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Before the idea of modern sea power was truly systematically formed, the monopoly and control of sea routes by the European maritime powers began to be put into action long ago.

For example, taking advantage of the unavoidable weather seasons, wind currents, fresh water recharge, and key geographical navigation reference points of ocean navigation in the era of sail to occupy the most critical ports on the route, this move was immediately effective and worked until the 19th century, and was the most important means of strategic control.

There is also a trick unique to the age of sailing, which is nautical charts. A nautical chart, detailing the changes in wind direction and ocean currents, as well as key stops and geonavigation coordinates on the route, became the most valuable possession of European navigators, and was regarded by the monarchs of various European powers as the highest strategic interest of the state, and was strictly controlled or the object of collection.

In the era of ignorance when maritime positioning technology and cartographic surveying and mapping methods were extremely primitive, strict secrecy of route data was almost the most effective monopoly method. Both Portugal and Spain used their own shipping information to keep their competitors at bay, and a hand-drawn chart could cost England, the Dutch, and the French centuries, money, and lives to revisit if it wasn't leaked.

In the East, the Ming Empire in the early 15th century had similar records, among which the Zheng He Navigation Chart is the most detailed official source of the Indian Ocean route of that era.

Looking back at this "Zheng He Navigation Chart" with our current knowledge of world geography, perhaps most people will not be able to fully figure out the distorted route information of various scales and scales on it, as well as various inexplicable place names. But at the time, it was a treasure trove of marine geography.

"Menjichi" is a once very puzzling oriental place name, and historians eventually learned that it was the transliterated name of Matthias (Madagascar). Until one day. The northern part of the island of Madagascar excavated porcelain artifacts from the early Ming Dynasty, and it was only then that the huge fleet of Zheng He or the possible trajectory of Ming merchants in the Indian Ocean was once again applied from the side.

In the face of various scholarly debates that are difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, there is still no conclusion on how far Zheng He went back then. But as the only yellow country in Africa, it really surprised the first Europeans who landed on the island.

It is said that the indigenous tribes of the northern part of the island of Madagascar still have legends of descendants of oriental sailors. So some people made a nonsensical assumption: Zheng He exiled sailors or pirates who violated military regulations on ocean voyages to the island of Madagascar, and then gave birth to a yellow African people.

It sounds devastating, and would obviously be sprayed to death by any more serious historical archaeologist, but the progress of history itself is a process of de-falsification and truth-seeking.

……

The Northern Hemisphere has already entered another cold winter, but in the northeastern part of the island of Madagascar, the rainforest climate is as good as ever. The average annual temperature is always above 25 degrees.

In the later Vuhimarina and Tuamasina in the northeastern part of the island of Madagascar, the trading posts established a few years ago with the funds of the OUCC Group have developed into bustling trading ports. The former is named Songhai Town, and the immigrant settlement population is currently less than 2ooo, while the latter is called Cangjiao Port, and the population is just over 3ooo. The current capital of the Viceroyalty of the Indian Ocean. It is set in Cangjiao Port.

The town of Songhai and the port of Cangjiao were both on the northern edge of the sphere of influence of the indigenous kingdom of Merina in Madagascar, and the colonization and trade prosperity of the two places led to the concentration of many Macashi indigenous villages in the vicinity, forming a small peripheral market.

Gorgeous merchants from Nanshan Port, Jinsha Port or Yueshan Island became the most active people in Songhai Town and Cangjiao Port. The refugees from Europe or the Far East, who spend a lot of money every year and use guò's own channels, have all settled in these two towns, and most of them are of Chinese descent.

The local aborigines lived, cultivated, and hunted in the surrounding plains and forests. Receiving new crops and agricultural guidance from the Chinese colonists, they exchanged their primary agricultural and hunting products for gorgeous ironware, canned goods, glass, cloth, candles, matches, cigarettes, sugar, sea salt, and especially the powerful flint muskets, which became the favorite trade items of the local indigenous rulers.

Backward productivity and language barriers did not stop the Machithians and Chinese merchants from trading. Soon, rice, sugar cane, furs, precious stones, spices, and gold sand became the hottest local commodities in the north-east of Madagascar, and they were constantly exported through the merchant ships of the Guò OUCC.

