Chapter XXXIII
First mate Olier and Sergeant Shabira were ordered to row towards the Fuchun in two small boats with a dozen Javanese servants.
The Dutch ship, named "Shark", was an armed merchant ship, not a real warship, and was about the same size as the Fuchun in terms of displacement, but far more firepower than the Fuchun. There were six rear-loading smoothbore guns on the "Shark" with a firing range of 2,000 meters, and the Fuchun cannon on the Fuchun, which could only hit a thousand meters away, was not enough to see in front of it.
The "Shark" is a new ship that has only been in the water for more than a year, and the captain Jared and the first mate Olier and others have the dream of making a fortune, and they have raised funds to buy this ship, and they have come from far away Europe to the far east.
But Jared and the others, who used all their funds to buy ships, no longer had any extra money to use to purchase goods, although they knew that as long as they shipped the porcelain and silk goods of the Ming Dynasty back to Europe, they could get ten times the profit.
If you don't have the capital to do business, you can only be a robber. For nearly a year, the "Shark" roamed the coast of Daming, robbing the merchant ships of Daming that it could encounter. However, in the sea area near Fujian and Guangdong, it was Zheng Zhilong's chassis, and the Dutch had suffered a big loss in the hands of Zheng Zhilong, and the "Shark" certainly did not dare to pick Zheng Zhilong's tiger whiskers, so he had to go to the coastal area of Zhejiang to rob the generation.
Over the past year, the "Shark" has also grabbed a few Ming boats, but not much. A few days ago, when I was robbing near the Zhoushan Islands, I encountered Daming pirates. At first, the "Shark" did not pay attention to those small boats, but when dozens of small boats rushed towards it regardless of life and death, trying to engage in broadside battles, the "Shark" had to flee in the desert. On the way back, it encountered another storm, a strong wind blew it far away from the mainland coast, and after continuous course correction, it was finally about to return to the familiar sea, and it was at this time that it encountered the "Fuchun".
There were only thirteen Dutch on board the Shark, and the rest were indigenous Javanese hired in Batavia (present-day Jakarta, Indonesia). First mate Olier and Sergeant Shabila led twelve Javanese men in two small boats to the Fuchun, and for fear of running aground, the "Shark" dropped anchor in the sea area still 500 meters away from the Fuchun.
The two Dutch boats quickly rowed a distance of 500 meters and came to the side of the "Fuchun".
"Oliel, do you think there will be Akito on the ship?" Sergeant Shabila Dao, although he is a retired sergeant, but he has very little guts, and has the nickname "Coward Shabila".
"Shut up, you coward, didn't you see that Akito went to the island in a small boat?" Oliel scolded.
However, in order to be cautious, he still let a few Javanese take the lead.
Anthony climbed up the rope to the side of the "Fuchun", raised his head and looked cautiously to the deck, and saw that the whole deck was in a mess but empty.
"Pig squirrel, hurry up!" Behind him, the Javanese Osiri pushed him hard.
On the "Shark", although he was also a Dutch servant army, Anthony was at the bottom because he was a wise man. In fact, he is not a Ming person, because his ancestors drifted to the South Seas from the Yuan Dynasty and took root on the island of Java, when there was no Ming Dynasty.
For hundreds of years, there have been countless Chinese who have crossed the ocean to come to various parts of Nanyang, they are industrious and capable, and have accumulated a lot of wealth through the efforts of one or two generations, which has aroused the covetousness of lazy Nanyang natives. At the beginning of the prestige of the country, the natives still respected the Chinese very much. But after the Western colonizers came to Nanyang, everything changed. On the island of Java, in order to stabilize the rule of the Dutch in order to rob the wealth accumulated by the Chinese for generations, the natives were co-opted to fight the Chinese, Anthony's father died at the hands of the natives, and the family property was robbed, and Anthony was still young at the time, sold into slavery, and later when the "Shark" recruited people in Batavia, Anthony was sold to the "Shark".
The long-term slave life made Anthony develop a cautious character, and after making sure that there was no one on the deck again, Anthony climbed onto the Fuchun.
When the two Dutchmen and the twelve servants were on deck, the first mate Oliel laughed as they looked at the empty Fuchun, and the coward Shabila had a smile on his face. Now, all the belongings of the entire ship are theirs.
"Line up, go into the cabin to check, no one is allowed to hide their belongings!" Oliel gave the order.
"I'll lead the team!" Shabila couldn't wait to make a request.
Looking at this teammate who is usually timid as a mouse, but can't wait to step forward when he encounters benefits, Olier sighed helplessly, and had to agree to his request, after all, someone needs to spy on those greedy Javanese.
Shabila excitedly carried the arquebus behind her back and led the way to the cabin.
He will definitely embezzle money, looking at Shabila's back, Oliel thought, the benefits can't let him fall alone, he has to fall a little too, thinking like this, Oliel also walked towards the cabin.
Oliel and Shabira led a dozen Javanese people to search the cabin floor by floor, and the top floor was the residence of the shipowner, Fu Chun, and the command cabin, which was empty and empty.
The second floor was the crew's quarters, but all the crew members left the Fuchun for the island, taking their belongings with them, leaving the Dutch pirates with only a mess of belongings.
The third layer was a bit of a catch, with a lot of supplies, food, plenty of buckets of fresh water, and a mess of groceries.
Since there are no valuables on the first three floors, it must be in the bilge of the lowest floor. Looking at the wooden staircase that led to the bilge, everyone's breathing became heavy.
"Get out of the way, I'll go down first!" Sergeant Shabila kicked and struck the Javanese who stood in his way, and when he descended the wooden ladder, the first mate Olier followed. The other high-ranking Javanese followed, and the lowest, like Anthony, were squeezed last.
The Fuchun has a total of 16 bilges, which are unique to China and use a watertight cabin structure, so that if one or two of the cabins leaks, the other cabins will not be affected.
Sergeant Shabila kicked open a hatch, and when he entered, he saw that the cabin was full of wooden boxes, and he pulled out the dagger at his waist and pried open the lid of one of the boxes, and in a flash of silver light, he saw that the boxes were full of Spanish eagles. Shabila's breathing suddenly became rapid, and she picked up a handful of Eagle Ocean with trembling hands, and listened to the crisp sound of Eagle Ocean smashing on the Eagle Ocean pile leaking from between her hands, and the corners of Shabila's eyes moistened. As a poor man, he never had more than ten silver coins of wealth on his body, and it was because of poverty that he traveled thousands of miles to the East in order to make a fortune, and when he saw the wealth in front of him, Shabila felt that the hardships he had suffered along the way were worth it.