Fort River in mid-to-late December is a busy scene. As an important transshipment center for the African route of the Republic of China on the east coast of China, after nearly a year of hard construction, a large storage base has been basically completed on the west side of the city wall of Hezhong Fort.

This storage base is directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Materials, with hundreds of large and small warehouses, and the storage capacity is extremely strong. At present, there are 75,000 pieces of white cotton cloth, 10,000 pieces of dyed cloth, 2,000 horses of woolen wool, 3,000 flintlock rifles, 20 artillery pieces of various types, 200 collars of armor, 5,000 sabers, and a number of miscellaneous materials such as various kinds of grain, building materials, salt, medicines, canned food, and wood.

With the completion of this storage base, ships on the east coast that do business on the island of Mozambique and the port of Suez will be able to load and depart directly from the port of River, saving about a month of voyage compared to the port of Vostochny. In the future, when Fort Xinhua in the new China region begins to take shape, a large transshipment center will be built there to store a large number of goods from the mainland of the East Coast and South Africa, so as to facilitate trade with East Africa, the Middle East and India.

In order to protect the safety of this important storage base, Zhu Liang, the new commander of the South African garrison, the commander of the second company of the army, and the lieutenant, also set up the military camp in the warehouse, and he also served as the director of the base. At the same time, hundreds of Bezimisaraka slaves who had just been sent from the New China region were also organized, and began to expand the walls of the River Fort to the west under the supervision of the Eight Banners, striving to enclose this storage base with a city wall.

The Bezimisalaka slaves, known to the locals of Fort River, as they were called "island people," were still in their early nine hundred alive when they arrived there, and after the women and children were listed separately, there were about 400 adult male slaves left. These adult men had just been conquered not long ago. At this moment, he was transported all the way to a strange place. It is impossible to say that they have no hatred for the East Coast in their hearts. Therefore. Even if there is a shortage of manpower on the mainland, these new islanders will not be able to use it immediately.

So as soon as these people were transported, Mo Ming signed a decree to reduce these people, regardless of men, women, and children, to slaves, and then distribute them to the next two banners. At the same time, he also took the opportunity to promote some slaves who were more loyal and performed well in the lower two banners, pardoned them and their families from slavery, and promoted them to the upper six banners. Since then, he has become the standard-bearer of freedom.

The islanders who have been incorporated into the Lower Two Banners will undergo a short period of labor reform, during which some of the veteran slaves of the Lower Two Banners will "bring the old and the new" to teach the newcomers some local rules and common sense, so that they will not lose their lives in confusion. After the labor camp is over, the higher authorities will send people down to select some islanders who are usually quite loyal to them to train sailors, and then integrate them into the merchant ships of the Eastern Republic to serve as slave sailors on ships. If they do a good job or show courage in battle, they will have the opportunity to free themselves and their families from slavery and rise to the Upper Six Banners of Freedom.

Of course. At the moment they were all still slaves, except for a few young single women. Whereas, more than half of the 600 new immigrants (400 French, 200 Guarani) who had come to Fort in the River some time ago were single men. Therefore, Mo Ming took the initiative to select more than 300 young single women from the newly arrived islanders, and gave them to the newly arrived French immigrants, which won the hearts of the people. At the same time, these women can be regarded as freeing themselves from the sea of suffering, freeing themselves from the status of slaves, which is especially terrible for women.

After the attempt of the East Coasters to go east into the mountains to capture slaves was thwarted a few months ago, it has been difficult for the Eight Banners tribe to replenish their personnel, not to mention the fact that they have to constantly "transfuse" slave laborers to the mainland and New China. This group of more than 900 islanders can be regarded as a rare addition in recent times, and the chiefs of the Eight Banners are all happy.

Since the establishment of the Eight Banners of South Africa in July 1638, after more than two years of consolidation and development, the total population of the Eight Banners of South Africa (not counting expatriate laborers) has remained at about 11,000. Among them, the number of samurai (spearmen) and above is about 3,000, and most of these samurai are people who are out of production, training martial arts and military formations together all year round, and also participating in some political and cultural studies organized by people on the east coast.

The failure of the previous eastward march and the loss of more than 60 soldiers did not mean that the easterners had given up their attempts to capture slaves. No, in June after the summer harvest this year, the red and green flag men and slaves received an order from the South African garrison command, ordering them to take their tents, cattle, sheep and household goods and march eastward to the foot of the Dongshan mountain range, where they will graze and settle. Although the chieftains of these two banners and the Klars were extremely reluctant, after seeing Mo Ming's cold gaze, they still chose to obey quickly. Of course, Mo Ming did not treat them badly, not only did most of the slaves who had recently risen from the lower two banners be allocated to them, but also supported them with a batch of cuirasses, sabers and other equipment, and even the South African cavalry company also sent officers to guide these blacks to ride war horses to strengthen their combat effectiveness.

