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Only half a month later, Ding You, the head of Taiwan's Colonization Group, led a few craftsmen to find various mountainous areas rich in clay, bluestone, and lime mines near the Da Belly area, and then built brick factories, lime factories, quarries and cement factories in these places, and recruited a group of surplus laborers from the immigrants as factory workers.

According to Li Xiao's opinion, Ding You arranged a very generous salary for these people, the general person in charge of the factory director, Li Xiao generously gave them a salary of 8 taels per month, and the head of the craftsmen in charge of the following branches was 4 taels per person, and all ordinary workers were 1.5 taels of silver per person per month, even the lowest level of apprentices had an income of 0.5 taels of silver per month, and they were covered with food and accommodation.

Because of the good salary, a large number of young people from immigrant families with surplus labor came to apply for workers, such as Wang Ergou, the younger brother of Wang Dagou, a displaced man from Shaanxi, so he left home to sign up in the cement factory and become an apprentice worker.

After all kinds of basic factories were built, Li Xiao finally determined the specific location of Changhua City after careful on-site inspection during this time.

This place, located in a gentle terrain in the original Erlin area, is about six or seven miles away from the tributaries of the Turbidity River, the transportation is convenient, the line of sight is broad, and it is very convenient for immigrants from Datu, Erlin and Nanshe to come to the city.

Li Xiao brought hundreds of craftsmen from Chifengwei as the backbone, and temporarily recruited nearly 4,000 able-bodied laborers as construction workers on the spot, and the remuneration was as generous as that of the factory workers.

After the manpower and materials were ready, Li Xiao ordered that Changhua City, which had been marked with gray lines, immediately began to be built on the spot.

In Li Xiao's planning, this Changhua City, because the east is facing the Taichung Mountains, there is no need to open a city gate, there will only be three city gates in the west, south and north, and there are moats dug around it, which just use the tributaries of the Turbid Water Creek to fill it and make it pass around the city.

Each gate, at any cost, is designed to hide the way of the jack pendant, and the city walls of Changhua City, such as the urn city, the city tower, the corner tower, the gun emplacement, the female wall, the pheasant moat, etc., will also be all built. Like Chifeng Castle, it was designed with a height of 15 meters and a wall road 6 meters wide, which greatly strengthened the castle's defenses.

Due to the abundant supply of manpower and materials, Li Xiao predicts that the new city should be completed within four months, just in time to avoid the arrival of the typhoon season.

Everything, it seems, is going well.

It's just that Li Xiao, who originally thought that everything would go smoothly, never thought that now that he was harmless to humans and animals and abided by his duty, someone was secretly beating him.

The trees want to be quiet, and the wind does not stop.

In mid-January of the tenth year of Chongzhen.

At the open day in the middle of this month, a young man dressed as an indigenous Taiwanese came out of the Datuxi Bay with a kitchen knife and a small packet of sea salt in his hand.

There is no difference between this person and the appearance of ordinary Taiwanese aborigines, and none of the soldiers patrolling back and forth notice that he is actually looking around with a cold and dull expression.

The young native, in a rather low-key manner, walked quietly in the belly area, and when he came to the official yamen, he stood at a distance, carefully looked at the official mansion and the nearby warehouses and other buildings in the big belly area, until a soldier noticed him and asked him from a distance, and then quietly left with his head bowed.

No one knew that the real identity of this young Taiwanese native, named Heiqi, was a familiar spy employed by the Dutch in southern Taiwan.

Here it is necessary to briefly introduce the process of the Dutch colonization of Taiwan.

As early as the mid-16th century, when a Portuguese ship was passing through the Taiwan Strait, a crew member happened to look from afar, found a verdant island, and couldn't help but shout formosa (Portuguese meaning of beautiful island), and that's it. This formosa. It has become a fixed name for the island of Taiwan in the Western world.

From this time until 1624, Taiwan has not been occupied by foreign invading forces, until 1624 after the Dutch were beaten out of Penghu by the governor Nan Juyi, the Dutch and the Chinese official reached an agreement, agreeing to destroy the fortress and fort set up in Penghu, and transfer to the then island of Taiwan, and the Ming Dynasty did not interfere with the Dutch occupation of Taiwan. The Dutch first established a simple merchant house in North Shanwei (now Sicao, Tainan) and officially settled in Taiwan.

Subsequently, in 1625, the Dutch built the city of Reransha at Yikun (present-day Anping, Tainan) as a major base for garrisons and invasions. This was the beginning of Taiwan's occupation by foreign powers.

