1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 1025 Advance Team ([-])
After adding hundreds of laborers in one go, the construction of the coastal camp finally started in full swing.Along the area where the current temporary wharf is located, the construction workers drew two defensive lines running east-west and north-south on the periphery, intending to isolate an area near the water as Haihan's main camp on the coast of Miaoli.This area happens to be located at the mouth of Houlongxi. The planning plan makes the best use of the topographical advantages, allowing the water surface to be used as a natural barrier in the west and north directions, and only needs to set up defense lines on the east and south sides to deal with threats from land. Can.

At present, most of the west coast of Taiwan Island has been controlled by Haihan. Although the Dutch still retain a colony in Dayuan Port, the local governor Hans is very clear about what can and cannot be done.According to the agreement of understanding signed by the two parties in November 1632, Dutch ships entering and leaving Dayuan Harbor could never go from the Fujian Strait to the waters north of Dayuan Harbor. The Bashi Channel in the south bypasses it.

The pirates and Spaniards who were originally operating in the Fujian Strait were all wiped out or driven out of the waters near Taiwan last year. Therefore, for the Miaoli region located in the middle of the west coast of Taiwan, there is no need to consider man-made threats from the sea. The camp near the sea can deploy the main defense forces on the land - after all, the only thing that can threaten Haihan in this area is the indigenous tribes in the inland mountains.

Considering the level of armed forces of the indigenous tribes, Haihan certainly doesn't need to use big moves like building forts here, as long as he digs trenches around the periphery and pulls up barbed wire, and then puts up some obstacles like deer villages to resist horses. While increasing the depth of the defense, narrow the defense area as much as possible, and then build parapets and concealed fortifications near the few main passages left, so that the defenders can gather troops to steadily implement firepower output during wartime, and the pressure on defense will be reduced. Much smaller.

Before Morgan came back from the mountains, Tian Yeyou had already divided the migrant workers stationed there into two groups for construction. One group was responsible for building military facilities, focusing on the outer fortifications.The other part is responsible for civilian facilities, such as docks, warehouses, barracks, and various living facilities in the camp.In addition, it is necessary to use local forest resources to start preparing more building materials for the initial construction of several inland strongholds.Especially where the oil field is located, nearly a thousand people will be stationed there during the exploration period. The long-term camp area required to accommodate so many people is not a small project, and some building materials do not need to wait for large troops to enter. Prepared locally.

Although Tian Yeyou was not born in the construction industry, the places he went to were often in the wilderness, from Tiandu Iron Mine and Heitugang Coal Mine in the early days of crossing, to Shilu Iron Mine, Jilong Gold Mine, and now In Miaoli, every place is built bit by bit from scratch. He has watched it as a bystander for so many years, and he can see it.Compared to Morgan, he was at least a half-professional. He was already familiar with how to build a camp, and he was fully capable of serving as an on-site commander.

There are not many opportunities for Morgan to lead troops alone outside. Occasionally, he will lead his scouts in the mountains near Sanya. There is no need to build such a large-scale camp and fortification. The experience is not as rich as Tian Yeyou.However, it was rare to catch the opportunity to meet a knowledgeable person, so Morgan asked Tian Yeyou a lot of questions in this regard at the dinner table.The two drank and chatted until late at night.

The next day, Morgan was still asleep when he was awakened by a loud noise from outside the tent.Morgan wondered if the fleet from Penghu had arrived, and just as he was about to get up, the guards had already entered the tent and reported to him: "Chief, there are a few natives from outside the camp, and they seem to want to send us some information."

Morgan heard the words and quickly put on his clothes, walked to the door, turned around and told the guards: "Take my gun."

The gun Morgan was referring to was not his M200, which he regarded as a treasure. That gun was usually disassembled into several large pieces and placed in a moisture-proof box, and it was rarely assembled for use.What Morgan is using now is a new product trial-produced by Haihan Ordnance Industry in small batches, a breech-loading repeating rifle imitating the Spencer M1865 rifle.

