"Hahaha... Mr. Simpson, you did a great job. These yellow-skinned monkeys don't have enough supplies. Let's see how they survive the winter here." Blake said with a laugh.
As the special envoy of Sir Edmund Walker Hurd, the Governor-General of the Province of Canada, Blake arrived at Reso Luxembourg first.
Strictly speaking, this area is not under the jurisdiction of the British government.
Fort Reso Luxembourg was merely an armed trading post of the North West Company.
Somewhat similar to the East India Company, the Northwest Company also had its own armed forces.
They used force to establish trading points in some remote areas, and then obtained high profits through unequal trade with the indigenous people.
Transactions here are entirely decided by Northwest Company people.
The little furs that the indigenous people managed to accumulate could only be exchanged for very few things.
When Blake arrived here, the exploration team led by Zhao Xu had already begun to establish a settlement on the south bank of Great Slave Lake.
But everything has just begun, because they have established settlements on the north shore of the lake and the mouth of the river.
After arriving at the south bank, Zhao Xu had only more than 500 people in his hands.
The head of the North West Company at Reso Luxemburg was Mr. Simpson.
Mr. Simpson was naturally hostile to the sudden appearance of the Chinese pioneer team.
The trade here was originally a monopoly of the Northwest Company.
Simpson naturally does not welcome the sudden appearance of competitors.
Seeing that there were only a few hundred people on the other side, Simpson thought he might be able to kill someone with a borrowed knife.
It's not that he hasn't thought about leading people to eat the opponent. But the opponent is also armed, and he only has a hundred people in his hands, which seems to be insufficient.
So Simpson found the Indians of the Eagle Tribe.
He promised to give the Eagle Tribe a generous reward and deceived the Eagle Tribe. There were many good things in that Chinese team.
In this way, the Eagle Tribe was successfully persuaded by Simpson.
After all, the Eagle Tribe believes in Simpson's words more than the Chinese.
They have been living with these white people for hundreds of years.
In their view, these white people are outsiders, and these people with black hair and yellow skin like them are their competitors.
It was like meeting another powerful Indian tribe.
The Eagle Tribe must regard these yellow people as its primary enemies.
"Yes, Mr. Black, these people are now holding on to the half-built fort. They probably don't know how difficult the winter here is." Simpson echoed.
After all, this person was sent by the Governor-General. The Northwest Company's business has always relied on the Governor of Canada to take care of it.
Otherwise, Americans from the south would have gone north and taken away the business.
So Simpson gave Black enough face.
Originally, Simpson was happy for a while when the Russians retreated from Western Canada.
In the competition with the Tsarist Russians, the Northwest Company did not have the upper hand.
Those Tsarist Russians are far more adaptable to the cold climate of the Far North than the British.
But the Russians left, and the Chinese came again.
Originally, he didn't take these Chinese people seriously.
The image of the Chinese is synonymous with weakness in the eyes of the British.
Because the British once easily defeated the Chinese Qing Dynasty.
But what surprised Simpson was that these Chinese actually crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the Great Slave Lake.
From this point of view, this group of Chinese seems to be somewhat different.
You must know that there are many dangers to go from the west coast to Great Slave Lake. Crossing the North American continent is currently an extremely dangerous thing.
After this group of Chinese came over, they took the initiative to say hello to Reso Luxemburg.
They claimed that they were willing to engage in equal and free trade with Simpson and the others.
They settled here just to cultivate farmland and would not affect the Northwest Company's business.
Well, it's just some rhetoric on the scene.
Simpson was dismissive of these people in his heart. What could they trade with him?
Simpson came here to exchange a small amount of cloth, metal tools and some daily necessities for cheap indigenous furs.
What can these Chinese exchange with them? Silk?
Simpson was certain that these people were here to steal their business.
In the future, the natives can choose to trade with these Chinese. If these Chinese are unkind and raise the purchase price, it will be difficult for the Northwest Company to do business in the future.
So he had to find a way to drive these Chinese away no matter what.
After calculating the strength in hand, I found that I only had about a hundred men in hand, each with a rifle. There were also several six-pound cannons in their stronghold.
Originally, these powers were used to prevent the natives from suddenly getting mad and attacking their fortress.
He also sent people to secretly observe these Chinese. Most of them were working normally, and only a few of them were on guard with muskets.
So Simpson started to think about it, but he was still very cautious and did not go out on his own.
Instead, he went to the Chief of the Eagle Clan and asked him to lead men to attack these Chinese in exchange for fifty flintlock rifles.
He even spun a lie, saying that these Chinese were powerful Indian tribes from the west.
They look a lot like Indians, don't they?
The leader of the Eagle Clan has tens of thousands of people under his command. They are a relatively large force in the central grassland area and the strongest force on the south bank of Great Slave Lake.
After Zhao Xu took the remaining 500 people from the pioneering team to the south bank of Great Slave Lake, he finally saw the British stronghold.
They can stop on request.
