(4000 words big chapter, please subscribe!) )

In the early morning, the eastern sky is slightly dewed. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info The round sun struggled on the sea level, and finally jumped into the air, and then the glow of the sun came straight from the east, and the rough sea became sparkling and dazzling.

The sea was calm after the fierce naval battle yesterday, and only the remaining wood chips told people about the tragedy of yesterday's battle.

Eight or nine tall sailing ships came to a quiet stop on the cliff side of the big island to the north, while more than a dozen small boats anchored around the big ship.

In yesterday's naval battle, Qiyun Trading House won the final victory, one of the three Dutch ships was captured, one was burned and sunk into the sea, and only one escaped from life. Of course, Qiyun Commercial Bank also paid a heavy price, two three-masted galleons were sunk, one was seriously damaged by artillery, and several other large ships were also more or less damaged, so they had to stay here for repairs. More than half of the more than 30 small boats were lost, some were sunk by Dutch artillery, and more than a dozen were used as fireships that sank to the bottom of the sea with the Dutch ship "Earl".

In terms of personnel, more than half of the more than 300 Japanese samurai recruited were lost, most of them died in the sea because the small boat they were in was sunk, and only about 160 have survived. As for the Ming people, the Qiyun Commercial Bank originally had about 80 people on two ships, and later recruited more than 200 Ming immigrants from Nagasaki through Li Guozhu, and more than 200 people were arranged on the newly purchased eight three-masted sailing ships. In yesterday's naval battle, two of the eight three-masted galleons were sunk by the Dutch, and only part of the crew on board survived. The other ships were also damaged in the battle, and the number of dead and wounded Akito crew members was more than 60 people.

It was a resounding victory! Although a Dutch ship was captured, the losses of Qiyun Trading House were also large. However, it was still profitable, because the captured Dutch ship "Princess" was a Galen ship with a displacement of 800 tons, and it was equipped with thirty-two guns, each of which, according to Olier, was a twelve-pound breech-loading smoothbore gun, which was a very advanced cannon even in Europe. This kind of cannon has another name in Daming: the red-coat cannon! Each door weighs 2,000 pounds! From these thirty-two cannons alone, it has already been earned, not to mention that there are other gains on board.

The "Princess" was bound for trade in Japan, and the goods it brought with it were sold and exchanged for silver and other goods. In the bilge of the "Princess" there were nearly 200,000 taels of silver, as well as a large number of saltpeter, sulfur, folding fans, folding screens, and other Japanese specialties, which were worth nearly 300,000 taels of silver. Thinking about another Dutch ship that was sunk by fire and sank to the bottom of the sea, and the large amount of property it carried on it also disappeared, Ren Siqi felt heartache.

Ren Siqi decided to stay here for a while, first, to repair the damaged ship, second, to revive the morale, and third, to see if a sunken ship could be salvaged, and the cargo could be burned by the fire, but the bronze cannon would definitely not!

The first thing that needs to be dealt with at the moment is those crew samurai recruited from Nagasaki. For those wandering warriors, Ren Siqi fulfilled the remaining silver according to his promise, and distributed the pensions to the dead warriors. In this naval battle, these wandering warriors made great achievements and paid great sacrifices!

The Japanese samurai were recruited to fight against the Dutch, and now that the battle was over, the employment relationship between the two sides ended. However, Ren Siqi still sent someone to ask these samurai about their plans to see if anyone was willing to continue to follow him. Most of the remaining more than 160 Japanese samurai chose to return to Japan with their silver, and only about 50 were willing to join Qiyun Trading House. Ren Siqi happily accepted them and put them under the command of Li Xingjiu and Takeshita Lang (i.e., Yamada Futaro). With this group of warriors, the combat power of Qiyun Trading House has increased greatly.

Most of the Ming immigrants recruited from Nagasaki chose to stay in Qiyun Trading House, they chose to cross the ocean to Japan when Daming could not survive, but after all, it is difficult to leave their homeland, and now they can find a job on a ship, of course, it is much better than working in Japan.

Those who did not want to stay returned to Japan by boat, and they would bring back to Nagasaki the news of the victory of the Saiyun Trading Company over the Dutch, and the prestige of the great Ming Hidecai would soon spread throughout Japan!

Timber was needed to repair the ship, and because the ship was seriously damaged this time, the timber stored on the ship was no longer enough, so Ren Siqi sent people to the island to cut wood. Anthony volunteered to take people to the island, and Ren Siqi assigned him two lightly damaged three-masted galleons and more than 100 people to go to the island to cut wood.

The islands were uninhabited, and in later generations they were called the Archipelago of Men and Women, consisting of five islands and some reefs. Now the ship is parked on the south side of Oshima Island, the northernmost part.

The island is about two square kilometres, but it is surrounded by cliffs that make it difficult to climb into the island, which is why it is uninhabited.

