The British East India Company originally had a dedicated wharf and dedicated warehouse in Macau!
The dedicated wharf is located at the deepest part of the Haojiang Inner Harbor. The location is very good, almost close to the Guanzha River - the Guanzha River is the boundary river between Xiangshan County under the Qing Dynasty and the Macau colony under the Portuguese rule.
I don't know when in the future, the east side of the Guanzha River will be completely silted up by sediment, turning Macau from an island into a peninsula. But now, Guanzha River is still an east-west boundary river. To the south of the river is the world of the Portuguese, and to the north is the world of the Qing Dynasty!
Although this is not the "city center" of Macau, the gratifying "Fragrant Hills-Macau Free Trade" is carried out through the Guanzha River. On the north bank of the Guanzha River, Shang Kexi sent people to encircle a large area of land with wooden fences on the north bank of the Guanzha River, calling it the "Guanzha Qingchang".
However, unlike ordinary forecourts, this Xiangshan foreboding shop is an illegal foray into smuggling.
And unlike ordinary smuggling, smuggling in Xiangshan's market must be illegally paid, and must also be subject to illegal inspections by the lords of Pingnan Palace - goods that may threaten the rule of Shang Kexi, the King of Pingnan in the Qing Dynasty, cannot be smuggled into the country!
Of course, even if you pay enough taxes and still traffic in goods that pose no threat to the Qing Dynasty, you are still a smuggler!
Because the Portuguese colony of Macau and the Xiangshan Fortress itself violated the Qing Dynasty's coastal boundary relocation order, they were not allowed to exist at all!
However, at the moment, the Xiangshan Food Market and Macau south of the Guanzha River are very busy. The illegal smuggling trade is almost booming! Because everyone has received the news... the happy King Pingnan will not last long!
Wu Sangui will come to Guangdong soon. During the Chinese New Year, he has already sent people to Guangzhou to look at houses.
And when Wu Sangui came, not to mention the three things the new king did when he took office, he really burned all the Portuguese in Macau into disciples of the Eight Banners. At least there had to be a smuggling tax several times higher, right?
Therefore, whether it is foreign businessmen here in Macau or smugglers in Xiangshan, they must seize this last opportunity to get started... and the smuggling tax of Pingnan Palace has also increased during this period. It doesn’t look like it anymore.
While businessmen and foreigners were busy smuggling, and the officials of Pingnan Palace collected a large amount of smuggling taxes, more and more strong laborers from Guangfu, Zhaoqing, Huizhou and other places gathered in Xiangshan Forgery to make a living - this Xiangshan The business in the market is not small and requires a large amount of labor to help load and unload ships, transport and deliver goods. As for the three prefectures of Guangfu, Zhaoqing and Huizhou, many proletarians have lost their land due to the relocation to the coast. Now they have no choice but to come to Xiangshan to sell their labor force.
It’s just that I don’t know how long I can work in this hard-working business? Maybe when Wu Sangui comes, everyone's jobs will be ruined.
Therefore, the coolies are also working very hard during this period. As long as they still have the energy, just work hard!
When the Great Eastern arrived at the pier with nine old lock boats, there were already hundreds of thousands of coolies in short clothes or shirtless, passing through the Portuguese and Pingnan Palace on the other side of the Guanzha River. The pontoon jointly controlled by Fan Ding rushed outside the fence of the pier and waited for work.
This made Zhu Heji, who was watching with a telescope on the deck of the Great Eastern, so greedy that he almost shed tears... He hadn't seen so many strong men in months!
He was still sighing while watching, "Okay, okay, they are all good men! They all look young, none of them are over thirty-five years old, which is great... Hahaha!"
Although Zhu Heji was also engaged in industry in his previous life, he worked in a high value-added industry - the profits in the high imitation industry are still very guaranteed! Therefore, the wages he offered to the workers were very high, so he didn't have to worry about not being able to hire people. He had no idea about the difficulty of employing workers at all.
But in this life, he finally understood what "difficulty in employment" means!
There is really no one!
Even if half of Jieyang County was captured, and even if every township and capital were searched for people, Zhu Heji would only have a standing army of more than a thousand people, some of whom were still underage.
