The ocean-going exploration fleet led by Song Tao, who did not know the East India Company of several European countries, was chasing them frantically behind. The ocean-going exploration fleet was by mistake to avoid the encirclement and interception of the other side.

After receiving supplies from the Arab pirates in the Maldives archipelago, they bid farewell to Aria and the others+9 and sailed into the vast Indian Ocean. The ocean-going exploration fleet will head south, from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, into the Atlantic, and then north to Europe.

The rest of the voyage will also take several months, and they will face bad weather, complicated sea conditions, and pirates along the way. Although there is an experienced captain like Van Pitt, Song Tao and they also have to go through a severe test.

For such a long voyage, of course, the six sailing ships could not rely solely on the sails to sail with the power of the wind, and the steam boiler units on several ships were bound to play a role. Several improved sailing ships of the ocean-going exploration fleet carry 300 tons of coal as standard, and have a maximum endurance of only 5,000 nautical miles at a speed of three knots. The thermal coal reserves on board the ship will not be enough to cover the entire voyage.

Therefore, the fleet must choose a foothold to replenish thermal coal halfway. Before the fleet set off, the Admiralty had chosen a suitable location, that is, Tuliara, on the southwest coast of the island of Madagascar, near which there was a small and medium-sized coal field that produced high-quality hard coal of very good quality.

Song Tao stood on the deck of the fleet's flagship "Pioneer", holding a telescope and observing the land coast that appeared in front of him. He put down the binoculars, and then shouted to Wang Xiaojie behind him: "Xiaojie, organize the assault team to land on the Tuliara beachhead, and choose a location with good hydrological conditions to guide the fleet to the shore." and to create defensive positions at the landing site. ”

"Yes......"

Wang Xiaojie hurriedly accepted the order loudly and immediately turned around and left. Song Tao waved Zhang Yufei to his side again, pointed to the opposite coast and said: "Feizi, after you go ashore, take a few team members and give me a deep inland reconnaissance, and before dark today, you must find out the area of the landing site ten kilometers deep, and make a detailed topographic map." ”

After he finished speaking, he shouted into the headphones: "Attention all ships, make the final preparations before landing, and listen to my orders before acting." ”

Several assault boats were lowered to the surface of the sea, and 10 special combat personnel and more than a dozen fighters from overseas brigades boarded the assault boats, rushed to the beachhead with increased horsepower, quickly landed and scattered in all directions, and conducted reconnaissance near the coast.

As the assault team established the landing site and guided the fleet into the Gulf of Tuliara, a large number of officers and men of the Mad Dog Brigade descended the rope nets into waist-deep water, then rushed to the beachhead and set up several machine-gun positions.

With the help of everyone, the sappers of the fleet unloaded the assembled improvised dock components from the ship and built a small improvised pier pier before dark. The ship's supplies were unloaded smoothly, and a camp was set up on the beach.

After finishing this qiē, it was already the middle of the night. Song Tao arranged for the officers on duty and let the tired officers and soldiers live in tents to rest. Although Song Tao was also very tired, he couldn't rest, and there were still many things waiting for him to deal with in the camp. And the investigation team led by Zhang Yufei has not yet returned.

Song Tao inspected the sentry posts in the camp, and sat with Ding Xinghao and Li Shaojie to study the next plan of the fleet. Not long after they sat down, Zhang Yufei's reconnaissance team returned to the camp.

Zhang Yu flew into the tent, grabbed Song Tao's water cup, raised his head and poured it full, wiped his mouth and said: "The situation in the vicinity is clear, they are all ordinary indigenous villages. We went about a dozen kilometers inland and didn't find anything. ”

Song Tao thought for a while and said: "Feizi, you work harder tomorrow, take a few experts from the Ethnic Affairs Committee to go again, there are still a few small and medium-sized coal mines near Tuliara in modern society, it is best to find them." ”

Li Shaojie next to him said: "If we find a coal mine, do we still want to mine it ourselves?" ”

Ding Xinghao "poofed" out of music.

"There are so many natives on the island, we will arrest them all to help us dig coal, and if we are not honest, we will kill them."

Li Shaojie was stunned for a moment, he looked at Song Tao, and said weakly: "That's not good, can we hire them." It's not good to fight and kill for no reason. ”

Ding Xinghao patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Brother, what is this, it's just to catch a few natives to dig coal for us." It's the colonial era, and you're not right in itself, this is the home of the natives, and we came here to invade them, and no matter what we do, they will treat us as invaders.

Western colonizers in North America almost wiped out the indigenous Indians. At that time, the British Parliament had the audacity to declare that killing and craniums were "God's and nature's means", and with their connivance, the British colonial authorities settled in New England made a formal decision in the Legislative Assembly in 1703: a bounty of 40 pounds for each Indian skull peeled or captured by an Indian, and in 1720, it was raised to 100 pounds!

Western colonizers sent large numbers of black Africans to the Americas, forcing them to work in extremely hard labor in the mines and plantations. It is said that the average working life of young adults on a plantation is only 7 years. The miners in the mine are even more gone, and their relatives often give them funerals in advance. The number of blacks who arrived in the Americas in the 16th century was 900,000, in the 17th century it was 2.75 million, and in the 18th century it peaked at 7 million. By the 70s of the 19th century, a total of 15 million blacks were shipped to the Americas.

In order to make huge profits, Britain, the Netherlands, France and other countries competed to organize slave trading companies. At the height of the slave trade, Britain had nearly 200 slave ships with a capacity of 50,000 people, and the slave traders did not care about the lives of the black slaves, a 90-ton ship carried 390 people, and each slave on board had only 5.5 feet long and 16 inches wide. For every black person trafficked to the Americas, five people die on the African continent and on the way. ”

Li Shaojie listened to Ding Xinghao's words, and his whole body suddenly became cold. He opened his mouth and tried to speak several times but didn't say it. But after he saw Ding Xinghao say this, his face was still calm.

Song Tao also shook his head with a wry smile and said, "Shaojie, since you have come to this era, don't be entangled. Lao Gao is right, in this era, even a sheep has a wolf mentality. The company will also implement a global colonization plan, establish colonies in various places, and in the future, large-scale immigration from the Ming Dynasty will inevitably encroach on the homeland of indigenous people around the world. Hehe...... If we are soft-hearted, we will lose. ”

After he finished speaking, he turned his head and said to Ding Xinghao: "Africa is a good place, South Africa and Madagascar are also an important part of the company's future global colonization strategy.

Lao Ding, you have worked hard these days, with the officers and soldiers of the Mad Dog Brigade, to recruit natives on a large scale in the vicinity, and when we determine the location of the coal mine, let them dig coal for us. But after all, we are new to Madagascar, and this time we are only establishing a temporary foothold in Madagascar, and after the departure of the fleet, we have limited forces here, so we still try to avoid bloodshed. ”R1152