On February 1, 1642, the sky was still overcast. In the second half of yesterday night, several transport ships from mainland China had been wandering outside the bay because of their blurred vision due to darkness, and they were not allowed to enter the bay dock until this morning.

The three transport ships brought 800,000 yuan of funds that the Ministry of Finance had managed to raise with great difficulty, as well as a considerable amount of weapons and ammunition, cotton cloth, leather goods, hardware and other commodities. According to the plan, Xinhua Fort will be the same as Hezhong Fort, to build a large cargo storage and transportation center, and all kinds of goods required for future transactions with the Ottoman Empire will be directly shipped from the Xinhua Fort warehouse, which is much more convenient and faster.

The three transport ships and one escort naval warship were not prepared to stay here for long, and the current sea capacity on the mainland was still extremely tight, and they did not have much time to wander outside. Therefore, Shi Qinjie immediately ordered a large amount of timber, coconuts, air-dried seafood and other local specialties that had been prepared long ago onto the ship. Of course, he didn't forget the most important cargo that these transport ships pulled back, that is, people.

Organized by the local militia, 1,200 relatively able-bodied Ming immigrants were singled out, and then they boarded the ship one by one with the help of sailors. Before leaving, they had been told that when they returned to the rich land, they would be granted houses, land, farming tools, seeds, and cattle, and then cultivate land in a lakeside area with beautiful mountains and rivers, and live a fairy-like life that they never dared to think of before. In the future, they will be able to eat the grain they grow themselves, and if they are willing to work on the construction site during the off-season, they will be able to eat the fragrant beef. Where to find such a day in Daming, which is now full of beacons?

The immigrants have been raised in Fort Xinhua for almost a month. His physical condition has changed dramatically. Most of them have a healthy blood color on their faces, instead of the bitter face they used to be. The migrants boarded the ship quickly, and by the afternoon, they were almost all on board. The fresh fresh water, vegetables and meat prepared for them by Xinhua Fort were also delivered to the ship in time, and after a small number of wounded and sick people were placed in Xinhua Fort for recuperation, the four ships did not make any stops, and directly pulled anchor overnight and set sail and left Xinhua Bay.

After 1,200 Ming immigrants left. Xinhua Fort was a lot empty. With the departure of more than 600 Eight Banner slaves who had taken two warships of the Second Fleet to the southern Tacheng area last week, the number of residents (including slaves) in the vicinity of Fort Xinhua suddenly dropped from more than 8,000 to more than 6,000. With the gradual development of the Tacheng coal mine, the continuous decline of the population of Xinhuabao has become inevitable. However, the significance of the Tacheng Coal Mine is extremely significant, and if there is spare power in the Xinhuabao area, Shi Qinjie will definitely vigorously support the construction there.

The day after the departure of the convoy, on February 2, the sky was a rare day of clearing. Originally, it was a comfortable day, and Shi Qinjie, who had just woken up, thought so. He also asked his secretary Rodrigo to prepare some fishing gear for him, and he was ready to relax and enjoy fishing in the bay. And at this very moment. A rumbling roar was faintly heard outside the bay.

It's the sound of cannons! Shi Qinjie immediately made a judgment, and he had heard the sound of artillery firing during the practice of the batteries at the mouth of the bay many times. Naturally, you can tell what is thunder and what is cannonball! It's nothing to hear the sound of artillery, at least the more than 20 coastal defense heavy guns that have been installed on the three batteries have been regularly opened for artillery practice, but the problem is that there is no artillery training arranged today!

"Rodrigo, go see what's going on." Shi Qinjie felt a little uneasy, so he hurriedly spoke.

"Okay, Your Excellency, I'll go and see it." Rodrigo answered, then turned and walked out of the house. But before he could reach the door, an officer in an army uniform suddenly ran in from outside the door.

Shi Qinjie fixed his eyes and saw that the person who came turned out to be Lieutenant Bai Shui, the deputy company commander of the 3rd Company of the Army. I saw that Bai Shui's face was nervous at the moment, and his forehead was also covered with beads of sweat the size of beans, and as soon as he entered the door, he shouted directly: "Old Shi, the big thing is not good, our fishing boat was attacked." I had just seen clearly at Fort No. 3 that three sail galen ships, three masted, looked like armed merchant ships, and were pursuing our four fishing boats. The place where the incident happened was at the mouth of the bay, and fortunately our fishing boats were not far from the fort, and they quickly took refuge in the harbor, and the boats should not have chased after them. But now it seems that they are already fighting fire, and these ships are really bold enough, and they are still unyielding, do they really want to rush in! ”

"Which country's ships? So arrogant! I'm afraid there is no one around here who still doesn't know that this is the territory of our East Coast Republic of China, right? Shi Qinjie was a little stunned, someone really rushed to the door to provoke, this thing is troublesome!

