Chapter 400 The Governor with Dreams

Probably by military origin, Felburg was determined and resolute and keen on the use of force.

At the beginning of his tenure, he began to frequently crusade against the hostile local native villages, and at the same time, he was unrelenting and resolutely suppressed those Han immigrants who did not obey discipline and tried to resist.

To this end, he asked the company's council to send him more soldiers and gunboats to continue to build up his military power in order to maintain his oppressive rule, citing the lack of troops.

This request was rightfully rejected at the outset - the size of the company's army in the East Indies was already small, and the small number of men already accounted for more than a third of the army, making it extremely difficult for the company to rule elsewhere.

If the trade situation of the Dayuan has not been opened, agriculture alone will not be able to sustain the expenditure, you must know that the land in Java Province, where the headquarters Batavia is located, is far more fertile than the Dayuan, and it is impossible to go to the Dayuan to open up the wasteland and cultivate the land.

Today's Spaniards, far from being as wealthy as they once were, watched their own shipping routes very closely, and it became increasingly difficult to plunder their Pacific shipping routes.

Under the internal and external difficulties, the company's council almost wanted to give up its members.

In the end, Fairburg used his connections to lobby everywhere and spent hundreds of thousands of guilders in bribes to barely get 1,300 soldiers and two large gunboats.

After some arguments, several of the country's bigwigs, the directors of the seven provincial republics, finally forced the council to agree on the pretext that it was an important base against the Spanish threat.

The reason for the success of Feuerburg is that in addition to using the temptation of money, it is also a good understanding of the psychology of the bigwigs, the Dutch who have just escaped Spanish rule, the fear and resentment of the original suzerain, so that they always put the confrontation against the Spanish in the first place, even if they lose money, they cannot easily give up the big man.

Of course, Feuerburg has not received any news so far, and the batch of gold and silver property he transported back to China and a large number of "piglets", including the part of the gold coins used for bribery, have already fallen into Lin Xiao's pocket along with the "Unicorn".

If he learned that he still owed a huge amount of favor to the bigwigs, I don't know if he would be so angry that he vomited blood and died.

You must know that the Dutch United East India Company treats its employees quite harshly, and even if they become members of the Council, the salary of the chief of Formosa is still very low, and it is impossible to accumulate a few dollars without engaging in some smuggling activities on their own.

Even so, some of the silver coins used for bribes were embezzled from public funds, so they had to be repaid slowly.

The reason why Feuerburg endured the pain was certainly not all out of public interest.

After all, isn't it for that personal ambition? The governor's term of office was not long, and in order to fight for greater power later, this money had to be spent.

"Money can make ghosts grind!" Feuerburg certainly understands this.

……

However, just two years later, he wanted someone to ask for a boat again, and the old men of the company's council would definitely not readily agree.

You must know that although the company has more than 40,000 employees, most of them are crew members, and the total number of mercenaries is only 10,000 people, and there are currently nearly 3,000 people in the main force.

Staff-short, council officials are short-sighted, and they rarely respond positively to any of his suggestions, whether it's requests, bribes, or threats.

Feuerburg came to the conclusion that the Council was unreliable, and that if it wanted to achieve its goal, it would have to rely on the bigwigs again.

To this end, he specially asked a certain captain to bring a letter to his wife, who remained in the country, and instructed her to immediately make a point around and enlist the support of the bigwigs, although he did not know if it was too late.

He won't give up easily, he's Fairburg, he's a governor with dreams!

Keeping the big man, constantly plundering the maritime trade, and then conquering a port off the coast of China by force, finally forcing the Chinese government to agree to trade between the two sides.

This is his Felburg dream! It is also a key factor in determining his future career!

"These abominable yellow-skinned monkeys, they only recognize cannons and muskets! Only by beating them hard can we teach them how to get along with people......"

He wrote in the letter.

……

When Feuerburg thought of this, he looked with disgust at the workers who were working hard to fortify the castle - most of them were local Han Chinese immigrants.

Labor scarcity has always been a problem for the chief executives, and with the exception of the mercenaries in charge of the defense, their company employees on the island, including slaves and hired natives of the East Indies, have never exceeded a thousand, and they are always attritional—some hospitalized, some dead.

To do so, he had to hire Chinese to complete most of the civil engineering and reclamation work, which was quite labor-intensive and exacerbated the already deteriorating financial situation of the senior staff.

However, in matters of defense, he did not dare to be careless at all.

In the company's commercial halls around the country, there are still hundreds of thousands of guilders in cash and goods, and in case of a mistake, the company will never forgive itself.

The directors of the republics of the seven provinces showed no mercy to those who hurt their profits—the fate of the third governor, Peter Natz, was alive.

……

Felburg's mood was not high today, and that was because there was another thing that worried him at the moment.

After the crew members who had returned from trading in Zhangzhou Bay came ashore, he learned from them that a fleet of "countless huge ships" had come to Weitou Bay from Guangdong and joined the men and horses of the "national surname".

At first, Feuerburg was a little skeptical of the news - the crew of these junk ships were all Han Chinese, and most of them were illiterate.

The concept of the number of these people is very bad, and when the number is too large, it may not be clear, and can only be described by words such as "many" and "countless".

However, if they can tell "too many to count", at least a dozen ships have arrived there, and all of them are "giant ships", although they are illiterate, but they will never regard the small fishing boats off the coast of China as "giant ships".

In fact, Feuerburg had some predictions about who was coming - it was probably the gang of murderers!

The one that can be called a "giant ship" is at least a ship of more than 500 tons, and the one who can mobilize so many large ships in East Asian waters at once, except for the "national surname" Zheng Sen, is estimated to be the mysterious Ming army - according to the eyeliner's report, the Portuguese who were killed in Haojing were confiscated several large warships.

No matter who they are, they will inevitably come from Guangdong to Fujian with bad intentions - the target is either the Qing army or the big soldiers.

Fairburg looked at the busy construction site worriedly, hoping that they would join Zheng Sen and just go to the Qing army.

"Alas! If only I hadn't provoked them......"

"If it weren't for revenge, maybe they wouldn't be interested here...... Don't they have a mirror? ”

If the company could occupy such a good base at the mouth of the Pearl River, it would have been satisfied with large-scale trade, how could it still run to Dayuan, an island that is both barren and full of savages.

Among other things, tropical diseases here alone kill dozens of soldiers and sailors every year......

After thinking about it, Feuerburg decided to send a reconnaissance ship to Zhangzhou Bay again to find out about the movements of the group......

(End of chapter)