New Shun 1730

When approaching the castle, there were several Cossacks on horseback patrolling outside.

One of them supported his companion's knees and mumbled something with his tongue curled up. He glanced at the convoy where Liu Yu was, then went around and followed.

Perhaps he saw the beaver hat on Liu Yu's head, and a Cossack suddenly clamped his horse, and the horse seemed to grow under his legs and galloped towards Liu Yu.

The horse brushed past Liu Yu's horse, and he stretched out his hand, grabbed Liu Yu's hat, and ran away diagonally.

Liu Yu blurted out a clear and melodious "Sukabulie", which was one of the few Russian words he knew, and took out a flintlock rifle from the saddle.

The Cossack heard the scolding, looked back, and saw Liu Yu holding a gun, and he was not afraid.

He stretched out his right hand towards Liu Yu, inserted his thumb between his index and middle fingers, and made the most fucked-up gesture in Western culture, with his thumb moving inside.

The tea-red beard shook, and he laughed, then he leaned on the horse's back, twisting his body and running wildly towards the distance.

Du Feng, who was beside Liu Yu, was secretly happy, and rode out, relying on his fast horse, and kept pace with the Cossack.

Several Cossacks nearby gathered around, but did not interfere, but watched the fun with a smile, and shouted a few words that Liu Yu could not understand from time to time.

The Cossack who stole the hat heard someone chasing him from behind, so he hung the hat in his hand and shook it, and circled around the convoy.

Du Feng controlled the horse, got close to the Cossack, stepped on the stirrup, exerted force suddenly, lowered his shoulders and rushed towards the Cossack.

He stole the hat in a moment, and did not return to the convoy immediately, but turned around and went elsewhere.

After a few circles, the Cossack stopped chasing and whistled at Du Feng. The Cossacks watching the fun nearby were laughing and talking a lot.

I asked the old master who knew Russian. "What are they talking about?"

"The Russian said that his horse had just run more than ten miles at noon, otherwise he would have caught up. The others laughed at him, saying that his mother must have slept with a gypsy juggler to give birth to him, and his riding skills are so bad..."

"Damn it."

Du Feng in the distance circled a few times, returned to the formation with his hat, and returned the hat respectfully to Liu Yu.

"Young Master, these Russians are just like this. If they can beat you, they won't reason with you, and those tribes suffer a lot; if they can't beat you, they will be very honest. They are too bandit-like and don't obey discipline. There were a few families in Handoliwei City, but they killed their superiors and fled here because of the uneven distribution of fur spoils."

Liu Yu put on his hat and saw that Du Feng was smart and remembered to call him Master instead of calling him Master. He smiled and said, "You are at a disadvantage just now."

"Young Master, don't blame me. The caravan is full of desperate criminals. When they encounter such things, they will rob them back. If they can't rob them back, they will think they are unlucky. If they don't rob them, the other side will often become more aggressive."

After this episode, the Cossacks who followed them really didn't make any moves towards this side. Some even came over and spoke a few words in unskilled Chinese with two silver coins in their hands.

"Wine, yes?"

Liu Yu shook his head and told the old man that there were only rhubarb and tea leaves. The Cossack shook his head in disappointment and rode away.

Rhubarb and tea cakes were all owned by the Russian government, and private involvement was prohibited. The money from these government-run businesses had to be invested in military expenses, and the Cossacks neither needed nor wanted to cause too much trouble.

Without the harassment of the Cossacks, the team quickly approached the castle of the Russians.

Liu Yu quietly observed the castle in the distance in the team. From a distance, it would be a bit too much to say that it was a bastion.

But if it wasn't, it seemed that the protruding polygonal corners and the earth slopes for anti-artillery were indeed a bastion system, but a low-profile version.

The location of the castle was very good, and it was obvious that the person who chose the site was very professional. With its back against the Heilongjiang River, the main castle was on a small hillside, and next to it was a supporting secondary castle that supported each other.

The trade zone was not in the castle, but in an open space outside the castle, where there were some wooden houses, and milky white smoke could be seen from afar.

The trade zone is still within the control of the fortress. It may be a little farther away because they are worried about providing cover for the attackers when the city is besieged.

Next to it is a small river that flows into the Heilongjiang River. The Russians diverted the river water and built two circles of trenches outside the castle.

The place between the trenches is full of wooden sticks, all of which are very short.

On the side of the trench close to the defenders, you can clearly see a low breast wall, and there is a drawbridge leading to the main fort behind it.

The shooting range around is very clean. There should be a rye field next to it, and you can see the haystacks piled in the field.

There is a small dock on the back of the Heilongjiang River, and a boat is parked on the dock. It is not big or small, but it is definitely not what Du Feng called a "birch bark boat". It looks like a small boat that can sail, and the mast can be clearly seen.

In the winter, the ship was also pulled onto the ice, fixed with wood around it, and it looked very new. The blue X-shaped naval flag designed by Peter himself is also flying on the mast.

It must have been built by carpenters and boatmen, otherwise there would be no way a sea ship would exist in such a place.

…………

In a room in the main castle, logs were burning fiercely in the fireplace, and the rising heat drove away the severe cold outside.

The cross-shaped window lattice is inlaid with some blue-green glass. The portrait of the crucified Christ lowers his head and seems to be observing the three people sitting in the room.

These three people are very special. In a sense, none of them are real Russians, but they all left their names in the history books of Russia.

Abraham Petrovich Hannibal.

Curly black hair, thick beard extending from the temples to the chin, and skin as dark as charcoal. Standard black man.

At the age of twenty-eight, he was already a brigadier general in Russia. Together with the surname Hannibal, he was also given by Peter I. He hoped that this adopted son could establish a great legacy like the famous general who made Rome tremble in ancient times.

