The Rise of the European Emperor

In this era, there were tens of thousands of indigenous people in the entire island of Taiwan. They are accustomed to the tropical and subtropical humid jungles on the island, and they are comfortable in the rainforest. Moreover, most of them are aggressive and ruthless. Some inland mountain tribes still have the tradition of headhunting.

Historically, when the Dutch first landed in Tainan, they were surrounded by a large number of indigenous people on the island. But the Dutch are treacherous, and by means of trade and deceit, they now enclose a piece of land and build a castle. Seeing that the Dutch are easier to talk to, the simple and honest aborigines of Taiwan Island relaxed their vigilance.

But after the city of Zeelandia was built and the Dutch had the ability to defend themselves, they began to show their fangs and began to occupy the city as the center. Of course, the Dutch are more cunning, and they also recruited some locals to help suppress the dissatisfied village communities, and gained a firm foothold on the island.

In the same period, Spain was relatively reckless, and they used strong methods to get tough. As a result, they were completely blocked by the aboriginal fighters, had no food source, and almost starved to death. In the end, because the Spanish colonists in Keelung relied on Manila for food supplies, the cost was too high, and the scale of trade did not meet expectations, so they had to withdraw.

In the past few years, with the help of the recruited Han army, Kong Tai has reached the area of ​​Miaoli County in later generations and controlled the small oil well in Chusulphengeng. However, if you go further south, you will encounter some resistance.

To the south of Miaoli is the Taichung area of ​​later generations. There is a tribal alliance based on 18 villages. Each of these 18 villages has hundreds of people, and there are seven to eight thousand people in total, which can make up two to three thousand fighters.

If they were on the plains, these people would be delivering food to Kong Tai’s colonial army. However, in this dense forest...

Therefore, Kong Tai's southward expansion path has been hindered at present. However, according to Marin's instructions, Kong Tai has already bought that piece of land by purchasing land in the area of ​​Tainan Anping Castle (that is, Zeelandia City) in later generations. and built a strong castle.

Of course, Marin is not as cunning as the Dutch, who came up with a fraudulent means of cutting a piece of cowhide into silk strips to enclose the land. He directly asked people to use a large amount of cotton cloth purchased from Ningbo to exchange a large area of ​​land around Anping Castle from the indigenous people. Moreover, it is much larger than that of Anping Castle.

Then, Kong Tai directly ordered to use cement and bamboo to build a bamboo-reinforced concrete castle there, with a bastion design. As for the name, Marin simply named it Anping Fort.

After that, Kong Tai did not use this castle to attack the local aborigines. Because Kong Tai lacks manpower. Moreover, the local natives are not so easy to mess with.

Therefore, for the time being, this castle is currently only a large market for trading with the local indigenous people. The market is not inside the castle, but on the square outside the castle. The square is paved with cement slabs and bricks. It has a large area and can carry out large-scale trade.

But the aborigines don't have any valuable commodities in their hands,

That is deerskin, venison and velvet. Although there are profits, the profits are not high.

Of course, as smart as Marin, he still thought of a way - he asked Kong Tai to send people to buy local timber in Anping Fort...

This trick is rather insignificant, because it is tantamount to letting the local indigenous people cut down trees and cut down the barriers they rely on for protection. Once the trees are nearly cut down, they are lambs to the slaughter. At that time, Kong Tai can send hundreds of people casually, and they will be wiped out. Unlike in the jungle, no matter how well Kong Tai's men could fight, it would be difficult to hunt down the local aborigines in the dense jungle. But if the natives cut down the trees themselves...

Therefore, in order to lure the aborigines to cut down the trees themselves, Kong Tai also exchanged in-demand commodities such as salt, cloth, cane sugar and wine for timber with the aborigines.

In order to facilitate the local natives to cut down trees, Kong Tai also asked his men to sell the saw at cost price...

Moreover, it is not a loss for Kong Tai to buy those timbers. why? It is still profitable to transport those timbers to Quanzhou and Fuzhou on the other side.

