Valley Emperor

After being assigned to Wandan Island, his title also became 'Viscount Wandan', which is also the second batch of nobles with title prefixes in the Datang Empire, apart from the two princes, King Qi and King Zhao.

In the previous title system of the empire, except for the titles of princes and county kings, which had prefixes in front, the titles of the remaining clan aristocrats and heroic nobles did not have any prefixes.

For example, Hao Bainian is a duke of the empire, but he is only a duke. It was not mentioned before that he was a duke of such and such, because their previous noble titles did not have any fiefs.

But now, after Wang Shanxi obtained the fief, he could use the name of the fief as the prefix of the title, and called it the Viscount Wandan.

And this is also officially recognized. When the Tang Dynasty Daily announced this time, it also called Wang Shanxi Viscount Wandan. This is an official noble title, not just a mature word agreed upon by people. .

After Viscount Wandan, that is, Wang Shanxi was awarded the title, he soon brought some of the Wang family's children and aides, as well as some recruited employees and immigrants, and hired more than 100 armed guards from the 'Baishui Bodyguard Company'. People, got on the boat to Banten.

This is not to say that the empire stipulates that nobles must go to the fief. In fact, Wang Shanxi does not need to go. He likes to stay there and stays there. It doesn't matter if he doesn't go to Wandan in this life.

However, since there are fiefs, Wang Shanxi is concerned about his own fiefs. It is a huge Bandan Island, and it is also the most mature place in Bandan Mansion, an overseas territory of the Tang Empire.

Although the Banten House of the Tang Dynasty had a large theoretical jurisdiction, it actually controlled only the vast majority of Banten Island and the eastern part of Sumen Island, plus the southern part of Borneo.

The entire Bandan Island is planned as Bandan Prefecture, directly under the jurisdiction of Bandan Prefecture. Under Bandan Prefecture, there are three counties, namely Dongdan County, Zhongdan County and Xidan County.

The above three counties belong to Wang Shanxi's fiefs, and most of the private land he was given is located in Zhongdan County, where many places are still occupied by the local indigenous people.

No matter what the situation on the Banten side is, nothing can stop Wang Shanxi's determination to shift the focus of the entire family to Banten Island!

This time, he plans to take some of his clansmen and hired employees to Wandan first. The first step is to build the Viscount Mansion, and then he will give him the land that is still in the hands of the barbarians.

To accomplish this, it is naturally impossible to rely on some of his clansmen, not even the recruited immigrants. As for some staff and employees, it is even more unreliable.

The power that is really ready to take back these territories is the more than one hundred employees he hired from the Whitewater Bodyguard Company.

Baishui Bodyguard Company is a relatively large-scale bodyguard company in the empire today, and it is also a bodyguard company with relatively strong business capabilities.

This important guard is an ordinary bodyguard, to put it bluntly, mainly for the domestic market.

As for the **** of the merchant fleet, this is actually aimed at the overseas market. In name, it protects the merchant ships and the caravan, but when they go overseas, basically, they can do whatever the employer asks them to do.

Many overseas trading companies like to hire the company's armed guards, who can protect the ships on weekdays, and can also engage in some low-intensity military operations when they are in places, and fight a dozen local indigenous kingdoms and the like.

In the past, many overseas trading companies basically organized armed personnel to engage in trade by themselves. Later, the domestic restrictions on armed merchant ships became more and more serious. It happened that Baishui Company had a strong military background, or simply said the military. Bodyguard companies composed of retired personnel have carried out caravan **** business, so many overseas trading companies simply hire armed guards from these bodyguard companies directly.

The armed guards of Baishui Company hired by Wang Shanxi are a team, and they are expensive. Not only do they have to bear their employment costs, but also the combat costs and the subsequent axe cuts also need to be borne by Wang Shanxi. .

However, although the cost is high, the combat effectiveness is absolutely guaranteed!

The people inside are all retired personnel, and they are also retired personnel of the Marine Corps. Some of these retired personnel are for high salaries, and some are simply to pursue the feeling of returning to the battlefield, that is, they entered the Whitewater Company as a mercenary.

These people are all veterans. Although there is only one team, under the same force, an infantry team in the active army might not be able to handle them.

It's just that although there is a team of Baishui mercenaries accompanying him, Wang Shanxi still knows that it is almost impossible to completely eliminate the remaining indigenous people in Zhongdan County with this person alone. Dan's local garrison helped.

