"Commander, the cash boxes have been moved to the warehouse in the fort. After counting, the amount is correct, and this is the receipt order. While the people were talking, Lieutenant Yu Lian walked in from outside without hurry, and then handed Wang Tiehammer a receipt of receipt in his briefcase.

Yu Lian has been smooth sailing in the East Coast Navy in recent years, thanks to his marriage to Mathilde, the white rich beauty of the Pasquier family, and the Pasquier family is deeply entangled with the interests of the East Coasters, and has almost become the spokesperson for the interests of the East Coast Republic in the southern part of France. Mathilde has now almost left the cotton plantations on the island of Haiti to the steward, and she herself has purchased a pasture on the outskirts of Port Oriente, where she lives all year round.

Julien and Mathilde have been married for several years and have a son and a daughter. A few days ago, he was active in the Admiralty, and after this mission, he will step down from his post as captain of the transport ship "Exocet Galicia" and turn to an idle post as a staff officer in the Admiralty. It is said that this was the idea of his wife, Mathilde, who decided to give up his career in the army after careful consideration.

For his decision, Wang Tiehammer only felt a little regretful. After all, Yu Lian joined the East Coast Navy very early, and once went to sea to fight with Lu Ming, Wang Tiehammer and others, and had a friendship. This time, he chose to serve as an idle position of "pension" in 41 and 42 years when the navy was about to start the pace of expansion, and Wang Tie could only sigh helplessly. The path is all chosen by yourself, and it is useless for others to say anything even if they want to.

"Fifty thousand dollars in cash. Hey. Wang Tiehammer patted the receipt in his hand. smiled and said to Shi Qinjie: "I have already handed over the money to you." Muscat businessmen will no longer trade with us on the island of Mozambique this year. Grandma is a bear, and more than 1,000 women and children spend thousands of yuan to live on that broken island for two months, which is really like grabbing money! I have agreed with them that this year's trading venue will be changed to the Fort Xinhua terminal, and they have agreed, so that everyone will not have to be exploited by those Portuguese vampires in the future. ”

Shi Qinjie nodded, which was exactly what he meant. By moving the annual business of buying and selling Middle Eastern slaves and children to Fort Xinhua, he could justifiably deduct some of them. Add some population to the local area. Including those immigrants of the Ming Dynasty who will come in the second half of the year, it is an unspoken rule in the industry that goose plucking, Mo Ming of Hezhong Fort dared to "drift" the population, so how could he Shi Qinjie not do it?

"Okay, we'll leave the matter of the human trade to us, but do you want to go north next? To the Ottoman Empire? Shi Qinjie asked.

"I want to go north, maybe I will stop in the port of the Ottoman Empire for a short time, or I may not go, and then look for an opportunity to go east." Wang Tiehammer took a hard puff of his pipe, and then said, "This time we are sailing along the northern Indian Ocean circulation. Try to follow the coast as much as possible, after all, this route is not familiar to us. It's better to be careful in everything, even if you encounter a storm, you can get out. To be honest, it's amazing that over the years we've had more than a dozen ships coming and going at sea, and we haven't sunk in a storm, but that doesn't mean we're still going to be so lucky. So, I decided to follow the coastline, from Fort Neunewmont to Djibouti for supplies, and then go east to the southern coast of India, the line of Ceylon, and if I had the opportunity, continue east beyond the island of Ceylon, into the Bay of Bengal, the line of the Andaman Sea......"

"And then?" Shi Qinjie was also a little fascinated when he heard it, next to the Andaman Sea are Myanmar and the Malay Peninsula, so it is not far from Daming.

"Then go back." Wang Tiehammer slammed his pipe to the bottom of his feet and said as a matter of course.

"What?" Shi Qinjie almost stumbled, "Aren't you going east to cross the Strait of Malacca into the South China Sea?" When you arrive in the South China Sea, you are really close to Daming! ”

"Not yet." Wang Tiehammer took out another pack of shredded tobacco from his pocket, and said as he filled the pipe: "The sea near the Strait of Malacca is under the strict control of the Portuguese and Dutch, and it is very sensitive. If they want to break through their blockade and enter the South China Sea, it will not be ordinarily difficult, and it is likely that a conflict will break out at sea. The Dutch, in particular, do not have a very good relationship with our government at the moment, and most of them are not happy to see us enter China's coast, so it is almost impossible to enter the South China Sea peacefully. Unless we can get their permission, as the few ships of France, England and even Denmark do, this is obviously not very likely. ”

"So?" Shi Qinjie was a little clear in his heart, but also a little afraid.

