On September 1, 1649, after leaving Abbas Port in a depressed manner, Captain Gilwin and his men turned on the steam power, and then traveled westward along the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, avoiding the rough currents and unfavorable winds, and arrived at the port of Suez at the northern end of the Red Sea.

The port of Suez was originally a small fishing village in the Ottoman Empire, and even though it was the base of their Red Sea Fleet, it did not make the arid and hot port much richer. The rolling sand, the dry and thirsty earth, the swarthy herdsmen, and the thin, filthy flocks of sheep have made up the port of Suez for thousands of years, just as the lake Mamluks have ruled Egypt for hundreds of years (the Ottomans still rule Egypt on the basis of the Mamluks).

The scenery outside the harbor was unspeakably monotonous, and except for a few places where a touch of green could be seen, most of the place was desolate and lonely, and there was not a trace of life in sight. The situation in the harbor is similar, full of low and dilapidated adobe houses, and the roofs, streets, and squares are all gray and boring.

"It's a forgotten corner." Second Lieutenant Givan got off the ship, exchanged pleasantries with the Ottoman officials who had come to inspect him, and then uttered his exclamation in Chinese: "The sun is unbearably hot, and the air is filled with the smell of scorching heat. It's hard to get a second interest in a place like this, isn't it, Sergeant Esposito? ”

"As you say, sir, this place is not pleasant." Espositto wiped his sweat with a towel and said with a frown, "But we had to come." And. I think there are a lot of ships from New China in this pitifully small port. They must have come to transport people and trade. ”

The ships to which Esposito was referring were at this time anchored in the deep-water area, and there were six ships in all—four flute-type transports built by the Xinhuaxia Shipyard, and two fast cruisers of the Navy's Second Fleet (apparently there to escort the ship). In recent years, trade with the Ottoman Empire from the Indian Ocean has gradually expanded in favor of national policy, but the scale of this trade has been limited due to the port conditions of Suez, the sparse population of Egypt, and the high cost of long-distance transportation (which required caravans to transport goods from Suez to Alexandria or Syria).

Every year, the New China Pioneer Team of the Eastern Republic, which was responsible for the main trading function, sent five or six ships to arrive at the port of Suez before October, and after the transaction with the Ottomans, they returned to the port of Xinhua in the southern hemisphere by the sudden north wind. The goods involved were also mainly cotton cloth, medicines, dyed leather goods, metal utensils, etc., which were easy to transport and market, while the imports of the East coasters were mainly two: slaves (mainly female slaves) and livestock (mainly horses and camels).

The scale of these businesses is neither small nor small. The big men in the Ottoman country were not interested in getting their hands dirty, so it was usually their agents, the descendants of the Egyptian Lake Mamluks, who did it. Most of these feudal military aristocratic leaders were actually a bit bitter, and they were very keen on developing trade with the Easterners to make profits, and even some of them were very short of money from time to time to take troops to rob the Bedouins and Persians in order to grab slaves and sell them to the Easterners, and the relationship between the two sides has always been quite harmonious.

Beginning a few years ago, Shi Qinjie, the leader of the New China Pioneer Team, began to advocate the expansion of trade in the Indian Ocean with the future of the island's plantation economy, both with the Ottoman Empire and with the Safavid dynasty of Persia. After listening to the opinions of the New China Pioneer Team, the Central Committee listened to the opinions of the New China Pioneer Team. In view of the safety of the shipping route (the African route to the Ottoman Empire was used as a backup route for trade between the two countries) and the need to expand the market, it was decided to officially increase investment in this area.

And it is in this context that it is. The expansion and renovation of the port of Suez, with technical support from the east coast, was included in the Ottoman government's work plan, but civil strife broke out in the country, and the plan was temporarily frozen due to a lack of sufficient funds after the army took power; In addition, the successful voyage of the East Coast expedition to Bandar Abbas, Persia, and the presentation of credentials to Abbas II of the Safavid Dynasty also marked the determination and will of the government of the East Coast Republic to open up the Indian Ocean market.

All in all, the new Chinese colonies on the east coast of the country today had a strong impulse to expand trade with the Ottomans out of the need to develop their own economy. But their funds and connections were limited, and the Ottomans were in turmoil at this time, so many of their plans seemed to have no future in sight in the summer of '49.

