It is better to be prepared and occupy a favorable position than to be occupied by the enemy, which makes no sense militarily.

But why did Colin always disagree, and kept saying that Zhou Lang was too cautious, and kept saying that it was impossible for the Qing army to attack.

This is by no means the style of British officers, and the British style in this era is full of pirates, not to mention the things they have done in India. Let's just say that in the early years, they tried to open up trade with China.

It was 1635, during the Ming Dynasty. At that time, the trade in the East was in the hands of the Dutch, the coachmen of the sea, and Taiwan was still a colony of the Dutch. That year, in order to break the Dutch monopoly, King Charles I of England appointed Captain Weddell as commander and led six ships to China.

After being rejected by the Portuguese governor in Macau, Weddell decided to set off for Canton. Arrived at the Humen Yaniang shoes moored, and the Ming army stationed at the Humen Fort fired a warning shot. Weddell immediately ordered the St. George's trade flag to be torn down, the British king's military flag was raised, and then he immediately commanded the fleet to bombard the Humen Battery. After capturing the fort, the British tore down the Ming flag, hung the British flag, and dismantled thirty-five cannons, which were carried to the ship as trophies.

What happened after that was unexpected, according to the general logic, you beat people's guns, captured people's batteries, and dismantled people's cannons, and basically this business is yellow. But the British were not, the Portuguese made peace in the middle, they returned the cannons to the local government of Guangzhou, and then sent two people to Guangzhou to ask for trade.

However, their ship ignored the warning of the Guangzhou government, all the way into the river of Guangzhou, this is a warship carrying heavy weapons, and along the way looted Chinese fishing boats, merchant ships, seized materials and planned to go to Guangzhou to sell, all kinds of actions aroused the anger of the Guangzhou government, sent ships to expel the British warship, at that time the Ming Dynasty's ship technology and the West gap is not as big as the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Ming army's firearms and equipment level is also higher than the Qing army, the launch of rockets and artillery so that the British have to withdraw from the Guangzhou river.

After that, Weddell's approach was very pirate-like. He set fire to three Chinese sailing boats, burned a town and looted 30 pigs in the Humen area. He also captured and blew up the Humen Yaniang Shoe Fort, and burned a galleon.

However, China's maritime power during the Ming Dynasty was obviously stronger than that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and Western merchant ships could not fight against the Ming Dynasty government sailors, even the Zheng Zhilong group of the government Zhao'an. Therefore, Weddell feared retaliation from the Chinese government, and with the mediation of the Portuguese, they paid 2,800 taels of silver before their fleet was able to leave China.

This is still the style of British soldiers more than 100 years ago, and Colin is more than 100 years later, Britain has a faint world imperial posture era of officers, Weddell has been provocative, Colin was plainly attacked by the Manchu army, but Weddell was refused trade by the Guangzhou government, it was burning, looting and looting to vent his anger, Colin was attacked by a sneak attack, but repeatedly opposed the capture of the left camp.

It was not until Zhou Lang said that the occupation of Zuoying was not to confront the local government, but to safely repair the merchant ships, and that Colin agreed to take this military action as soon as the ships were repaired.

Obviously, Colin's purpose was not to offend any Chinese government, and if one thought of the fact that the East India Company was sending a delegation to Peking to meet Qianlong and seek to open up trade with China, one should know Colin's thoughts. It's just that Colin is an officer, and this kind of political flavor of thinking must not come from his heart, and it can only be said that the East India Company, or the Governor of India, Cornwally, had confessed to him before.

Zhou Lang guessed Colin's thoughts, and finally told Colin that he did not plan to occupy Zuoying permanently, and did not want to confront the local government, and even expressed his willingness to contact the local government at the right time to explain the misunderstanding.

After this persuasion, Zhou Lang figured out Colin's thoughts, but Colin didn't know the considerations behind Zhou Lang at all.

Of course, Zhou Lang really doesn't plan to occupy Zuoying, at least not now, he wants to gain a foothold in China, but the time has not yet come in his plan, he has not yet the ability to protect himself, even if he occupies here, it is just to make a wedding dress for the East India Company.

Then why did Zhou Lang occupy the left camp again and again.

In fact, one of the reasons he told Colin was true, he was really worried that the local government would use the left battalion to continue attacking their merchant ships. What the Manchu army was rotten into, the records in the history books are still credible. Since the left battalion commander always had the guts to attack them for the purpose of making money, there was no reason why the more senior officers did not have the guts. Before, because it took more than ten days to repair the ship, Zhou Lang was not very worried, but now that the ship has suffered damage, there is not a month that cannot be repaired, and one month is enough for senior officers in other places to understand what is happening here in the port.

So Zhou Lang had to guard against it.