"Of course, it's going to break through their obstruction by force! Just like when they broke through the Portuguese near Malacca. Wang Tiehammer waved his right hand vigorously, then breathed a sigh of relief, and said: "But this is not an easy task, it requires many preparations, whether it is hardware such as ships, sailors, artillery, etc., or software such as strong combat determination, you need to start slowly preparing and adjusting." When the time was ripe, our fleet would march eastward with a thunderous momentum, break through the Dutch blockade, and enter the South China Sea in one fell swoop. ”

"I don't think it's right to hear you say that." Xu Gang, who had been drinking tea silently beside him, suddenly said, "The labor expedition is a taboo for soldiers." Even if the fleet departs from New China and arrives in the Strait of Malacca after a month or two of sailing, neither the condition of the ships nor the physical condition of the sailors can be compared with the original, right? It is better to have a foothold in the west of Malacca, where we can repair the leaky planks, replace the broken canvas, scrape the bottom of the ship, replenish fresh food and fresh water, and resettle the sick sailors, and then set off for the East in the best possible condition. At that time, even if they really encountered the Dutch or even the Portuguese to intercept them by force, they would be able to deal with them. Well, I think Ceylon Island is a very good place to stay, and the distance from New China is moderate, and it is not far from here to the South China Sea. ”

"This place is also very sensitive." Wang Tiehammer lit his pipe and took a deep breath, and then said slowly: "At present, it is considered the range of the strength of the Portuguese, but they only occupy a few points along the coast, and they are still fighting and entangled with the indigenous kingdoms on the island, and their control over the entire island is still limited. But in any case, at least this is nominally Portuguese territory, and outsiders are afraid that they will arouse their hostility if they rush into it. At the moment, the Portuguese and our relations seem to be good, but I bet that the Portuguese will turn against us as soon as we reveal our intention to land on the island of Ceylon. ”

"Of course, it's not without opportunities." "I remember that in 1638, an indigenous king on the island of Ceylon, who was at war with the Portuguese, secretly signed an agreement with the Dutch to bring the Dutch into the island and expel the Portuguese. Moreover, the Dutch seem to have acted for the next decade or so, and over the next decade or so, the Portuguese would gradually lose their merchants, castles, docks, business, and everything on the island until they were completely expelled from the island by the Dutch in 1658. If this is done well, there may not be no chance to intervene. ”

"Why are you Dutch?" Xu Gang frowned and asked, "The Fort in the River is faintly connected with the Dutch, and there are Dutch people on the southwest coast of Madagascar, why are there Dutch people on this Ceylon Island?" How can they be seen everywhere? How can they, a small country with a population of one or two million, and have been fighting with people for decades, still attack the world? What a strange fighter! ”

"What's the difference between us and the Dutch?" Shi Qinjie sighed after thinking about it, and said: "We are even more strange, the entire country has a population of more than 40,000, and it has already begun to occupy the territory of the world. The Fort in the River is counted as a piece, the New China is counted as a piece, and the Ceylon Island in your calculation is another piece, let me ask, do we have this strength? The Dutch can hire Germans, Scots, Bohemians and all over Europe as mercenaries, can we? In other words, can we trust those mercenaries? Obviously not, we can only rely on ourselves! Now that the strength is already insufficient, I personally think it is very unwise to meddle in the complicated situation of Ceylon. I only hope that we don't make it like Bismarck said to the Italians, 'have a good appetite, but have a bad tooth', and at the end of the day, we can't clean up the situation. Anyway, if the Executive Committee were to ask for my opinion in the future, I would not agree to it. ”

"That's what I said, you take it seriously." Wang Tiezhu smiled a little wryly, "We must at least wait until everything is ready and the strength is sufficient before we force a voyage to the Far East, and as for whether or not to intervene in the chaos on Ceylon, we will talk about this later." ”

After chatting for a while, they went about their own business.

On April 1, 1641, just as the rainy season in the New China area was coming to an end and a new round of massive infrastructure construction was about to begin in the whole region, several Arab schooners gently slid into the New China Bay with the northwest wind, and then docked on both sides of the second wooden trestle that had now been preliminarily repaired with the permission of the Xinhua Fort.

These Muscat traders brought with them thousands of Persian and Baloch slave girls, as well as some hundreds of children. They confessed to the East Coast that it was becoming more and more difficult to capture the Persians, and that the losses were getting bigger and bigger, and that this time they had to capture a lot of Baloch to make up the numbers, hoping that the East Coasters would be able to buy all of them.

After carefully inspecting the health of these Baloch slave girls and children, Shi Qinjie recognized these slaves. However, he also took the opportunity to kill the price, each Baloch slave girl was worth 30 yuan, and the child was 15 yuan, which was 30% lower than the price of the Persians. The Muscat merchant probably didn't find it too difficult to capture the Balochs, so they agreed to the price, and the two sides quickly settled the deal. (To be continued......)