"There is no flag, and it is impossible to tell which country it is." Bai Shui said helplessly, "But I can guess that in addition to the Portuguese who are across the Mozambique Channel from us, there are only the Dutch who have a few slave hunting points near the southwest coast here." I guess it's the Dutch, they are used to being arrogant, and often go to Mozambique, Sofala, the Marquis de Lorenço and other places to fight the autumn wind, and the Portuguese have nothing to do with them. This time, it is not ruled out that they grabbed it easily, and then ran all the way to us to see the situation. ”

The Dutch slave trap mentioned by Whitewater was located on the southwest coast of the island of Madagascar, near what would later be Turare. Ever since the Dutch took over the British East India Company's Fort of Good Hope a few years ago, they have been plagued by a shortage of immigrants. In addition to recruiting immigrants from Europe for a variety of reasons, the Dutch also brought many Malays, Javanese and Chinese from the East Indies to the Cape Town colony to farm.

The Dutch did not build Cape Town as slowly as they had historically been, and their Batavia High Court convicted successive of their subjects with incredible efficiency, and then sent them all to the Cape Colony to grow vegetables, alfalfa, and graze cattle and sheep for the East India Company.

However, the governor of Fort Good Hope, Governor Dejan, could not be satisfied. Especially after the East Coasters completely defeated the invading Kama tribe army through a brilliant victory, the Governor de Young, who was shocked by the military strength of the East Bank, began to increase the strength of the Cape Town colony in various ways. He first made some concessions with the East Coasters on the demarcation of the colonies between the two countries in exchange for a temporary peace; He then began to exchange muskets and even cannons for much-needed weapons of the Kama tribe for slaves captured in the war.

In addition to these, he also sent a number of Dutch ships stationed there to harass and raid the Portuguese colonies along the coast of Mozambique, and from time to time he also went ashore to plunder, capturing many local Zambezi. While attacking the Zambesis on the west shore of the strait, they naturally turned their attention to the island of Madagascar to the east of the strait. The southwestern part of the huge island is a flat grassland with a large number of semi-nomadic indigenous tribes. Compared to those of the Central Plateau or the north, the indigenous civilization of the southwest coast was of a lower level and was still mostly a slave society, so it was a good target for the Dutch. According to East Coast estimates, no less than a thousand native slaves had been plundered over the vast expanse of land near Tulare, by the time the Cape Town colony had passed into the hands of the Dutch. Thanks to their efforts, the population of the entire Cape Town colony in the Netherlands is estimated to have climbed to more than 3,000 at this time, and it has a certain initial strength.

"Let's go to the fort and have a look." Shi Qinjie didn't talk nonsense, and walked towards the dock with a wave of his hand. There were several canoes on the dock, and Shi Qinjie and the others took a few guards to get into the canoes, and then a few Irish sailors began to row their boats and headed towards the bay mouth battery.

More than an hour later, Shi Qinjie and others boarded the No. 3 fort on the cape of the South China Sea from behind the side of the fort in the bay. The fort housed five platoons of army officers and soldiers, as well as a large contingent of coastal defense heavy artillery gunners made up of local residents or new Ming immigrants.

At this stage, two 24-pounder guns, four 18-pounder guns and four 12-pounder guns were installed at the No. 3 battery, and the firepower was quite good. At this moment, there were about 50 gunners on the battery, all of whom were making a noise, and some of them were walking between the various gun emplacements, looking a little chaotic.

This gunner team has only been formed for less than a month, and it has not fired live ammunition a few times, and its military quality is also very average. At this moment, when they suddenly encountered the attack of hostile ships, they were indeed a little panicked for a while. Just now, after seeing the No. 1 battery firing, they didn't care that the guns had not been calibrated and the firing meter had not yet been established, so they also roared and fired a few shots at the enemy ships on the sea. It's just that the results of this artillery shooting are naturally extremely poor, and several shells fell into the sea without exception, just wasting precious gunpowder in vain.

"What are you panicking about? Don't fire indiscriminately! As soon as Bai Shui got on the battery, he walked to the barracks of his troops, and then led the army soldiers to the various batteries to suppress them, and drove the panicked gunners back to their respective artillery positions one by one. After doing this, he didn't care about arranging Shi Qinjie and the others, so he walked directly to the two 24-pounder gun emplacements and began to carefully guide them to fire at the three Dutch ships on the sea.

At this time, the three Dutch ships were also a little panicked after being fired upon by the guns on the batteries. They didn't expect that there were so many coastal defense heavy artillery hidden on the headlands that looked like they were all lush forests, so they were also hurriedly turning outward. (To be continued......)