"Why don't you talk about the fact that we were attacked by the Left Battalion first?"

Colin even had to raise objections to the content of Zhou Lang's letter, the relationship between the two was on the verge of breaking, and it could be said that it was not much different from tearing his face.

"It doesn't make sense. The officers of the left battalion have already fled, and the officials of Fengshan County may or may not know what happened here in the left battalion. But there are only two results, and if the general of the left battalion has been arrested by Fengshan County by now, it will be useless for us to report him. If he is safe now, it means that his superiors are sheltering him, and then our letter accusing him is not only useless, but it is likely that the officials who sheltered him will continue to conceal the truth, and our letter may be destroyed in private. Therefore, I only mentioned in the letter that we were attacked by the bandits of the left battalion, so that the officials of Fengshan County could understand the reason, and they would not destroy the letter, so that we could really send a message to them. ”

Zhou Lang explained.

Colin was very suspicious: "You Chinese ideas are really complicated. I still think that we should state the facts, so that our actions to attack the left battalion are reasonable, and it is they who provoke first. ”

Zhou Lang actually didn't understand Colin's mentality at this time, he remembered that Colin had been trying to avoid provoking the Chinese authorities, but since he repelled the attack of the Green Battalion of the Left Battalion, he seemed to have become more belligerent.

Zhou Lang believed that there must be something going on between them, but he didn't know anything about it, so he couldn't infer it. But he knew that he couldn't communicate rationally with Colin, and he didn't want to waste that effort.

"Do you know Chinese?"

Zhou Lang asked, pointing to the letter on the table.

Colin shook his head.

Zhou Lang has always felt that Colin, as a person sent by the East India Company to spy on him, has a huge shortcoming, that is, he does not understand both Chinese and Chinese characters, so it is impossible for him to monitor a lot of information in place.

But this is really difficult for the East India Company, because their own talents who know Chinese are extremely scarce, and only a few large classes based in Guangzhou know Chinese, and they are also Cantonese, and they are very unfamiliar with Chinese official dialect. This lack of Chinese personnel even affected the Magalny delegation, which could not find suitable translators after forming a team in London. Macartney had to send his deputy, Staunton, to the continent in search of interpreters, in Paris, Gothenburg, Copenhagen and Lisbon, and finally the church staff in Paris told him that there might be Chinese in Italy. Eventually, they found four Chinese priests studying in a monastery in Naples, Italy. Later, when they negotiated with Qianlong, it was one of them named Li Zibiao who interpreted in person.

It was so difficult to find a suitable translator, and it was too expensive to ask Cornwally to assign a translator to Colin, so although Colin came to meet Zhou Lang, he could not communicate with Zhou Lang in Chinese at all.

This letter was actually translated to Colin by Zhou Lang himself, but Colin himself couldn't understand the content at all. So Zhou Lang's hint is obvious, you don't understand the content, you can write how I want, you can't interfere with me.

"Are you sure you want me to rewrite one?"

Zhou Lang asked.

Colin snorted and ignored it.

Zhou Lang turned his hand and handed the letter on the table to a miserable Qing soldier next to him, he was a prisoner in the night attack, did a month of hard labor, of course he was mistreated in the process, you must know that the Norwegian sailors who supervised their work had friends who died in their sneak attack, so the situation of the Qing soldiers prisoners was particularly tragic.

"Remember that this is your chance and don't miss it. If you go back with our letter, I believe that your commander will not embarrass you, if you plan to run away with the letter, there are Qing soldiers outside the barracks, and you will not be able to escape. ”

Qing Bing only promised, he could leave this ghost place, he could no longer stay with those fierce red-haired ghosts, and let him do anything.

After this Qing soldier left, Zhou Lang asked someone to bring in another one, the same letter, the same explanation, and asked this Qing soldier to send the letter. He needs the news to be passed on to the officials of Fengshan County, and if the news cannot be passed on to each other, this battle will definitely start.

But Zhou Lang is also forced to be helpless, if there is a choice, he is unwilling to take the initiative to write a letter to the Qing army, in his opinion, who moves first means who shows weakness, will send a message to the other party that he has no confidence, even if he really negotiates, I am afraid he will suffer.

He prefers to let the Qing army understand that it is difficult to defeat the left battalion by force after a fight, or let them know that even if the left battalion is defeated, it will have to pay a heavy price, so that when it comes to negotiations, he will take the initiative. It's like when Qi Shan was negotiating with the British, the British wanted to capture the Humen Fort, which was not only a demonstration, but also to gain bargaining chips at the negotiating table.

Now that the left camp is besieged by the other party, Zhou Lang really doesn't have any chips on his side.

The reply was sent the next day, and the messenger was still the prisoner who had been released by Zhou Lang, and he came to Zuoying again with trepidation, obviously he didn't want to come at all. It's good to receive a reply, which at least means that the message has been delivered and the two sides have established a stable communication channel.

