At the end of December and the beginning of January, India was completely enveloped in the power of the northeast monsoon. The monsoon is so powerful that the Sprint Champion migrant transport ship carrying Shao Shuguang can comfortably sail along the strong counterclockwise current, along the west coast of India to the northeast, and finally anchor at the port of Diu.

The port of Diu is located in the city of Diu in the Goa-Daman-Diu district of India, a city full of Portuguese style. Of course, after a few years of East Coast people entering the island and experiencing large-scale construction last year, the port of Diu now has some more East Coast elements, and the architectural style of the whole city is more colorful.

You see, next to the St. Paul's Church built by the Portuguese, there is the Qingyang Temple, a building affiliated with the Taoist General Association. Compared with the baroque style of St. Paul's Church, the stone reliefs and columns are full, the Qingyang Temple is made of green bricks, and on the outer wall is a group of murals of Tianzun riding a green ox to the west, and the inside is a huge courtyard, which is very exquisite.

In order to build the first Taoist temple in the Indian subcontinent to embody the majesty and love of Tianzun, the Taoist Association has invested a lot of money in the Qingyang Temple, not only the bricks and cement are specially transported from New Huaxia Island, but the wood used is also a high-grade tropical wood imported from Ceylon Island at a high cost, which costs a lot of money.

Of course, these are not all the costs of Qingyang View. In fact, the interior of the temple is also very sophisticated, with an air of understated luxury everywhere. Just like the couplet at the door, it is to spend a lot of money in the Ningbo area to ask a famous handwriter, and then hire the industry's top craftsmen to carve it, so that the Portuguese and Indians who have seen it on Diu Island are fascinated.

It is worth mentioning that not far from St. Paul's Church and Qingyang Temple, there is actually a Buddhist temple. The temple was also built at the expense of a local Buddhist association on the east coast. Xu is to make a difference in India, the birthplace of Buddhism, although the financial resources are far less than the Taoist bulls, but they still gritted their teeth and scraped together this fund, and it is not easy to build this building called Guoxing Zen Temple.

"The world is suddenly eliminated, to the place of beauty, relaxed and happy, what to say, what to say, what to say about the price of the article, open your eyes, enjoy the bright moon by the stream, the breeze outside the threshold, the clock in the courtyard, and the oblique light in front of the embankment; The lake is led by the tube, when the bliss, the wild song is drunk, this is the blessing, this is the wisdom, this is the cause of the landscape, cleanse the mind, win some Xiao Temple cicadas, the distant sky returns, the flat sand falls geese, and the far pool is shocked. Lian is a good link, the word is a good word, Guoxing Temple really has some ways, good, good! Today is January 2, 1686, in front of the main gate of Guoxing Temple, Shao Shuguang, who had just disembarked in the middle of the night last night, looked at the long couplet in front of the door, and said with admiration: "Guoxing Temple has really made great efforts to spread the mysteries of Chinese culture and Buddhism. India is the birthplace of Buddhism, unfortunately it declined early, Guoxing Temple is determined to revive Indian Buddhism, whether it succeeds or not, this ambition is always admirable. ”

In fact, Hinduism in India was more favorable to the rule of foreign colonizers. They are docile, forbearing, seeking the afterlife, and rebellious and weak-spirited, and are literally the religious system that any ruler, including foreign colonial rulers, can only dream of. Buddhism, which came from China to India from "export to domestic sales", although it also emphasizes the content of non-conflict with the world and the cultivation of the afterlife, is not as extreme as Hinduism, and in terms of rulers, it is not very suitable.

But who made the new owner of Diu now a native of the East Coast? This variant of Chinese culture on the east coast is still relatively close to and appreciated Buddhism that has been integrated with Chinese culture, which can be seen from Shao Shuguang's praise of the couplets of Guoxing Temple, which is an innate thing in his own blood, which is indeed more suitable for his own taste than the Indian Asan set.