The ship circled the island half a way around the island before finding a slightly slower shore at a location on the southeast side. From here, a group of people climbed up to the island. This is an uninhabited desert island, perhaps due to the topography, it has been uninhabited here, the entire central part of the island is covered by jungle, and the jungle has become a paradise for seabirds, and a large number of seabirds have long lived on this uninhabited desert island.

After stepping onto the island from the coast, it didn't go far into the jungle, and as soon as the people approached, a large flock of seabirds rose into the sky. Walking in the jungle, my feet were soft, and when I stepped on a deep footprint, I lifted my feet and found that my feet were covered with gray-white dirt, but they were the droppings of seabirds.

The group did not want to go deeper into the jungle, so they stationed themselves on the seashore and sent a team of men to cut down the wood at the edge of the jungle, and to plane it into suitable timber and bring it back in small boats to repair the damaged boats.

Sitting on a rock, scraping guano from his feet, Anthony pondered. When he was in Java before, his family had a large estate, so he knew that guano was a very good fertilizer. There is so much guano on this island, which has accumulated for thousands of years, and the lower layers have become minerals, so if they are transported back, how much fertilizer can be fertilized! Thinking of this, Anthony ordered his men to continue logging, and he himself rushed into the boat and sailed towards the "Exocet".

At this time, Ren Siqi was discussing with Mao Shibai and others how to dispose of the prisoners. During the battle, more than a dozen Dutchmen were captured from the "Princess", as well as more than twenty natives of the South Seas. According to Mao Eighteen's opinion, these Dutchmen are not good things, and they should all be killed, but as soon as he finished speaking, he annoyed the Dutchman Olier.

After being captured, Olier was forced to work for Ren Siqi, and although there was a five-year agreement between the two sides, he still surrendered to the enemy after all, so there was always a hurdle in his heart. In this naval battle, in order to take care of his emotions, Ren Siqi deliberately let him rest in the cabin throughout the whole process and did not participate in the battle. Because he is the captain of the "Exocet" after all, many crew members have been trained and raised by him, and they have to take care of his emotions.

Now that the battle was over and things were being discussed, Ren Siqi called him over to participate in the discussion.

When he heard that Mao XVIII proposed to kill all the captives, Oliel was furious.

"Mao! You can't do this, they have surrendered now, why kill them? That's too cruel, there is an old saying in the Ming Dynasty, 'Kill a prisoner is ominous!' 'In our Europe, the captured enemy will not be killed, and the prisoner can be exchanged for ransom to the enemy! Oliel solemnly offered his opinion, he did not want to see his fellow citizens killed.

"Oliel, what is ominous about killing prisoners? Do you Westerners come to the East and kill few people? In Luzon, tens of thousands of Han Chinese were slaughtered by you! Mao Eighteen said disdainfully. These red-haired ghosts are not a good thing, and most of the crew members on the ships robbed by them will be killed and thrown into the sea, and the ships of the Ming Dynasty will suffer greatly.

"Mao, Luzon is the territory of the Spaniards, we Dutch are not like that, we are very merciful. There was a peaceful coexistence between the Dutch and the Ming people. Oliel corrected Mao Eighteen's mistake.

"Mr. Olier, Brother Eighteen was just joking, don't get excited, I won't kill the captives." Ren Siqi hurriedly appeased Olier Dao, and glanced at Mao Eighteen, these Westerners are all treasures, more or less have their own skills, Ren Siqi will not simply kill them.

As soon as he appeased the Dutchman Olier, the fake foreign devil Anthony returned to the "Flying Fish" in a hurry.

"Anthony, aren't you taking people to the logging? What do you do when you come back? Ren Siqi looked at Anthony in surprise.

"Lord, guess what I saw on the island? Guano, a thick layer of guano is spread on top of the island! Anthony exclaimed excitedly.

"What's so strange about guano, there are seabirds on this island, of course there are guano!" Ren Siqi was puzzled.

"No, no, no, my lord, this guano is a very good fertilizer, and if you plant the land, you can greatly increase the grain production. When our family was in Java, we planted hundreds of acres of land, and in order to fertilize, my father often took people to the desert island to collect guano as fertilizer. Anthony explained.

Let the crew go and collect these filthy guano and transport them back to Daming? Ren Siqi subconsciously wanted to reject Anthony's ridiculous idea, but after thinking about it, he retracted the words that he was about to export.

Ren Siqi plans to use Daishan Island as his base, and the population in Daishan will increase in the future, and if the population is large, a large amount of food will be needed. It is already the winter of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, and next year Li Chuang will break through the capital and the Ming Dynasty will perish. Then the Qing troops entered the customs, and the entire Ming Dynasty would be in flames of war, so where would they go to buy food at that time?

So now we must take precautions and think about Tuntian. Whether it is to resist the Qing Dynasty or to be self-reliant, only when you have food in your hands can you advance and retreat freely. Although the land on Daishan Island is barren and the fields that can be developed are limited, if they are all developed, there is no problem in growing food to feed thousands of people, and if there is a good fertilizer, the grain output will be more!

