On May 29, 1695, in Haipeng, Vietnam, a fleet of five warships had just been anchored.

Haiphong is a young city. It has been built for no more than five years, but now it has become a prosperous trading place, which is quite amazing.

The initial development of Haiphong was due to trade with the East Coast people. Due to the extreme demand for Vietnam's grain, the Lianwu Management Committee made a lot of transactions with North Vietnam, and the transaction lasted for many years. A large amount of cheap food poured into the Lianwu area, providing solid guarantees for the East Coast people's rule in the local area. Later, some Vietnamese grain was even introduced to the Ningshao area, and the Taiwan Bank also officially opened a formal route from Dinghai Port to Haiphong. While selling books, iron tools, weapons, medicinal materials and other commodities, it purchased a large amount of Vietnamese rice as a supplement to Nanyang rice.

It happened that the North and South had been truce in the North and Vietnam for some years, and agricultural production in North Vietnam had greatly recovered, and grain production increased year by year. The continuous wars in the past few years made the country hard and the people were poor. Therefore, Vietnam had a strong urge to export grain for cash and other commodities. The booming trade in coastal defense came into being in this context.

Zheng Zhu of North Vietnam realized the importance of coastal defense, so he recruited civilians to build a dock and a city here. There was nothing to say about the wharf, it could only be said to be of average quality. The defense facilities such as the fort were built in sloppy. There was a total of more than a dozen old bronze artillery pieces. I don’t know where to buy them, so the people on the East Coast didn’t take them seriously at all.

Compared with the wharf, the city of Haiphong is quite impressive, and it can be seen that it has been built with great effort. The city is magnificent, square, surrounded by brick walls, with a total circumference of more than one thousand meters. There is a moat outside the city wall, and there are a large number of crocodiles in the river. Residents can enter and exit the city through four suspension bridges (located on four walls). There are also some wooden observation decks above the city wall, which Vietnamese people have plastered to gold, but don’t know why.

According to Ningbo merchants who came here to do business, there was a military camp outside and inside the city, with a total of more than 3,000 soldiers stationed. These soldiers were all hot weapons troops. Although they were not very diligent in training, they should never be underestimated. At least they were stronger than some second- and third-tier troops of Shun and Qing dynasties. Of course, this does not mean that the combat effectiveness of the Vietnamese army was stronger than that of Shun and Qing dynasties. This conclusion was almost true in the late Ming Dynasty. At that time, most of the mainland troops were still cold weapons.

Compared with the Vietnamese army, which had been fighting with hot weapons for many years and had a high war intensity, there was indeed a certain gap. However, now the Shun Army and the Qing army have few cold weapons in the organization, and they have been fighting for war for many years, and they have gained a large number of officers and soldiers who are very experienced in fighting with hot weapons. The combat effectiveness has been greatly improved compared to the late Ming Dynasty. Therefore, if the front-line troops fight at this time, they will still steadily surpass Vietnam, just as the Qing army can now steadily over Galdan's troops.

However, these defense measures are not very good to the East Coast people. Now the Far East Five Vastaries have the main force of the First Mixed Regiment, and the Second Mixed Regiment is being transferred and all gathered. If necessary, it is really not difficult to capture the city of Coast Defense, but they don’t have the need.

Near Haifang Port Pier, there are shopping malls built by merchants from all over the world. Almost every shopping mall is made of bricks and stones, quite sturdy, like a fortress, where dozens or hundreds of "business personnel" live, like a closed country. People from the east coast also have two shopping malls here, namely the Ningbo Guild Hall and the Qinzhou Guild Hall, but they have not been built into the fortress style. Instead, they have a large area of ​​courtyards that have entered several times, showing their strong self-confidence.

Think about it, now the East Coast fleet is patrolling the sea at all times, and there are troops that can be dispatched at any time nearby. The trade between the Vietnamese and the East Coast is also very prosperous. People will come to you for trouble if they have a pitfall. Is it fun to be bombarded by warships in the city?

Two of the five warships that had just entered the port were affiliated with the Southeast Asian squadron of the East Coast Navy, two Spanish fleets from Manila, and one was driven by Portuguese from Macau. They were temporarily organized in Manila and commanded by East Coast Navy officers. They began patrolling the entire South China Sea waters at the end of last year and declared maritime hegemony.

After the joint fleet set out from Manila, it first entered the Sulu Sea to the south, attacked the local Green Cultist pirates, then turned to Brunei to the west, and docked in the local area for about a month. The east coast colonists of the Brunei Port recently clashed with the indigenous people. For this reason, the fleet also patroled along the coastline and severely attacked the villages in the Brunei natives, and then left west and arrived at the port of Malacca controlled by the Dutch.