Although the economy of the Indian Ocean Viceroyalty is not comparable to that of the Viceroyalty of South Africa, a merchant ship is usually enough to cover all the trade activities in the territory a month, but it is only the coarse cane sugar. The amount exported from Cangjiao Port to Yueshan Island is more than 1ooo tons every year, and the annual net income of OUCC from Madagascar Island cane sugar is more than 150,000 US dollars.

The superficial gold sand in northeastern Madagascar, which has long been collected by the Matthias in their spare time, also allows the Oriental Union to obtain nearly $40,000 worth of gold every year, and occasionally a piece of dog's head gold. There will be even bigger surprises. In addition, the annual trade of nearly 1,000 tons of cheap rice has also solved the problem of half of the food rations of the tens of thousands of American citizens on Wolshan Island.

South Africa's large-scale coal mine resources are still "hidden"6 and difficult to approach, but Cangjiao Port is one of the important coal-producing areas of Madagascar Island in later generations, once it is really opened, the entire Indian Ocean Viceroyalty, the Indian Ocean shipping route, and even the economy of the Viceroyalty of South Africa will be raised to a higher level. At this point, Rear Admiral Wen Tuo, commander of the Indian Ocean Fleet of the Chinese and US Navy, was the first high-ranking military officer to express his support, and the Guoxing Group, which monopolized the management of the South African Governorate, also expressed his expectation of "sitting back and enjoying the success."

Songhai Town is surrounded by mainly hills and primeval forests, the plains are narrow, and the potential for colonization is limited, but the nearby mineral resources are very rich, and it will certainly be one of the most important mining centers in the Indian Ocean Viceroyalty in the future. To this end, OUCC has issued invitation letters to several domestic metallurgical enterprises and universities to start preliminary work for the construction of a small metallurgical enterprise in Cangjiao Port.

There is also a small episode here, that is, in the first two years of the establishment of Songhai Town and Cangjiao Port, the banner was still "permanent trading post". Both have been slow to hand over the delegated administration to the State, except for a temporary tax collector sent by Governor Huygens the Elder. The de facto top local executive is actually a branch director of the Oriental Union Group.

This can be said to be a state of "freedom" that the OUCC has maintained before, intentionally or unintentionally, but as a result, it has been publicly criticized and criticized by the progressive members of Congress and some conservative congressmen on the grounds of "wolf ambitions" for almost a year, and the legal process of "nationalization" between the two places has been accelerated. On January 1, 1641, the Oriental Union officially handed over the entrusted management to the state, and the Governor Huygens the Elder finally moved the Governor's Palace to Cangjiao Port.

Compared to other overseas businesses. The revenue from the island of Madagascar represents only a small part of the OUCC Group, but in terms of future development potential, it is not to be underestimated. Therefore, when the business of the Far East was almost disposed of, the headquarters of the Oriental Union Group turned around and began to formulate a large-scale development plan, officially focusing on the operation of the Indian Ocean Governorate, preparing to build Madagascar Island into a new "Indian Ocean base". In order to compete with the Guoxing Group, which almost monopolized the Viceroyalty of South Africa, it has a long-term competition.

In addition to financial preparations, the OUCC also decided to continue to increase colonial investment in order to expand the scope of control and the scale of labor in Songhai Town and Cangjiao Port. In the absence of more immigration quotas from the state, he took the initiative to send staff to Europe or Daming to recruit displaced people, and even planned to "buy" prisoners of war from the Ministry of Defense to enrich the local labor force.

……

Early in the morning of December 3, 1641. A medium-sized steam cargo ship flying the flag of the Oriental Union Group slowly sailed into the northern bay of Songhai Town, and approached the humble port terminal under the unfazed gaze of the local wharf's native Matthias hired men.

"OUCC 3O" is a "national standard 15oo steam merchant ship" with a full load displacement of 3O5O tons and a maximum cargo capacity of 15oo tons of Dongfang Transportation Company, a subsidiary of OUCC Group. Using a set of mature 16oo horsepower steam engine and thin tube boiler produced by the state-owned heavy machinery company, the maximum endurance of 9 knots can reach 63oo nautical miles, and only 18 crew members can operate normally.

Different from several other types of OUCC series merchant ships that take into account both passengers and cargo, the national standard 15oo is a pure dry cargo merchant ship with a very concise overall structure. Because it is designed to maximize the use of cargo space, it basically does not have the capacity of ocean passenger transportation, and its positioning is fixed to specialize in the transportation of ocean bulk commodity cargo. In order to improve the applicability of the port. The ship even has its own steam boom for unloading, so even a desert island with nothing can unload its cargo as long as the draft allows for docking.

