December 25, 1643, sunny.

This day was Christmas in the West, but in South Africa, where the Ming people immigrated, there was no festive atmosphere at all. Next to a small hill about hundreds of kilometers south of the River Fort, several East Coast cavalry wearing earthy khaki uniforms, big caps and horse boots proudly rode their horses past a group of German mercenaries wearing various clothes. The splashing dust made these German country buns curse.

This is the land border between the East Coast people and the Dutch East India Company. Since the number of military horses in South Africa has expanded a lot, the current establishment of the South African cavalry company has been expanded from 110 cavalry to more than 230 cavalry with the approval of the military headquarters, and has gradually taken over patrol missions in the border areas.

The Dutch's defense was still taken over by the German mercenary employees of the East India Company, and their number has not expanded much over the years and has remained at the scale of more than 300 people. Compared with the continuous expansion of the East Coast people, their development has obviously lagged a lot, but what can I do? The East India Company is more willing to spend money on the war with the Portuguese and Spaniards, but is stingy with spending a little money to hire more soldiers from the German countryside to protect their land and business.

"Hurning a bankrupt farmer from the countryside of Hessen only requires paying 9 guan a month, and hiring a thousand people is only 9,000 guan. I don't know why the members of the Indian Islands Commission are so stingy." Little Hagel said dissatisfiedly at several East Coast cavalrymen who were leaving.

"9 shields are the price of the past outdated ones. Now the price of recruiting a soldier is 11 shields. Without this price, others will not follow you. Because they are taking big risks." said Big Harger, the brother of Little Hagel.

Little Hagel naturally understood what his brother meant by "taking risks". In fact, the mortality rate of employees employed by the Dutch East India Company to Asia was very high during this period. Even in a fully developed city like Batavia, the mortality rate of local residents remained high. Someone once described Batavia as this: There were coffins here at any time. The night before you were chatting with someone, today he passed away, tomorrow you attended his funeral, and the day after tomorrow he was forgotten.

In this era, the annual death rate of employees of the Dutch East India Company in Asia was about 20%, and the cause of death was mostly diseases, and a small part was war. Among the diseases, malaria accounts for the vast majority. According to records, residents of Batavia like to build fish ponds near cities, and these fish ponds are transformed by rivers in the domain and lakes. They are basically stagnant water, which caused mosquitoes to breed and malaria. However, local residents did not seem to realize this. They simply believed that the air here was "toxic".

Very average salary, poor working conditions, extremely high mortality rate, and such a dim working situation, wouldn't you go if you didn't have the opportunity to make a fortune in the local area? In fact, the sailors employed by the Dutch East India Company in the Dutch port every year only account for 9% of the total local number, and many people are unwilling to try their luck in the East Indies, where "three people can only return" can you try your luck. Only those who are single, extremely poor and unable to find other jobs will regard soldiers or sailors who signed into the Dutch East India Company as the "final desperate" hope; of course, it is not ruled out that some "all kinds of rural chewing grassroots" from remote German villages have taken a fancy to the pitiful salary and hope to get promotion and raise and join the Dutch East India Company to serve in Asia.

As an intermediate officer of the East India Company, the Hagel brothers enjoy the same treatment as the captain. The eldest brother can receive a salary of 80 guilds per month, while the younger Hagel's monthly salary is 60 guilds per month. As for the Governor Deyan in the Fort Good Hope, his salary is an astonishing 350 guilds - of course, they don't expect to live on their salary alone.

The Dutch East India Company has tens of thousands of employees, and the monthly salary expenditure is more than 150,000 rupees, which is nearly 2 million rupees a year. This number is not small. You should know that in the past ten years, due to frequent wars with the Portuguese and the Spaniards, the average annual profit of the Dutch East India Company is less than 4.5 million rupees (about 1.5 million yuan). This amount of money is even equivalent to the profits obtained by the East Coast people in selling textiles. If you remove the dividends, the Dutch East India Company can actually distribute much less money every year than you imagined.