In later generations, there were a large number of Catholics on the island of Diu, and even their number was no smaller than that of Hindus and other miscellaneous religious believers, which shows the profound influence of the centuries-old colonial rule of the Portuguese. And if the Portuguese can do this, then are the East Coasters inferior? There are only a few thousand Indians on the island of Diu – and that includes the large number of seasonal workers who come from across the river, but there are not so many permanent settlers – let alone a change of religion and culture, and it is not impossible for them to change their religion and culture, as long as the people on the east coast want to.

"The wisdom master of Guoxing Zen Temple is a monk who has practiced in Ningbo for many years, and he did not want to go to sea, and later he also considered the promotion of Buddhism, so he boarded the ship and crossed to the west to support the façade of this Guoxing Temple. Today, however, it is a bit unfortunate that Master Zhifa followed Zhou Hesheng and Zhou Stationmaster to Goa for business and cultural exchanges last month, and has not yet returned. The person who spoke was Huang Jiandong, who was just 30 years old this year, the new commander of the East Portuguese Combined Fleet, the grandson of Huang Yang, an early naval veteran on the East Coast, and a graduate of the Navigation School.

Huang Jiandong had served in the First Fleet before, and before he was transferred to Diu, he was the captain of a "Star"-class light cruiser, and he did some smuggling work off the coast of Brazil, and his resume was not dazzling. However, in the end, he was born well, had a hard background, and was born in a professional class, and his age was just right, so he was promoted to the first level, and became the commander of this miniature fleet with only a few ships in place, which is not a small jump.

The home port of the East and Portugal Combined Fleet, after repeated studies by both sides, was finally settled on the island of Diou. To this end, the East and Portugal also jointly funded (the Portuguese had no money, so they could only provide land for free) to modernize the port of Diu, mainly involving the construction of military wharves (separated from civilian ones), the construction of special naval docks, the repair of lighthouses and batteries, the dredging of waterways and the expansion of breakwaters, of course, the purchase of wharf loading and unloading equipment is also a sum, in short, it cost a lot of money, so that the Portuguese were stunned, and they sold a lot of land to the east coast. I don't know how much land the Portuguese will sell as more and more projects are built in the future, and the financial difficulties will be sold, and I am afraid that it will not be many years before the land on the island will be sold.

News of the formation of the Combined East Portuguese Fleet is believed to have not yet reached the Dutch East India Company. But this kind of thing will not be hidden for long, especially when they are officially cruising in the western Indian Ocean, and sooner or later the Dutch will know about this naval fleet that is clearly coming at them. At that time, the relationship between the two sides will inevitably fall into a relatively tense stage, and no one can predict what will happen.

"This Portuguese is better than a monkey! The thighs are hugged tightly, and they are also powerful. Shao Shuguang laughed when he heard this, and said, "But seriously, does the Dutch East India Company really have the energy to come to northwest India to trouble you?" I don't see it, they have a lot of trouble right now. ”

Subsequently, Shao Shuguang briefly told Huang Jiandong about many things that had happened in the four feudal regions of the Far East in the past two or three years, and focused on the southward trade plan being planned by the Southern Pioneer Team. Once this plan is formed and stabilized, it is bound to greatly dilute the profits of the Dutch East India Company's Taiwan trading station - such a business as importing copper from Japan and selling it to Vietnam to cast cannons and make money for them, is it not your Dutch who will do it?

As soon as they are in a hurry, they will inevitably have to find a way to solve the crisis facing Taiwan's trading station, and this will undoubtedly require the Batavian side to focus on tilting funds, personnel, and ships in this direction, and it is obvious that the investment in other areas will not be too sufficient, so Shao Shuguang has just asked.

Although Huang Jiandong also knew some basic information about the Far East, it was still far inferior to the first-hand information that Shao Shuguang told him in person, so he was also a little surprised at this moment, and then frowned. Listening to Shao Shuguang's words, the so-called southward trade plan of the Southern Pioneer Team did have a lot of overlap with the business of the Dutch East India Company, and the competition in this is self-evident.

