It is a water village built along the river, on the bank of the Meghna River (the official name of the Great Britain is the Mei River) near the confluence of the Ganges and Mekna rivers, that is, on the territory of the newly established British government called the riverside prefecture called the riverside province. The water village is divided into two parts: dry village and water camp. The dry village is a fortress, by six fronts, each side is about 100 zhang wide, and each of the six edges has a triangular watchtower stretching out of the city. The wall is two zhang high, and the watchtower is three zhang high. The walls are made of rammed earth and bricks, and are very strong. This is not a standard Chinese city, but a military fort, in which there are only garrisons, Chinese officials, and family members, and there are no Tianzhu people. On the map of the British Kingdom, this fort is called "Riverside Fort", and the Riverside Prefecture and the Ganges Sailor of the British Navy are located in this fort. It can be said that this is the center of the British Kingdom in Riverside Province.

And outside the riverside fort is the riverside water camp and the riverside port. The riverside port is located in the north of the riverside fort, borrowing a wide tributary of the Mekna River, the Han River named Sitong River as the port, dozens of wharf berths have been built along the river, and there are a large number of warehouses, merchants, restaurants, and money houses nearby, which is like a new port city.

The water camp is on the course of the Mei River to the west of the riverside fort. It was the station of the ships of the Ganges Naval Division. At present, the British naval force does not have any naval combat capabilities, and the sea control of the small Western Ocean is the responsibility of the Ming Nanyang Fleet. The battlefields of the British Navy were the Mei River and the Ganges River, and its main force was the naval fleet used for the Ganges River operations.

The Ganges River is the mother river of Tianzhu, and its status in Tianzhu is similar to that of the Yangtze River, and the place it passes through is the most prosperous and prosperous place in Tianzhu. It can be said that whoever controls the Ganges will master Tianzhu. Chen Huaiqing, who had already established himself in the eastern Bengal region of Tianzhu, noticed the strategic value of the Ganges River early on, so he built a riverside fort near the mouth of the Ganges. At the same time, preparations for the establishment of the British Navy began.

The riverside water battalion is the foundation of the British naval army, and its scale is naturally not small. More than 100 ships of different sizes are connected in the first place, forming an arc. Iron anchors were placed on the wide river to form a water fortification that resembled a city wall. The water fortifications had only one exit to the west, which was usually blocked by large chains, which were sunk under water only when ships entered and exited.

Inside this curved water fortification was a large shipyard and a military port berth, with eighteen slipways lined up - in fact, a platform made of wood and sand on the bank of the river to build a ship. On each slipway there is a wooden boat under construction, all of which are slender three-layer oars, this kind of high-speed warship that once won the victory of Chen Dexing in the battle of the Sichuan River, and now has become the killer weapon of the British prince and the admiral of the British naval army, Chen Defang.

Eighteen slender three-deck oars and eighteen other single-deck gunboats with only one long oar, but much larger hulls, had been launched. They are lined up and docked at the berths of the military port. It was as if thirty-six water monsters were resting quietly.

At the beginning of the day, the morning light is not shown, Chen Defang came out of the county government in the castle, it is now the rainy season in Tianzhu, the climate is hot and humid, the air seems to be filled with water vapor, and the human body is also slimy, and there are beads of sweat on a few steps. This kind of climate makes Chen Defang a little uncomfortable. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. After tidying up the yellow official uniform, he was in black yarn, beckoned to a group of guards behind him, and walked towards the west gate with his legs raised.

A group of musketeers trotted past Tran. Carrying the heavy Tiandao two-year-style rifle -- this rifle has now been eliminated by the Ming Army and replaced by the Tiandao six-year-style flintlock smoothbore rifle -- the soldiers shouted the slogan of one-two-one, and walked in unison. It looks like it's well-trained.

"There are more and more musketeers, and in the future, it may be the world of muskets......"

Chen Defang sighed in his heart. Then I thought of my own British navy. Now the British Army has guns and cannons, and the weapons and equipment of the Ming Army are almost the same. But the British Navy couldn't. Just by the name of this "navy", you know that they are not a navy capable of dominating the seas. The navy is not something that a country like Great Britain can afford to play, and Great Britain does not need a navy either. Because the stage of Great Britain is not the whole world, but Tianzhu, there are already nine Tianzhu (the Eight-Nation Alliance plus the attached Ahong State), and after a while there may be ten, twelve, or even sixteen Tianzhu - Chen Dexing has already mentioned this matter to Chen Huaiqing in his letters, and when the Delhi Sultanate is destroyed, the Brahmanical countries in Southern Tianzhu will be destroyed, and then several vassal states will be sealed. However, Great Britain must be the first of the heavens, with the largest share of land and population. Both Bengal and Arakan were British, and the British could also expand along the Ganges River to Fahrenheit, the former capital of the Mauryan Empire. And in order to ensure the superiority of Great Britain in Tianzhu, a strong Ganges fleet was necessary.