There is an embarrassing fact that although the Dutch East India Company won the competition with the British East India Company and drove away their opponents, they actually operated a profit margin that was not as good as the British. Because they had major expenses such as building ships, recruiting personnel, and consolidating strongholds, which were essential unless they gave up the war with the Portuguese to reduce their expenditures in this regard, but then their losses seemed to be greater.

Therefore, when you know that the Dutch East India Company is not as beautiful as it seems, you will deeply understand why they refute every behavior that may lead to increased expenses - this is all because of lack of money. Only at this time will you understand why they have always tolerated the various behaviors of the East India Company, which is still because of their businessman style - controlling all unnecessary expenses. In addition, the East India Company's fleet is also good, and is in a must-pass place for the Dutch East India Company's trading line. The Dutch are afraid of the rat and are always unwilling to break up with the East China People.

Of course, although there are all kinds of concerns, it does not mean that the Dutch East India Company has no bottom line. Their bottom line is that once the East Coast fleet enters the waters near the Spice Islands and Ceylon Island, no matter what the consequences, the East India Company will do its best to drive away this bad intention and attempt to get involved in their business opponent, just as they used force to drive away the British.

"It is difficult to convince the upper level of the company to increase the number of troops in Cape Town, to add some necessary flintlock guns, artillery, and to build some reasonable fortifications," said Greater Harger. "Unless we are like the East Coast people who enslave those black people, but unfortunately, we are in a friendly relationship with the only black kingdom Kama people we have come into contact with, and can only hire them, but not to mention how much it will cost, they don't seem to be sufficient in their own personnel."

Since the Battle of Blood River was severely damaged by the East Coast people, the Kama tribe has been much more low-key in the past two years. While maintaining good relations with the Dutch people, they also narrowed their front lines and ended the continuous wars in the east. Instead, they devoted all their energy to the west and fought the armed infiltration of the Eight Banner tribe, the lackeys of the East Coast people. For this reason, a series of small but rather bloody and cruel armed conflicts broke out in the mountains, and it was not until the last year that it slowly calmed down.

"But the power of the East Coast people has been increasing. According to the information provided by the inside line we have bought, they seemed to have transported more than a thousand immigrants from the East a few days ago. Most of the more than a thousand people are men, God, they are all madmen, and every man has to undergo military training. They must be thinking about how to expand their troops to deal with us." Little Hagel said with some concern, "Now they are so arrogant. This can be seen from the arrogant cavalry patrolling the border. If their number of soldiers increases, it will be easy to defeat us and seize the Fortress of Good Hope. They will do this!"

"You are too allergic, my dear brother." Dahager comforted, "As far as I know, these people will only stay in the River Fort, and their ultimate destination will be the East Coast people in the New World. But to be honest, the East Coast people seem to want to do something big this time. A week ago, they drove a huge fleet of nine ships from the land. How about these ships, they are all amazing ships, but it is said that the ship types are all clutches that have only emerged in the past two years and are not suitable for combat. Therefore, I guess the fleet invested by the East Coast people should have gone to the East to recruit immigrants, but I am really interested in how they break through the blockade of the Strait of Malacca. The company has professional warships equipped with many weapons in Galle and Malacca. These ships of the East Coast people cannot easily pass there."

"No matter how they go, it won't increase our income of silver coins." Little Hagel shrugged indifferently and said, "It would be better if they fight in the Strait of Malacca, so that the company will pay attention to the Cape Town colony and make up their minds to cut off the East Coast people's route from the source. Cape Town will not have a future if it goes like this. Damn, there are not even a few girls here, and if it doesn't increase the army and increase immigration, I even think of Batavia to try my luck. Although there are diseases everywhere, there are at least some beautiful and enthusiastic girls."

"I don't think so." Hearing his younger brother said this, Big Hager laughed at it, "It's not a wise choice to go to Batavia now, because you may be sent to fight against Portuguese, Spanish, or even East Coast, and Chinese. This is a very dangerous thing. You are very likely to die of disease or war. On the contrary, I think Cape Town will usher in a short period of peace here - because the center of gravity of the East Coast people moves eastward. Although the oil and water here may not be as rich as Batavia, you will never let your life be lost in a daze. Enjoy this rare peace, my dear brother." (To be continued, please search for astronomy, the novel is better and faster!
Chapter completed!