On September 20, 1686, there were storms and storms over the South Pacific.

Two "Star"-class light cruisers moved forward in bad weather one after another. Lu Xiaozhong, who had been promoted to major, put down his telescope, wrapped his raincoat tightly, and returned to the captain's room with difficulty.

"Commander, it's hard for us to grasp the direction now. The wind is too strong and the sky is too dark. The pointer on the compass is spinning like a gyroscope. We can't even grasp the direction of several of them." The long navigated wiped the rain on his face and said with a bitter face: "Maybe you should order the lights of the 'Gaotian Weihu' now to let them follow closely, otherwise by the time this storm has passed, maybe we have already arrived at Timor Island, and they have floated to Batavia."

"I will do this." Lu Xiaozhong made a gesture and asked a messenger to send the command. Then he wanted to find a seat to sit down, but he failed, so he could only continue to stagger in the captain's room, holding the handle on one side, and complaining while fighting against the waves Weili, "Look at this cabin, there is not even a dry place, it is all water."

"Commander, one of the four pumps is in a malfunctioning state. Two were blown into the sea while working, and only one can be used now. There is no way. It is not that the brothers in the management team are not working hard. The weather is really bad." The navigator walked to a corner and squatted down carefully, took out a chart, and used a raincoat to cover the rain or sea water that might have poured in (the window has been smashed by a big wave), and studied the "mysterious" question of where they are now.

Another strong wind blew, accompanied by raindrops as big as soybeans. The gust of wind blew straight down from above, with great force, directly pressing the entire ship down and sinking. Lu Xiaozhong staggered and grabbed the handrail next to him, cursing even more, without regard to his identity as a commander, the man at sea, was so rough and proud, and there was nothing strange about it.

The busy sailors on the deck exclaimed. The ship was loaded with a lot of cargo and had a lot of water. It was pressed by the strong wind that was up and down. The waterline suddenly reached a place very close to the deck. The iron anchors hanging on the bow of the ship had already been stained in the water, which made people think that the ship was about to sink.

"The mainmast was blown off-" someone screamed loudly.

When Lu Xiaozhong heard this, he didn't care about the collision and stood up and rushed to the damaged glass window. Seeing the broken mast being dragged down on the deck by the strong wind, he was stunned. The mast rolled on the deck a few times, touched a sailor directly into the sea, and then fell into the bottom cabin and half floated there (because there was a lot of water in the bottom cabin). Seeing this, several sailors immediately stepped forward and used their strength to fix the mast in the bottom cabin with ropes.

"Note that the ship is about to float, everyone is holding on to all fixed objects." An officer blew a copper whistle hanging under his neck and reminded. In fact, when the wind is strong, the waves will not be too big, because they will be suppressed by the wind and the sea surface is relatively smooth; when the wind weakens, the sea water will rise sharply and the waves will also rise. At this time, the hull will rotate violently until it enters the next cycle of downward, floating, and swaying.

"Crash--" A large piece of wooden board on the side that seemed to have been repaired fell into the sea by the wind. A large swath hit the deck directly from this gap, and then flowed into the bottom cabin, gathering inside. The mast that had just been tied half floated on the water surface, and had broken free from the constraints of one or two ropes. Then, as the waves frequently hit the wall of the bottom cabin, making a "dongdong" sound.

"Take a way to throw this damn mast out. If this continues, my ship will be broken sooner or later. The artillery in the bottom cabin will be properly fixed for me, so they will not have any problems." Lu Xiaozhong poked his head out and ordered loudly to the deck.

The sailor responded with difficulty, then put down the water pump in his hand and directed his subordinates to start lifting the mast. The wind was too strong. The sailors standing on the deck were still pulling hard for the moment, but the next moment they were blown back by the strong wind. They were really embarrassed.

Lu Xiaozhong then ran to the other side and carefully observed his marshal, namely the "Gaotian Hunting" which was looming in the wind and waves. He hoped that the marshal would not be severely damaged, otherwise it would be a problem whether he could sail to Timor Island on time. You must know that they came with important tasks this time.

The mission was proposed by Liu Houfei, the captain of the Southern Development Team, and was assigned after approval by Liao Degong, the captain of the Denglai Development Team, and pointed out that Major Lu Xiaozhong of the Third Navy Fleet was led to the Dili Port to transport a large amount of weapons and equipment to the Portuguese, while also discussing some affairs of the joint fleet.