And this Ganges fleet is the British naval army, with the British's self-made three-layer oar-block battleships and single-layer oar-block gunboats as the main force. The former is used for melee combat, while the latter has a circular turret built in the bow and is armed with six two-inch cannons.

"Your Highness!"

The soldiers standing guard at the west gate of the riverside fort saw Chen Defang standing up and saluting with their guns. Chen Defang raised his arm to return the salute, and then raised the city patrol token. Chen Defang is also the prefect of Hebian Prefecture, and the soldiers guarding the gate are all his subordinates. Great Britain is still grass-roots, there is no separation of military and political affairs, the dignity of a government is not only in charge of civil affairs, but also in charge of military affairs, and the garrison of the government is the key work that the prefect needs to be responsible for. Chen Defang has to make a routine tour of the city every day.

"Can it be anomalous outside the city?" Chen Defang asked.

"Nothing out of the ordinary!" A platoon leader at the gate reported loudly.

"Then open the door!"

After the order, Chen Defang turned around and went to the north gate. There are six gates in the riverside fort, which are the east gate, the south gate, the west gate, the north gate, the side gate, and the side gate. Not every gate will be open. According to the regulations, only the west gate and the north gate are opened. The west gate leads to Shuiying, and the north gate leads to the commercial port. However, ordinary Tianzhu people were not allowed to enter the city, and only the indigenous leaders of Tianzhu in various towns and villages, the Tianzhu people who served in the riverside fort, and Buddhist monks could enter the city.

At the north gate, Chen Defang asked the same thing again, and then ordered the door to open - of course, there would be nothing unusual outside the city. It was far from the front line and surrounded by the territory of the British Kingdom. The Delhi Sultan, who had previously ruled the area, was tyrannical and forced the Celestial Religion. Demolish Buddhist and Brahmanical temples, and there were no indigenous nobles of Tianzhu in the regime of the Sultan of Delhi (in fact, they were also outsiders. But it's been a long time). Therefore, the Tianzhu people in Bengal did not welcome the governor of the Delhi Sultan, and welcomed the arrival of Great Britain.

And Chen Huaiqing's method of rule is also quite effective. Fostering Buddhism, tolerating Brahmanism, joining forces with the indigenous nobles of Tianzhu, and giving the British invaders a special Brahmin caste -- this is actually being in the same stream as the Aryan rulers of Tianzhu, and the result of this is naturally easy to stabilize in the short term and difficult to sinicize in the long term.

The people of Tianzhu will finally have an enlightened day! But for now, the territory of the British Kingdom is relatively calm, and it doesn't take much army to pacify the place. This also allowed Chen Huaiqing to draw a large army and prepare for the western expedition to Delhi.

Over the past few months. The battle in Tianzhu seems to have entered a halftime period. The British Kingdom occupied eastern Bengal and part of Arakan; The two armies of Fasugu (Guge) occupied Neporo; The Song army took a stronghold at the mouth of the Xindu River; In addition, they acted with the British army; Lü Jun established a stronghold on the west coast of Tianzhu called "Seven Islands"; The Ladakh army did not move, and they were still guarding the mountains, and they did not dare to attack the nearby Heavenly Sect forces; The Sriwijaya Army also moved with the British.

In addition, Chen Huaiqing also sent people to recruit a small Dai kingdom that migrated from Dali to northeast Bengal, the Ahong Kingdom. This turned the Eight-Nation Coalition into a nine-nation alliance.

And the Delhi Sultan's side, after failing to sue for peace, is also actively preparing for a decisive battle. On the one hand, it expanded its army with mercenaries from neighboring Afghanistan and Persia; On the one hand, it also sent envoys to the Ilkhanate and Egypt for help; On the one hand, he also transported Derrida's treasures and treasures to Lahore, preparing to move the capital to Lahore in the event of an unfavorable situation.

Both sides are now fighting fiercely, and the big war is about to break out!

"There's really an endless battle......"

Chen Defang stood inside the north gate of the riverside fort and muttered in a low voice. Although the war to invade Tianzhu went very smoothly, Chen Huaiqing and Chen Defang both knew that things were not so simple! The Delhi Sultanate was not defeated, they simply gave up some undefended territory. In order to concentrate the forces.

Moreover, according to the information gathered from various parties. The Mongols did not fulfill their promise not to support the Delhi Sultanate, whose religious leaders are now active in Afghanistan and Persia, calling for holy war!

