Jiang Asheng couldn't help but shout out "Ghost", which was extremely unlucky.
First, he was punched in the stomach by Wen Dai. Tears and snot flowed from his nose in pain, and he couldn't even breathe. Later, Rapini pinned his hands behind his back and tied his thumbs with a black strap, making him unable to move. Wen Dai stuffed the towel around his neck into his mouth, almost suffocating Jiang Asheng to death.
Out of confusion after being attacked, Jiang Asheng's first reaction was that the attacker was a student from the Crow Department. However, he forgot, how could Shengfan talk to him in Mandarin? When he was brought to a person whose face was also painted black and green, and the other person asked questions in a slightly jerky Hokkien dialect, he realized that these people were not monsters, but human beings.
"What do you do? Who are you?"
The thumbs of both hands were locked tightly, which made Jiang Asheng very uncomfortable. When the cloth in his mouth was taken out, Jiang Asheng, who was sweating profusely, gasped and took a big breath. Taking advantage of this time, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that there were at least dozens of people around him, which made him even more frightened. Did he encounter a murderous robber?
"Hero, spare your life! Villain, I am a sugarcane farmer. My hometown is Fotanqiao, Zhangpu."
"Growing sugar cane? Why are you here if you don't work hard so early in the morning? Huh?! If you're not honest, I'll kill you!"
"The villain's fellow countryman got seriously ill the day before yesterday. He has no money for treatment. The villain came out to pick some herbs for him. Please spare his life, hero!"
"Do you still know medical skills?"
Seeing Wang Yuanfang's kind tone, Jiang Asheng's tone became smoother and he replied: "My family used to open a pharmacy in Zhangpu."
"What medicine to pick?"
"Heavenly fruit and Sambung nyawa. These two things are hard to find. If they are not small, they will not go so far."
"Sambung nyawa?"
Jiang Asheng, who was kneeling on the ground, pointed to the plant with green leaves and dots of white flowers in his basket and said, "This is it. The local farmers use this as an herb for bone setting, but I heard that it can also be used to remove poison."
Wang Yuanfang used his dagger to pluck at the herb basket on the ground a few times. He used his gloved hand to take out a very strange gray-brown nut with a wide base and a sharp tip and said, "What is this?"
Jiang Asheng said hurriedly: "This is Xiangtian Fruit. It is mainly used to relieve fever and astringent. It takes more than ten years to bear fruit."
"Haha, it sounds like ginseng fruit." Wang Yuanfang grinned and asked the soldiers on the side to untie Jiang Asheng.
"Let me ask you, do you know how to get to the Dutch castle twenty miles east of Batavia?"
"I know. That place is called Dingjiabao. The sugar cane plantation where the villain is located is only more than five miles away. But it takes at least five hours to walk from here." In fact, the castle is called Dinklan Castle. The Chinese found it difficult to pronounce, so they called it "Dingjiabao".
"How many Dutch soldiers are there?"
"It seems, there seem to be a hundred or ten people. I heard it from the foreman, but I have never seen it with my own eyes." Jiang Asheng was surprised, thinking, are these people going to attack the Dutch castle? Uncle Tiangong, who are these people?
He hesitated and said: "Hero, there are cannons on that wall. Every month when the Dutch test-fire the cannons, the sound sounds like thunder."
"Five hours..." Wang Yuanfang pondered for a moment, stood up and took out a handful of shiny Beihai Town silver coins from his jacket pocket. He said without even counting them: "You lead us there, these silver coins It’s all yours.”
Jiang Asheng's pupils shrank sharply, and his breathing became more rapid. He looked up at Wang Yuanfang and saw that the other party was gesturing for him to take it, so he carefully reached out and took out a piece. He first bit it with his teeth, then looked at the bite mark against the light, and then a look of ecstasy appeared on his face. He then said to Wang Yuanfang in embarrassment: "It makes the good man laugh. I have been in Bacheng for two years and I haven't seen any money yet."
Wang Yuanfang smiled nonchalantly, and then with a backhand, he put all the silver coins into the opponent's hand. Jiang Asheng trembled all over as he held a handful of silver coins.
During the rest time on the march, Wang Yuanfang learned through chatting with Jiang Asheng that in a place like Batavia, many low-level Chinese workers like him would not see any money after working for several years, let alone two years.
"Then what do you usually do when you need to spend money?"
"What a good man, I don't know. What our boss gives us on weekdays is lead money. If you want to get money, you have to wait until the contract expires and you quit before you can settle the money according to the accounts."
"Lead money?"
After Jiang Asheng's explanation, Wang Yuanfang learned that a special currency system was implemented in the local sugar cane plantations.
After each day's work, Aboriginal and Chinese workers would receive a kind of locally produced lead money as payment for the day's labor. Lead coins were about the same size as copper coins, but they could only be circulated within the plantations and were only accepted by grocery stores opened within the plantations. Workers could take these lead coins to the stores to buy opium and other daily necessities.
Every other day, workers would hand over the remaining lead coins to the treasurer who managed the plantation's accounts, and then recycle them again. The finance deputy will register the amount handed in by each person and record it in the worker's account. At the same time, the worker will also keep an account of the entries and exits, stamped with the finance deputy's confirmation stamp. If the worker's copy is lost, you can get another one based on the records from the finance deputy.