There is no doubt that this operation was really against the Dutch's waist. If it was done, the Dutch East India Company would be very uncomfortable. There is no other reason. If you look through the map, you will know that Timor Island is less than 2,000 nautical miles away from Batavia, the ruling center of the Dutch East India Company in Asia. If it is fast, it will be within ten days. This is not a very long voyage for the Navy.

When the Portuguese are usually low-key and cowardly, the Dutch East India Company is too lazy to care about them who are in the eastern half of Timor Island, because the Dutch have too many things to deal with. It seems that as long as the Portuguese are out of the line, it seems that they can keep going so peacefully.

But now things have changed! The East Coast people not only sent two new warships to Timor Island, but also planned to help the Portuguese rectify several towns on the island, repair fortresses, dredge ports, train soldiers, and develop business. In short, they can also have considerable self-protection capabilities while making money by making blood.

In addition, the East Coast people also hope to develop the Port of Dili into a cruise of the combined fleet and docking port. In this way, the deterrent effect on the Dutch East India Company will be greater. After all, when the East Coast people shouted unhappily in Macau, the Governor of Batavia will only worry about whether there will be any problems in Taiwan. But if it is close to the East Indies, the Dutch will have to worry about whether their roots in Asia will be dug out. Therefore, once the East Coast troops enter Timor Island, most of them will encounter the Dutch fleet and army organized by the Dutch to attack the island the next day, so they first need to strengthen the strength of the Portuguese on the island.

More than 30 artillery were placed in the bottom cabins of the two light cruisers, the "Bei Luo Shimen" and the "Gaotian Yili", which were temporarily loaned to increase the strength of the Portuguese defenders (interest-free loan provided by the Bank of Taiwan). In addition, there are many mechanical equipment produced by Sakhalin Island to ensure that the island can repair damaged guns and cannons in a timely manner and have a certain degree of self-sustainment. Of course, the people of the East Coast also transferred some additional civilian machinery and equipment, intending to establish several small military supplies production lines on the island, looking like they were doing a big fight.

There is no doubt that the Portuguese are a pie that falls from the sky and is lucky! Under normal circumstances, they want to obtain this special loan to purchase the above-mentioned machinery and equipment, but they don’t know how much they will pay until the year of the Monkey and Horse Month. But now the Dutch directly gave assists. They responded to the trade war launched by the East Coast, which caused the East Coast to respond quickly, directly spent money and technology, intending to build the close Island of Timor-Leste into a base for the Dutch East India Company.

Of course, from another perspective, the Portuguese may be quite unfair. Because they were sitting at home well and nothing happened, suddenly the "Social Brother" ran over on the east coast and asked them to provide a house near the old nest of the "tall, rich and handsome" Dutch East India Company, and hide some weapons and daily necessities in it to use it as surveillance and crack down on the tall, rich and handsome base. How can this not make them feel panic?

This is really a fight between gods and mortals suffer! Although the East Coast people provided some money (who had to pay it back is equivalent to forcibly lending them) to help them rectify and build Timor Island, so what? How much is the profit here compared to the losses they may suffer in business? If they really angered the Dutch, they dared to send troops to several Portuguese strongholds on the Indian coast, and even several commercial stations in the Bay of Bengal (affiliated with the Pinto family) may not be able to save the losses here, and even the East Coast people introduced them to more business in Macau, they could not make up for it.

But now the Kingdom of Portugal has no choice, or they have already made a choice! The day when Albukirk led a large mission to the east coast, it means that Lisbon had surrendered to the east coast and completely joined the colonial and trade system dominated by the East Coast people. Like Kurland, Free State, Pinna*ya, Tuscany and other countries, they became a member of the system to make a living. Therefore, they already had a label and had already stood in the line, so they were destined to be unable to leave the issue of such major issues and could only follow the East Coast people.

Therefore, when the East Coast people proposed to deploy fleets on Timor Island (equivalent to the Soviet Union deploying missiles in Cuba in later generations...), the Portuguese could only agree with tears, otherwise life would be even more difficult. The East Coast people did not need to do anything else. As long as the Portuguese merchants in Macau continued to obtain tea, raw silk, silk, porcelain and other commodities, and did not help them stabilize their rule in India and squeeze out the Portuguese economy, the Portuguese would not be able to stand it and could only submit.