The structure of the national standard 15oo merchant ship abandons the traditional keel of "a fate-deciding fate" in the past, and makes full use of the toughness of shipbuilding wood and the strength of steel parts, and adopts the classic hybrid skeleton structure of later generations, so that the ship structure can bear the longitudinal and transverse pressure as one. This design has been tried on a certain type of inland river merchant ship of the Beiyang Shipbuilding Group, but it is the first time it has been used on an ocean-going large-tonnage merchant ship.

Far from the expensive and time-consuming large-scale keel processing in Huamei's current shipbuilding industry, the pickiness of shipbuilding timber has also been greatly reduced, which is a direct result. The cost of materials for this type of merchant ship has been reduced linearly, and the construction difficulty is lower than that of the old structure hull. Compared with other old structure merchant ships of the same tonnage, the construction period is shortened to less than 8 months, and the unit price of large-scale orders is only 20,000 US dollars, which is almost the same as the original cost of the OUCC 8oo merchant ship with a maximum cargo capacity of only 8oo tons.

This type of merchant ship is not only good quality and low price. The purpose is extremely simple, the construction is fast and the maintenance is convenient, and more importantly, it is not the product of the traditional shipbuilding industry leader Beiyang Shipbuilding Group.

In the past ten years, the state-owned Qingcheng Shipyard, which has finally eaten through some small tricks in the shipbuilding industry, has broken through the inflated shipbuilding costs that have been monopolized by private shipbuilding enterprises for a long time, and the average cost of domestic ships has been suppressed by 2o in the past two years, which has effectively promoted the competitive pattern of Huamei shipbuilding industry. Although the tax revenue of Huamei shipbuilding industry has always been not low, it has also allowed a group of Huamei laymen who have been struggling to expand their maritime commercial capacity to finally see the "dirty" inner world under the honest faces of You Qi and Shi Yige back then.

At present, in addition to the Oriental Union Group, many large and medium-sized domestic marine cargo trading enterprises are also ordering national standard 15oo merchant ships in June to eliminate and replace old ship types and optimize their own commercial capacity, and the performance of the state-owned Qingcheng Shipyard has begun to rise sharply.

OUCC aims to enhance the competitiveness of bulk cargo on various ocean routes. In the past four years, it has ordered and built 1O national standard 15oo merchant ships in one go, plus 8 large five-masted long-sail merchant ships of Oriental Union, 7 Oriental Union 2ooo and 13 Oriental Union 8oo merchant ships, making its Oriental Transportation Company the second largest ocean logistics enterprise in China after the state-owned ocean shipping company. The domestic Atlantic commercial freight rate will be directly suppressed to 23 cents per 100 nautical miles, and the grain produced in the Nanshan Overseas Territory and the South African Governor's District will have a competitive price advantage in Europe for exports.

As soon as the Oriental Union 3O, which was brought from Moonhill Island from overseas, put down the board, a group of young people with poor faces couldn't wait to get off the ship. One by one, they gulped in the humid air as if they were relieved. The cabins packed with cement and building materials have poor air circulation, and the cramped bunks are even more uncomfortable for these pampered passengers.

The leader of this young team is a young European man in his mid-30s. Compared with the other sluggish companions, the young man's nerdy face did not show a trace of sleepiness, but looked very relaxed, as if he had long been accustomed to it.

"Is it Professor Frey? Welcome to Madagascar. I am Wu Tong, the business leader of Songhai Town of OUCC Group, and this is our security captain, Mr. Jona. This time I have wronged everyone, and the headquarters has arranged your accommodation in advance, the best hotel here. ”

A well-dressed middle-aged Chinese man walked over with a strong European man in a black uniform, smiling at a group of young people who were stretching their arms and legs, as if they had already received the news that the other party was coming. Wu Tong. He is the nephew of Wu Sheng, manager of Nanshan Port Branch of Oriental Industrial Company of Oriental Union Group.

The 32-year-old has earned a PhD in geography and a master's degree in biology as a senior apprentice of former land and resources minister An Shaoqing, and has become the youngest professor at the National University of Manchester. Now, he is leading a team of fresh graduates from the Department of Geology of Tokyo National University to conduct geological mapping and mineral resource surveys on the island of Madagascar, commissioned by the Oriental Union Group.