Vitus Bering.

His skin was as pale as white wax, and his face was covered with freckles common to Northern Europeans. He was a Dane.

At the age of forty-five, he will leave an indelible mark on the world map in the future, and his name will be like a sword, splitting Asia and America.

Chuanbei.

It was obvious that the Japanese had converted to Orthodox Christianity at this time and changed their name to Gavriel.

A shipwreck more than 20 years ago caused many unpredictable changes in the fate of this Edo businessman. Coming to St. Petersburg from the bitter cold Kamchatka Peninsula, he followed the order of Peter I and founded the first Japanese language school in Russia.

"His Majesty the Emperor ordered me to continue to inspect the mouth of the Amur River (Heilongjiang), and hope to find a waterway from the mouth of the Amur River to Japan to carry out trade with Japan."

"After completing the exploration of the Japanese route, I will continue to search for the road from Asia to America. His Majesty the Emperor's edict clearly stated that if possible, an accurate map must be drawn to include the northwest of America in the territory of the empire. ”

The emperor Bering was talking about had already died of illness last year while rescuing a sailor who fell into the water.

The female emperor who came to power now did not have a good reputation. It was rumored that she was a Polish military prostitute and did not have much ambition. However, those in power are still the members of the Youth Army who were brothers with Peter. Admiral Apraksin made it clear that Bering should continue to complete his expedition.

The continuous southward invasion over the years has allowed the Russians to freely use the Heilongjiang estuary and no longer need to set sail from the cold frozen seas of Okhotsk.

Denbei will also sail with Bering this time, trying to find a reliable route to Japan, and at the same time determine whether Sakhalin is an island or a peninsula, and whether it is connected to Japan by land.

"Yes, yes. It would be extremely advantageous to open up a trade route from the Amur River to Japan. His Majesty the Emperor ordered the carpenters here to build a ship a few years ago."

"I hope that while you are exploring sea routes, you can also explore the Amur River, measure the water depth and draw a complete route map."

"If possible, I also hope that you can discover a sea route from here to America. You know, there are very few sables and beavers here, and there should be such expensive and beautiful animals in the north of America. No. The Cossacks don’t want to have fur interests in this place, they prefer to go back to Ukraine to farm.”

Hannibal used a very distant title in Russian, but he was very supportive of Bering's exploration and route drawing.

The boat on the pier outside the castle was just completed this year and can accommodate forty or fifty people for sailing, directly reaching the Pacific Ocean through Heilongjiang.

As a member of Peter's sidekick, he was very aware of Russia's current financial situation, and he also understood why these Cossacks traveled thousands of miles to come here to suffer in the cold.

They don't have any ambition to expand the country's borders. All they do is take advantage of the fur here.

A complete sable skin can be sold for 3 pounds, which is an ounce of gold; a complete beaver skin can be sold for double the price.

The European beaver is extinct, and the sables and black squirrels in the forests around Lake Baikal are almost wiped out. In recent years, beavers, which were once ubiquitous and built dams everywhere, are rarely seen on the banks of Heilongjiang River.

Once, only a small amount of money was needed to lure hundreds of Cossacks to throw away their hoes and plowshares and come here to make a fortune.

Now, the Cossacks are no longer willing to come to such a place, because there are fewer and fewer stories of getting rich overnight, and there is no money to be made. Why come to such a ghost place?

Isn’t the Ukrainian, fertile, fat-like black soil fragrant? Isn’t the warm wind blowing from the Sea of ​​Azov bad? Why come to a place like this?

Furs, rhubarb, and tea, these three things accounted for more than one-third of the treasury revenue in Peter's era. It was only by relying on these three things that Peter could raise a huge army.

If a route to northern America could be found, the beaver skins, sables, and black squirrels there would allow thousands of Cossacks to go with the dream of making a fortune, and it would also add more revenue to the treasury.

More importantly, it is the Western legend about Japan. It is said that there is a treasure island there, which is covered with gold and silver.

Peter had worked as a carpenter in the Netherlands, and the Dutch trade in Japan had always attracted him. So after the Cossack traders who were collecting furs in Chaka found the shipwrecked Chunbei, Peter immediately asked Chuanbei to open a Japanese school.

Before Peter died, there was a plan. The army was sent south from Heilongjiang to push the border closer to the Chinese capital, forcing China to sign a trade agreement: no more tariffs on rhubarb and tea, and no more rhubarb sales to the Dutch and Portuguese.

If a route from Heilongjiang to Japan can be found, then the cold east should be able to become a trade area like Arkhangelsk, even if it cannot become St. Petersburg.

Only in this way, without the temptation of fur profits, can we attract enough people to come here. Without a population, this place is just a desolate border area after all.

Although Hannibal was demoted here because he participated in the palace struggle against the powerful officials who supported their mistresses as female czars, the powerful officials in power still continued Peter's policy, and no one died. He was demoted here precisely because of his superb military engineering skills. The elders of the "Peter Gang" hoped that he could preside over the construction of a strong enough fortress to serve as a forward base to prepare for future conquests southward. .

The new route from Siberia to the Americas, the trade route from Heilongjiang to Japan, and the new national border south to the border area of ​​​​North Korea, these are mutually reinforcing Eastern plans, each of which is indispensable.

Hannibal stood up and looked at the new caravan coming from the trading area in the distance through the green glass on the window lattice with great ambition.

"Here, there will be North Korean businessmen, Japanese businessmen, and more Chinese businessmen in the future. And this should not be the natural border between us and them."

After studying in France for a long time, the dreamy words "natural frontier" come to my mind. Hannibal was convinced that the army on the opposite side, which was only at the level of the Thirty Years War, was vulnerable.