Chapter 70: Contact

As one of the few among the current Transmigrators with actual combat experience and the ability to skillfully operate foreign military weapons, Wei Yuan had been very busy lately: back when Han Bo and his crew served, they had all trained on domestic light and heavy machine guns, but now they had to master the Browning on a tight deadline. The time was short and the task heavy, so Wei Yuan transformed into a machine gun instructor and had put in a great deal of effort over the past few days.

Grinning as he watched a few of those bird-brains clumsily swap out a gun barrel, Wei Yuan scratched his big bald head, the tough flesh of his face twisting into a smirk. He turned his head and said to Han Bo, "Tomorrow, don't forget to strip off all the flash hiders from the muzzles."

Han Bo, square-jawed with thick eyebrows and a well-proportioned build, was in the prime of his life. This gentleman carried himself with the standard bearing of an officer and had the strong makings of a righteous character. Hearing Wei Yuan's words, he smiled and replied, "Is it really necessary to intimidate the natives with sound and light effects?"

"Trust me, it's absolutely more useful than you imagine. This is the seventeenth century." Wei Yuan pointed at the ground beneath his feet, then added, "The more primitive they are, the more they fear loud sounds and bright flashes. The natives of this world are even more primitive than the ones I've encountered before. Until they evolve to the point of World War I weaponry, flash hiders are useless. Sound and light effects are an advantage unique to us."

"Mm, let's go with that then. We'll see the effect first." Han Bo nodded in agreement.

The atmosphere was relaxed; everyone was like a mainland tourist on a boat for an independent travel trip. The fleet slowly, unwaveringly sailed toward Dayuan.

The Dayuan of 167 was neither a majestic red-brick barbette fort nor a bustling commercial port; it was merely a sandbar situated off the coast of Tainan, called "Yikunshen" by the Ming people.

Yet this desolate place had now clearly become a gathering spot for figures from all corners—a land of wealth, a land of heroes. Japanese, savages, Ming people, Fujian Pirates, South Seas Red Hairs, oh, and the crew-cut Transmigrators too, were all drawn to this barren sandbar, waving silver coins and weapons in their hands, vying for the lead role.

At this point in time, the outer seas of Tainan featured a chain of sandbars running parallel to the main island, and Dayuan was merely one of them. The large lagoon enclosed between this chain of sandbars and the main island was called the Taijiang Inner Sea.

The reason outsiders had taken a fancy to this place one after another was that the channel between Dayuan and Beixianwei Island was deep enough, making it the only channel that could allow medium-sized seagoing vessels to pass through and enter the Taijiang Inner Sea to take shelter from the wind.

Dayuan Island, shaped like a tadpole, ran north to south, parallel to the main island. At this very moment, only a sparse few buildings and some shacks were distributed along the side facing the Taijiang Inner Sea. The famous Zeelandia Castle was, at this stage, merely a crude trading post enclosed by clay walls, nowhere near the scale it would reach in later generations.

The Interim Governor of the Dayuan Trading Post, Johannes van der Hagen, was standing atop the post's enclosing wall at that moment, peering out at the open sea through a single-tube telescope made of brass.

The afternoon sunlight pierced through the white clouds and shone upon the azure sea surface; today was undoubtedly fine weather. Yet Van der Hagen's mood at this moment was like the year-round, unrelenting overcast clouds of his old home in the North Sea—churning restlessly under a weight of oppression.

Just before the tide rose at noon, two junks with rigid sails had appeared in the outer seas off Dayuan. Unlike other Ming Sea Merchants who came to trade and entered the port, these two ships, whose hull forms were slightly peculiar and which he estimated with his naked eye to be 00 last, had adjusted their mainsail angles to artificially reduce their speed ever since arriving here.

The incoming ships, slowly loitering at the mouth of the channel between Dayuan and Beixianwei Island, had effectively blockaded the traffic of the Taijiang Inner Sea—"These two ships did not come here with friendly intentions," Van der Hagen, who had come out to observe the situation after receiving the report, had thought at that time.

An hour later, the sampan used for communication, burning with fierce flames and slowly sinking in the channel, its half-section of mast protruding above the sea surface, told him: his earlier guess had just been confirmed.

All employees of the Dutch East India Company in this place had now been fully assembled. The gunners inside the two corner bastions of the trading post facing the open sea had also made their preparations, though due to range limitations, they had not yet made a sound.

"Do we need to clear the channel and then send the Welden out to engage the pirate ships, Mister Lieutenant?" Once the Interim Governor had determined the nature of the junks, the topic naturally turned to the direction of how to conduct combat.

"Perhaps that would not be a wise decision, Your Excellency. The opponent's ships likely carry a large number of light cannons, perhaps one- or two-pounder guns. In the narrow channel, we have no field of fire, and the Welden would be threatened. And there is another trouble right now: that sampan." Lieutenant William Jans replied.

William Jans was a Luxembourgish mercenary with a large beard. He had a huge nose and a thick head of red hair, and wore a half-worn, coarse wool short coat. The row of copper buttons on his coat gleamed brightly, which made him look not so slovenly—compared to the soldiers under his command.

As a member of the Dayuan Council, William Jans currently commanded 150 matchlock gunners and 35 gunners—though, of course, the primary profession of all these men was first and foremost that of a crewman.

The scum mostly hailed from traditional mercenary-exporting regions like Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as other impoverished provinces within the United Provinces, mixed in with some South Seas natives and a small portion of High German-speaking Prussian savages.

Due to the great distance, William Jans had not clearly seen how that sampan was shot to pieces and sunk in the channel. However, the faint flashes transmitted from the junk at that time, along with the intensely penetrating, continuous, and dense sound of cannon fire, clearly told the Lieutenant: the opponent's ships possessed a large quantity of light firearms capable of dense fire, even though this did not seem real.

Years of mercenary experience reminded him that it was best not to recklessly charge forward before seeing the weapons hidden beneath the opponent's cloak.

The Acting Governor, however, did not seem to quite agree with the Lieutenant's caution: "Even if the trading post's strength is currently in a weakened period, we cannot simply stay here and do nothing, can we?"

"Your Excellency, they will make a move soon, if I am not mistaken."

"Why?"

"Because the tide is rising, Your Excellency."

Hearing this, Van der Hagen understood. He waved over a dark, thin Chinese man, handed him the single-tube telescope in his hand, then turned his head to the trading post translator standing to the side and said, "Tell Xu to go to the shore and take a look at those two ships. I need to know whose subordinates these pirates are."

The trading post translator was a Ming man, short and plump, with the genial air of a merchant. After he exchanged a few rapid sentences with the dark, thin man in a native language that even God could not learn, known as the "Zhangzhou Dialect," the man left the trading post with two equally dark and thin subordinates.

At that same moment, the two junks began adjusting their mainsail angles and sailed toward the open sea. Van der Hagen did not rush to express an opinion this time, and then the Lieutenant's prediction was verified: with a nimbleness the Dutch found incomprehensible, the two ships gracefully traced a circle in the open sea, adjusted their heading, and, taking advantage of the high water level after the rising tide, charged side-by-side onto the beach of Dayuan.