"It's wetter here than Wolsan Island. Actually, I came here many years ago, but it was a lot more wild back then. Frey happily shook hands with Director Wu Tong and Captain Jonah who came to greet him, while introducing a shy college student behind him.

"It is very rich, and the headquarters hopes to have a better understanding of the distribution of minerals in this area, and we will build a mine and guarantee that 5% of the annual income will be donated to the research and teaching funds of the group to the National University of Toychelva!" Wu Tong, who has been immigrating to Huamei with his uncle for almost 20 years, is very sophisticated in using some communication know-how. For these high-level intellectuals, there is nothing more attractive than offering research objects and funding.

"It's an honor to have the trust of OUCC Group, and I think I can start tomorrow! First we should draw a more detailed map, which requires a few guides who are familiar with the vicinity of at least twenty kilometers. Frey hurriedly beckoned a few students to open their suitcases. Remove some of the mapping tools that you had prepared long ago.

"Mr. Frey, maybe you and your students should have a few more days off." After the security captain Jonah and Wu Tong glanced at each other, they began to "appease" the young professor's academic impulses with strange smiles.

"No, we've been resting on Moonhill Island for three days." Frey shook his head like a rattle, even as the students behind him gave him pleading glances.

"This ...... There are now some minor contradictions between the Matthias in the south. We need to solve some travel safety issues first. You know, the natives here are eccentric people who have hated each other for millennia, and I don't want to hurt you and these precious students by some minor nuisance. ”

Jonah, a retired sergeant major from West Point, lowered his voice very cautiously at this time, and secretly pointed to the distant mountains and forests on the guide's side.

……

A week later, Frey and the others were told they could go out, and during the rest day, Frey was once again able to see the hidden richness of the local natural wealth.

The students were pleasantly surprised by the good gold sand that the merchants had received from the natives, and several stones that had been used to stack the outer walls of the town were identified by Frey at a glance as high-grade lead-zinc-copper ore, with a small amount of gold and silver.

The island of Madagascar is a world-class museum of metals and minerals, especially around the town of Songhai, where lead, zinc and copper are very valuable. The associated gold and silver resources are also relatively abundant. In the southerly mountainous and coastal plains, there are also large-scale nickel deposits of gold sands and associated chromium, all of which are shallow minerals that are easy to mine.

In Songhai Township, in the past year, Chinese immigrant artisans from the Ming Dynasty have been using charcoal smelting to obtain ore from the local area, but the source of the ore is almost entirely dependent on the scattered indigenous trade. The scale was limited to small family workshops, so the idea of building a large-scale smelter directly in Cangjiao Port arose.

At present, there are only a few small mines in the supply of copper ore in China and the United States, namely the lead-zinc-copper-silver mine in Osining Prison north of Manchester City, the copper-tin-lead mine in Yinggu Town, the chalcocite mine in Dongfu Town in Haizhou, and the sulfur-copper mine in Yueshan Island.

With the increasing expansion of domestic heavy industry and shipbuilding, the demand for copper metal is very strong. The above-mentioned copper minerals and European trade alone will not be able to meet domestic demand. It is said that when the domestic copper price climbed to its highest point, the shortage of copper ingots lasted for almost two quarters, and as a result, there was a joke that the North Industries Group secretly melted down a large number of one-cent coins for industrial copper in a hurry, and then was fined and warned by the state.

Within a few kilometers to the west and north of Songhai Town, Frey's scientific research team has found several valuable copper or lead-zinc deposits. It is also a surface mine with a small amount of gold and silver, and it is very difficult to mine. The news quickly spread to Nanshan Port, making Wu Sheng, the general manager of the branch, shout excitedly in the company for a while.

With such a wealth at his fingertips, how could he not make Wu Sheng ecstatic? It is believed that after more detailed exploration data comes out, the headquarters of the Oriental Union Group in Manchester City will be a happy scene.

The initial battle was very fruitful, and it also made a group of young college students very excited. Except for a small number of students who continued their geological mapping work, Frey led the remaining elite to the south of Songhai Town. Because a few years ago, the natives brought a lot of gold sand from there.

Under the protection of a team of armed members of the Blackwater Security Company, Frey and the others shuttled through the primeval jungle of the coastal plains all the way south, and arrived near the Sambawa area on Christmas Eve.

