I

Some Chinese crew members have gone ashore and are talking to the Portuguese about supplies.

The sudden appearance of the Hindu rebel army frightened the Portuguese and quickly hid in the castle. The Chinese crew also retreated back to the ship in an orderly manner under the cover of the army.

"Da da da da!"

Then hundreds of light cavalry appeared, and these light cavalry were too light. Except for a few officers who wear armor, the rest of the soldiers are all wearing civilian clothes, but their complexion is relatively fair.

An Indian cavalry composed purely of landowners and yeoman!

Chhatrapati Sivaji, who was only 24 years old, was not afraid of the Portuguese in the castle at all. He rode around the castle to the pier and asked, "Are you Chinese envoys?"

This guy speaks Marathi, which no one in the Chinese envoy can understand.

Sivaji rode to the base of the castle again, and shouted inside: "Come out, I'll hire him as an interpreter!"

The Portuguese really came out. After receiving the translation fee, they happily ran to contact the Chinese.

Both Zhang Ruifeng and Lu Tianxiang were quite curious and felt that the leader of the Indian rebel army was very special, so they stood at the bow of the boat and talked to Sivaji from the air.

This guy introduces himself: "My name is Chhatrapati Sivaji, the resister of Mughal bandits, the patron of all Hindus, and the leader of all Marathas. I I will destroy all the sultanates and let the glory of Hinduism shine on the whole of India. Chinese friends, I hope to do business with you and buy a thousand muskets from you!"

Zhang Ruifeng discussed with the people and replied: "I am only an envoy of His Majesty the Emperor of China, and I have no right to sell firecrackers. But you are a great hero, and the Chinese are willing to make friends with you. Therefore, we present you with a firecracker." pistol!"

There are specially prepared "gift muskets" on board, which have not been delivered all the way back and forth.

Matchlock guns of course, flintlock guns are not for sale. Part of the gun body is also gold-plated, inlaid with red sapphires, and even the matchlock is specially made.

After Sivaji got the musket, he immediately smiled and said loudly: "Chinese friends, you have gained the friendship of Hindus. After I eliminate the Mughal robbers, I will send envoys to visit the Chinese emperor with gifts. !"

"Waiting for Your Excellency!" Zhang Ruifeng cupped his hands and said.

Sivaji turned around and rode away. When he came to the place surrounded by Bijapur soldiers, he gave an order with a grinning grin: "Kill them all, leave no one behind!"

The Chinese on board and the Portuguese in the castle then watched Bijapur soldiers being massacred throughout.

No one gets involved in this kind of infighting.

This guy Sivaji can definitely be called bold.

Later, he was besieged by the deputy king of Mughal with his troops, and he sneaked into the city with only a few cronies to assassinate him. He stabbed the vice king of Mughal and killed the son of the vice king, but he was able to escape safely. Such behavior caused chaos in the Mughal army, and the Mughal deputy king also lost his mind. Sivaji successfully broke through with the main force in the ensuing battle.

He will be the founder of the Maratha Empire in India. The territory of the country at its peak will almost unify North India, and it will also occupy a large part of South India. The territory is about half of the South Asian subcontinent (the Mughal Empire was It’s gone, you can only actually control the palm-sized area). Later, due to infighting among descendants, the country was dismembered by the British East India Company during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty.

When Aurangzeb ruled the Mughals, the main enemy was Sivaji's Hindu army.

Until Aurangzeb's death, the Mughals were unable to destroy Shivaji's power. In turn, Sivaji also collected protection fees from the Mughal governor, used the protection fees to subsidize the finances, and reduced the agricultural tax on the site by one-third.

To use a metaphor, it's like when Zhao Han was in Jiangxi, he collected protection money from the governors of Huguang, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Nanzhi in the Ming Dynasty...

"Long live Hinduism!"

Sivaji held up his exquisite musket and shouted, and the soldiers under his command shouted excitedly, stripped off the enemy's armor as trophies, and left the massacred corpses on the ground and walked away.

The rebel army left, and the battle was over. The Chinese fleet did not have to leave, and they disembarked one after another to start replenishing supplies.

Taking advantage of supplies, Prince Charles disembarked with two teenagers.

He wandered over to the Portuguese castle, handed him a cigar, and said in Portuguese, "Hello, my name is Charles."

The Portuguese soldier happily took the cigar, and quickly puffed: "My name is Santos."

"How long have you been in India?" Charles asked.

"You should ask how long my grandpa has been in India," Santos said with a smile.

Charles pointed to the direction where the rebel army left: "Is that guy famous in India?"

Santos shook his head: "I'm not well-known, and suddenly rebelled. The Sultan of Bijapur gathered a large army to encircle him, but he couldn't catch his shadow. When he went to the east to encircle him, he ran to the west, and when he went to the south to encircle him, he ran to In the north. The number of rebels is increasing. Everywhere he goes, the local Hindus will spontaneously join his army. At first I heard that there were only a few hundred people, but now it is estimated that there are thousands of people, and it may even exceed 10,000. people."

Charles was fascinated when he heard it, and he already regarded Sivaji as an idol.