Zhao Xu went and led his people to establish the last settlement of his trip at another river mouth fifty kilometers west of the British stronghold near the river.
He named the settlement Hunan Settlement. The name reminded him of his distant home.
They also visited the British people politely.
But I didn't expect that these British people would not appreciate it at all.
Arrogant and unreasonable.
Forget it, Zhao Xu didn't expect those British guys to welcome him.
After all, they have always regarded this place as their territory, and there is no room for two tigers in one mountain.
However, the other party only had about a hundred people, and they were still a caravan. Zhao Xu didn't pay attention to such a small number of people.
However, they had just stayed here for five days when an Indian cavalry came over and killed them.
Darling, there are quite a lot of people here. There are thousands of people.
You must know that there are only about a hundred Indians in a tribe in the forest.
Thousands of cavalrymen suddenly arrived. This Indian tribe is really quite big.
It is said that the prairie Indians in the east were brave and warlike, and they had early contact with white people and were already able to use muskets.
Sure enough, among the thousand people there were about a hundred who were armed with flintlock guns.
Although there were only more than 500 people on Zhao Xu's side, those who followed him to the last stop were all the elites in the team.
Wang Hua personally followed Zhao Xu to the last stop with a hundred soldiers and two hundred militiamen.
Zhao Xu knew very well that the northern shore of Hubei was a wild land with no people at all, so there was naturally no danger.
But on the southern shore of the lake, because we may come into contact with the British, the probability of encountering danger increases accordingly.
Naturally, good steel must be used on the blade.
Basically all the elite members of the team were brought over to him.
When nearly a thousand cavalry came over, the entire camp was not panicked at all, even though they only had a simple wooden fence.
Because there are fewer people working, they haven't even built the wall yet.
"Captain Zhao, why don't you hide for a while? I and my brothers will definitely be able to kill them back," Wang Hua said.
"It's okay. Look, we don't have much space behind us. If we really can't defeat us, we still have to escape to the lake. I'd better stay here." Zhao Xu didn't appreciate it. This was the most critical moment for the development team.
How could he back down in the face of battle?
Moreover, he also held a rifle in his hand at this time.
In order to enhance the combat effectiveness of the pioneer team, they are all equipped with the most advanced F1854 rifles of the Renaissance Army.
It was agreed at the beginning that when the critical moment came, the entire pioneering team would be combatants and no one could retreat.
These prairie Indians have to be scalped, and they have no habit of leaving them alive.
Before coming, Zhao Xu had already supplemented his knowledge in this area.
The members of the pioneering team have all heard his story, and naturally they all understand this.
Everyone hid behind the fence and waited quietly for the Indians to approach.
There are no trees around the camp, and it is all open grassland, which is beneficial to the defense side.
When selecting the site, in addition to considering the convenience of building a dock, another point was the defensive nature of the stronghold.
There is a big river here that flows from south to north into Great Slave Lake.
This is similar to Reso Luxembourg, where there is also a large river flowing into the large lake from south to north.
The Hunan settlement is on the east bank of the river, surrounded by water on both sides, so the only two directions that Zhao Xu and the others really need to guard against are the southeast.
The Indians attacked from the south along the open plains along the river.
There are few trees here and there are thick meadows growing on the ground, which is just convenient for their horses to gallop.
Xiong Ying personally led the attack. He felt that with so many people attacking him, the opponent would be so frightened that their legs would weaken.
It was with great difficulty that he gathered thousands of cavalry, and there were more than a hundred musketeers among them.
If he conquers this camp this time, not only will everything in the camp belong to him, but he will also be able to get a large sum of money from the British.
Xiongying calculated this account very clearly. This battle was a great deal for him.
If you fight well, your power will continue to increase.
"Warriors, kill, kill all those who come from the west."
Prairie Indians sometimes went to the forests to the west to hunt forest Indians.
They looked down upon people from the west.
In the distance, a few British people were sneaking into the bushes and looking at the battlefield here with binoculars.
They were sent here by Simpson, and their mission was to observe the combat effectiveness of these Chinese.
"Bang bang bang..." Several mortars behind the camp opened fire first.
The cannonball flew in an arc into the charging Indians.
However, the results were not too great.
Because the Indians had fought against whites, they knew that the attack formation should not be too dense.
Of course, the Indians are free and unorganized and have no habit of forming troops.
They all like to show their personal bravery in battles.
This accidentally weakened the artillery attack on them.
However, the sudden explosion still caused confusion among the charging Indian cavalry.
Xiongying tried his best to restrain his men from behind, and finally stabilized his soldiers.
The charge continues.
"Hit!" Seeing that the enemy had entered 400 meters, Wang Hua gave the order and all the rifles opened fire at the same time.
Although the accuracy of the rifle is not very good at this distance, if it fires a volley at the charging cavalry, the killing effect is still very good.
On the Crimean battlefield, the British and French troops used rifled rifles to fire distant salvos at Tsarist Russian cavalry from a distance of five hundred yards, causing huge damage to Tsarist Russian cavalry.