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. However, it is a treasure of marine geography for maritime experts.

"Menjichi" is a once very puzzling oriental place name, and historians eventually learned that it was the transliterated name of Matthias (Madagascar). It wasn't until one day, when porcelain artifacts from the early Ming Dynasty were unearthed in the northern part of the island of Madagascar, that the huge Zheng He fleet or the possible trajectory of Ming merchants in the Indian Ocean was once again recruited 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 until now, the indigenous tribes in the north of Madagascar still have legends of the descendants of oriental sailors, so some people have 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 an African yellow people.

Sounds pretty devastating. And it would obviously be sprayed to death by any more serious historical archaeologist. But the progress of history itself is a process of removing the false and seeking the truth.

……

The Northern Hemisphere has already entered another cold winter, but in the northeast of Madagascar, the rainforest climate is as usual and the average annual temperature is always above 25 degrees.

In the northeastern part of the island of Madagascar in later times Vuhi Marina and Tuamasina. A trading post established a few years ago with the funds of the Oriental Union Union. Both have developed into lively trading ports. The former was named Songhai Town. The immigrant population is currently less than 2,000, and the latter, called Cangjiaogang, has a population of just over 3,000. The capital of the Viceroyalty of the Indian Ocean at the moment. 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 in the surrounding plains and forests, cultivated and hunted, received new crops and agricultural guidance from the Chinese colonists, and exchanged the primary agricultural and hunting products for gorgeous iron, cans, glass, cloth, candles, matches, cigarettes, sugar, sea salt and other goods, especially the powerful flintlock musket, which became the favorite trade item 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 economic scale of the Indian Ocean Viceroyalty is not comparable to that of the Viceroyalty of South Africa, where a merchant ship can cover all trade activities in the territory in a month, the amount of coarsely pressed cane sugar alone is exported from Cangjiao Port to Yueshan Island more than 1,000 tons per year, and the annual net income of the OUCC from Madagascar cane sugar exceeds 150,000 US dollars.

The superficial gold sand in northeastern Madagascar, which has long been collected by the Matthias indigenous people in their spare time, also allows the OUCC to obtain gold worth nearly 40,000 US dollars a year, and occasionally a piece of dog's head gold, which will bring even greater 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" inland and difficult to access, but Cangjiao Port is one of the important coal-producing areas of Madagascar Island in later generations, once it is really developed, the entire Indian Ocean Viceroyalty, the Indian Ocean shipping route, and even the economy of the Viceroyalty of South Africa will be upgraded 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 hills and primeval forests, narrow plains, and limited development potential for colonization agriculture, 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 sent invitation letters to several domestic metallurgical enterprises and universities to start preliminary work for the construction of a small metallurgical enterprise in Cangjiao Port.

Here's one more vignette. In the first two years of the establishment of Songhai Town and Cangjiao Port, the banner was still "permanent trading post". Neither country has been slow to hand over the delegated administration to the state, except for a temporary tax collector sent by Governor Huygens Sr., the de facto top executive of the local government is actually a branch head 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 with other overseas businesses, the revenue from the island of Madagascar accounts for only a small part of the OUCC Group, but from the perspective of future development potential. It is not to be underestimated. So when the business in the Far East is almost disposed of. The headquarters of the Oriental Union Group has begun to formulate a large-scale development plan, and officially put its focus on the operation of the Indian Ocean Viceroyalty, preparing to build Madagascar Island into a new "Indian Ocean base" to compete with the Guoxing Group, which has almost a monopoly on the Viceroyalty of South Africa.

In addition to financial preparations. OUCC also decided to continue to increase investment in colonization. In order to expand the scope of control and the scale of the labor force 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.

"Oriental Union 30" is a "national standard 1500 steam merchant ship" with a full load displacement of 3,050 tons and a maximum cargo capacity of 1,500 tons. Using a set of mature 1,600 horsepower steam engines and thin-tube boilers produced by the state-owned heavy machinery company, the maximum endurance can reach 6,300 nautical miles at a speed of 9 knots, and only 18 crew members can operate normally.

Different from other Oriental Union series merchant ships that take into account both passengers and cargo, the national standard 1500 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 port's suitability, the ship even has its own steam boom for unloading, even if it is a desert island with nothing, as long as the draft allows for docking, it can unload its own cargo.

The structure of the national standard 1500 merchant ship abandons the traditional keel of "a fate-deciding fate" in the past, gives full play to 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 keel processing of large parts in Huamei's current shipbuilding industry, the pickiness of shipbuilding timber has also been greatly reduced, and as 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 200,000 US dollars, which is almost the same as the original cost of the OUCC 800 merchant ship with a maximum cargo capacity of only 800 tons.

This type of merchant ship is not only good quality and low price, extremely single purpose, quick to build and easy to maintain, but more importantly, it is not a product of the traditional shipbuilding industry leader Beiyang Shipbuilding Group.

In the past ten years, the state-owned Qingcheng Shipyard, which has finally thoroughly understood 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 20% 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 maritime cargo trading enterprises are also ordering national standard 1500 merchant ships. Used to eliminate and replace old ship types and optimize its own commercial transportation capacity, the performance of the state-owned Qingcheng shipyard began to rise rapidly.

In order to enhance the competitiveness of bulk cargo on various ocean routes, OUCC has ordered and built 10 national standard 1500 merchant ships in one go in the past four years, plus 8 large five-masted longitudinal merchant ships of OUCC, 7 OUCC 2000 and 13 OUCC 800 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 No. 30, 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, and one by one they inhaled 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. He is a young European man in his 30s. Compared to other languishing peers. There was no trace of sleepiness on the young man's nerdy face, but he looked very relaxed, as if he had long been accustomed to it.

