The Qing fleet sailed from the port of Calcutta into the Bay of Bengal and sailed in a few days to Penang, the British foothold in the Far East.

According to historical records, the Zheng He fleet of the Ming Dynasty docked on this small island. As early as 1745, Chinese immigrants from Guangdong settled here, but the number of Chinese here is not comparable to the number of overseas Chinese in Manila, Batavia and other big cities.

In 1786, after the British East India Company promised the Sultan of Jeddah to be spared the invasion of Siam, the Sultan of Jeddah gave the island to the East India Company as a reward.

Captain Wright of the East India Company has been recorded using a cannon to shoot gold into the interior of Penang to encourage immigrants to help develop the island. Of course, it is not known whether this story is true or false. Captain Wright is a very good sycophant, and after he occupied Penang, he happened to coincide with the birthday of George IV, who was still the Prince of Wales, so he named the island Wales Island and established George Town on it.

Wright's sycophant was the right person, this guy quickly went from a small captain of the East India Company to the first governor of Penang, which really surprised the colonial officials of the East India Company!

Although Wright is a sycophant who is very good at slapping Sima Fart, this guy is still quite good at administrative affairs, and when he took over Penang, the island was deserted, and a few years later the population of this small island exceeded the 10,000 mark, many of whom were Chinese.

Wright opened up George Town as a free trade port and set up a dock supply dock to provide maintenance, loading and replenishment services for British merchant ships. Prior to the establishment of Singapore, Penang had been the commercial, trade and political centre of Britain in the Far East.

To be honest, the location of Penang is not very good, a little far from the golden laneways such as the Straits of Malacca. However, there is no way to do it, the prime areas in the South Seas are occupied by the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, and the rising stars of the colonial world like Britain have not yet had the strength to intervene in those places for the time being. In the eyes of the British, the conquest of India, the rich subcontinent of South Asia, is now the first priority in Far Eastern affairs.

As soon as the visiting fleet sailed into the port area of Penang, Wickham found that there were more than 20 merchant ships moored on the pier, some of which looked like typical Chinese sailing ships - Cantonese ships! From the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, this kind of ship has been called the main force of Chinese sailing ships along with Fu Chuan, and even the indigenous maritime merchants of Southeast Asia in the Nanyang generation also use this kind of sailing boat.

However, these ships are not supposed to belong to China, and are most likely owned by Muslim merchants from Southeast Asia. Because the current Qing Dynasty implemented a policy of closing the country to the outside world, it was not allowed to go to the sea with pieces of plates, there was no ocean-going trade fleet at all, and there were some sporadic pirates in the South China Sea.

At present, China's foreign trade is basically confined to Guangzhou, and foreign merchant ships that come to China to trade are also carried out under the banner of tribute. At this time, the trade between the British East India Company and China was in this unequal form of trade, and the annual turnover was really limited.

Because of the poor sanitary condition of George Town, and the facilities were not comparable to those of the port of Calcutta, the members of the mission had no intention of disembarking, but simply docked at the port to resupply. However, Wickham was interested in the place, as George Town, later known as Penang, was famous in modern Chinese history. Four of the 72 martyrs in Wong Hwa Kong are overseas Chinese from Penang.

After obtaining permission from Colonel Aldrich, the commander of the fleet, Wickham prepared to disembark and take a look. Bert was also an idle man, and when he saw that Wickham was going to the port area, he also shouted that he wanted to get off the ship to see what to see, and Wickham was annoyed and agreed to take him off the ship.

Most of the immigrants built a shack near the port area, and the streets were full of sewage, and a large amount of garbage was piled up on the streets but no one treated it, which was several times worse than the slums of Mumbai in later generations.

No wonder the officials and entourage of the mission did not get off the ship even if they died, it was really that the sanitary conditions here were too poor. Wright himself died of malaria in Penang in 1794. Wickham finally understood why, can a person living in a garbage heap all day be free from malaria?

Just as the two of them were about to return home, two soldiers dressed in the costumes of the East India Company mercenaries walked over with a group of tattered people, all of whom were yellow-skinned and black-eyed Asians. From time to time, the two mercenaries scolded and whipped their whips into the crowd, and their eyes were full of hatred, and they looked like they dared not speak angrily.