There are also a large number of eastern coasts in Malacca Port, mainly from Ningbo and Denlai. The former is mainly civilians who go out to sea to make a living, while the latter is basically all military households eliminated by the local government. The two have almost more than 2,000 people. Although they are still a minority in the local area, they are not small in popularity and have a very high status. The Dutch colonists dare not offend them easily.

East Coast immigrants operate a large number of farmland and orchards in the port of Malacca, and their sales targets are passing East Coast warships, immigrant ships and merchant ships. Because of the large number of passing ships, their business is very good. Not to mention that everyone is rich, at least most people can be called middle-class or rich in the local area. It is said that the Dutch colonial government in Malacca has recently planned to give a quota of parliament to the East Coast community in the city to participate in urban political activities, and this seems to be the result of strong pressure from the East Coast people, otherwise the Dutch people would not agree so happily.

In the planning of the East Coast people, the methods of handling Brunei and Malacca are different. Brunei is obviously going to be "purified". Even though it seems to have more than 150,000 residents (there are tens of thousands of people scattered in the mountains outside the city), the East Coast people have taken a fancy to this trade hub in the wind and have decided to build it into a city with the majority of the East Coast population. Therefore, the fate of these indigenous people is to be expelled, and even worse, they may be arrested and sent to the African continent to fill in the yellow and black dividing line.

That huge pit. But it is obvious that Malacca cannot operate like this, because it is currently the Dutch territory. Given the good relationship between the two countries, the East Coast government believes that it should adopt more moderate measures, namely, increase immigration efforts to the local area, not only should we continue to send the outgoing military households of the Den Lai, but also, immigrants who suffer from health conditions do not have to return to the team in the second year and settle directly in the local area. Local East Coast businessmen have the obligation to provide relief to them so that they can gain the ability to make a living as soon as possible.

They plan to gradually increase the proportion of East Coast people in the local area through this peaceful evolution routine, and wait until the time is ripe, and then take the entire city from the Dutch and make it completely the territory of the East Coast. There are actually not many such opportunities. For example, two years ago, the Dutch proposed to give the East Coast people to the East Coast people on the condition of giving them to the Port of Malacca to the people of the East Coast in exchange for them to join the Dutch side and attack the French fleet. However, the people of the East Coast refused at the time, otherwise the Port of Malacca would have been given a long time ago. However, it was impossible to reach an agreement with the Dutch government.

, You can also talk to the East India Company. Those guys only recognize money. As long as they give them enough commercial benefits, and with the strength of the East Coast Navy, it is actually not difficult to guess what decisions Batavia will make. But there is no hurry at the moment. First, we will thoroughly digest Brunei. The pearl chain strategy - generally refers to a series of strongholds controlled by the East Coast people in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, like a stringed pearl chain - will not be terminated. Take it step by step, and there is no hurry.

After leaving the Port of Malacca, the joint fleet turned to the northeast and visited two trading ports, Hoi An in South Vietnam and Coast Punishment, North Vietnam. Hoi An was controlled by the Nguyen Master of South Vietnam. There are many Chinese and Japanese people in the area, and have developed commercial trade. In recent years, it has also opened grain trade routes with Lianwu. At the same time, it exported some specialties such as dried fruits and spices in exchange for funds to import weapons, war horses and other industrial products. Because of its weak strength, Nguyen Master of South Vietnam showed a low attitude towards the East Coast people and was willing to give up a large part of its interests in exchange for the stable progress of weapons trade. The East Coast Fleet also focused on uniting the local Chinese here and tried its best to win over the Japanese. In short, it was to try every means to enhance its influence and lay a solid foundation for Ningbo merchants who came here to open up markets.

Compared with the South Vietnamese Master Nguyen Master, the North Vietnamese Master Zheng is stronger, so he is not so polite in his attitude. The specific manifestation is that when the Joint Fleet requested to enter the port and berth, they seemed very reluctant. Finally, under the "strong demand" of the Joint Fleet, they were finally forced to agree. Moreover, the East Coast merchants paid a variety of taxes here, which was more than twice as high as the Hoi An in South Vietnam, which is annoying. I believe that if it weren't for the great demand for North Vietnamese food, the East Coast people would have already found a way to sanction them and let them know what the loss of the import of muskets and cannons meant.

But it doesn't matter now. After contacting Li Sixing's troops in the mountainous areas of northern Vietnam, in the future, there are ways for the East Coast people to deal with Zheng and balance the forces of the north and south. The ideal state is probably South Vietnam and North Vietnam have a long-term confrontation and division, and the East Coast people have influence and gain benefits. Unfortunately, like the Chinese, Vietnamese have a very strong obsession with unification. In the future, North and South Vietnam will still have a certain possibility of reunification. People on the East Coast must not be careless.
Chapter completed!