The army of the Datang Empire is in the Wandan Mansion, but it has a Wandan garrison regiment, and the navy also has a Wandan squadron and a marine regiment stationed, which can be said to be extremely strong.

Although most of these troops were used to guard against the Portuguese, it was common to misappropriate some of them to attack the natives.

What Wang Shanxi has to do is to push the local garrison to carry out a sweep, and then clean up the remaining indigenous forces on Zhongdan Island.

In this way, that huge piece of land, occupying a full tenth of the land of Banten Island, can become the real private property of the Wang family.

For this, he is prepared to pay a huge price!

On board the sailing merchant ship of a trading company that has a cooperative relationship with the Wang family's industry, Wang Shanxi officially took hundreds of people to Banten House.

They set off from Shanghai and then arrived in Guangzhou. After adding coal, water and food, they drove directly into the depths of the South China Sea.

With the steam engine as the confidence, coupled with the many captains of the empire, they are basically familiar with the Nanyang sea area, and the kind that can be reached by the eyes.

With steam engines as the foundation and familiarity with the local waters, more and more ships do not choose to sail against the coastline, but go directly to the center of the ocean to shorten the voyage.

Of course, this requires a big boat, and those small boats may not be able to adapt to the wind and waves in the depths of the ocean!

The ship that Wang Shanxi hired was more than 600 tons, a typical 680 ship type. This 680 ship type is basically the main merchant ship of the Datang Empire that runs the ocean. Because of the cargo capacity and speed It can be done, and more importantly, the technology is mature, and any medium-sized shipyard can build it, which also leads to extremely low prices.

Low price and good performance, so even many trading companies like to buy this kind of ships for trade.

Even those shipping companies along the coast have purchased a lot of ships of this level for transportation.

This has also led to the fact that this typical ship type is now on the verge of flooding, and more than half of the Datang merchant ships running on the ocean are basically this type of ship.

Then come the smaller 4-50 ship type 8!

As for ships of more than 800 tons or even thousands of tons, there are still relatively few ships. There is no other reason. The purchase price is expensive, and the maintenance and use costs are also expensive.

After Wang Shanxi's boat went deep into the South China Sea, it ran wildly south all the way. When the wind was down, it used sails as power. If the wind was not right, it used steam engines as power.

After reaching Cam Ranh Bay for supplies, they turned around and headed to Banten Island, without going to Malacca, a port controlled by the Portuguese.

This is not to say that Malacca is dangerous. In fact, although the Portuguese fought to death in the Indian Ocean and Datang Western Trading Company, and there were fierce conflicts in many fields, in maintaining normal trade between the two sides, it was The Tang Empire maintained the same view, that is, battles can be fought and business must be done.

Therefore, the Portuguese have always welcomed the merchant ships of the Datang Empire to Malacca for trade, but if the merchant ships of the Datang Empire were to enter the Indian Ocean through Malacca, the Portuguese would not be happy.

Eighty-nine times out of 10, they will do bad things in the Malacca waterway. The most common thing is to play pirates in the Malacca Strait, killing people and grabbing ships without negotiation.

The reason why Wang Shanxi and the others did not go to Malacca was simply because the journey was far away and it was not right.

Although this merchant ship was owned by a trading company, it also carried a lot of goods, but the trading company originally planned to transport these goods to Banten, and then planned to go to Malacca to purchase the goods when they returned.

Today's Banten~www.wuxiaspot.com~ has become the three major ports in the South China Sea!

The largest port, of course, is Malacca. There is no way to do this. The geographical location of the family is unique, and the Tang Empire did not completely fall out with the Portuguese. Therefore, many businessmen and Portuguese of the Tang Empire, as well as other Indians, Safi dynasty, Ottomans The merchants of the empire trade, and many choose to trade in Malacca, which is simple and convenient.

The second largest port is naturally the Port of Banten. This port is basically used by the ships of the Tang Empire itself. In addition, merchant ships from the Spaniards and other European countries that occasionally come to the East Asian waters are moored and traded.

Similarly, it is also an important trade and supply port for Datang Western Ocean Trading Company. The fleets of Datang Western Ocean Trading to India, West Asia and Africa basically start from Banten Port and then cross the Sunda Strait into the Indian Ocean.

In addition, in order to reduce shipping costs and improve the operating cycle of ships, on the other hand, it is also to quell the anger of many domestic trading companies against Datang Western Trading Company's monopoly on Western trade. Domestic transportation or shipping to the country, most of the general cargo transactions are carried out in Banten Port, which is the basis for Banten Port to maintain its prosperity.