On several barren beaches near the river, a belt of gold sand stretching inward6 along the river caused the entire team to scream, and many Blackwater security guards leaned over the river to wash the mineral sand, ignoring the dirty sludge on the shore. In the sunlight, a few pieces of golden grit glistened between the fingers.

From the moment a great river was crossed, the peaceful scene seemed to be far away. In the jungle, in the valley. Even by the rivers and streams, you can see the corpses of the high-level Matthias from time to time, and judging from the traces left on the corpses, it is obvious that there have been a series of fierce wars between the indigenous people.

"It's a little scary, is it possible that they will get concessions from the enemy by doing so?"

Passing by an abandoned indigenous village again. A number of decomposing aboriginal corpses hung on a wooden shelf in the village, and several college students around Frey covered their mouths in disgust.

"Several local lords are vying for our share of the goods, and while the bosses don't really have the will to provoke them into war, the truth is that they're going to kill ten people for a 21B flint rifle or a few iron tools." Captain Jonah walked from the side nonchalantly, and kicked over the wooden frame where the corpse was hung, as if he had long been accustomed to it, "We are camping here today, and there are ready-made earthen houses and thatched huts. Wu, Lin, and a few of you, clean up this place, otherwise no one will be able to sleep soundly tonight! ”

Under the orders of former 6th Army Sergeant Major Jonah, several Blackwater security guards dragged the bodies of the natives outside the village for burial with disgusted expressions, and then more people began to set up camp with the tools they had brought with them. According to the plan, they will set up a small campsite here, and then conduct extensive scientific research in the surrounding area for the next month.

It's Christmas Eve, and although less than one-third of the team is European, a canned food and meat hunted by Blackwater's security guards from nearby make this night away from the land and snowflakes full of laughter. A few young Chinese European-Americans showed off their talents, accompanied by flickering bonfires, whistles and small musical instruments, and several retired big-headed soldiers even played a game of fighting around the campfire.

The smell of food, provocative figures, and the sounds of playful and cursing laughter mingled as they slowly seeped into the nearby rainforest, attracting the attention of the jittery Matthias in the darkness.

……

"Bad luck, Professor Frey. My backpack was stolen! ”

"The mapping tools are gone, and the map is gone!"

"My knife was stolen too! And canned fruit! ”

Presumably, Jonah and Frey and the others did drink too much yesterday, and the people in charge of the vigil also snooze off as the day approached, and when the day came, the camp was filled with all sorts of frustration and angry complaints.

The most lost food is food. However, several indispensable scientific tools, including several backpacks, mapping instruments and maps carried by the research team, were stolen by the curious Matthias after the night, which caused a big thunder in the camp of the security captain Jonah, and almost all the security guards who participated in yesterday's vigil were scolded for being bloody.

"I think it was the natives who peeked at our dinner on the other side of the river yesterday, their village is nearby!" One of the security guards was so embarrassed that he grabbed his rifle. Yelling to find someone to take revenge.

"Assemble and check the gear! You, you, and you, a few of you are in charge of camp security, and the others follow me! ”

Jonah unfolded the only map on his body. The location of several nearby indigenous villages was marked, so he roughly estimated the distance and gave orders to the team of thirty people he led. This is the information that is constantly improved when the merchants are moving around, which is beneficial to the daily work of the Blackwater Security Company in Songhai Town, and now it comes in handy.

"Maybe we can do it the other way!" Frey hurriedly walked over and smiled embarrassedly at Captain Jona, who was leading the team, "They seem to like our cans." Except for taking things away, it didn't hurt us. If possible, we can exchange back our stuff. ”

"No, Mr. Frey, you are so merciful, these cunning natives often blackmail our merchants in this way, if they don't teach them a lesson this time, they will get an inch!" Jonah pulled out the revolver at his waist, checked the ammunition, and shook his head at Frey with a stern expression. "My duty is to maintain the proper order around the entire Songhai Town, even if an ordinary merchant loses goods, the bosses will think that it is my dereliction of duty!"

Except for a few people left behind in the camp, more than two dozen Blackwater Company security guards completed their armed preparations. Jonah led the way to the west of the creek, while Frey and some of the able-bodied college students followed behind with their own weapons of self-defense.

……

In the small village, nearly 100 shivering Matthias squatted in a central clearing, two dozen heavily armed Blackwater Security Company fighters pointed rifles at them, and Jonah, accompanied by a guide and Turk interpreter, walked around the crowd with a revolver.