"That's a good idea!" Ren Siqi said to Anthony approvingly, and when he heard Ren Siqi's praise, Anthony's face turned red with excitement.

"But how do you get guano on board? The guano is so dirty that if it is put into the hold like this, it will be difficult to clean it off, and it will not be possible to transport other goods in the future. Ren Siqi asked.

"Owner, it's not as dirty as you think, the guano on the island has accumulated for many years, only the top layer is fresh, and the bottom has solidified together, and it is not very dirty. Isn't there some cotton cloth on board, we just need to sew some cloth bags, and we can transport guano from the island to the cabin. Anthony said.

"Okay, I'll let someone sew some cloth bags, let you be responsible for this matter, and let Sha Qianli assist you!" Ren Siqi ordered, now except for the "Flying Fish" and "Fuchun", the other three-masted Fu ship cabins are empty, and they are empty, so it is better to dig up some bird droppings and transport them back to Daishan Island.

Ren Siqi allocated more than 100 crew members and asked Sha Qianli to follow Anthony to the island to dig up guano. The ships are tinkering here, and many of the crew members are idle, so it is better to find something for them to do. Since Olier didn't agree to kill the captives, but he couldn't keep them for nothing, Ren Siqi simply allocated the captives to Sha Qianli, so let them dig up guano.

"No, no, no, Mr. Shipper, you can't do that? It's inhumane. Oliel again raised his objection, not wanting to see his countrymen used as slaves.

"Mr. Olier, I have made concessions, but I can't keep them for nothing, if they want to be treated well, they have to prove their worth!" Ren Siqi said meaningfully to Olier.

Leaving aside Olier, who was pondering on the side, Ren Siqi discussed other matters with Mao Shiba.

"Brother Eighteen, do you think we can get the cannon from the sunken Dutch ship?" Ren Siqi said to Mao Eighteen on the side.

"It's not easy, because I don't know how deep the wreck is? But let's try! Mao 18 thought for a while and said, it is winter, the sea is very cold, and it is difficult to salvage thousands of pounds of artillery from the bottom of the sea.

"Let's go to the shipwreck!" Ren Siqi suddenly raised his interest, these cannons are all giant cannons, if they are salvaged and placed on Daishan Island, then no enemy at sea will want to easily invade Daishan Island.

Ren Siqi and Mao 18 took a few crew members with very good water skills to the wreck area in a small boat.

One of the crew members volunteered to go into the water to test the depth of the water, and he stripped off and went into the water, and in a short time he was on the surface, his face blue from the cold.

"It's too much, too far, too cold, it's cold." The crew's lips trembled.

The other crew members hurriedly took a thick blanket and wrapped it around him, brought a wine jug, and poured a few sips of liquor into his mouth, and his face was relieved.

"I went down to a depth of about ten feet, and I could see the top of the mast of the sailboat, but it was so cold down there that I couldn't stand it and floated up, and if it was summer, I would have been able to dive without a problem." The crew member said.

"I'll try." Mao Shibai was about to take off his clothes, but Ren Siqi stopped him at once.

"Forget it, the sea is too cold in winter, and it's not worth it for everyone to freeze. Anyway, the ship sank here and can't escape, so when we go to Japan again next summer, we will come back to salvage the shipwreck. Ren Siqi said, first, it is too cold now, and second, it is not ready to salvage the sunken ship, and it is impossible to do anything in this case.

Having given up trying to salvage the cannons, the group devoted all their energies to repairing the damaged ships. At present, there are nine large ships in Qiyun Trading House and the newly captured Dutch ship "Princess", and the crew includes more than 300 Ming immigrants recruited in Nagasaki and more than 50 Japanese samurai left behind, including many skilled carpenters.

After going to sea for half a year, the big guys are in a hurry to return to Daming, and their enthusiasm for work is very high.

Taking advantage of the time for repairing the ship, Ren Siqi took the leaders of the deputy directors in charge to list the exploits of everyone in this naval battle, and recorded them one by one, which will be used as the basis for everyone to receive rewards.

Because it is a naval battle, it is a war between ships, Ren Siqi will distribute the merits according to the contribution of each ship in the naval battle, in this kind of naval battle, the key is the cooperation between all the crew members of a ship, but there are also a small number of people's contributions are particularly prominent, such as Sha Qianli, it is his rapid climb to the mast that makes the main sail of the "Exocet" quickly pulled up, avoiding the fate of the "Exocet" being chased by the Dutch ship; For example, the Japanese samurai Yamada Futaro, it was he who took people to the Dutch ship to go undercover, so that Qiyun Trading House could easily seize the "Princess".

The exploits of each of them were recorded, and it was announced in public that the trip to Japan was very profitable, and that each crew member would receive a large bounty, which made the enthusiasm of the crew soar at once. (To be continued.) )