A scene like this with hundreds of strong men lining up waiting to be hired is like something you can only dream of.
"Master," Zhou Chaoxian stood next to Zhu He with a smile on his face and introduced him very dutifully, "how many people are there? There are more! Do you look at those shacks on the other side of the Guanzha River?"
Zhu Heji hurriedly pointed his telescope at the north bank of the Guanzha River where Zhou Chao first pointed. What he saw was a large area of simple wooden shacks crowded together... It looked like a refugee camp!
However, in Zhu Heji's eyes, this refugee camp-like place was more pleasing to the eye than the palace.
Because the people living there are all proletarians from Guangfu, Huizhou, and Zhaoqing! As long as he masters them, Zhu Heji can't say he can take over the whole world, but at least he can take over the entire Guangfu very quickly!
By this time, the Great Eastern had already stopped at the dock and had lowered its gangplank. Lin Ahu, who was responsible for commanding the troops to capture the dock, and Zhao Hongkui, who was in charge of spearheading the attack, both gathered next to Zhu Heji, waiting for him to give the order.
"Chaoxian, Zhanshan," Zhu Heji first named Zhou Chaoxian and Su Zhanshan, "take a leader brother, a hundred catties of broken silver and Molotov cocktails to the outside of the wooden fence, first put all the Hire everyone!
When the smoke clears up, you will drive them to the other side of the Guanzha River... and tell them in northern Mandarin that we are from the Pingxi Prince's Palace and have come to recover Macau on the Prince's order. Let them not Panicked, the prince has some good things to do for them! "
This lie was taught to Zhu Heji by the military advisor Zhuge. The great military advisor is currently lying in the cabin because of seasickness, but the military advisor still has to do his job well!
Zhou Chaoxian and Su Zhanshan immediately received the military orders and were the first to disembark from the ship with the young soldiers who had been ready for preparation.
Zhu Heji then said to Zhao Hongkui, Yu Xiaoqian, and Lin Tianbo: "Hongkui, Xiaoqian, and Tianbo, the three of you take your brothers with you, carry the smoke barrels, and get off the boat to set up an ambush!"
"Got the order!"
After receiving the order, Zhao Hongkui and others immediately led his troops to carry dozens of wooden barrels and disembarked along the gangplank - these barrels also contained sweet gunpowder, but the formula was different from that filled in the grenade hammer. It is specially used to make smoke.
"Ahu," Zhu Heji then said to Lin Ahu, "go and command the brothers on the old lock ship No. 1. When the smoke rises from the shore, you take them off the ship to occupy the dock and the East India Company's merchant house. Pavilion.”
"Got the order!"
After receiving the order, Lin Ahu also disembarked and went to the old lock ship No. 1. The ship was crowded with four collars of Jinyi soldiers, plus four collars of young artillerymen commanded by Su Zhanshan, Zhao Hongkui, Yu Xiaoqian, Lin Tianbo and others. A total of eight elite soldiers will be involved in this dock ambush battle.
After the arrangement was completed, Zhu Heji finally said with a relaxed look to Su Zhanhai, the first commander of the Ma Army, another commander of the Jinyi soldiers on the Great Eastern: "Go and invite Goff, Smith and Jones. ...I want to witness with them the history of the end of colonialism on Chinese soil!”
...
Zhu Heji was very high-minded and wanted to witness the historical moment of the end of colonialism in China with the three foreign barbarians, but these three "white right" foreign barbarians only wanted to witness China's "black magic"... We must find out whether there is "black magic" before we can decide whether to colonize on our feet or make money on our knees?
So when more than a dozen "smoke barrels" on the dock and on the Great Eastern were ignited, and massive amounts of white smoke poured out from the small wooden barrels like magic, the eyes of Gough, Smith, and Jones Almost falling out!
This is really black magic!
Otherwise, how could such a small barrel contain so much smoke? The smoke was so thick that it covered the pier and the Great Eastern. Those who didn't know it thought it was on fire!
No, we need to report it to His Majesty the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury immediately!