“…… I repeat, hand over the stuff and pickpockets right away! Jonah walked up to an old Matthias and crouched down with a pistol to his face, with a fierce expression, "No one here has the right to take our things without saying hello. ”

The native translator muttered, looking like an old man with status in a native village, while gesturing and shaking his head vigorously.

"Did we find the wrong one?" Frey frowned, slightly dissatisfied with the intimidating atmosphere Jonah had created in the native village.

"No, quite the opposite, I'm sure it's here." Jonah walked to the corner and kicked out a can of beef that had been smashed by a stone and still had residual fat, and looked at the native villagers present with a fierce gaze, "Obviously, after they have eaten and drunk enough, they have the courage to make up lies!" ”

"But ......"

Before Frey could finish speaking, one of the security guards struck the trigger, and a bloody arrow shot out of the back of a native, who was hiding in a corner of a nearby earthen wall and trying to escape, and fell to the ground.

The gunfire caused chaos, and the natives who had been suppressed in the middle of the village suddenly exploded, and several young men jumped up, crashed into the blackwater security guards who blocked them, and fled outside the village with their lives.

"These filthy bugs!"

Jonah raised his pistol and knocked over a native who was rushing away, and his fire immediately led to a large burst of gunfire.

At a distance of more than ten meters, the chaotic natives were constantly knocked down, and the babies in the arms of several women were crying, but the Heishui security team members who were holding back the fire did not care about the old and young at all, and launched a killing on the spot.

"Oh my God, all those things that were lost add up to maybe less than $5o......" Frey shuddered as he watched the Blackwater Security Company members armed to the teeth slaughter the unarmed Matthias natives and bloodied, leaving the village littered with corpses, blood, and fleeing natives.

A few natives sheltered in a thatched hut with a woman with a child, but a few seconds later, a smoke-emitting grenade was dropped. The explosion dismembered the entire rudimentary thatched hut from the inside out, and the smoke and dust kicked up so that Frey, who was far away, had to back away and cover his nose and eyes with his hands.

"Destroy this place, and then tell the damn pig leader about the situation here, if this kind of thing happens again in the future, we will sweep away all the nearby villages!" Jonah was probably red-eyed, grabbed the local translator next to him, and scolded loudly.

Rifles, bayonets and grenades looted and a peaceful village was reduced to rubble. Outside the village, the Machish natives who were killed were conservatively estimated at 5o, including many women and children. Even the farmland outside the village was burned down by the people of the Blackwater Security Company.

"Professor Frey, what are we going to do......" Several college students with self-defense weapons trembling all over their bodies walked up to Frey, all with pale faces, looking frightened by the actions of Blackwater Security.

"Protect yourself, maybe we have to suspend our work and go back to Songhai ......Town first," Frey shook his head, regardless of the attitude of the students, it was considered to prevent his students from participating in the massacre from a safety point of view.

……

“…… They have little ability to do evil, except for farming, and a little gluttonous petty theft. They simply took a dozen cans, as well as something that was useless to them, and they were met with merciless revenge...... At the very least, some people shouldn't be doing these things in front of my students. ”

“…… Dear teacher, you probably can't imagine what I have seen, in this ancient land, where the natives can sing and dance, build us towns, ports, provide grain, prey, and send us staggering wealth of gold and silver, but they are chased, captured, or killed like wild beasts and livestock......"

“…… Dear Teresa, I have never seen our country treat the earthy Matthesh natives like this. For us, it's a haven of abundant resources, but for them, it's a real nightmare...... I beg your pardon for the possible exaggerations, but I don't know how many blood-soaked stories are being born in the Indian Ocean Viceroyalty or elsewhere, and if possible, I would like to remain on campus and discuss academic issues with students......"

In the hotel in Songhai Town, Frey was lying on the table, writing letters to his lifelong mentor An Shaoqing and his wife and family, and from time to time he raised his head and looked at the distant port, as if he had been tired of this kind of overseas scientific research activity for a short time.

In the town, another batch of transactions from the nearby indigenous territories was completed, large quantities of furs, rice or cassava were piled up in the storage area, and there was even a group of bound natives sitting in the open space with a look on their faces. A few native-looking men who looked more athletic than the others gathered around a gorgeous merchant and took a shiny black flint rifle and passed around with excitement on their faces......