Located on the right bank of what is now known as Beigang Creek, Taiwan's Beigang Port is a newly built port city that was rebuilt from a former pirate stronghold. Mobile M.

Originally, as a stronghold of pirates, Beigang was still more suitable, because the section of the river at the mouth of Beigang Creek was not only circuitous, but also divided into many branches, except for a few navigable, most of them had been silted into shallow sandbars, and ships who were not familiar with the situation here could easily run aground.

The North Port Wharf is also an inland river wharf, which is still 1 km away from the coastline, and the sandbar and shore of the estuary are lush with mangrove forests. Looking from the coastline, it's hard to spot a navigable river. Therefore, its seclusion far exceeds that of Dayuan Harbour further south.

It was because of this that the pirates gave up the port of Dayuan, which had better natural conditions, to the Dutch to moor their ships, and kept the North Port for themselves.

However, when the Eighteen Zhi Pirate Group was recruited, and Beigang became the official port of the Ming Dynasty in Taiwan, and it was also the entrepot port of mainland goods envisioned by Zheng Zhilong, the congenital deficiency of Beigang began to be exposed.

Beigang Creek is, after all, a stream, not a river. Although the area below the North Port can be navigated, the part of the North Port cannot be used for shipping because of the shallow water and rapid current.

Moreover, Beigang Creek has the common problem of most rivers in Taiwan, the flow is too short, the downstream floods if the heavy rain falls, and the stream dries up if it does not rain in October, and it is difficult to irrigate the fields developed on both sides of the river, and even affects the docking of ships in the downstream port.

The most troublesome thing is that the sand carried down from the swim during the flood is constantly silted up in the estuary, forming large and small sandbars, hindering the expansion of the port.

Therefore, although this place was developed earlier, more than 10 Han immigrant villages have been developed nearby, and there is no shortage of manpower and material resources to maintain the port, Zheng Zhilong is still not very optimistic about this place.

Even if it is to build and expand the port and clean up the shipping lane, it is also hesitant and half-hearted. In Zheng Zhilong's view, the Jilong Port in the north and the Dayuan Port in the south are the most outstanding ports in Taiwan, which can berth European-style ships. In the second, the Danshui River to the north is also a good inland shipping terminal construction site. As for the North Port Terminal, the investment is huge and the return is much lower than that of these ports.

However, the northern areas of Jilong Harbor and Tamsui River have only begun to migrate from the mainland, and this place is still under the control of the local natives, and the time and resources invested in the development of the two ports must be very amazing, and he cannot complete such an investment by his strength alone.

Not to mention, the northern part of Taiwan has been booked by the Taiwan Colonization Company, and with Xu Xinsu's encouragement, the Kanai Mansion and the northern business gentry are behind the scenes, and even he, the Taiwan Strait patrol envoy, does not dare to touch the prey of these people.

Only the southern port of Dayuan, although the emperor signed a trade agreement with the Dutch, eased the tension between the two sides that had intensified because of trade. However, it has been stated in the agreement that the entire island of Taiwan belongs to the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and the Dayuan Port occupied by the Dutch can only be used as a leased land.

Because of this trade agreement, the Dutch had to temporarily halt the construction of a fortress at a Kunpeng. Although under the supervision of Zheng Zhilong's personnel, the Dutch's fortress has not completely stopped, and they are still secretly building in the name of building the residence of the internal personnel, but the progress is so slow that even Zheng Zhilong does not pay attention to it.

Now also known as Anping Port, Dayuan Port was originally a natural bay, but it became a hesitant port in southern Taiwan because it was separated by seven sandbars of various sizes. To enter this bay, you have to go through the Luer Gate.

Luermen is the largest tidal outlet of the sandbar group in the southwest of Anping Port, which has become an important port channel in and out of Dawan due to the erosion of the sea tide. The port road is tortuous, the bottom is piled up, the reef is coiled, and the big ships are not easy to pass, which is known as the "natural risk".

The Dutch-built city of Geranza is on a sandbar east of Luermen, guarding the passage into the bay. Before the construction of this castle began, it was nothing more than a simple fortress. Originally, the Dutch did not look here, they preferred the Penghu Islands between the island of Taiwan and the mainland.

However, in 1624, the Dutch fought fiercely with the Ming army for 8 months, and were finally besieged by the Ming army on Penghu Island.

The Dutch abandoned their bases in the Penghu Islands, while the Chinese did not interfere with the actions of the Dutch in Taiwan. It was after the setback of the Penghu Islands that the Dutch realized the limits of their power and began to turn around and run Dayuangang.

Based on the fortress of a kunpeng, the construction of the city of Olunji began. The castle was named Orange City in homage to the great House of Orange. But after the death of Maurice of Nassau in 1625, the republicans in the country once again prevailed, and the current governor of Batavia was a republican.

Therefore, the first thing he did after his tenure was to change the name of the city of Orenge to the city of Geranza. According to the Dutch plan, this fortress castle was divided into two cities, the inner city was square, and a total of three floors were built, and the lowest floor was located below the ground to serve as a material reserve warehouse.