"There's not even enough deep-water berths here." Captain Given, looking at the flute-shaped transports that had landed in the deep water and then relied on small barges to transport people and supplies back and forth, sighed, and said, "This is why Xinhua Port was so angry when they learned that the Ottomans had abandoned the expansion of Suez Port." Isn't it ridiculous that they want to expand trade, but there aren't even enough berths here? ”

The two stood on the edge of the pier and laughed at this moment, and some Arabs in the bay were already rowing small boats towards the two East Coast ships, their boats were full of fruits, vegetables and fresh meat, and every time they saw a sailor on the East Coast, they raised their right thumb and said in broken Chinese: "East Coast Country, first!" Then he looked with hope at these foreign sailors, who seemed to be very rich, and expected them to take care of their business in a good mood.

The two were not interested in staying on the docks any longer, so with the help of Ottoman customs officials, they quickly found the staff of the East African Transport Company, which was being set up to rest, and Kyle, the new Chinese commissioner in charge of immigration. Kyle and Givens are old acquaintances, both of them are students in the first class of the nautical school, but one of them continues to earn a living at sea, and the other becomes a colonial official, and both have successful careers.

Kyle and the others had just arrived at the port of Suez, and he had followed several ships of the East African Transport Company to the port of Suez, whose main task was to supervise the emigration, a special group of prisoner of war immigrants. Yes, that's right, they are Polish soldiers who were sold by the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian Cossacks.

The number of these men was quite significant, and several crushing defeats in the Kingdom of Poland in 1648 buried at least 50,000 to 60,000 of their troops, many of whom were taken prisoner. Thus, if the people on the East coast were willing to buy openly, they might have been able to buy at least 20,000 slaves, a number that even exceeded the number of Polish women they bought.

In fact, with the behavior of the Tatars, it doesn't matter how many people you want to buy. In 1648 they were driven back to Crimea by the Cossacks, because these lawless steppe men did not distinguish between Poles and Ukrainians when they plundered, and in a matter of months they captured 200,000 people, most of them Ukrainians, west of the Dnieper. This aroused the displeasure of the Cossacks, so they were expelled - of course, Khmelnitsky brought back the Tatars before the second battle with Poland.

According to the arrangement of Mo San, who was in charge of the Ottoman Empire, the Polish women were transported by French transports hired by them, and returned to the mainland with the convoy on the east coast along the Guò Mediterranean-Atlantic route. As for the men, the arrangements were much more haphazard, and the first batch of 6,000 German mercenary prisoners he purchased (8,500 Polish soldiers were captured at the Battle of Korsund, most of them German mercenaries) had now begun to be transported by land and water to the port of Suez on the Red Sea coast.

The Germans were scattered in numerous houses in and around Suez, guarded by soldiers sent by local Mamluk feudal lords (at the expense of the East Bankers). These German mercenaries, who were already prisoners of war, have been resold again, and their morale is even more low. At this moment, in the hot place of Port Suez, one by one is like a sun-dried leaf, and I can't lift my spirits.

These are veterans of many years, and many of them have left the Hessian countryside since they were young and have moved to most of Europe in order to eat a bite to eat. It can be said that wherever there is a war, they are there, and the Ukrainian Cossacks who served the Polish king to suppress the uprising this time were actually just a "normal business" for them. But now that they've been defeated, captured, and trafficked to the far desert, and it doesn't look like it's their final destination, they fear for their fate.

Their fear is not that they will never return to their homeland, in fact they don't care about it at all, German mercenaries are all over the world, they will go wherever they can live, and it would be better if they could settle there, even if that place was the terrible East Indies; They were mainly worried about their own status, they were afraid that they would be trafficked to some ignorant and backward barbarian chieftains in the Old World, and then treated as slaves, which would be a tragic end, and they did not want to face.

The people on the east coast can't care about these little ninety-nine in the hearts of the Germans, and they bought these German mercenaries mainly for the sake of the Far East battlefield. These German prisoners of war had fought for many years, were hard-working, experienced, familiar with the methods of firearms warfare, and could also set up a large phalanx in Spain, so they were very ideal candidates for cannon fodder combat. Therefore, it was naturally a very good deal to get these people to the Far East and open up territory for the people on the East coast to fight the Tartars.

Kyle introduced to Givin and others that all German mercenaries would be sent to the Far East, and that some of the other Polish prisoners of war would be sent to the New China region as indentured slaves to develop tropical lands for the Eastern Republic. Some of the more reliable ones were reorganized and raided the native villages in the interior to expand the domination of the people on the east coast; Finally, some of the most unreliable (mainly Poles of military and aristocratic background) will be sent back to the mainland and handed over to the disposal of the Southern Railway Company, which will probably end up in labor reform on the construction site of the railway.

In short, these prisoners of war can be called "cheap and good". Now we are waiting for the personnel to arrive, and when the northeast wind rises in late October, we will board the ship together and go to Xinhua Port. (To be continued......)