"Is it Professor Frey? Welcome to Madagascar, I'm Wu Tong, the head of business in Songhai Town, OUCC. This is our security captain, Mr. Jonah. This time I wronged everyone. Accommodation has been arranged in advance at the headquarters. One of the best hostels 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 Manchester Metropolitan University. Now, he is leading a team of fresh graduates of the Department of Geology of Capital National University to conduct geological mapping and mineral resource survey on the island of Madagascar, commissioned by the Oriental Union Union.

"It's wetter than Wolsan Island, in fact, 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.

"This is very rich, and the headquarters hopes to have a better understanding of the mineral distribution in this area, we will establish a mine, and guarantee that 5% of the annual income will be donated to the research and teaching funds of the group to the Capital National University!" 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 map out a more detailed map, which requires a few guides who are familiar with the area of at least twenty kilometers in the vicinity. Frey quickly beckoned a few students to open their suitcases and take out some of the drawing tools they 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 ...... Now there are some small conflicts between the Matthias in the south, and we need to solve some safety problems 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, 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 of the stones that had been used to stack the town's exterior walls were immediately identified by Frey as high-grade lead-zinc-copper ore. It is also accompanied by 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 ore resources are very considerable, and the associated gold and silver resources are also relatively rich. 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 Town, in the past year, Chinese immigrant craftsmen from the Ming Dynasty have spontaneously used charcoal smelting to obtain ore from the local area, but the source of the ore is almost entirely dependent on those scattered indigenous transactions, and the scale is limited to small family workshops, so the idea of building a large smelter directly in Cangjiao Port has emerged.

The current supply of copper ore in China and the United States. There are only a few small mining occurrences. The lead-zinc-copper-silver mine in Ossining Prison north of Manchester City, the copper-tin-lead mine in Yinggu Township, the chalcoccite mine in Dongfu Township in Haizhou, and the sulphur-copper mine in Yueshan Island.

The expansion of the domestic heavy industry and shipbuilding industry has led to a strong demand for the metal copper, which alone depends on the above-mentioned copper minerals and European trade. is unable to meet domestic demand. It is said that the domestic copper price climbed to the highest point. The shortage of copper ingots lasted almost two quarters. 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.

The scientific research team led by Frey discovered several valuable copper or lead-zinc deposits within a few kilometers of the west and north of Songhai Town. 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 for a while in the company.

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. In addition to leaving a small number of students to continue their geological mapping work, Frey led the rest of the elite to the south of Songhai Town, where the natives had brought a lot of gold sand a few years earlier.

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 inland 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. From time to time, the corpses of the highly decomposed Machish natives can be seen in the jungles, valleys, and even by rivers and streams, and from the traces left on the corpses, it is clear that there have been a series of fierce wars between the natives here.

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

Passing by an abandoned Aboriginal village again, he saw several decomposing aboriginal corpses hanging on a wooden shelf in the village, and several college students around Frey covered their mouths in disgust.

"Several local chieftains are vying for our share of the merchandise, and while the bosses don't really have the will to provoke them to war, the truth is that they're going to kill ten people for a 21B flintlock 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! ”

On the orders of former Army Sergeant Major Jonah, several Blackwater security guards dragged the bodies of the aborigines outside the village for burial with disgusted expressions, and then more 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 laughter of frolic and yelling mingle are intertwined. Slowly seeping into the nearby rainforest, it attracts the attention of some of the jittery Matthias in the dark.

……

"Unlucky, Professor Frey, my backpack has been 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 food was lost the most, but several indispensable research tools, including several backpacks, mapping instruments, and maps carried by the research team, were stolen by the curious Machias natives who had infiltrated the country after the night. The result caused the security captain Jonah to lash out in the camp. Almost all of 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!" A security guard was so embarrassed that he grabbed his rifle and yelled for revenge.

"All assembled. Check out the gear! You. You. And you, a few of you are in charge of camp security, and the others will come with 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 Jonah, who was leading the team, "They seem to like our cans, and they didn't hurt us except for taking things." 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 on 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 and walked towards the small river to the west under the leadership of Jonah, while Frey and some of the able-bodied college students also followed behind with their own self-defense weapons.

……

In the small village of Tu Zhai, nearly a hundred shivering Matthias squatted in a central clearing, with two dozen heavily armed Blackwater Security Company fighters pointing rifles at them, while Jonah, accompanied by a guide and Turk interpreter, walked around in front of the crowd with revolvers.

“…… 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 that lost stuff adds up, maybe less than $50......" Frey shuddered as he watched as the Blackwater Security Company members armed to the teeth slaughtered the unarmed Matthias natives and bled 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, then tell the damned Pig Leader about the situation here, and if this happens again, we will wipe out 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 number of Machishi natives killed is conservatively estimated at more than 50, 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 trembling with self-defense weapons walked up to Frey, all with pale faces, looking frightened by Blackwater's actions.

"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 exaggeration, but I don't know how many blood-soaked stories are taking place in the Indian Ocean Viceroyalty or elsewhere, and if possible, I would like to continue to stay 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 group of transactions from nearby indigenous chiefs 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 indigenous men, who looked more athletic than the others, gathered around a gorgeous merchant and took a shiny black flintlock rifle, and his face was full of excitement...... (To be continued......)