The Dutch East India Company was a behemoth with nearly 100 large ocean-going vessels sailing to Europe and Batavia, as well as a large number of small ships trading in the coastal waters, especially in the Indian subcontinent, the East Indies and Indochina. Now the southern pioneer team has pulled the Portuguese, Spanish and Fujian Zheng regimes together to plan trade between Chinese mainland and Indochina and the Philippine Islands, which is indeed more troublesome for the Dutch and has to face up to it. In this way, the pressure on Goa and Diu will indeed be much smaller in the coming period, which is undoubtedly good news for them.

"If that's the case, it's really good news, and Stationmaster Zhou Hesheng Zhou will be very excited when he hears it." After hearing this, Huang Jiandong smiled and said: "However, the facilities that should be built still have to be completed on schedule, the materials have been transported all the way, and a large number of Indian laborers have also been recruited, so it will be a great loss if it stops." Moreover, it is unfortunate that the formation of the Diu garrison has just been completed, and the number of 1,000 officers and soldiers has been fully recruited. ”

It is said that as the main armed guard force on the island of Diu, the Diu garrison was finally officially formed three months ago, and Ehito, who had just been promoted to naval lieutenant, served as the commander. The equipment of this army is quite good, at least the muskets, cannons and other equipment are fully equipped, but the personnel is quite painful: out of the 1,000 people in the Diwu garrison, there are less than 200 experienced officers and soldiers, most of them come from Xinhuaxia Island, mainly reserve soldiers; In addition, there were about 300 Indo-Portuguese soldiers, most of whom were defeated by the East Coast people back then, and they were basically a group of old bastards and old oilmen, and their morale was not very good; The remaining nearly 500 people are all Rajputs recruited on the spot, and their military experience can be said to be zero, but fortunately, their morale is not bad, they have a certain martial spirit, and they should not be too bad if they are trained for a long time.

But in any case, such an army with great differences in race, ethnicity, religion, and culture, and it can even be said that it is extremely chaotic, and it may be good to bomb and suppress places in peacetime, but if it really encounters a hard-point enemy landing and siege, I am afraid that it will have to kneel. If the people on the east coast are still interested in going north to the old land of Gurajput and conquering more Indian lands in the future, then it is necessary to carry out a vigorous rectification: if the Indians are not good, they must change to other people, and if they are not well trained, they must desperately strengthen them, in short, to improve their combat effectiveness as much as possible, not only to defend against a possible invasion by the Dutch, but also to prepare for future expansion in India. Although the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb still looks very strong, and the empire under his leadership is also in the ascendant stage, who knows what the future holds? What if something happens to India? That's the opportunity for the East Coasters.

"Let's form a garrison, it's going to be used in the future anyway." Shao Shuguang smiled slightly, stretched out his finger and pointed due west, and said: "On the other side of the distant sea, there is another **** country, that's right, the Omani Sultanate of Muscat. This country used to have good relations with us, but since we extended our sphere of influence to the Swahili coast of East Africa, they have been greatly stimulated and quickly turned cold and even turned against us. Now the country's relations with us, one can even say hostile. Commander Huang, you are a navy, and the situation will only be clearer than me, the coastal waters of the Omanis have become a paradise for you to have fun, and if you want to go further in the future, you may send an army to land for operations, and you, the garrison of Diu Island, are likely to be one of the troops sent to land. ”

Shao Shuguang's words really seemed a bit novel to Huang Jiandong. Moreover, what he said does not seem to be entirely nonsense, but quite likely. For a barbaric state like the Sultanate of Muscat, in addition to a naval strike, sending an army landing is also a good option. Although the East Coast Republic of China is not yet very interested in landing on the Arabian Peninsula, the future is not certain! In order to fight the nomads of the Arabian Peninsula, a large army was obviously inevitable, and the Rajput region, which was rich in human resources and relied on a little militancy relative to the rest of India, must have been one of the main sources of such troops. Therefore, now they must build this kind of "seed" of the colonial army, otherwise there will be problems when forming a colonial army on a large scale in the future.

In the Arabian Peninsula, the people of the East Coast will have to pass sooner or later! It was a collective decision of the Executive's Lords, although there was no attractive wealth in the desert-filled land.