He also wanted to bring hundreds of people back to England, and then the troops would fight more and more, and drown Cromwell in the toilet!

The reason why Sivaji was able to grow, apart from his own bravery and perseverance, was also the general outbreak of religious and ethnic conflicts in India. He was born in the Marathi tribe, which belonged to the Indo-European race. Most of them belonged to the third and fourth castes. They were mainly Hindus, and their occupations were low-ranking officers, soldiers, landowners and farmers. This kind of religious and ethnic composition is a natural rebel group!

Sivaji fled with troops, and the Marathas joined the army enthusiastically. Not Charles. If he returns to England to raise troops, the squires will beat him up.

When Charles was inquiring about the situation, the officers in the Chinese mission also approached the Portuguese to find out the situation.

The rise of Sivaji is an important news that must be included in the work report.

During the few days when he docked for supplies, Prince Charles was at home in the castle. From civil servants to ordinary soldiers, everyone likes to deal with him, and some Portuguese even took him to visit brothels.

This guy likes to toss around, and even led more than a dozen Portuguese soldiers to ride a horse for twenty miles to appreciate the local customs of India. By the way, I saved an Indian girl and came back...

The Indian girl's father, to put it bluntly, is a prince of the Tubang, but to put it bluntly, he is only a large town. Because she converted to the green religion, she was slaughtered by the rebel army. The girl whose family was ruined, starved and fainted on the side of the road, was almost gang-raped by a group of untouchables, and was picked up by Prince Charles.

The fleet set sail again, and Charles was triumphant, talking about his chivalrous deeds to everyone.

Another day, the journey at sea is depressing.

Charles approached Fan Chao: "General, I heard from those sailors that you followed His Majesty the Emperor of China to raise troops very early?"

This matter scratched Fan Chao's itch, and he immediately smiled and said: "Among the Conglong heroes of the Datong court, although I was not the first to follow His Majesty, I can be regarded as an honorable veteran. When Your Majesty occupied Zhangshu Town, I took the The warships fled, fought from south to north, from east to west, and made countless military exploits, large and small."

"Are the legends of His Majesty the Emperor true?" Charles asked curiously.

"What legend?" Fan Chao asked back.

Charles said: "At the decisive battle in Zhangshu Town, the number of government troops was several times that of the rebel army. At the most dangerous time, His Majesty the Emperor put on armor and led a hundred knights to defeat twenty times as many enemies."

Fan Chao wanted to roll his eyes when he heard that. At that time, the Datong Army had only a few horses in total, all of which were used as sentry horses. Where did the cavalry come from?

"Who did you listen to?" Fan Chao asked.

Charles replied: "That's what the Chinese sailors on board said."

Fan Chao couldn't help laughing, nodded and said: "That's how it is. Your Majesty goes to battle, and one is worth a thousand. No matter how many Ming troops come, it will be useless."

"Your Majesty the Emperor is so brave!" Charles actually believed it, and thought of Cromwell.

Cromwell's starting capital was 60 cavalry.

Sixty gentry cavalry, some country knights, some rich farmers. They brought their own horses and weapons, followed Cromwell through life and death, and their fighting will and discipline far surpassed the king's cavalry. Cromwell's later cavalry unit was based on these sixty cavalry, and all members came from the country gentry class.

As for Cromwell's infantry, it consisted of workers, apprentices, and citizens.

It's all emerging classes, fighting for their own interests, and the morale is overwhelming when they fight. You don't even need to pay the military salary, just take care of the food.

Charles continued to inquire about the heroic achievements of the Datong Army, and Fan Chao began to brag, and finally brought up the Battle of Nanjing: "In the previous Ming Dynasty, there were four capitals. One was in Beijing, the second was in Nanjing, the third was in Fengyang, and the fourth was in Zhongxiang. Nanjing It is the capital second only to Beijing, and now it is also the capital of my court in Datong. The walls of Nanjing are tall and strong, and there are tens of thousands of defenders inside. I only have more than a dozen warships under my command, and hundreds of sailors... Let's fight, I took off my clothes, and I didn’t bother to put on the armor. I should open the city gate, and I braved the arrow rain to kill seven in and seven out..."

The translator had a strange expression on his face, and Charles listened in a daze, always feeling that something was wrong.

Although the prince is smart, he has never really fought a war. For a while, I didn't know whether what Fan Chao said was true or not, but no matter what, it was true that General Fan in front of him led his troops to capture the capital of China.

Back in his cabin, Charles called two country boys.

"I have inquired. There is a war school in China," Charles said. "When you arrive in Nanjing, you and I will go to the War School to study. I will pay for the tuition. You must learn how to fight!"

Charles was not short of money. Before leaving Europe, he got a lot of tricks from the big nobles. Of course, it can also be said that the big nobles invested in him.

After three years and nine months, the fleet of Chinese envoys finally returned to Malacca.

Continue eastward, stop at Bin Thong Long (Champa) for supplies, and find that a war is going on in the north—the Chinese army officially dispatched troops to the Vietnamese Ruan family.