But the content of the reply letter, according to Colin, was insincere, because the other party actually asked Zhou Lang to hand over the culprits, at least three Yiren leaders. In the letter, of course, they made a righteous accusation, nothing at all, and so on, and then made a generous statement, saying that the lords of the Qing Dynasty could not blame the past, but said that the culprits must be brought to justice. He also emphasized in the letter that it was okay to hand over the culprit directly to them, as long as Zhou Lang expressed remorse, he could also allow them to execute himself, and then hand over the head to them.

Colin was furious, in his opinion, of course, it was impossible to agree to such a condition, and to hand over the culprit, wouldn't this be to hand him over, he was the biggest leader of the Yi people here.

But Zhou Lang saw the sincerity of the Qing army on the other side from this letter, yes, the other party was sincere. As long as the first level, this is sincerity, and this is a gap for Zhou Lang.

The Qing army on the other side must have known that their men had fought with these Yiren sailors on the beach before, and they could die in battle. Then they don't want living people, just a few dead heads, which is not to embarrass each other. As for the culprit, as long as the head of the Yi people passes, Zhou Lang said that this is the leader of the Yi people, and of course it is impossible for the Qing army to investigate it. Then the officials of Fengshan County took the head to ask for a reward, which was another great achievement.

But Colin's understanding really does not grasp the implicit content of the letter, which in his opinion is simply to make them surrender. Zhou Lang didn't say anything, he already had no trust in Colin. Let Colin despair, and then try to confront the Qing army on the opposite side, otherwise if the situation is serious, Colin will put the blame on Zhou Lang's head and tie Zhou Lang up and send Zhou Lang to the Qing army in exchange for a compromise, it will be bad.

"What do you think, the other party said that as long as we hand over the three responsible persons, they are willing to let us leave the left camp safely and promise not to pursue."

Zhou Lang concealed the implicit information, and instead directly asked Colin and Harald's opinion.

Colin refused: "I refuse this request." And I ask us to recruit soldiers right now, and we have to give them a little color. ”

Harald does not express an opinion.

Zhou Lang sighed: "Calm down." Let me talk to them again after replying to the letter. We just need peace, and if they can safely let us go, we'll be okay with that. ”

Zhou Lang wrote another letter, which was also brought back by the Qing army who sent the letter.

Although Colin did not object, but the next morning, he acted without authorization, he did not consult Zhou Lang, and even copied the recruitment notice written by Zhou Lang before and posted it in the city, and the recruited people were directly pulled to his military camp.

But he has a lot of problems to solve, money is not a problem, the British army is often used to carrying a large number of gold coins with the army, for example, when they are fighting in Europe, they all use gold coins to directly purchase materials from the merchants of the host country. Although Colin did not bring gold coins, he did bring a lot of silver coins, and in case of danger, the money was never touched. The problem is that the recruitment notices written by Zhou Lang before were for the purpose of recruiting workers for the maintenance of merchant ships, and after recruiting enough manpower, those notices were torn off. Now after Colin posted it, although people can also be recruited, but these people think that they are going to work as miscellaneous servants to repair ships, but they are pulled into the barracks, and when they can't communicate with each other, it is enough for Colin to make these people understand that they are here to fight.

Even if these people understand that they are going to fight against the Qing army, and are willing to accept this life-threatening errand under a heavy reward, it will take a lot of effort to train them.

Translation is so scarce, Britain wants to send a mission to the Manchu Qing, and they have to go to Italy to find a few Chinese who come here to study theology, as soon as Zhou Lang found Xie Qinggao's talent, he immediately pulled him to his side at any cost, Colin Xiang to find a translator, it is basically impossible, even if he searches the whole of Taiwan, he may not be able to find a person, not to mention that he can only look for it in Zuoying.

But there is a ready-made one, that is, Zhou Lang, but Zhou Lang will definitely not help. At least not today, because the time he had agreed with Colin hadn't come yet.

Sure enough, Colin was busy for three days, but he couldn't find a way to communicate with those workers, and he couldn't express enough details and complexities to express the meaning with his hands, and the state of being unable to communicate made the workers who came into contact with the Yi people very nervous, and people fled almost every day.

At the same time, Zhou Lang's negotiations with the Qing army also ended in failure, and the Qing army never asked for compensation, but insisted on asking for people, and finally lowered it to at least one head, but this was not something that Colin could accept.

Colin knew that without Zhou Lang, it would be really difficult for him to make the newly recruited Chinese soldiers form combat effectiveness, even if he gestured with his hands, so that they could follow the other soldiers to learn to walk in line and learn to use muskets, but how to direct their actions on the battlefield, so he had to ask Zhou Lang to be his interpreter.

Just when he was about to speak the next day, there was a sudden change, Xie Qinggao's boat finally arrived from Macao, and as soon as it docked at the dock, Xie Qinggao immediately rushed to Zuoying.

When he got the news, Colin was still trying to deal with a group of dazed Chinese soldiers in the camp in Guishan, and as soon as he received the news, he immediately put down his military affairs and hurried back to the city, heading straight to Zhou Lang's residence, the Fengshan County Ya in the past.