From then on, until now, the Dutch gradually conquered the entire Tainan region with the might of guns and brutal killings, and then the Dutch continued to pour into this area, with more than 10,000 permanent residents for a long time, and thousands of naval and army soldiers.

Since the Dutch occupied Tainan, they called those natives who obeyed their orders as Shuban, and those Taiwanese natives who had not yet succumbed to their coercion were called Shengfan.

In the past few years, seeing that the Dutch were doing a good job in southern Taiwan, Spain was also ready to move, and immediately sent troops to occupy northern Taiwan. Since then, the western plain of Taiwan has formed a situation of three separate territories, occupied by the Spaniards in the north, Zheng Zhilong's in the middle, and the Dutch in the south.

Of course, the Dutch's ambitions were not only satisfied with the wild island of Taiwan, but after gaining a stable foothold in Taiwan, their ambitions gradually expanded, and they planned to re-invade Penghu and Fujian, which finally led to the Battle of Liaoluo Bay in Chongzhen's sixth year.

From the first day of the sixth lunar month (July 6, 1633 in the Gregorian calendar) to the twentieth day of September (October 22 in the Gregorian calendar), the Ming Dynasty successively invested more than 150 warships and tens of thousands of soldiers. On the Dutch side, it was the Indochinese colonial headquarters, sending dozens of the latest battleships with cannons to fight fiercely in Liaoluo Bay on the southeast coast of Kinmen, Fujian.

The Battle of Liuluo Bay was a naval battle between the dying Ming Dynasty and the thriving Netherlands (the Union of Seven Provinces had become independent and established the Dutch Republic, but had not yet fully become independent from Spanish rule), which was no less massive in scale than the Opium War, and ended in the defeat of the Netherlands, which was the first battle in which the Chinese defeated the Western Navy at sea. The impact on history was quite far-reaching, and from then on, the Dutch had to concentrate on expanding in Taiwan, and no longer dared to fight the idea of Penghu and the mainland.

Since the beginning of last year, Johanvanderburgh, the Dutch Earl, was transferred from Batavia to southern Taiwan and served as the fifth Dutch governor of Taiwan.

Count Vanderbilt, at the end of this year, suddenly saw a large number of Ming Dynasty officials coming to southern Taiwan to purchase potato seeds, and with a keen sense of smell, he intuitively guessed that the Ming Dynasty people in the north were probably doing something big.

So, he immediately ordered those familiar spies to quietly go to the Li Xiaojun area in the north to secretly spy on intelligence.

Among the familiar spies sent out, Heiqi, who is proficient in using Dutch to communicate with himself, is the one who performs the best.

After leaving the Potbelly area, Heiqi traveled all the way over the mountains and mountains to the south, and a few days later, he came to the largest stronghold of the Dutch in Taiwan, located in the city of Chichi, on the edge of the Taijiang River.

He was immediately received personally by Vanderbilt.

Dressed in a bright red crisp military uniform, tall and thin, with a shiny golden back and two carefully trimmed mustaches, the Earl of Vanderbilt sat in his luxurious office, listening to the whispered and intermittent report of the panting Hei Qi with a serious face.

Next to him, sitting on a Western-style carved nanmu chair was the pot-bellied and fat pig-like commander of the Dutch Taiwan garrison, Bowel. Unlike Governor Vanderbilt, who sat with a stern face, the unkempt red-haired Baldel, his uniform was unbuttoned, his legs were hunched, and a cup of hot coffee was in his hand, and he took a sip while listening to the report of the Black Deed in a nonchalant manner.

"Report to the earl, according to the observation along the way, the Ming people are now in Datu, Erlin, Nanshe and other places, recruiting a large number of immigrants to settle in Taiwan, and now many wastelands in Datu, Erlin, and Nanshe have been turned into rice fields by the Ming, according to the following view, this group of Ming people, all over the country combined, at least hundreds of thousands of people, should be planning to settle in Taiwan for a long time." Hei Qi said eloquently.

"Wait." Baldell, who was on the side, interrupted Heche's words, and he said with a thick frown; "Didn't you say that Zheng Zhilong, the Ming general, was not interested in running Taiwan, and had transferred the original Ming immigrants back? Why did a large number of Ming people come to settle in Taiwan? ”

"Your Excellency Commander, as far as I know, this group of Ming people is not Zheng Zhilong's subordinates, but from the distant Ming Kingdom Shandong. I heard that their leader, it seems that his name is Li Xiao, and this group of people came to Taiwan to open up rice fields, set up trade fields, and set up government yamen, but they were very planned. By the way, these Ming people are also building a big city six miles north of the Muddy Water Creek. As I passed by, I saw a large number of craftsmen digging foundations, lifting bluestones, and laying bricks, and it was estimated that in a few months, the city would be ready. Heche turned to Bowdell and explained.