As for the main stations of these two banners, the new commander of the South African garrison, Lieutenant Zhu Liang, even took people to conduct on-the-spot surveys there, and finally chose the station at the junction of the Berg River and the north-south Dongshan Mountain Range, near the lake in the south of the Gouda region of South Africa. The water and grass here are abundant, and there are many flora and fauna, and there are often some Xhosa people from the valley on the east side of the mountain who drive cattle and sheep to graze here.

This area is a very sensitive area for today's River Fort. On the one hand, the Xhosa tribe to the east often had a considerable number of herders coming here to graze, and on the other hand, it was closer to the Dutch in the Potton area. The Dutch can ignore it for a while, although these people are powerful and have many ships, when correspondingly, their stalls are also too large, which greatly dilutes their strength, so in this area of the southwest corner of South Africa, the people on the east coast can still not worry about the Dutch taking the initiative to pick anything. Of course, small actions in the dark may be inevitable, but they can all be handled.

Mo Ming on the side of the River Fort certainly knew what the consequences would be if the Dao extended its tentacles to this sensitive area. In particular, when the Executive Committee was now in full swing to develop the new Chinese colony, and South Africa needed to calm down, his forcible drive of the natives of the two banners into the Dongshan Mountains was likely to provoke a new round of conflict with the newly rising large indigenous tribe on the other side of the mountain.

But so what? In Mo Ming's eyes, the current population of Hezhong Fort has reached an unprecedented 3,700 people, and more than 1,500 militias can be mobilized casually, plus the elite second company of the army and thousands of Eight Banner warriors, it may not be impossible to touch the black tribe that is said to have tens of thousands of warriors.

Those Eight Banners under his command have not had any new people to replenish for a long time, and if they don't plunder these ready-made black natives, do they expect them to have their own children to increase the population? Moreover, the Executive Committee is now more and more dependent on South African labor dispatch workers, and it has sent more than 7,000 people before and after, but it is still difficult to satisfy the local appetite, and the Executive Committee is still urging itself to increase the supply of labor to the local area, and at the same time, the New China side is also repeatedly begging itself to send more slaves over.

"I rub, do I owe anyone this?" Many times, Mo Ming would think with some annoyance, "These people only know that Lu Dao keeps asking me for slaves, but they never want to look at themselves directly, and they don't even want to approve the construction of a shipyard, let alone any important industrial projects that will be done here in the future." Hmph, is it easy to bully when Lao Tzu is an honest man? It seems that if Lao Tzu doesn't make some movement here, no one will bird me. It's okay, then it's as you wish, it just so happens that the new commander of the second company of the army, Zhu Liang, is also a great man, so Lao Tzu will give you some movement, so that you will always think that I am very peaceful here, and refuse to give me even a little support. ”

When the red and green flags reached the foot of the mountain in June, some of the Xhosa herders who had crossed the valley of the Berg River to the west of the mountain because they could not get enough forage for winter suddenly discovered that the original terra nullius had been occupied. Moreover, these newcomers were so well-armed and fierce-tempered that they snatched their cattle and sheep without saying a word, and even many herdsmen who did not run fast enough were taken away and imprisoned.

The conflict between the two sides erupted and culminated in late August. In the same month, a dozen groups of Xhosas sneaking in from the eastern side of the mountain broke out several fierce skirmishes with the Eight Banners, and the significantly better armed Eight Banners had the upper hand, and they slaughtered the topless, wooden spear-wielding Xhosa warriors in armor and armed with sharp spears and swords.

After these fierce battles in August, the atmosphere between the two sides suddenly became tense. However, at this moment, the commanders of both sides seemed to have the same thing in mind, and at the same time ordered their men to exercise restraint and not to attack across the border. Mo Ming's order was mainly due to the fact that the militia training in Fort Hezhong was not sufficient, and the hoarding of war materials was not very sufficient, that is, they were not ready for a large-scale war. As for the barbarian tribes on the other side of the mountain, Mo Ming estimated that they might still be engaged in a brutal annexation war with other tribes, and they couldn't spare their hands for a while, and the situation suddenly stabilized strangely. (To be continued......)