Wickham's heart moved, and he asked a pedestrian on the road, "Sir, who are these men who are being escorted by soldiers?" ”

When the pedestrian saw that he was a kingdom officer, he said respectfully, "Sir, these are slaves that Governor Wright bought from Batavia to build the facilities of the docks and the shore forts. But those treacherous Dutch are not authentic, and all they sell are Malays, except for a few Chinese inside, who are all lazy and stupid! I think the shrewd Governor Wright has suffered a loss in this business. ”、

After the passer-by finished speaking, his face was full of strange smiles, which was quite like watching Wright's jokes.

There are Chinese people in it! Wickham's face turned bad, and the Dutch had been selling Chinese into slavery for two hundred years. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the need to develop Batavia, the Dutch East India Company cooperated with the Chinese pirate Zheng Zhilong to sell the Chinese to the South Seas.

The Chinese are hard-working and adaptable to unfamiliar environments, which is naturally not comparable to those lazy Southeast Asian natives, so these Dutch people like Chinese slaves even more. In the past half century, I don't know how many Chinese have lost their lives in the harsh living conditions of Southeast Asia.

Later, the Qing Dynasty implemented a policy of banning the sea, and these Dutch could not find a loophole to exploit, so they slowly stopped this kind of business. Although the business of human trafficking flourished again at the end of the Qing Dynasty, what Wickham did not expect was that during the Qianlong period, there were also Chinese people who were sold into slavery!

After thanking the pedestrian, Wickham stopped the two mercenaries escorting the slaves and shouted, "Soldier, are there any Chinese slaves in here?" The thought of having his own compatriots in it made Wickham's attitude a little worse, and it was a little unpleasant to look at these two guys.

The two mercenaries just wanted to scold them, only to find out that the person who asked them turned out to be a captain officer! One of the mercenaries ran over with a grin and said with a smile: "There is indeed a Chinese slave here, I don't know what is the matter with the chief?" ”

The two of them lowered their posture very low, after all, the two opposite were serious regular army officers, and the mercenaries of a company like them could not be compared with others at all, so it was better to be honest with their tails between them.

Wickham couldn't deny it, and went on to ask, "Oh, which one?" ”

The two mercenaries didn't know what Wickham was looking for Chinese slaves, so they muttered a few words in a low voice, then stepped forward and pointed their whips at an unkempt man and said, "Sir, this is a Chinese slave bought from Batavia." ”

Although the man had a vegetable-looking face and heavy shackles, he was very burly and stood out from the crowd of Malay slaves. This guy has an unruly aura in his eyes, but at the same time, there is some elegant bookish air in it, what a weirdo!

Wickham stepped forward and said in Chinese: "Brother, where are you from?" "Later generations of Mandarin were born from the Beijing dialect of the Qing Dynasty mixed with an accent outside the Guan, so Wickham spoke similar to the official dialect of the Qing Dynasty in this era, but there was no need to worry about the other party not being able to understand it.

Hearing the familiar local sound, the man raised his head with some excitement, and when he saw that the other party was a blonde and blue-eyed man, his face was full of surprise! There are many foreigners who can speak Chinese these years, but he has never seen Yiren who can speak a little Beijing official dialect.

After coming back to his senses, the man clenched his fists and said, "Down here is the Shaoguan clan in Guangdong." After that, he said no more. Even if the other party can speak Chinese, he is still a foreign race in the end, and the man has no plans to talk in depth.

Wickham touched his nose a little embarrassed when he saw that the other party looked like he was unanswering, and then turned to the mercenary behind him and said, "I am Captain Wickham of Lord Magalny's mission to visit the Qing Dynasty, and I need to take this Chinese with me to learn some about the Qing Kingdom." ”

The two mercenaries glanced at each other and said with some embarrassment: "Sir, I'm afraid this is a little bad, if this Chinese slave is handed over to you, we will not be able to explain it to Governor Wright twice." ”

The governor's attendants would come every day to count the number of slaves' ears, and suddenly there was one less who could not be found undetected. Wickham didn't want to embarrass these two little people, so he took out five gini gold coins from his pocket, handed them to the two, and said, "You take these five ginis to Governor Wright, I believe that the money is enough to buy a slave!" ”

Seeing that the two mercenaries were still here, Wickham took out two more shillings from his money bag and handed them to them: "Take these to the tavern and have a good drink." ”

Two shillings was a lot, and when the two men saw that they had money to take, they took the remaining slaves away with great gratitude.

Bert snorted a little unhappily and said, "Sir, five gini is enough to buy four slaves, and it is for nothing that the broken governor named Wright to get cheap." But, sir, what are you buying slaves for, do you want to go to the United States to grow cotton? With that, Bert smirked and laughed.