When the laborers' contracts expired and they planned to leave the plantation, he could use this record to exchange for settlement in silver coins.
Jiang Asheng signed a three-year contract with a proprietor named Chen. The annual salary is twenty Dutch guilders silver dollars, which is 17 taels of silver. Half of it will be deducted for daily meals and daily necessities. In addition, the twenty silver dollars borrowed originally will have to be repaid for the shipping fee. As a result, the Chinese workers were left with very little money, let alone looking for women, and they could not even afford to get sick.
Fortunately, Jiang Asheng's family used to run a medicine shop and he knew some knowledge about herbal medicine, so he used his three-legged cat skills to help people treat illnesses and earn a little money. He didn't ask for much every time, 5 to 10 lead coins, which was much cheaper than the doctor hired by the plantation, but he had to find a way to get the herbal medicine by himself.
"What diseases do Chinese workers generally suffer from?"
"Sickness, typhoid fever, snake and insect bites, that's all. No matter how difficult it is, there's nothing a villain can do." Jiang Asheng picked up the compressed biscuit dregs scattered on his body and put them in his mouth, looking at Wang Yuanfang's hand. The compressed biscuit that had not yet been finished said: "Hee hee, this place in Java is very plagued by miasma. Once infected, the skin will have to peel off even if you die."
Upon seeing this, Wang Yuanfang took out another compressed biscuit and handed it to Jiang Asheng. He suddenly remembered that Zhao Xin had mentioned opium before, so he asked casually: "Are there many opium smokers here?"
"Why not much?" Jiang Asheng didn't notice Wang Yuanfang's eyes. He focused on the biscuits. I saw him holding it with one hand, and took a satisfied bite before saying: "Our boss and the deputy treasurer will suck a bag every day to cure all diseases! However, opium is sold locally at a high price. It is like a villain in this year." I can’t make much money, so I won’t be willing to buy it.”
As mentioned before, the introduction of opium in the early Qing Dynasty was due to the pacification of the southeastern coast and the Chinese who left their hometowns began to return to their hometowns. As a result, opium consumption arose in Fujian and Guangdong.
Many people will be curious, whether it is Yunnan-Guizhou or Southeast Asia, why is there the habit of swallowing opium? Two words, miasma - that is, malaria.
In the early days, Caiyunzhinan was definitely not the direction of my heart. It is better to be a dead ghost in the Central Plains than a wandering ghost in the border areas. It is talking about the horror of the southwest. In the early 17th century, when the Dutch entered Asia to colonize and even occupied Taiwan, they used opium to treat tropical diseases such as malaria. Because malaria is afraid of cold, and the body will be warm after smoking opium, there is a saying that opium can cure miasma. This is true in Yunnan, and even more so in tropical Southeast Asia.
Speaking of this operation of the special operations battalion, fortunately they met Jiang Asheng who was familiar with the terrain, otherwise he would not have been able to cover the dozens of miles in one day. But even so, Jiang Asheng had no problem drilling into the dense forest to find herbs alone, but the actions of two hundred people could not be done like this, so Wang Yuanfang could only ask his teams to take turns using machetes to clear the way.
The humidity in the tropical jungles of Java is so amazing that walking in it feels like walking in a steamer. Although short-term adaptability training was conducted on Dazhan Island, it was nothing short of purgatory for Sauron Bing, who had lived in the Northeast since childhood. After walking for two hours, some people were almost driven crazy by the humidity and heat and wished they could take off their clothes.
Before setting off, Wang Yuanfang gave everyone a death order. They must not take off their clothes, and all the gaps in their clothes must be tightened, otherwise poisonous insects will take advantage of them. But even so, those leeches would still get into the soldiers' clothes and greedily suck the blood. Fortunately, the soldiers in the special operations battalion each brought two packets of salt before setting off, so it was easy to deal with the leeches. In addition, they could replenish the salt that was rapidly depleted in the body.
In this way, when Wang Yuanfang and the others arrived one kilometer away from Dinklan Fortress in the dark, there were already more than fifty soldiers who were unable to participate in the battle due to damp heat, fainting, and poisonous insect bites. Even Wang Yuanfang himself was very tired. light.
Although Java Island is much cooler at night than during the day, it is still unbearably hot for the Northern Navy, who are almost all northerners. In view of this, when Wang Yuanfang finally got in touch with the Thor, he changed the time of attack to dawn.
On the Thor, Deng Fei's negotiations with Batavia during the day were just a formality. In order to find out the news, he even kept the other party on the ship for a meal at noon.
When they learned that Jiang Fan was actually a civil servant, Kapitan Wang Zhusheng and his three Lei Zhenlan were extremely respectful and polite in their words. From this, Jiang Fan also learned some information from Wang Zhusheng. Of course, these were all said with Jacob's permission.
According to Wang Zhusheng, the Dutch East India Company established two occupation systems in Java, namely, company-administered colonies and vassal states.