This rifle uses a brass cartridge case, which expands to lock the rear of the chamber when fired, thereby solving the problem of air leakage in the breech gun, and the metal cartridge case also solves the problem of moisture-proof ammunition by the way.When loading, you need to take out the feed tube from the rear of the butt, and then push the seven rounds of copper-cased ammunition into the holes on the butt.When the trigger guard is pulled down, the rotary locking bolt moves back to open the chamber and pull out the empty cartridge case. At the same time, the spring in the stock will push the next round out of the feed tube. Pull the guard and the bolt will push the bullet into the barrel. The chamber locks this space at the same time.

Although this kind of rifle needs to pull down the hammer before each shot, and needs to pull the trigger guard up and down after shooting to complete the action of unloading and reloading, its shooting speed has far exceeded that of the flintlock that uses fixed-loaded ammunition now. The fire rate of the gun is three to four rounds per minute, and the seven rounds of bullets loaded in the butt can be fired in as little as ten seconds at the fastest.If you use pre-loaded cartridges to replace the bullets, the continuous rate of fire can even reach 21 rounds per minute, and it is no exaggeration to call it a continual gun.The firepower output of this gun alone is equivalent to six or seven flintlock guns, and according to the internal test of Haihan Ordnance Industry, firing two hundred bullets in one breath does not need to clean the barrel, which is better than firing paper fixed guns. The flintlock gun is much stronger.

Of course, the shortcomings of this "advanced weapon" are also obvious, that is, the cost of construction and use is too high.At present, the cost of one such continuous rifle is about the same as seven flintlock guns, which means that it will cost seven times the military expenditure in the initial stage to install it in an army.In addition, because the structure of the gun body is more complicated, and the production cycle is much longer than that of the flintlock, it is almost impossible to realize the formation of the system in a short period of time, and it is obviously difficult to give full play to the new capabilities of the scattered deployment. The power of the weapon.

Another shortcoming is ammunition. The production technology of copper-cased fixed-load ammunition is still relatively difficult for the current Haihan Ordnance Industry. The almost purely manual production process leads to very low production capacity. There are only enough bullets for a gun to fire for 1 minute.Moreover, with the performance of this gun, the consumption of ammunition is so high that it is impossible to ignore the gap between its cost and the ammunition used by the flintlock guns that are currently installed on a large scale in the army.

Under the existing productivity, the improvement of weapon performance will inevitably mean a corresponding increase in production cost and use cost, and this kind of performance improvement should be considered by people other than the military to be obvious excess and waste , because the current level of armed forces is enough to defeat the opponents that Haihan can meet at present, and it is obviously unnecessary to spend a lot of military expenditure on frequent upgrades of weapons.

Therefore, although the research and development of new weapons has been going on, the change of military standard weapons is quite slow. There are several similar new rifles that are also being developed at the same time, but Morgan is very knowledgeable. Before leaving Sanya, he went to Haihan Ordnance Industry The subordinate weapon research center went around and chose this repeating rifle as a side weapon for the trip to Taiwan.The supervisor of Haihan Ordnance is Bai Kesi, who naturally gave the green light. After all, the safety of the Miaoli project depends on Morgan's performance, and it is Haihan Ordnance's duty to provide him with the best equipment.

When Morgan got out of the tent, he saw Tian Yeyou also walking out of the tent he was staying in with a blank expression on his face.Last night, Tian Yeyou went to the back to chat happily, and drank a lot. Presumably, the alcohol has not completely dissipated by this time. Morgan saw that his standing posture was a little crooked and not stable enough.

"What's going on outside?" Tian Yeyou asked proactively.

"I heard that a few natives came outside to call for battle." Morgan joked: "I'm going to fight them now, friend, do you want to fight with me?"

"Have the natives knocked on the door? Then I have to go and see with you!" Tian Yeyou seemed to wake up a lot immediately after hearing the whole news, with an eager expression on his face.Obviously, he was not worried that the natives who came to him would cause any trouble to his side, but he was full of enthusiasm to watch the fun.

Morgan was right when he thought about it. Tian Yeyou had been in Taipei for a year, and he had dealt with the local aboriginal tribes a lot during that period, so naturally he didn't feel much tension at all.At that moment, Morgan and Tian Yeyou came to the gate of the camp, and there were indeed a few natives standing outside in an open space. Although they held bamboo spears in their hands, they didn't look like they were looking for trouble. .