The Mamluk Sultan of Egypt is also trying to support the Delhi Sultanate. The Mongols had already given the city of Basra to the Mamluks in order to allow them to build a fleet using the shipyards of Basra. The sultans of Muscat and Aden were also on the side of the Delhi Sultanate, where shipyards (Muscat was the shipbuilding center of the Arabian Peninsula) were working day and night to build warships. It seems that these Heavenly Sect Sultans all know what it means to have cold lips and teeth.

It is because of these Celestial Sects that the Sultan is on the side of the Delhi Sultan. Only then did the Daming Strait Governor's Mansion make up its mind to take action against the merchant ships of the Tianfang Sect in the Xiaoxi Ocean - not hesitating to temporarily suspend the East-West trade through the Xiaoxi Ocean, but also to eliminate the commercial power of the Tianfang Sect from the Xiaoxi Ocean!

However, such a move may also push all the forces of the Heavenly Sect Maritime Merchants to the side of the Delhi Sultan!

With a creaking sound. The wooden gate was pushed open. Outside was a trench, two feet deep. Three feet wide. Beyond the ditch is the commercial port of the riverside port, and the management system of the riverside commercial port is completely different from the commercial market of the Ming Dynasty, there is no parliament and city hall, and there is no gentry and gentry to discuss politics. Chen Huaiqing did not agree with the aristocratic and elite democracy that Chen Dexing practiced in Daming. He is still the way of the original Great Song Dynasty, and the power is in the hands of the imperial court, and the local government can carefully follow the orders.

Chen Huaiqing's view of merchants and commerce was the same as that of the traditional bureaucrats of the Great Song Dynasty - that was the focus of the imperial court's accumulation of wealth! It must be well controlled, how can a businessman have the right to self-government? The city department that manages the commercial port is a very powerful yamen, not only to collect taxes, but also to have the right to buy. The dispatch of the Bo Division of the Riverside City was also concurrently served by Chen Defang, the prefect of the riverside. So Chen Defang has to go to the city every day to go around. Look at what you can buy, and pay attention to the prices of various important commodities that have a bearing on people's livelihood and military affairs.

"Your Royal Highness the Prince, you have come just in time, a merchant has brought a group of slaves and oarsmen to sell."

Riding a horse to the city of the city, Du Yu (that is, the fifteenth Xiucai of the Du family in Taizhou) had already rushed to Chen Defang with the account book.

"Slave oarsmen?" Chen Defang was stunned, and then laughed, "This is a good thing!" The navy is now short of oarsmen! How much does it cost? How many people are there? ”

The British Navy had built eighteen single-deck gunboats and thirty-six three-deck battleships. Due to the wide hull of the single-deck paddle gunboat and the installation of long oars that are paddled by three oarsmen, the oarsmen used were as many as a three-deck paddle battleship, all of which were equipped with 180 oarmen, that is, a total of 9,720 oarsmen were needed for the 54 capital ships of the entire fleet.

Of course, it is impossible for so many oarsmen to use Han Chinese, only Tianzhu natives or slaves. And the Tianzhu natives could not use the higher castes such as Brahmins and Kshatriyas, because the Tianzhu people did not regard the oarsman as a warrior, but as a lowly errand. Therefore, the Tianzhu warriors of noble caste were unwilling to do it. In desperation, Chen Defang had to use slave oarsmen. However, most of the local slaves in Tianzhu were Dravidians of the Shudra and Dartli castes, who were already short in stature and lacked adequate nutrition, and they were as thin as monkeys, and it was difficult to find slaves who were strong enough to act as oarsmen. Moreover, the slave oarsmen are not strong enough, they still need to be trained, and I am afraid that it will be difficult to gather men before the fall of this year.

Today, I can buy one hundred and twenty-one trained slave oarsmen at a time, which is really good news!

Du Yu replied respectfully: "There are one hundred and twenty-one people, and each person asks for 400 yuan, a total of 48,400 yuan." ”

"It's not cheap, can it be used?" Chen Defang asked again.

"It looks quite sturdy, fifty-two of them are still black slaves, and the rest are all white slaves."

"What? Was it a black slave and a white slave? Chen Defang was stunned for a moment, "Do you know where you got it?" ”

"It's a privateer, and the owner's surname is Lei." Du Yu frowned slightly, "It seems that he robbed the Baifan merchant ship at sea......"

There are still some Arab merchants in the small Western Ocean who are still adventurous, because the Daguang Port controlled by the Great Song Dynasty also allows them to trade, and they can also disguise themselves as merchants from the Chola Kingdom or the Kingdom of Ceylon. Due to the blockade of the Ming navy and the activities of privateers, maritime trade has become very dangerous. However, behind the risks, it often also means huge profits!

So there are still people who do this murderous business! (To be continued......)