"Oh, these damn yellow-skinned monkeys seem to really plan to occupy Taiwan for a long time, hmph, their occupation, our Dutchman's northward expansion plan will be greatly frustrated." Baldel's eyebrows furrowed even tighter, and a cold light swept through his dark blue pupils.

Vanderbilt, who was sitting at the top of the desk, his face was also more serious, he coughed lightly twice, and said coldly to Heiqi: "Child, have you ever found out how many armed forces and how much savings these Ming people have?" ”

Seeing Vanderbilt's question, Heche immediately bowed; "Lord Earl, according to the small one all the way, this group of Ming soldiers is afraid that there are thousands of people, but most of them are scattered around the guard towers, and the ones who really guard the position of the yamen of their official mansion are only a thousand soldiers."

Speaking of this, Hei Qi's eyes lit up, and he said hurriedly; "My lord, according to small observations, this group of Ming people has built a large number of warehouses around the yamen of the official government, and there are many soldiers guarding them, and in my opinion, there must be a lot of gold, silver and grain stored in them, so that these Ming people can live in Taiwan for a long time."

After Heiqi finished speaking, Baudel, who was sipping a small sip, suddenly shook his right hand, and multiple drops of coffee splashed out, making his military uniform full of dirty spots. However, at this time, he didn't care, his face was full of greed and yearning.

The beard on Vanderbilt's face was shaking slightly, but he managed to keep his demeanor under control. He coughed a few more times, replied to the black deed, and waved him back to the treasury to collect the silver coins of the reward.

Heiqi rejoiced and retired.

"It seems that this group of Chinese from Shandong in the Ming Kingdom intend to occupy this central Taiwan for a long time." Vanderbilt pulled a handful of shiny blonde hair and snorted coldly: "Their leader, Li Xiao, seems to be an ambitious figure. ”

"Hmph, so what, under the iron fist of my Dutch army, any rampant yellow-skinned monkey will be smashed into powder by our army! Your Excellency the Earl, in my opinion, these yellow-skinned monkeys have blocked my plan to expand northward in the Netherlands, and we really need to take advantage of the fact that they have not yet built a castle and their defense is still weak, and send troops in one fell swoop to defeat them and drive them out of Taiwan! Baudell slammed his hand on the table with a wave and said with a sinister chest.

Vanderbilt was silent, but his two pale gray eyes were turning rapidly, apparently thinking carefully in his mind.

"Your Excellency, this is an opportunity for us to be rich by God, and we must not let it go!" Unable to conceal his eagerness, Baudel shouted at Vanderbilt again: "We must take advantage of the unguarded dispersion of the Ming forces to capture their government and warehouses in one fell swoop, and this large amount of gold, silver, treasure, and grain will all fall into the hands of our noble Dutchmen!" ”

Listening to Baodel's excited words, Fan Beibao's face was also difficult to hide his joy.

"Alas, merciful God, your people did not want to kill, but it seems that this war is inevitable, who let these damned Ming people block the expansion plans of my Great Dutch Republic." Vanderbilt asked with a twitch of his eyebrows. "Mr. Baldell, are you sure that you will defeat the Ming army?"

"Haha, Your Excellency the Earl, you also know that my brave and warlike Dutch warriors, since following in the footsteps of the East India Company and marching into Asia, except for the last defeat in the battle of Liuluo Bay, which fell on the frieze, they have not been defeated all the way." Baodel's fat and bearded face was full of hideous color, and he roared and said: "Your Excellency, Earl, don't worry, I must completely defeat these yellow-skinned monkeys of the Ming Kingdom, in order to avenge the defeat of Luowan last time, I will rob them of their treasures and food, let their men become prisoners of hard labor, and women become the vents of my Dutch soldiers*** I will also use the sharp sword in my hand to cut off the stupid and ugly head of the yellow-skinned monkey named Li Xiao!" ”

"Good!" Vanderbilt was so encouraged to see that Baudel was so confident, he stood up, took out a bottle of precious red wine, poured two glasses, and then held one in his hand and handed the other to Baudel: "General, I believe in you." We must let the noble tricolor flag of the Dutch Republic fly forever on this eastern land! Come, let's wish all the best in future battles, cheers! ”

"Cheers!" Baldell laughed and drank the red wine in his arms. (To be continued.) )