If the British went to the United States to grow cotton as slaves, it would be a very dishonorable thing. The slavery system in the United States is now very much despised by the British, who claim to be a civilized world, and use it as a pretext to attack the Americans.

Wickham scoffed at this, and to paraphrase a phrase from later generations, there is no killing without buying and selling, and there are no slaves sold by the British, and the Americans are still slaves with fart. Why is Liverpool's port more prosperous than London's, not because of the slave trade!

Wickham ignored Bert and said to the man who still didn't know the situation: "Brother, you are free, you can go wherever you want." As he spoke, Wickham took out all the gold coins left in his pocket and handed them to the man: "These are the travel expenses I gave you, and if you want to go back to China, it is enough." If you don't want to go back, you can use the money to start a small business here, which is better than being a slave. ”

Originally, Wickham never used gold coins, a currency that was obsolete in later generations, and compared to heavy gold coins, Wickham still liked the cashier's checks issued by major London banks that resembled paper money. However, in addition to large transactions in the Far East, this kind of cashier's check is not very easy to use, so Wickham also exchanged some gold coins and put it on his body.

The man did not accept Wickham's money, but looked at Wickham with a wary face, and said suspiciously: "Why do you want to redeem me and give me back this money?" "This man has a very strong wariness of Westerners in his heart, because he was robbed by the pirates of the Yiren people, and he was reduced to the point of being a slave. Besides, as a mature man, he would never believe in this kind of pie-in-the-sky thing.

For the man's distrust, Wickham also had a headache, he couldn't say: "Dude, I'm a Chinese in white skin, and I saved you out of compatriot friendship!" But if he said this, he would probably become a monster in the eyes of others.

Wickham had an idea and said, "This brother, you know Hongmen, right? When the man heard Wickham talk about Hongmen, a gleam flashed in his eyes, but Wickham didn't notice it.

Marvelham, complacent at his quick wit, continued: "A few years ago, our family took in a Chinese man who said that he was a member of the Hung Men and that it was only because of a traitor's whistleblowing that he had to go into exile in England. I learned Chinese from the old gentleman, and in addition to that, the old gentleman also taught me a lot of Chinese poetry. Wickham was afraid that this man would not believe it, and he also recited a poem by Su Shi to recite Nujiao Chibi nostalgia.

When the man saw that Wickham could still sing words, the expression on his face was even more exciting, and then he believed most of Wickham's words, and his expression softened: "That old gentleman turned out to be from Hongmen, where is that old gentleman now?" ”

It was originally made up, and only the ghost knows where that old gentleman is. Wickham feigned grief and said, "Before I went to sea, the old gentleman died. Before he died, the old gentleman still read in his mouth, 'Drive out the Tartars and restore China', eh. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sun, I didn't mean to steal your lines.

"Good!" The man couldn't help but applaud: "What a sentence 'drive out the Tartars and restore China'!" That old gentleman is really a strange person, if he hadn't fallen prematurely, he would definitely be able to compare with the Chen general system back then. ”

Bert was baffled by the man's loud applause, but he couldn't understand what the two were saying, so he could only do it in a hurry. The general system of Chen in the man's mouth naturally refers to Chen Jinnan, a famous minister in the Southern Ming Dynasty, who has helped the Zheng family operate in Taiwan for many years, and the civil affairs in Tuntian have been quite effective, providing a solid rear for the Zheng family to resist the Qing Dynasty.

Chen Jinnan can be widely known in later generations, and this is the credit of the old man Jin Yong. In the Deer and Ding Ji of Old Man Jin, Chen Jinnan is not only a martial arts master, but also the chief leader of the Heaven and Earth Society. But this is actually far from the truth, Chen Jinnan is just a capable official, how can he fly the eaves and walk the walls and swords to walk the rivers and lakes?

"Chen Jinnan, General Chen, I also heard the old gentleman say that he is the founding master of Hongmen." Wickham felt that the topic had been a little opened, and he was afraid that the cow would show his feet, so he stopped talking about Hongmen, but instead stuffed the gold coin into the big man's hand, and said, "By the way, I don't know my brother's name yet?" ”

The man did not refuse Wickham's kindness this time, and accepted the money cleanly, saying, "Zhang Mingxia, a disciple of Xiahongmen." ”

"What?" Wickham was completely stunned, he didn't expect that the man opposite was actually a disciple of Hongmen, and he was so embarrassed that he had borrowed the name of Hongmen just now! It's okay now, the fake Li Kui has met the real Li Kui!

As the old saying goes, don't pretend to be forced, pretend to be struck by lightning.