The reason that I didn't tell Colin was Zhou Lang's speculation about the mentality of being an official in China. He knows that there has always been such a malaise in China's political culture, that is, hooliganization, bullying the weak and fearing the hard. If you endure it again and again, you will be bullied again and again, and once you are tough, the other party will accommodate you. As the saying goes, this is the truth that killing people and setting fires to Zhao'an, Zhou Lang's purpose is not to be an official for Zhao'an, he just doesn't want the other party to cause trouble.

So he can't retract, but has to stand up and make things bigger, and in the end, it will not work.

So he asked Colin to occupy the left camp and hold it, and it was easier to hold the city than to keep being attacked by the other side on the ship. Once they were able to hold the left camp, and the local government found that it was impossible to capture it, they would think of other ways. With the urine nature of Manchu officials, they will inevitably choose to turn big things into small things. They will even send someone to contact them, compensate them for their losses, and then let them go. This was the case many times in the history of the East India Company's trade with China. When foreigners owed money to the merchants of the Thirteen Lines, the Qing government would often oppress the merchants and not hold them accountable. And if the Thirteen Banks owe money to foreigners, and the foreigners go to the yamen to make trouble, the merchants may even be raided by the government.

For example, the Pan family's Tongfu Bank recovered the debts of American businessmen, and even went to Washington to fight a lawsuit; And the famous thirteen merchants Cai Shiwen failed, swallowed opium and committed suicide, and his family was even exiled to Xinjiang by the Qing government, just because he owed the debt to the foreigners, the emperor felt that he had lost the face of the Qing Dynasty, and not only let the other thirteen merchants be responsible for compensation, but also double the compensation to the foreigners.

At that time, Fengshan County will not be able to defeat Zuoying City, so it is bound to contact Zhou Lang, and Zhou Lang can make it clear that the Zuoying will always sneak attack in front and defend himself in the rear, and ask the other party to compensate. Even if the local government would not lose money in the end, it bought time for the repair of the ship.

If they do not occupy the left battalion, they will show weakness to the local Qing army, making them think that even if they fight themselves, there will be no consequences, I am afraid that after that, there will be a succession of flies pounced on them, today it is the left battalion, next year it will be Chishan Xun, the day after tomorrow it will be Qihou Xun and even the garrison of Fengshan County will come to intervene.

But these inside information Zhou Lang couldn't explain to Colin, could it be that if he told them to beat the officials of the Qing Dynasty hard, not only was it okay, but the harder they were beaten, the easier it was for the other party to compromise, didn't this mean that it was an enlightenment to the British, and it was possible for the Opium War to break out in advance. Zhou Lang was very sure that as long as the British were convinced that they would be able to switch trade with the Qing government, the East India Company's current strength would have this ability.

They didn't need to occupy Beiqicheng, they only needed to send a few thousand soldiers to come to Guangzhou to hang around, run to Zhenjiang to cut off the Cao Yun, and the Qing government would immediately compromise. Once the British have opened up trade with China in advance, and after gaining a foothold in China, their attention will probably be shifted from India to China, which may be a good thing for India, and they may retain their independence, or at least move back in time.

But for Zhou Lang, instead of letting China share the pressure of Britain for India, it is better to let the third brother support himself first, of course, the period of support of the third brother is not to let the Qing government survive as in history, but Zhou Lang used it to develop his own strength and gain a firm foothold in China.

After the occupation of the left battalion, everyone was not idle.

Colin has to prepare for the defense of the left battalion, according to the geographical characteristics here, the enemy is either from the north or from the south, so the two hills in the north and south of the left battalion are very important, fortunately, the reason why the Qing army values this place is that it values the geographical advantage here, so there are still some buildings on these two hills, such as the Guanyin Pavilion under the Turtle Mountain, and there are abandoned military camps on the mountain.

Colin did not have enough men to defend the two mountains separately, so what he had to do was to place four cannons on each of them, and send ten soldiers to guard each of them. The others remained in the city to respond, and with the presence of artillery positions on these two heights, it was impossible for the enemy to attack the left battalion directly. As for the defense of the lotus pond on the east side of the left camp, he chose to place ten cannons on the city wall to cooperate with the infantry to defend it.

The only dead end was that the enemy came in from the sea, but now that their ships were damaged, they really couldn't defend against it.

It's up to Harald at sea, and Harald's current task is to seize time to repair the ship. The people of Banten Village can't use it, they killed dozens of young people, and now the people of Banten Village can't eat it when they see it, and they can't hire it for any money. But there are more people in Zuoying City, not long after the recruitment notice was posted, the residents who just closed their doors and closed their doors under the sound of cannons, and they looked extremely timid, they actually signed up enthusiastically, which is really surprising.

There are obviously more carpenters and blacksmiths in Zuoying City, and they have even been hired by the Oriental Dawn before, after all, this is very close to the fishing village, and when they heard that they could earn a silver dollar every day, the craftsmen who had already thought about it found themselves to work, and now they posted notices again, these people took the lead, and naturally more people believed that these Fan Merchants would pay by the day, so many people came to apply.