Due to the sheer size of the fortress, after several years of construction, the city of Geranza was only partially underground and part of the outer city. But from the outside, the castle is already starting to show momentum. In particular, the forts at the four corners of the inner and outer cities have been completed by one-third, and the cannons placed on the surface are already able to threaten the ships passing through the Luermen.

This fortress, which controls Anping Port, is extremely coveted by Zheng Zhilong. He felt that only such a fortress was worthy of his identity as a male in Chiayi County and a patrol envoy in the Taiwan Strait.

The Dutch built Taiwan Street and Pulomin Street respectively at Dajing Ferry on the east bank of the Taijiang River in the east of this fortress. The former was originally a market in this place, which was originally a fixed place for mainland Chinese merchants to trade with local natives, and after the Dutch took control of this place, they took this market for themselves.

Prominja Street, on the other hand, is a European street built by the Dutch on the streets of Amsterdam, and after several years of development, these two streets have begun to show initial momentum.

Compared with the wharf built by Zheng Zhilong in Beigang, the development situation of Anping Port is obviously brighter. It is precisely because of this realization that Zheng Zhilong did not put his mind on the construction of the North Port when he was fully committed to the construction of the base of Xiamen Port, but constantly spying on the intelligence of the Dutch.

In the past, because the Dutch could not have direct trade links with the mainland, they had to buy all kinds of goods from the mainland through their merchants. Therefore, to a certain extent, the interests of Zheng Zhilong and the Dutch East India Company are actually identical. And no matter how much the Dutch develop, Zheng Zhilong will not feel threatened, after all, Taiwan is still a borderless land in his mind.

Unlike Yan Siqi, Zheng Zhilong does not have the goal of becoming a king overseas. His biggest dream is to return home with glory and live a prosperous life in his hometown.

Therefore, he maintained the foundation of Beigang in Taiwan, but it was only for the survival of the pirate group, and once this condition was met, he basically lost his greater enterprising spirit. Of course, the most recruited pirate, he did not regard Beigang as his last hiding place, so he put some effort into this foundation.

But in the final analysis, his goal is still on the mainland, not the entire island of Taiwan. However, when Shibazhi was recruited by the imperial court, and he was appointed as a patrol envoy in the Taiwan Strait, the Dutchman's Anping Port became a thorn in Zheng Zhi's longan.

This is not only because the island of Taiwan and the southern region are nominally under the jurisdiction of the Taiwan Strait Patrol Office, but the Dutch invaded the Tainan region with Anping Port as a base, violating his authority as a Taiwan Strait patrol envoy.

More importantly, after the Dutch established direct trade relations with the Ming Dynasty, they suddenly lost a large number of orders from the Dutch, which caused their interests to suffer.

The superior natural conditions of Anping Port made mainland merchant ships more willing to go to Anping Port for trade, which directly competed with the North Port built by Zheng Zhilong.

With these two factors, Zheng Zhilong's idea of driving the Dutch out of Taiwan and occupying the port of Anping also came out. It's just that Zheng Zhilong has always been very patient, and before he found an excuse to make trouble, he still hid his thoughts very well. After all, the current Dutch governor of Taiwan, Peter. Natz, however, was able to meet with the emperor, and he didn't want his plans to cause Chongzhen's disgust.

However, although the natural conditions of Beigang as a port are somewhat poor, the Han people who immigrated from the mainland have greatly made up for this deficiency with their own diligence and agricultural technology.

After Zhou Kangeng was transferred to the prefect of Taiwan, he built water conservancy and vigorously developed sugarcane planting. In the second year of Chongzhen, the bulk goods exported by Beigang have been converted from deerskin to cane sugar. Taiwan's climatic conditions were suitable for growing sugarcane, and the advanced technology brought by Fujian immigrants greatly increased the yield of sugarcane.

The output of cane sugar in Beigang caused some merchants to be attracted back again, and Beigang was gradually called Sweet Port by merchants. The ripening period of sugarcane in Taiwan is roughly from November to March and April of the following year.

The trading period of cane sugar is mainly concentrated in May and June, and there are few merchant ships in July and August due to frequent typhoons. Therefore, after entering August, at the stilted tower built on a sandbar at the mouth of Beigang Estuary, several soldiers on duty were hiding in the house and playing cards.

After pushing Pai Gow for a noon, the captain Zhou Shuisheng, who lost empty-handed, his face was already black and a little blue. He dropped the cards in his hand, stood up suddenly, and said fiercely: "Lao Tzu will go and put some water first, you will shuffle the cards first, and come back in a while, Lao Tzu must turn over the book..."

After he went out, several soldiers couldn't help but discuss in a whisper whether to release water to the captain later, so as not to make him angry and embarrassed, and everyone would have a hard time in the next few days.

While they were still discussing, they suddenly heard Zhou Shuisheng's excited shout outside: "Boat, the ship is coming." It's Brother Tiger who is back..."

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