"Personally, I would love to stay here and continue to cooperate with His Majesty the Emperor, but I still have my own territory to take care of, and I will be back in two months. Please tell Your Majesty the Emperor that our agreement has always been valid, and that I will arrive here next year at the latest, with more goods and merchant ships from the Great Song Empire, and then this port will be the most dazzling pearl of the Empire and the biggest money bag of His Majesty the Emperor. In addition, Baron Jiang, as my representative and sincerity, will stay here to run her family's business, and I also ask the city lord to take care of it more, and the next time I come, I will definitely be grateful to the city lord." ”

Of course, Hong Tao will not stay here to work for Carl's cousin, let alone give himself the title of city lord, even if he gives the emperor to himself, he will not have the leisure time to serve. Next year he plans to come again, and he plans to bring the merchant ships of Golden River Bay loaded with goods, but the purpose is not to add to the emperor's special economic zone, but to cut the corners of the whole of Europe. Along with the goods came a large amount of gold coins, and the first credit bank in the actual sense of the word would be opened in this special zone, and the prosperity seen by the eyes was sometimes not real, the real essence was to carry out financial aggression!

"Let's go, this time we won't take the original route, head 240, stick to the coastline, let the trainee officers gather, and prepare for bathymetry." Seeing Herman leave the Golden River with the last of the gold, Hong Tao gave new orders to the navigator. Soon a group of little kids with sextants and rectangular rulers ran to the back deck to assemble. The midshipmen were all graduates of the nautical school, and their main task on board was to make surveys and draw new charts. Those old sailors, although they were a hundred times better than them in seamanship, played with these things of writing, drawing, and drawing. It's not as good as a midshipman officer with a serious academic background. Wait for these knowledgeable and inexperienced half-sized children to grow up for a few more years. Hong Tao's naval officer level will gradually change. These children are more loyal and fanatical to the Jinhewan system, and they are 100% affected by the floods, and they are 100% Jinwan people at their roots.

After coming out of the port of Rena, the Golden River went all the way west along the coastline, stopping and stopping, from the southern coast of France to the east coast of Spain, and it took half a month to return to Karlburg. Now there are more than 200 more slaves on the construction site of Karl Fort, all of which were obtained by Sadat, and there will be more in the future. And Carl also has a fixed supply point. No city on the other side of the strait dared to refuse his ship to dock, and the food and fruits sent to the ship were the best and the cheapest. The Berbers just begged the two galleons not to attack again, and to lose a little.

"Look, this is my Cixi, two! Hey, hey, hey......" When Hong Tao was inspecting the inner layer of Karl Fort, which was almost completed, Karl suddenly came out with two North Africans and showed Hong Tao what he had gained these days.

"You have to be careful, don't play too much, let them gang up with their fellow villagers to kill you." Hong Tao has no objection to Karl establishing his own team here, and it is no problem for him to learn how to manage slaves. But this thing can't be rushed, and it can't be careless. Otherwise, the consequences are serious.

"No, the two of them are not from the same tribe as those people, they are their slaves, and I not only rescued them, but also took their families over, and then let them be my Empress and manage those people for me. Your method is very useful, in a little more than a month, the inner city will be completely built, and then I will teach them how to become a soldier, and in the future, the two of them will be my Cixi, you have one, I have two! "Carl is a solid learner, and he knows how to control people, and he has a plan for the future.

"Well, this is your fiefdom document, and the title will be available in a few days. Now that you are a noble lord with a fief, a castle, and a title, tell me about it, Mia and the child don't need me to send you back, how about your family get a small kingdom here? Let Mia also be a queen, and your twins will be princes and princesses in the future. Hong Tao felt that Carl himself should have this wisdom, and he didn't have to worry too much about himself, if he was stupid enough to be killed by the servants, then it was useless to say more, after all, he couldn't follow him for a lifetime, and sooner or later he would have to be separated. The question is to know what he thinks and how to plan for the future.

“…… Let's let them stay in Golden River Bay first, I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to the way I was. I regret coming back a little bit, I'm not used to a lot of things, but I still like the days when I run around the sea. Carl squatted on the ground, scratching his red hair and pondering for a long time, still not sure what he would do next. This is the most insidious thing about Hongtao, anyone who has lived in Jinhe Bay for a long time is difficult to get used to life elsewhere, and that modern taste cannot be easily erased.