Although the price of wood is not high, the transportation cost is also low. For those logs that were cut down, Kong Tai’s men directly tied them into huge wooden rafts, and then pulled them by sailboats and floated directly on the sea to Quanzhou Port or Fuzhou Port. Although there were also shipworms who came to make trouble and gnaw on the wood, but within a few days at sea, the ship maggots hadn't finished eating the outer skin, and the fleet pulled the wood to the other side. Then, the wood was dragged ashore and exposed to the sun, and all the shipworms belched...

...

Strictly speaking, this strategy is very good. When the natives cut down the forest almost by themselves, the army under Kong Tai's command could easily clean up the natives and force them to surrender.

However, those natives are still very difficult to mess with. If they stay here, troubles will inevitably arise. And Marin is unwilling to engage in massacres easily, so getting them away is the best choice.

Originally, I hadn't thought of where to get them. However, now that he was going to conquer the Philippines, Marlin suddenly had an idea-to recruit indigenous warriors on the Tainan Plain and go to the Philippines to conquer the local indigenous people.

There are about 40,000 aborigines on the Tainan Plain, and over 10,000 aboriginal warriors. Moreover, each is good at fighting in tropical jungles and mountains. It is absolutely perfect for dealing with the natives of the Philippines.

How to recruit you ask? It's so easy! As long as you have a meal of white rice, fish, meat and wine, and some clothes, it’s fine if you don’t pay!

The aborigines live in poverty, although there are many sika deer on Taiwan Island. However, they don't know how to make salt, and they don't know how to grow sugar cane to boil sugar. Therefore, even if they hunted venison, it would be roasted and eaten directly, without salt, which is very unpalatable.

And the salt and sucrose provided by Kong Tai, added to the venison, is a delicacy in the world in the eyes of the aborigines. Eating well-seasoned meat every meal can kill these indigenous warriors.

Also, the local meat is very cheap. Take venison, for example. Local warriors carried freshly hunted deer to sell, mainly for their skins. Generally, a small bag of salt can be exchanged for a whole sika deer, the deerskin is the big head, and the venison is just an extra head for free...

Because of the hot climate on Taiwan Island, local meat cannot survive at all. But selling to Kong Tai is different. Kong Tai has enough salt in his hand to marinate all the venison and make it into bacon.

Generally, each sika deer can produce 50 to 60 catties of meat. In the Ming Dynasty, venison was relatively rare. Although it was not rich in oil and water and could not keep up with pork, it could still be compared with mutton. It was not a problem to sell 15 renminbi per catty.

But on Taiwan Island, venison is very cheap. A piece of cotton cloth worth 200 Wen can be exchanged for 200 catties of venison... In Daming, 200 catties of venison can be sold for more than 3 taels of silver...

In other words, the cost of eating meat for the aboriginal fighters on Taiwan Island is very low. A piece of cotton cloth costing 200 Wen can be exchanged for 200 catties of venison. Counting the salting and shrinkage, the cost of a catty of salted venison is only about two pennies.

And for an indigenous warrior to eat meat every day, a catty of salted venison a day is almost the same, and the cost is less than three pennies including transportation and cooking. Even if there are 10,000 native soldiers, and each person eats a catty of venison every day, the cost is only 30,000 Wen, which is 30 taels of silver...

In addition, it is also very cheap to buy wine from Ming Dynasty. A jar of yellow rice wine costs less than 200 Wen. It can be used by more than a dozen people for a day, and the daily cost per person is only 10 Wen. Soju is more expensive, but the natives don’t need such high-purity wine, rice wine is enough to send them away. If sugar cane is planted on the Tainan Plain in the future, and the leftovers from sugar cane are used to brew rum, it is estimated that the cost of wine will be cheaper. After all, the labor cost here in the Ming Dynasty was extremely low...

In other words, although the indigenous people can be provided with "high treatment" and can guarantee that they drink and eat meat every day, the cost is really not high. Especially for meat, it was so cheap that it was many times cheaper than the prices in the Ming Dynasty. There is no way, there are many sika deer on Taiwan Island, and there is no shortage of venison.

As long as he can drink and eat meat every day, and distribute cotton cloth and food for free, Kong Tai will not have to worry about not being able to recruit indigenous soldiers from Taiwan Island. As long as there are a few thousand people, equipped with weapons and armor, and then undergo some necessary training to hang and beat the natives of the Philippines, it will be easy and enjoyable.