On September 21, after a night of fighting with the wind and waves, the "Beilu Shimen" and the "Gaotian Weihu" "Star" class light cruisers converged in the waters north of Timor Island. The two ships sent traffic boats to board their respective ships, learned about the extent of damage in the wind and waves, and then slightly renovated the ship, and then raised some broken sails again. Without steam power, they sailed all the way to the southwest. Two days later, they arrived at the Dili Port, the capital of Timor Island, Portland, a port city dominated by agriculture and trade.

Because he did not receive the notice, the Portuguese were very surprised by the visit of the East Coast warships. Fortunately, some Portuguese merchants on the island have been on the routes of Macau and Timor Island for a long time. They knew that the person coming was Major Lu Xiaozhong of the Third Fleet of the East Coast, a rising star in the naval system. Therefore, the Portuguese in Dili Port were still quite enthusiastic overall. Even though a few people were a little dissatisfied with the arrival of the East Coast armed ships, they did not dare to show it openly.

As soon as Major Lu Xiaozhong got ashore, he ordered all the Portuguese ships on the island to gather and make every effort to repair the two seriously damaged East Coast warships. Of course, they would pay the appropriate fees. In addition, the materials and equipment on the ship were also required to be sorted out as soon as possible, and then stored in a Portuguese-run cargo warehouse near the dock, and guarded by East Coast sailors.

After doing this, Major Lu Xiaozhong, accompanied by his subordinate officers, went to the city to meet the highest commander of the Portuguese defender here, the commander of the Santos from Porto. The commander is now in his fifties and has an infantry regiment composed of gentlemen (whites), Ma Portuguese (descendants of mixed races of Malays and Portuguese) and Malays. The total force is about a thousand people. It is the last military force of the Portuguese on Timor Island, and it is also a collection of the remaining defeated soldiers and generals after their defeat in the Banda Islands and other islands. To be honest, it is not very powerful in combat.

Commander Santos was a sensible man and hated the Dutch. Their family had been working hard in the Far East for decades. His grandfather died in 1614 in the land battle against the Dutch East India Company in attacking the island of Ditory. His father was sunk by Dutch warships with the military ship "Saint-Christo de Burgos" in 1640 and was buried in the sea. His uncle was captured and killed by the Dutch when he went to Wai Island to buy lilacs. Therefore, their family really hated the Dutch with the sea and hatred. Commander Santos himself was about

He was very enthusiastic about anything that could cause trouble for the Dutch, so he welcomed the arrival of the East Coast people, especially when Major Lu Xiaozhong clearly told him that the diplomatic representatives on the East Coast had already taken a speedboat to Goa for communication - the commander of Santos certainly understood what kind of state the Governor of Goa is in today, and that was almost the verbal of the East Coast people. The East Coast people wanted to use Timor as a weapon to fight the Dutch, so Goa would definitely not dare to say anything to refuse, because the consequences would be very serious.

Major Lu Xiaozhong had a long talk with the Santos regiment commander for an afternoon, and then made three suggestions to them: First, immediately inspect the artillery of the Dili Port, immediately dismantle and scrap if it is not suitable, and replace the heavy artillery brought by the people on the east coast with the ship; Second, dredge the port, expand the berth, and add two new trestles to facilitate the docking and supply of ships from the three-country joint fleets that will be formed in the future; Third, comprehensively rectify the army troops, and those who are vacancies will be fired immediately, and those who are willing to leave will be strengthened, and the military pay and various items will be paid in full, and the military status will be enhanced. No tricks of recruiting in the dry season and disbanding in the rainy season will be too unprofessional and will lead to extremely poor combat effectiveness of the troops.

In principle, the Commander of Santos agreed with Major Lu Xiaozhong's three suggestions, but asked the East Coast to bear the large amount of additional expenses that would be incurred. Lu did not agree to this point, but only said that he would pay the Portuguese 10,000 yuan in cash free aid in advance. As for the source of subsequent funds, he "discussed again". However, he also put forward an idea, that is, to develop the tropical planting industry of Timor Island, to obtain income by exporting rice, coconut, spices, fruits, seafood and other specialty products to the East Coast control area to support more professional soldiers. Due to its special geographical location, Timor Island can export specialty products to the Four Far East Friars, and also to New China, Australia, Tahiti and other places. The prospects are quite good, provided that it is really well managed, such as introducing a large number of East Coast people, etc.
Chapter completed!