"Okay, get used to it first, and I'll tell Mia that you stay in Cape Town for a year...... The Malacca can't leave you behind, only six 80 guns to defend the castle, and this weapon is not too familiar to the people here. Have you thought about how to develop your territory in the future, you can't always live by robbery, right? If you don't have enough money, you won't have enough people to defend here, let alone develop. Hong Tao agrees with Carl's choice, and it is a more suitable choice to stay for a year to see the situation, but how to develop the territory of Karlburg, Karl doesn't seem to have any ideas.

"You'll definitely help me think about it, I won't worry about it, if I don't have a ship, I'll train them to be soldiers, and if I don't have money, I'll borrow it from my cousin, and he'll still give me this money." Sure enough, Carl was thinking too simplistic about the future.

"Actually, you can continue to hunt whales, I'll take the Malacca, and the two schooners will be left for you. I've seen it, and with a slight change to the mast and sails, it's no problem to be a whaling ship. There are schools of whales on the Canary Islands, and there is a Tropic of Capricorn, and the waves are very small, which is very suitable for this kind of offshore boat, and there is no danger. If you have two boats, you can catch at least two whales every month, pull them back and boil them into whale oil and send them all to Re Na Ya, Jiang Niangzi and Lao Luo have two shops in the city, which can help you sell them. In addition, I will tell you a good news, Mrs. Jiang will also stay here and not return to the Great Song Dynasty, ask her about business, she is much better than you. Hong Tao felt that Carl could start his career by whaling just like he had done in Jinhe Bay.

Whale oil was in greater demand in Europe than in the Great Song Dynasty, and many noble castles were lit with torches. Whale oil, which is not too expensive and has a large quantity, can provide them with light, who wouldn't want their castle to shine, but they really can't afford to burn candles. In addition, through whaling operations, Karl can also train a group of sailors who are familiar with the operation of composite sails, and once he is ready to invade Europe on a large scale, the Cape Town shipyard will quickly produce ships, but the sailors cannot be provided by Golden River Bay.

"I'll just say, your method is good, I'm too familiar with whaling, and Jiang Niangzi helps me sell it, so there's nothing missing! If Jiang Niangzi stays here, aren't you afraid that he will be abducted by those nobles? You may not know those aristocrats, they have nothing to do when they are full, and they can go to the door of Jiang Niangzi's shop for a month in a row to deliver flowers and recite poems! Karl was really fooled, sitting on the big stone that his two Cixi had carried for him, and he was 100% satisfied with the idea that Hong Tao had given him.

"Don't worry about it, let's talk about your business first. It's not enough to just be able to hunt whales, you still have to have an army, and mercenaries are not insured. Remember the hand crossbow I made, right? If you have whales, you can continue to make hand crossbows, you are a soldier, you know more about the war here, if each of your troops is equipped with two hand crossbows, do you feel enough? Hong Tao also raised his buttocks, asked Karl's two servants to stuff a stone under him as a seat, and then talked to Carl about army building.

The number of artillery is not enough, the defense of the fortress has to rely on people, and if the crossbow can be used, Hong Tao will be relieved. The number of that thing is not terrible, once there are more, let's say hundreds, hundreds of them are fired together, and it is no different from machine guns. At this time, the armor of the European knights was chain mail, and that thing was useful for defense and slashing, but it had no effect on piercing damage, and a crossbow arrow was a hole.

"Don't even keep the artillery for me, I'm afraid they will steal it, leave me more flowering shells, I will continue to use the grenade launcher on the original ship, which can also be installed on the whaling ship, with a hand crossbow is enough. But you'll have to leave me some craftsmen, I'm not very good at making those things. After such a reminder from Hong Tao, Karl finally thought that the taste was coming, instead of asking for a few small-caliber guns, and being scared all day long, it was better to get more large slingshots and put them in the castle and on the ship, and with enough hand crossbows, no one would be afraid of coming. Even if the other side had ballistas and catapults, it was useless, the place where the castle was built could not accommodate so many troops, and as for the sea, Karl never thought that he would be afraid of anyone at sea.

"Well, I will leave you fifty craftsmen, who will make larger hand crossbows, which have a longer range than before, and although they are not easy to carry, they are suitable for use in the army compared to the smaller ones. Okay, I'll go and change those two ships for you first, don't be in a hurry to pull the volcanic ash first, as long as the inner fortress is built, and the outer layer is not in a hurry, you can build it yourself slowly. Send me a hundred slaves, build a shipyard next to the docks, and then have a place to fix any minor problems. Hong Tao is not very good at expressing any parting feelings, especially with a big man like Carl, he is more willing to use practical actions to help Carl gain a firm foothold, he thinks this is more effective than saying a lot of heart-wrenching words.

(To be continued.) )