Although Morgan was not afraid of these natives, his identity did not allow him to risk himself, so he asked the translator in the camp to communicate with these natives.The translator who understands the local language is actually a Pingpu tribe on Taiwan Island, but he is from a tribe that has defected to Haihan near Kaohsiung Port in Tainan. It is hundreds of miles away from here. It's just a matter of chance.

The translator went out of the camp and muttered with the natives for a while, and then came back to convey the other party's meaning to them.These natives came from Maolishe in the southern mountainous area. There was only one requirement they asked for, and that was that the Haihan people leave here immediately, because this estuary was the territory of Maolishe and no outsiders should be allowed to invade it.As for the purpose of the Haihan people coming here, the natives don't care at all, and they don't even want to talk about it.

"Tell them, since we're here, we won't leave. If they think they can make Hai Han bow his head with just one word, then it's really too simple." Morgan's attitude is very tough, and there is also a faint intention to stimulate the other party .If the indigenous tribe took the initiative to attack Haihan, it would provide conditions for the military to take necessary military measures, and Morgan couldn't wait for it.

The translator took Morgan's reply and went out to communicate with the natives again. Morgan saw that the emotions of the natives gradually became agitated. One of them raised the bamboo spear in his hand and yelled in the direction of the camp.Before Morgan could respond, Tian Yeyou said, "This guy is going to turn the world upside down, send someone out!"

As soon as Tian Yeyou finished speaking, he saw that the natives had already grabbed the interpreter and knocked him to the ground.When Morgan saw that the other party said to do it, he did it, and immediately ordered his subordinates to attack. He took the gun from the guard and aimed at the natives outside the camp.

Morgan is about 30 meters away from where the natives are. If you use a flintlock gun at this distance, the chance of hit by chance will be more than 50%, but the new gun in Morgan's hand has a very high hit rate within [-] meters, and After his own adjustments, although the gun only has an aiming scale and no scope, but for him, this distance is completely enough for him to aim with the naked eye.

Seeing that the native who took the lead stepped on the interpreter's chest and raised his bamboo spear in the gesture of stabbing, Dang even shot him without hesitation.This shot hit the native's upper body accurately, and the huge impact made him fall back and sit down immediately.Morgan didn't dare to be careless, retreated and reloaded, and then continued to aim.

Sure enough, another native became violent. Regardless of his companion who was lying on the ground, he also raised his bamboo spear and stabbed the translator who was lying on the ground. Morgan immediately shot again, knocking him to the ground as well.The remaining few natives were suddenly startled and did not dare to move towards the translator, but tried to carry away the two injured companions who fell to the ground.

But at this time a group of Hai Han soldiers had rushed out of the camp, stopped all these people, disarmed them, and escorted them back to the camp.Seeing that the situation had subsided quickly, Morgan breathed a sigh of relief, handed the gun to his bodyguard, and went with Tian Yeyou to check the status of several prisoners.

Although the translator was subdued by the natives and fell to the ground, fortunately he was not harmed, except for a few scratches on his body.But looking at his face and trembling body, he was indeed quite frightened.If Morgan hadn't acted decisively, he might have been stabbed right through with bamboo spears by fellow natives from Maolishe.

Although this translator is not from Haihan, he is a member of the Haihan camp after all, and Morgan doesn't want to see him being tortured and killed by other natives in front of his eyes. Such a scene will definitely have a bad effect on his morale influences.Moreover, the temperament of this local native is so tyrannical. If a few words are wrong, they will directly hurt people, regardless of the time and occasion. It seems that it is indeed not easy to communicate through negotiations.

Morgan didn't have many good intentions at all. Seeing the other party take the initiative, he naturally ordered to kill without hesitation.Although he still has the status of a doctor, his long-term single life has made his temperament a little cold, and he has killed enemies on the battlefield before, so he is more willing to use extreme methods to solve problems than ordinary people.

A total of five natives who came to the camp to hold a demonstration were shot and wounded by Morgan, two of whom were shot in the chest.The other person was hit in the shoulder with minor injuries, but Morgan didn't bother to treat him. He only asked the soldiers to escort the three people who were not injured to one side, and then called the interpreter who was still in shock and prepared to interrogate him.

(End of this chapter)