ”

"Has it been eliminated?" said Hersmann, patting the cannon lightly, listening to the sound of the chamber, "In Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire, it is impossible for craftsmen to forge such a delicate cannon. They could not deal with the problem of deformation and bubbles in the gun body. ”

"Can this artillery be bought?" Hersman suddenly looked up at me and said.

"Hmm... Ordinary citizens can't buy it. However, if you want to go to Africa or the Americas to engage in privateering, you can apply to the Colonial Division. I reminded him, "But this cannon is not for field combat, and if you want to buy it, you should buy a much smaller one." ”

Hersman smiled and shook his head: "Of course I didn't buy this cannon, even if my manor was still there, I couldn't afford it... Maybe Viscount Brand can't afford it either. ”

I patted the other cannon and looked at it in the direction of the muzzle. It is the estuary of the Taipei River. At a time when the Republic had just eliminated the Dutch and Spaniards and ruled Taiwan, the fortress blocking Taipei's access to the sea was firmly defending the burgeoning city of Taiwan, and no one dared to risk being smashed to pieces by cannons against the current.

It's just that since the fort was built, no enemy has been seen. As for the cannon next to me, it only fires up during the celebration.

So the fortress became a scenic spot, the fortress became a park, and we also had the opportunity to stand here and reminisce about the years with the citizens of three or three.

Then I saw another acquaintance.

"Hey! Iwai-kun! ”

Leaning against the wall, I waved to Jiro Iwai, who passed below. The samurai, who had excelled in the Battle of the Middle Front, was now dressed in a white robe and walking along the park road, accompanied by a woman holding a baby.

Iwai was visibly taken aback when he heard me shout in Japanese, and when he looked up and saw his boss in Kyushu, he couldn't help but look happy.

He turned around and said something to the woman behind him, and he quickly came up the stairs, pushed the golden mountain and poured the jade pillar a few meters away, knelt on the ground with a "bang", and bowed deeply.

I was taken aback by his enthusiasm, and hurriedly stepped forward to hold him up, and pulled him to stand beside him: "Why did Iwai-kun come to Taipei?" What happened to the war in Japan? ”

Iwai bowed deeply again, and then replied respectfully with his eyes lowered: "Back to Your Excellency Commander, the contemptible person was selected by Commander Qian Ran to come to Taipei to exchange experience in mountain combat with the invincible National Defense Force, and to learn some army knowledge in Taiwan, so that he can serve as an officer of the Western Alliance Rapid Reaction Force in the future. ”

"Now the territory of Ximeng has long been calm. By the time he left Nagasaki, Commander Qian had already led his fleet out to sea, passing through the Kagoshima Domain and heading east to bombard Edo. ”

Jiang Xiaobai and I looked at each other and smiled. The current war in Japan has entered a garbage time to brush up on the battle record. The only new army that could pose a threat to us was basically folded in Kyushu, relying on the shogunate's sampan navy, which is really a bit difficult to arouse our interest.

The woman who had followed Jiro Iwai before also slowly came to the fort at this time and saluted us with a blessing.

Iwai hurriedly introduced: "This is a contemptible person, I have admired adults for a long time, but I haven't had the opportunity to see them before." Today, when I was fortunate enough to meet an adult, the contemptible person had the courage to let her come up and ask for your forgiveness. ”

Seeing me and Jiang Xiaobai smiling and waving their hands, Iwai gritted his teeth, turned around and took a baby from the woman's arms, knelt down again and said, "My lord, this is a contemptible child, not long after birth, and he has not yet been named." When he was born, he was still ambushing the Terazawa thief. It's a great blessing to see the adult today, I wonder if the adult is willing to give the surname and the dog, so that he can follow your surname Li? ”

"Uh..."

I was a little hesitant. This is the first time I've encountered this kind of thing, and I don't know what to do for a while.

Hirschman beside him was indifferent, and he felt that this was probably the same thing as the patristic system in Europe. Jiang Xiaobai gently pulled me, and his eyes signaled that I refused the matter.

"If this person's son follows your surname Li, others will think that he has a special relationship with you, and you will not be able to get out of contact with him in the future. You are a nobleman and a promising officer, and it is too risky to be around with such inferior people, it is not worth it. Jiang Xiaobai told me afterwards.

At the time, I didn't think that far ahead, but I just thought that a Japanese person should not follow my surname. However, Iwai was discovered by me personally, and he made great contributions on the battlefield, so it would hurt my feelings to refuse it.

"Hmm... Iwai-kun, our Chinese civilization attaches great importance to children's surnames. My head was spinning rapidly, and my mouth was still talking, "If your son follows my surname Li, it is not in line with etiquette, and it is very bad." It's better to do this, your surname is Iwai, let him be surnamed Iwai, and also have my surname pronunciation. ”

"However, the surname Iwanli is rare, and it can be replaced with the more common Japanese 'Iwanli', and the pronunciation of this surname is the same as 'Iwanli' in Chinese."

"Iwanari Iwani, well, since you haven't named him yet, I'll think of one."

"The child's father was a combat hero and built martial arts. If you let your child enter politics, you can also make great achievements, and the father and son are both civil and military, which is also a good story. The child is also a boy, and it can be called... Well, 'masao'. ”

"Thank you, for your name." Iwai fell to his knees again and looked excitedly at the boy in his arms - he had just received his name and was now called Iwasato Masao.

"Let's have another Chinese name, so that it will be convenient to study and enter politics in the future." Jiang Xiaobai said to me.

"Well, this proposal is also right... Let's call it Li Shanghuang, taking the meaning of 'ascending to glory'. ”

Note 1: Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, the Great. Slaughtered in the Thirty Years' War. He was killed at the Battle of Lüzen on November 6, 1632, at the age of 38.