Directly administered territories account for three-fifths of Java's total area and more than one-half of its total population. In the directly governed areas, the company appointed Dutch people to control the highest power, but retained the privileges of the feudal princes of the original Banten Kingdom, allowing them to continue to serve as officials in lower-level institutions.
The vassal states in Java include Banten, Cirebon, Solo, Yogyakarta and Manggunikalan. Nominally ruled by the sultans of each state, the judicial officers stationed by the company had great power and could even directly interfere with the succession of the throne.
Based on preliminary information, Deng Fei felt that if Beihai Town wanted to occupy Batavia as a base, suppress the forces of the Dutch, Spanish and British, and achieve the purpose of controlling the Sunda Strait, it would need at least 10,000 people - The army of four regiments and twelve motor-driven sailboats and gunboats similar to Beihai No. 1 and No. 2 formed four fleets, which could only be dealt with militarily.
You must know that in addition to Batavia, the Dutch strongholds in Southeast Asia also include Sampo Long, Mataram, Banten, Pattani, Banda Islands, Ceylon, etc.
Economically, Deng Fei lacked understanding of the economic system established by the Dutch, and he only received a brief introduction to the Chinese plantation system from Wang Zhusheng and others, so he had no ideas for the time being. He felt that instead of spending a long time trying to understand it himself, it would be better to have people from the Ministry of Trade conduct an investigation after capturing Batavia.
At 8 o'clock in the evening, Deng Fei asked Jiang Fan to compile his opinions and thoughts into a document and sent it to Beihai Town via telegram. An hour later, Wang Yuanfang also contacted Wang Yuanfang. The two agreed to launch the attack on Dinklan Fortress at four o'clock in the morning, and then finalized the follow-up battle plan.
The purpose of attacking Dinklan Fort was actually to set up a forward position east of Batavia. One was to attract the Dutch to die, and the other was to correct the position of the Thor's artillery fire.
At three o'clock in the morning, the sky was already a little bright. Under the guidance of Jiang Asheng, thirty soldiers from the Northern Navy Special Operations Battalion swam across the lake and swamp on the east side of Fort Dinkelland and entered the grass three hundred meters away from the castle to stand by. . More than 20 minutes later, when they heard two blowing noises from the walkie-talkie, six soldiers squatted down from the grass, held up their rifles with silencers, and pulled the triggers in the dim light of the morning. .
At this time, the sentries on the castle wall were at their worst. Bullets were whizzing towards them, and a cloud of blood mist burst out from the heads of several sleepy defenders holding muskets. Before the Dutch could react, Wen Dai, Rapini and a dozen other soldiers had already jumped up from the grass, holding the installed anchor hook launcher and running towards the castle wall. They crossed the wooden fence in the clearing, took aim and pulled the trigger.
With a "boom" sound, the anchor hook painted black flew up into the air diagonally under the impact of the high-pressure air in the gun cylinder, and then hung on the inside of the castle wall. The tail end of the anchor hook was a A 7mm thick climbing rope. Wen Dai took the lead in climbing up the rope, while the other soldiers below aimed their guns at the top of the city wall.
Since the "Red Creek Massacre", Batavia has not experienced war for many years. Although Governor Altin had previously issued a warning order, because Dinklan Fort was far away from Bacheng, the number of people on duty was only increased. The defenders in the fort focused their attention on the sea to the north, and never expected that anyone would attack from the interior.
Although the sound of shooting and falling of the anchor hook alarmed the people in the barracks, the Beihai navy, which had been prepared for a long time, moved faster. When a German mercenary from Württemberg walked out of the barracks sleepily to check, Wen Dai, who had just climbed to the top of the city, immediately pulled the trigger one after another. The sound of the human body falling caused the two horses in the barn to become restless and neigh.
The groom who was awakened opened the door and was about to see what was going on. He accidentally turned his head and saw a few guys with unclear faces suddenly appearing on the wall of the castle. Judging from the clothes of these people, , not our own soldiers at all. At this time, these people were carrying musket-like things and hunched down the stone steps.
not good! The horseman was shocked and was about to retreat into the house when he saw a guy who looked like a devil from hell pointing the weapon in his hand at him. The horseman's legs went weak and he fell down in front of the door. Then he heard two "pops" above his head.
No longer caring about anything else, he opened his mouth and shouted: "Here comes someone..." However, before he could finish his words, the next bullet arrived instantly, punching a bloody hole in the horseman's forehead.
At this time, the defenders in the barracks were all awakened. They rolled under the bed one after another. Just as they were hesitating whether to rush out with weapons or stay in the room, the door of the room was kicked open with a "bang" from the outside, followed by a A black pipe thicker than a musket barrel emerged from the doorway. Before the German soldiers could react, whizzing bullets began to wreak havoc in the house, and everything in the house began to boil and jump with the bullets.
Sheets, blankets, pillows, human bodies, blood... In less than a minute, the barracks where twenty soldiers lived was already littered with corpses and bloody.
At the same time, the same scene was playing out in other rooms in the castle. However, when Wen Dai and others rushed into a fairly ornately decorated supply room and beat the German officer hiding behind the cabinet to death, a woman's cry suddenly rang out.
"Damn it, you killed my husband!"
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